"They were very superior in number, and individually so as horsemen and swordsmen, but we managed to 'whop' them all the same, and drive them clean off the field; not, however, until they had made two very pretty dashes at us, which cost us some trouble and very hard fighting. It was the hardest thing of the kind in which I ever was engaged in point of regular 'in fighting,' as they say in the P. R.; only Bell's Life could describe it properly. I got a cut, which laid my thumb open, from a fellow after my sword was through him, and about half an hour later this caused me to get a second severe cut, which divided the muscles of the right arm, and put me hors de combat; for my grip on the sword-handle was weakened, and a demon on foot succeeded in striking down my guard, or rather his tulwar glanced off my guard on to my arm. My horse, also, got three cuts. I have got well most rapidly, despite an attack of erysipelas, which looked very nasty for three days, and some slight fever; and I have every reason to be thankful."
He is able, notwithstanding wounds, to accompany the forces, Colonel Burn kindly driving him in his dog-cart. Nothing could exceed Sir Colin's kind attentions. Here is a chief, at last, who can appreciate a certain captain, late lieutenant under a cloud. The old chief drinks his health as colonel, and, on Hodson's doubting, says:—
"I will see that it is all arranged; just make a memorandum of your services during the Punjaub war, and I venture to prophesy that it will not be long before I shake hands with you as Lieutenant-Colonel Hodson, C.B., with a Victoria Cross to boot."
By the end of February he is well, and in command of his regiment again, and in his last fight saves the life of his adjutant, Lieut. Gough, by cutting down a rebel trooper in the very act of spearing him.
And now comes the end. For a week the siege had gone on, and work after work of the enemy had fallen. On the 11th of March the Begum's Palace was to be assaulted. Hodson had orders to move his regiment nearer to the walls, and while choosing a spot for his camp heard firing, rode on, and found his friend Brigadier Napier directing the assault. He joined him, saying, "I am come to take care of you; you have no business to go to work without me to look after you." They entered the breach together, were separated in the mêlée, and in a few minutes Hodson was shot through the chest. The next morning the wound was declared to be mortal, and he sent for Napier to give his last instructions.
"He lay on his bed of mortal agony," says this friend, "and met death with the same calm composure which so much distinguished him on the field of battle. He was quite conscious and peaceful, occasionally uttering a sentence, 'My poor wife,' 'My poor sisters.' 'I should have liked to have seen the end of the campaign and gone home to the dear ones once more, but it was so ordered.' 'It is hard to leave the world just now, when success is so near, but God's will be done.' 'Bear witness for me that I have tried to do my duty to man. May God forgive my sins, for Christ's sake.' 'I go to my Father.' 'My love to my wife,—tell her my last thoughts were of her.' 'Lord receive my soul.' These were his last words, and without a sigh or struggle his pure and noble spirit took its flight."
"It was so ordered." They were his own words; and now that the first anguish of his loss is over, will not even those nearest and dearest to him acknowledge "it was ordered for the best?" For is there not something painful to us in calculating the petty rewards which we can bestow upon a man who has done any work of deliverance for his country? Do we not almost dread—eagerly as we may desire his return—to hear the vulgar, formal phrases which are all we can devise to commemorate the toils and sufferings that we think of with most gratitude and affection? There is somewhat calming and soothing in the sadness which follows a brave man to his grave in the very place where his work was done, just when it was done. Alas, but it is a bitter lesson to learn, even to us his old schoolfellows, who have never seen him since we parted at his "leaving breakfast." May God make us all braver and truer workers at our own small tasks, and worthy to join him, the hard fighter, the glorious Christian soldier and Englishman, when our time shall come.
On the next day, March 13th, he was carried to a soldier's grave, in the presence of the head-quarters, staff, and of Sir Colin, his last chief, who writes thus to his widow:—
"I followed your noble husband to the grave myself, in order to mark, in the most public manner, my regret and esteem for the most brilliant soldier under my command, and one whom I was proud to call my friend."
What living Englishman can add one iota to such praise from such lips? The man of whom the greatest of English soldiers could thus speak, needs no mark of official approbation, though it is a burning disgrace to the authorities that none such has been given. But the family which mourns its noblest son may be content with the rewards which his gallant life and glorious death have won for him and them,—we believe that he himself would desire no others. For his brothers-in-arms are erecting a monument to him in Lichfield Cathedral; his schoolfellows are putting up a window to him, and the other Rugbæans who have fallen with him, in Rugby Chapel; and the three regiments of Hodson's Horse will hand down his name on the scene of his work and of his death as long as Englishmen bear rule in India. And long after that rule has ceased, while England can honor brave deeds and be grateful to brave men, the heroes of the Indian mutiny will never be forgotten, and the hearts of our children's children will leap up at the names of Lawrence, Havelock, and Hodson.