[42] £10,000.
CHAPTER XIV
AN UNGRATEFUL DUTY—CAPTAIN BURROUGHS—THE DILKOOSHÁ AGAIN—GENERAL WALPOLE AT ROOYAH—THE RÂMGUNGA.
After the Mutiny some meddling philanthropists in England tried to get up an agitation about such stories as wounded sepoys being burnt alive; but owing to the nature of the war it was morally impossible to have prevented such accidents. As to cases of real wanton cruelty or outrage committed by European soldiers, none came under my own notice, and I may be permitted to relate here a story which goes far to disprove any accusations of the sort.
My company had been posted in a large building and garden near the Mint. Shortly after our arrival an order came for a non-commissioned officer and a guard of selected men to take charge of a house with a harem, or zenâna, of about eighty women who had been rescued from different harems about the Kaiserbâgh,—begums of rank and of no rank, dancing girls and household female slaves, some young and others of very doubtful age. Mr. MacBean, our adjutant, selected me for the duty, first because he said he knew I would not get drunk and thus overlook my sense of responsibility; and, secondly, because by that time I had picked up a considerable knowledge of colloquial Hindoostânee, and was thus able to understand natives who could not speak English, and to make myself understood by them. I got about a dozen old soldiers with me, several of whom had been named for the duty by Sir Colin Campbell himself, mostly married men of about twenty years' service. Owing to the vicissitudes of my chequered life I have lost my pocket roll-book, and do not now recollect the whole of the names of the men who formed this guard. However, John Ellis, whose wife had acted as laundress for Sir Colin in the Crimea, was one of them, and James Strachan, who was nicknamed "the Bishop," was another; John M'Donald, the fourth of the name in my company, was a third; I cannot now name more of them. If any of that guard are alive now, they must be from threescore and ten to fourscore years of age, because they were then all old men, tried and true, and, as our adjutant said, Sir Colin had told him that no other corps except the Ninety-Third could be trusted to supply a guard for such a duty. MacBean, along with a staff or civil officer, accompanied the guard to the house, and was very particular in impressing on my attention the fact that the guard was on no pretence whatever to attempt to hold any communication with the begums, except through a shrivelled, parchment-faced, wicked-looking old woman (as I supposed), who, the staff-officer told me, could speak English, and who had been directed to report any shortcomings of the guard, should we not behave ourselves circumspectly. But I must say I had little to fear on that head, for I knew every one of my men could be trusted to be proof against the temptation of begums, gold, or grog, and as for myself, I was then a young non-commissioned officer with a very keen sense of my responsibility.
Shortly after we were installed in our position of trust, and the officers had left us, we discovered several pairs of bright eyes peeping out at us through the partly shattered venetians forming the doors and windows of the house; and the person whom I had taken for a shrivelled old woman came out and entered into conversation with me, at first in Hindoostânee, but afterwards in very good and grammatical English. I then discovered that what I had mistaken for a crack-voiced old woman, a second edition of "the mother of the maids," was no other than a confidential eunuch of the palace, who told me he had been over thirty years about the court of Lucknow, employed as a sort of private secretary under successive kings, as he was able to read and write English, and could translate the English newspapers, etc., and could also, judging from his villainous appearance, be trusted to strangle a refractory begum or cut the throat of any one prying too closely into court secrets. He was almost European in complexion, and appeared to me to be more than seventy years of age, but he may have been much younger. He also told me that most of his early life had been spent at the court of Constantinople, and that he had there learned English, and had found this of great use to him at the court of Lucknow, where he had not only kept up the knowledge, but had improved it by reading.
By this time one of the younger begums, or nautch girls (I don't know which), came out to see the guard, and did not appear by any means too bashful. She evidently wished for a closer acquaintance, and I asked my friend to request her to go back to her companions; but this she declined to do, and wanted particularly to know why we were dressed in petticoats, and if we were not part of the Queen of England's regiment of eunuchs, and chaffed me a good deal about my fair hair and youthful appearance. I was twenty-four hours on that guard before the begums were removed by Major Bruce to a house somewhere near the Martinière, and during that twenty-four hours I learned more, through the assistance of the English-speaking eunuch, about the virtues of polygamy and the domestic slavery, intrigues, and crimes of the harem than I have learned in all my other thirty-five years in India. If I dared, I could write a few pages that would give the Government of India and the public of England ten times more light on those cherished institutions than they now possess. The authorities professed to take charge of those caged begums for their own safety, but I don't think many of them were over-thankful for the protection. Major Bruce, with an escort, removed the ladies the next day, and I took leave of my communicative friend and the begums without reluctance, and rejoined my company, glad to be rid of such a dangerous charge.
Except the company which stormed the Doorgâh, the rest of the Ninety-Third were employed more as guards on our return to the city; but about the 23rd of the month Captain Burroughs and his company were detailed, with some of Brazier's Sikhs, to drive a lot of rebels from some mosques and large buildings which were the last positions held by the enemy. If I remember rightly, Burroughs was then fourth on the list of captains, and he got command of the regiment five years after, through deaths by cholera, in Peshâwar in 1862. The Ninety-Third had three commanding officers in one day! Lieutenant-Colonel MacDonald and Major Middleton both died within a few hours of each other, and Burroughs at once became senior major and succeeded to the command, the senior colonel, Sir H. Stisted, being in command of a brigade in Bengal. Burroughs was born in India and was sent to France early for his education, at least for the military part of it, and was a cadet of the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris. This accounted for his excellent swordsmanship, his thorough knowledge of French, and his foreign accent. Burroughs was an accomplished maître d'armes. When he joined the Ninety-Third as an ensign in 1850 he was known as "Wee Frenchie." I don't exactly remember his height, I think it was under five feet; but what he wanted in size he made up in pluck and endurance. He served throughout the Crimean war, and was never a day absent. It was he who volunteered to lead the forlorn hope when it was thought the Highland Brigade were to storm the Redan, before it was known that the Russians had evacuated the position. At the relief of Lucknow he was not the first man through the hole in the Secundrabâgh; that was Lance-Corporal Dunley of Burroughs' company; Sergeant-Major Murray was the second, and was killed inside; the third was a Sikh sirdâr, Gokul Sing, of the Fourth Punjâb Infantry, and Burroughs was either the fourth or fifth. He was certainly the first officer of the regiment inside, and was immediately attacked by an Oude Irregular sowâr armed with tulwâr and shield, who nearly slashed Burroughs' right ear off before he got properly on his feet. It was the wire frame of his feather bonnet that saved him; the sowâr got a straight cut at his head, but the sword glanced off the feather bonnet and nearly cut off his right ear. However, Burroughs soon gathered himself together (there was so little of him!) and showed his tall opponent that he had for once met his match in the art of fencing; before many seconds Burroughs' sword had passed through his opponent's throat and out at the back of his neck. Notwithstanding his severe wound, Burroughs fought throughout the capture of the Secundrabâgh, with his right ear nearly severed from his head, and the blood running down over his shoulder to his gaiters; nor did he go to have his wound dressed till after he had mustered his company, and reported to the colonel how many of No. 6 had fallen that morning. Although his men disliked many of his ways, they were proud of their little captain for his pluck and good heart. I will relate two instances of this:—When promoted, Captain Burroughs had the misfortune to succeed the most popular officer in the regiment in the command of his company, namely, Captain Ewart (now Lieutenant-General Sir John Alexander Ewart, K.C.B., etc.), and, among other innovations, Burroughs tried to introduce certain Polytechnique ideas new to the Ninety-Third. At the first morning parade after assuming command of the company, he wished to satisfy himself that the ears of the men were clean inside, but being so short, he could not, even on tiptoe, raise himself high enough to see; he therefore made them come to the kneeling position, and went along the front rank from left to right, minutely inspecting the inside of every man's ears! The Ninety-Third were all tall men in those days, none being under five feet six inches even in the centre of the rear rank of the battalion companies; and the right hand man of Burroughs' company was a stalwart Highlander named Donald MacLean, who could scarcely speak English and stood about six feet three inches. When Burroughs examined Donald's ears he considered them dirty, and told the colour-sergeant to put Donald down for three days' extra drill. Donald, hearing this, at once sprang to his feet from the kneeling position and, looking down on the little captain with a look of withering scorn, deliberately said, "She will take three days' drill from a man, but not from a monkey!" Of course Donald was at once marched to the rear-guard a prisoner, and a charge lodged against him for "insubordination and insolence to Captain Burroughs at the time of inspection on morning parade." When the prisoner was brought before the colonel he read over the charge, and, turning to Captain Burroughs, said: "This is a most serious charge, Captain Burroughs, and against an old soldier like Donald MacLean who has never been brought up for punishment before. How did it happen?" Burroughs was ashamed to state the exact words, but beat about the bush, saying that he had ordered MacLean three days' drill, and that he refused to submit to the sentence, making use of most insolent and insubordinate language; but the colonel could not get him to state the exact words used, and the colour-sergeant was called as second witness. The colour-sergeant gave a plain, straightforward account of the ear-inspection; and when he stated how MacLean had sprung to his feet on hearing the sentence of three days' drill, and had told the captain, "She will take three days' drill from a man, but not from a monkey," the whole of the officers present burst into fits of laughter, and even the colonel had to hold his hand to his mouth. As soon as he could speak he turned on MacLean, and told him that he deserved to be tried by a court-martial and so forth, but ended by sentencing him to "three days' grog stopped." The orderly-room hut was then cleared of all except the colonel, Captain Burroughs, and the adjutant, and no one ever knew exactly what passed; but there was no repetition of the kneeling position for ear-inspection on morning parade. I have already said that Burroughs had a most kindly heart, and for the next three days after this incident, when the grog bugle sounded, Donald MacLean was as regularly called to the captain's tent, and always returned smacking his lips, and emphatically stating that "The captain was a Highland gentleman after all, and not a French monkey." From that day forward, the little captain and the tall grenadier became the best of friends, and years after, on the evening of the 11th of March, 1858, when the killed and wounded were collected after the capture of the Begum's Kothee in Lucknow, I saw Captain Burroughs crying like a tender-hearted woman by the side of a dooly in which was stretched the dead body of Donald MacLean, who, it was said, received his death-wound defending his captain. I have the authority of the late colour-sergeant of No. 6 company for the statement that from the date of the death of MacLean, Captain Burroughs regularly remitted thirty shillings a month, through the minister of her parish, to Donald's widowed mother, till the day of her death seven years after. When an action of this kind became generally known in the regiment, it caused many to look with kindly feelings on most of the peculiarities of Burroughs.