The truth is, both men were splendid soldiers, but of a type so different that neither could understand the other. Neill was of the silent, dour type; Havelock was too shrill and vocal for him. Havelock, on the other hand, often felt Neill’s stern silence to be an unsyllabled reproof, and he more than suspected Neill of the desire to overbear him. When Neill joined him at Cawnpore, Havelock’s first words to him were, “Now, General Neill, let us understand each other. You have no power or authority here whilst I am here, and you are not to issue a single order here.” There were the elements of a very pretty quarrel betwixt the two soldiers who were upholding the flag of England at the heart of the Mutiny; and yet, so essentially noble were both men, and so fine was their common standard of soldierly duty, that they laid aside their personal quarrel absolutely, and stood by each other with flawless loyalty till, under the fatal archway at the Kaisarbagh, Neill fell, shot through the head.
Havelock telegraphed to Calcutta that he could not resume his march to Lucknow till he had been reinforced by 1000 infantry and Olpherts’ battery complete. Yet on August 4, when he had been reinforced by merely a single company and two guns, he started afresh for Lucknow, won another costly victory at Bussarat Gunj, and then fell back once more on Cawnpore, with cholera raging amongst his men. Almost every fourth British soldier under his command was disabled either by sickness or wounds. Havelock had simply to wait till reinforcements came up; but he relieved his feelings while he waited by marching out and destroying Bithoor, Nana Sahib’s palace.
The days crept past leaden-footed; reinforcements trickled in, so to speak, drop by drop. Not till September 16 was Havelock ready for the final march to Lucknow. And then Outram arrived to supersede him! It was, in a sense, a cruel stroke to Havelock. But he and Outram were tried comrades, knitted to each other by a friendship woven of the memories and companionship of many years, and Outram was himself one of the most chivalrous and self-effacing men that ever lived. The story of how he refused to take the command out of Havelock’s hands, confined himself to his civil office as commissioner, and put himself, as a mere volunteer, under Havelock’s orders, is an oft-told and most noble tale.
On September 19 Havelock crossed the Ganges, by this time bridged, with a force numbering 3000 men of all arms. The Madras Fusileers, the 5 th Fusileers, the 84th, and two companies of the 64th, under Neill, formed the first brigade. The second brigade, under Colonel Hamilton, consisted of the 78th Highlanders, the 90th, and Brasyer’s Sikhs. The artillery consisted of three batteries, under Maude, Olpherts, and Eyre respectively; and no guns that ever burned powder did more gallant and desperate service than these. The pieces, indeed, might well have been stored, as heroic relics, in some great museum. The cavalry was made up of 109 volunteers and 59 native horsemen, under Barrow.
The rain fell as though another Noachian deluge was imminent. The rice-fields on either side of the road were either lakes or quagmires. The column, however, pushed on with eager and cheerful, if wet-footed, courage. The Sepoys held the village of Mungulwagh strongly. Havelock smote them in front with his artillery, turned their flank with his infantry, marching—or rather splashing—through the swamps, and when the Sepoys had been, in this manner, hustled out of the town, he launched his little squadron of cavalry upon them. Outram rode among the troopers armed with nothing but a gold-mounted cane, with which he thumped the heads and shoulders of the flying enemy.
Here some mutineers, stained with special crimes, fell into Havelock’s hands, and Maude, in his “Memories of the Mutiny,” tells how Havelock asked him “if he knew how to blow a man from a gun.” This art does not form part of the curriculum at Woolwich, but Maude could only touch his cap and say he “would try.” Here is a grim picture of the doings of that stern time:—
When we halted for the night, I moved one of my guns on to the causeway, unlimbered it, and brought it into “action front.” The evening was just beginning to grow dusk, and the enemy were still in sight, on the crest of some rising ground a few hundred yards distant. The remainder of my guns were “parked” in a nice mango-tope to the right of the road.... The first man led out was a fine-looking young Sepoy, with good features, and a bold, resolute expression. He begged that he might not be bound, but this could not be allowed, and I had his wrists tied tightly each to the upper part of a wheel of the gun. Then I depressed the muzzle, until it pointed to the pit of his stomach, just below the sternum. We put no shot in, and I only kept one gunner (besides the “firing” number) near the gun, standing myself about 10 ft. to the left rear. The young Sepoy looked undauntedly at us during the whole process of pinioning; indeed, he never flinched for a moment. Then I ordered the port-fire to be lighted, and gave the word “Fire!” There was a considerable recoil from the gun, and a thick cloud of smoke hung over us. As this cleared away, we saw two legs lying in front of the gun, but no other sign of what had, just before, been a human being and a brave man. At this moment, perhaps from six to eight seconds after the explosion, down fell the man’s head among us, slightly blackened, but otherwise scarcely changed. It must have gone straight up into the air, probably about 200 feet.
This was stern, uncanny occupation for a humane-minded British officer! But the times were stern, the crisis supreme.
On the evening of the second day’s march the air was full of a faint, far-off, vibrating sound. It was the distant roar of the enemy’s cannon breaking like some angry and dreadful sea on the besieged Residency! When the camp was pitched Havelock fired a royal salute, hoping the sound would reach the ears of the beleaguered garrison, and tell them rescue was coming; but the faint wind failed to carry the sound to the Residency. When the soldiers began their march on September 23, Lucknow was only sixteen miles distant, and by noon the Alumbagh was in sight, held by a force of some 12,000 men.