[39] Lit. Lady-house.
[40] Foreigner. Among the sepoys the word usually signified an Afghân or Caubuli.
[41] This very man who denounced Jamie Green as a spy was actually hanged in Bareilly in the following May for having murdered his master in that station when the Mutiny first broke out.
CHAPTER XI
THE SIEGE OF LUCKNOW—SIR COLIN APPOINTED COLONEL OF THE NINETY-THIRD —ASSAULT ON THE MARTINIÈRE—A "RANK" JOKE.
After leaving Oonâo our division under Sir Edward Lugard reached Buntera, six miles from the Alumbâgh, on the 27th of February, and halted there till the 2nd of March, when we marched to the Dilkooshá, encamping a short distance from the palace barely beyond reach of the enemy's guns, for they were able at times to throw round-shot into our camp. We then settled down for the siege and capture of Lucknow; but the work before us was considered tame and unimportant when compared with that of the relief of the previous November. Every soldier in the camp clearly recognised that the capture of the doomed city was simply a matter of time,—a few days more or less—and the task before us a mere matter of routine, nothing to be compared to the exciting exertions which we had to put forth for the relief of our countrywomen and their children.
At the time of the annexation of Oude Lucknow was estimated to contain from eight to nine hundred thousand inhabitants, or as many as Delhi and Benares put together. The camp and bazaars of our force were full of reports of the great strength and determination of the enemy, and certainly all the chiefs of Oude, Mahommedan and Hindoo, had joined the standard of the Begum and had sworn to fight for their young king Brijis Kuddur. All Oude was therefore still against us, and we held only the ground covered by the British guns. Bazaar reports estimated the enemy's strength at from two hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand fighting men, with five hundred guns in position; but in the Commander-in-Chief's camp the strength of the enemy was computed at sixty thousand regulars, mutineers who had lately served the Company, and about seventy thousand irregulars, matchlock-men, armed police, dacoits, etc., making a total of one hundred and thirty thousand fighting men. To fight this large army, sheltered behind entrenchments and loophooled walls, the British force, even after being joined by Jung Bahâdoor's Goorkhas, mustered only about thirty-one thousand men of all arms, and one hundred and sixty-four guns.
From the heights of the Dilkooshá in the cool of the early morning, Lucknow, with its numerous domed mosques, minarets, and palaces, looked very picturesque. I don't think I ever saw a prettier scene than that presented on the morning of the 3rd of March, 1858, when the sun rose, and Captain Peel and his Blue-jackets were getting their heavy guns, 68-pounders, into position. From the Dilkooshá, even without the aid of telescopes, we could see that the defences had been greatly strengthened since we retired from Lucknow in November, and I called to mind the warning of Jamie Green, that if the enemy stood to their guns like men behind those extensive earthworks, many of the British force would lose the number of their mess before we could take the city; and although the Indian papers which reached our camp affected to sneer at the Begum, Huzrut Mahal, and the legitimacy of her son Brijis Kuddur, whom the mutineers had proclaimed King of Oude, they had evidently the support of the whole country, for every chief and zemindar of any importance had joined them.