On the return of the regiment to camp at the Dilkooshá on the 13th of March I was glad to get back to my own company. The men were mortified because they had not shared in the honour of the assault on the Begum's palace; but as some compensation the company had formed the guard-of-honour for the reception of the Mâharâja Jung Bahâdoor, Commander-in-Chief of the Nepaulese Army, who had just reached Lucknow and been received in state by Sir Colin Campbell on the afternoon of the 11th, at the moment when the regiment was engaged in the assault on the palace. The durbar had at first proved a rather stiff ceremonial affair, but Jung Bahâdoor and his officers had hardly been presented and taken their seats, when a commotion was heard outside, and Captain Hope Johnstone, aide-de-camp to General Sir William Mansfield, covered with powder-smoke and the dust of battle, strode up the centre of the guard-of-honour with a message to the Commander-in-Chief from Mansfield, informing him that the Ninety-Third had taken the Begum's palace, the key of the enemy's position, with slight loss to themselves, but that they had killed over a thousand of the enemy. This announcement put an end to all ceremony on the part of Sir Colin, who jumped to his feet, rubbing his hands, and calling out, "I knew they would do it! I knew my boys of the Ninety-Third would do it!" Then telling Captain Metcalfe to interpret the news to the Mâharâja, and pointing to the guard-of-honour, Sir Colin said: "Tell him that these men are part of the regiment that has done this daring feat. Tell him also that they are my regiment; I'm their colonel!" The Mâharâja looked pleased, and replied that he remembered having seen the regiment when he visited England in 1852. As I have already said, the Ninety-Third had formed a guard-of-honour for him when in Edinburgh, and there were still many men in the regiment who remembered seeing Jung Bahâdoor. There was an oft-repeated story among the old soldiers that the Mâharâja was so pleased at the sight of them that he had proposed to buy the whole regiment, and was somewhat surprised to learn that British soldiers were volunteers and could not be sold, even to gratify the Mâharâja of Nepaul.
After returning to camp on the 13th of March, the regiment was allowed to rest till the 17th, but returned to the city on the morning of the 18th, taking up a position near the Imâmbâra and the Kaiserbâgh, both of which had been captured when we were in camp. We relieved the Forty-Second, and the sights that then met our eyes in the streets of Lucknow defy description. The city was in the hands of plunderers; Europeans and Sikhs, Goorkhas, and camp-followers of every class, aided by the scum of the native population. Every man in fact was doing what was right in his own eyes, and "Hell broke loose" is the only phrase in the English language that can give one who has never seen such a sight any idea of the scenes in and around the Imâmbâra, the Kaiserbâgh, and adjacent streets. The Sikhs and Goorkhas were by far the most proficient plunderers, because they instinctively knew where to look for the most valuable loot. The European soldiers did not understand the business, and articles that might have proved a fortune to many were readily parted with for a few rupees in cash and a bottle of grog. But the gratuitous destruction of valuable property that could not be carried off was appalling. Colour-Sergeant Graham, of Captain Burroughs' company, rescued from the fire a bundle of Government-of-India promissory notes to the value of over a lakh of rupees,[42] and Mr. Kavanagh, afterwards discovering the rightful owner, secured for Sergeant Graham a reward of five per cent on the amount. But with few exceptions the men of the Ninety-Third got very little. I could fill a volume on the plunder of Lucknow, and the sights which are still vividly impressed on my memory; but others have written at length on this theme, so I will leave it.
Before I proceed to other subjects, and to make my recollections as instructive as possible for young soldiers, I may mention some serious accidents that happened through the explosions of gunpowder left behind by the enemy. One most appalling accident occurred in the house of a nobleman named Ushruf-ood-dowlah, in which a large quantity of gunpowder had been left; this was accidentally exploded, killing two officers and forty men of the Engineers, and a great number of camp-followers, of whom no account was taken. The poor men who were not killed outright were so horribly scorched that they all died in the greatest agony within a few hours of the accident, and for days explosions with more or less loss of life occurred all over the city. From the deplorable accidents that happened, which reasonable care might have prevented, I could enumerate the loss of over a hundred men, and I cannot too strongly impress on young soldiers the caution required in entering places where there is the least chance of coming across concealed gunpowder. By the accident in the house of Ushruf-ood-dowlah, two of our most distinguished and promising Engineer officers,—Captains Brownlow and Clarke—lost their lives, with forty of the most valuable branch of the service. All through the Mutiny I never forgot my own experience in the Shâh Nujeef (as related in the fifth chapter of these reminiscences); and wherever I could prevent it, I never allowed men to go into unexplored rooms with lighted pipes, or to force open locked doors by the usual method of firing a loaded rifle into the lock. I think there ought to be a chapter of instructions on this head in every drill-book and soldiers' pocket-book. After the assault on a city like Lucknow some license and plundering is inevitable, and where discipline is relaxed accidents are sure to happen; but a judicious use of the provost-marshal's cat would soon restore discipline and order. Whatever opponents of the lash may say, my own firm opinion is that the provost-marshal's cat is the only general to restore order in times like those I am describing. I would have no courts-martial, drum-head or otherwise; but simply give the provost-marshal a strong guard of picked men and several sets of triangles, with full power to tie up every man, no matter what his rank, caught plundering, and give him from one to four dozen, not across the shoulders, but across the breech, as judicial floggings are administered in our jails; and if these were combined with roll-calls at short intervals, plundering, which is a most dangerous pastime, would soon be put down. In time of war soldiers ought to be taught to treat every house or room of an assaulted position as a powder-magazine until explored. I am surprised that cautions on this head have been so long overlooked.
As before stated, the Ninety-Third did not get much plunder, but in expelling the enemy from some mosques and other strong buildings near the Imâmbâra on the 21st of March, one company came across the tomb-model or royal tâzia, and the Mohurrum paraphernalia which had been made at enormous expense for the celebration of the last Mohurrum in Lucknow in 1857. The royal family and court of Lucknow were Sheeâhs: and to enable European readers to understand the value of the plunder to which I allude, before entering on the actual details, I will quote from the chapter on the celebration of the Mohurrum in Lucknow in The Private Life of an Eastern King, by William Knighton, a member of the household of his late Majesty Nussir-ood-Deen King of Oude, a book which, I believe, is now out of print. Few people seem to know the meaning of those symbols, the star and crescent or half-moon, on Mahommedan standards or banners and on the domes of mosques or tombs of deceased persons of importance, as also on the tomb-models, or tâzias used in the celebration of the Mohurrum. For the explanation of these symbols we must turn to the science of heraldry, which was well known in the sixth century A.D., when Mahommed established his religion. The star is meant to represent Mahommed himself, as the prophet of God, and the crescent represents the Mahommedan religion, which every sincere follower of the Prophet believes will eventually become a full moon and cover the whole earth.
The fanatical rites of the Mohurrum are celebrated on the anniversary of the death of two leaders of the faithful, near relatives of Mahommed himself, Hussun and Hoosein, and are observed by more than one-half the population of India as a period of deep humiliation and sorrow. The Mussulman faithful are divided into two sects, Sheeâhs and the Soonies, who feel towards each other much as fanatical Protestants and Roman Catholics mutually do. The Sheeâhs regard the deaths of Hussun and Hoosein as barbarous murders; the Soonies look on them as lawful executions of pretenders to supreme power by the reigning Caliph, the true head of the faithful. On the first day of the Mohurrum the vast population of Lucknow appears to be suddenly snatched away from all interests and employments in the affairs of this world; the streets are deserted; every one is shut up in his house, mourning with his family. On the second day the streets are crowded, but with people in mourning attire, parading the thoroughfares in funeral procession to the tomb-models set up here and there as tributes of respect to the memory of Hussun and Hoosein. These models, called tâzias, are representations of the mausoleum at Kerbela where the two chiefs are buried. The tâzias are placed in an imâmbâra belonging to a chief, or in the house of some wealthy Mussulman. The tâzia belonging to the king of Oude was made for his Majesty's father, and was composed of panels of green glass fixed in gold mouldings, and was regarded as peculiarly holy. [I only take extracts from the chapter on the Mohurrum from the work I have named. The tâzia belonging to the king accompanied him from Lucknow on the annexation of Oude.] It is on record at Lucknow that the celebration of the Mohurrum often cost a reigning Nawâb upwards of £300,000 or Rs. 3,000,000. In Lucknow, before the Mutiny, it was believed that they had the true metal crest of the banner of Hoosein, a relic regarded as peculiarly sacred, and enshrined in a building called the Doorgâh. The name of the charger which Hoosein rode when he was killed was Dhulldhull, represented in the procession of the Mohurrum by a spotless white Arab of elegant proportions. The trappings of Dhulldhull are all of solid gold, and a golden bow and quiver of arrows are fixed on the saddle.
These extracts from a history of Lucknow before the Mutiny will enable my readers to form some idea of the splendour of the Mohurrum of 1857, and the value of the tâzia and paraphernalia found, as I said, by a company of the Ninety-Third. I learned from native troopers that the golden tâzia belonging to the crown jewels of Lucknow having accompanied the king to Calcutta, a new one was made, for which the Mahommedan population of Lucknow subscribed lakhs of rupees. In the eleventh chapter of his Defence of the Residency, Mr. L. E. R. Rees states that the Mohurrum was celebrated with unusual splendour and fanaticism, commencing that year on the 25th of August, and that on the kutal-ka-râth, or night of slaughter, a certain Mr. Jones, with ten other Christians, deserted to the enemy by undoing a barricaded door when one of their own number was on sentry over it. But, instead of a favourable reception as they anticipated, the deserters received the fitting reward of their treachery from the insurgents; for they were all immediately killed as a sacrifice, and their blood sprinkled on the different tâzias throughout the city. To return to my own story; I was told by a native jeweller, who was in Lucknow in 1857, that the crescent and star alone of the new tâzia made for the young king, Brijis Kuddur, cost five lakhs of rupees. Be that as it may, it fell to a company of the Ninety-Third to assault the Doorgâh, where all this consecrated paraphernalia was stored, and there they found this golden tâzia, with all the gold-embroidered standards, saddle, and saddle-cloth, the gold quiver and arrows of Dhulldhull. There was at the time I write, a certain lieutenant in the company whom I shall call Jamie Blank. He was known to be very poor, and it was reported in the regiment that he used to regularly remit half of his lieutenant's pay to support a widowed mother and a sister, and this fact made the men of the company consider Jamie Blank entitled to a share in the loot. So when the tâzia was discovered, not being very sure whether the diamonds in the crescent and star on the dome were real or imitation, they settled to cut off the whole dome, and give it to Jamie; which they did. I don't know where Jamie Blank disposed of this particular piece of loot, but I was informed that it eventually found its way to London, and was sold for £80,000. The best part of the story is, however, to come. There was a certain newspaper correspondent in the camp (not Mr. Russell), who depended on his native servant to translate Hindoostânee names into English. When he heard that a company of the Ninety-Third had found a gold tâzia of great value, and that they had presented the senior lieutenant with the lid of it to enable him to deposit money to purchase his captaincy, the correspondent asked his Madrassi servant the English equivalent for tâzia. Samuel, perhaps not knowing the English word tomb, but knowing that the tâzia referred to a funeral, told his master that the English for tâzia was coffin; so it went the round of the English papers that among the plunder of Lucknow a certain company of the Ninety-Third had found a gold coffin, and that they had generously presented the senior lieutenant with the lid of it, which was studded with diamonds and other precious stones. So far as I am aware, this is the first time that the true explanation of Jamie Blank's golden coffin-lid has been given to the world.
As already mentioned, with the exception of the company which captured the golden tâzia and the Mohurrum paraphernalia, the Ninety-Third got very little loot; and by the time we returned to the city order was in some measure restored, prize-agents appointed, and guards placed at the different thoroughfares to intercept camp-followers and other plunderers on their way back to camp, who were thus made to disgorge their plunder, nominally for the public good or the benefit of the army. But it was shrewdly suspected by the troops that certain small caskets in battered cases, which contained the redemption of mortgaged estates in Scotland, England, and Ireland, and snug fishing and shooting-boxes in every game-haunted and salmon-frequented angle of the world, found their way inside the uniform-cases of even the prize-agents. I could myself name one deeply-encumbered estate which was cleared of mortgage to the tune of £180,000 within two years of the plunder of Lucknow. But to what good? I only wish I had to go through a similar campaign with the experience I have now. But that is all very fine thirty-five years after! "There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood"—my readers know the rest. I missed the flood, and the tide is not likely to turn my way again. Before we left Lucknow the plunder accumulated by the prize-agents was estimated at over £600,000 (according to The Times of 31st of May, 1858), and within a week it had reached a million and a quarter sterling. What became of it all? Each private soldier who served throughout the relief and capture of Lucknow got prize-money to the value of Rs. 17.8; but the thirty lakhs of treasure which were found in the well at Bithoor, leaving the plunder of the Nânâ Sâhib's palace out of the calculation, much more than covered that amount. Yet I could myself name over a dozen men who served throughout every engagement, two of whom gained the Victoria Cross, who have died in the almshouse of their native parishes, and several in the almshouse of the Calcutta District Charitable Society! But enough of moralising; I must get back to 1858.
Many camp-followers and others managed to evade the guards, and cavalry-patrols were put on duty along the different routes on both banks of the Goomtee and in the wider thoroughfares of Lucknow.
In my last chapter I gave it as my opinion that the provost-marshal's cat is the only general which can put a stop to plundering and restore order in times like those I describe, or rather I should say, which I cannot describe, because it is impossible to find words to depict the scenes which met one's eyes at every turn in the streets of Lucknow. In and around Huzrutgunge, the Imâmbâra, and Kaiserbâgh mad riot and chaos reigned,—sights fit only for the Inferno. I had heard the phrase "drunk with plunder"; I then saw it illustrated in real earnest. Soldiers mad with pillage and wild with excitement, followed by crowds of camp-followers too cowardly to go to the front, but as ravenous as the vultures which followed the army and preyed on the carcases of the slain. I have already said that many of the enemy had to be dislodged from close rooms by throwing in bags of gunpowder with slow matches fixed to them. "When these exploded they set fire to clothing, cotton-padded quilts, and other furniture in the rooms; and the consequence was that in the inner apartments of the palaces there were hundreds of dead bodies half burnt; many wounded were burnt alive with the dead, and the stench from such rooms was horrible! Historians tell us that Charles the Ninth of France asserted that the smell of a dead enemy was always sweet. If he had experienced the streets of Lucknow in March, 1858, he might have had cause to modify his opinion."