The Cannons of Lucknow, page 16
A further appeal for aid from Lucknow, as well as one from Agra, reached him but the general decided that he must first deal with the immediate threat to Cawnpore. Work had already been started on repairs to the bridge of boats by his engineers and now he ordered that these must be completed with all possible speed. By 12th August, Captain Crommelin, who had toiled heroically at the difficult task, reported the bridge restored, and the sick and wounded, together with all stores and spare ammunition, were sent across the river to Cawnpore that night. Learning, however, from his spies that a considerable force of rebels was advancing from Busseratgunj in the hope of impeding his crossing, Havelock told his son Harry, with a smile, “I think we must take the initiative and strike a blow against them, rather than await their attack on our rear, don’t you? Perhaps, if we can strike them hard enough, it will suffice to keep them immobile during our withdrawal.”
The column of gaunt and war-weary men advanced, for the third time, to Unao, where they bivouacked for the night, the sick carriages and dhoolies swiftly filling with cholera victims. In spite of this, the advance was continued next morning and, a mile and a half in front of the earlier battlefield, the enemy were discovered in great strength close to a village known as Boorkiya, which straddled the Lucknow road.
Original reports had put their number at about 4,000, but when Tytler and Barrow returned after reconnoitering the position, it was with the unwelcome news that armed peasants and a body of Oudh horse had almost doubled this number. The enemy’s right rested on the village, their left on a ridge 400 yards distant. Both flanks were defended by artillery and a ditch, with a breast-high mud wall lined with infantry connecting the two batteries; the cavalry were massed on their left flank. Along their front lay what appeared to be a level expanse of dry, grassy land but this, Tytler warned, was almost certainly swamp,
Havelock studied the position through his glass and then sent the 78th and the Fusiliers, with four horsed guns, off to the right, to attack the left of the rebels’ lines. The heavy guns he directed to the left, supported by the 84th, with orders to turn their right flank and drive them from the village. Keeping his remaining troops and guns in the centre, he ordered the howitzers to open fire with shell.
Due to the ravages of cholera and dysentery, the Volunteer Cavalry had paraded that morning barely forty strong, and Alex was escorting the horsed battery, under Lieutenant Smithett, with a scant twenty men—the majority the now-seasoned cavalrymen of his original troop. Smithett, eager to bring his guns into action, forged ahead of his supporting infantry and, as he unlimbered to the right of the swamp, the rebel nine-pounders opened a furious fire on him from their entrenched and elevated position on the ridge. Smithett returned their fire but could make little impression on the well-protected and well-served enemy guns. Half his gunners were killed or wounded and he had lost four of his horses before, at Alex’s urgent instigation, he limbered up and took ground to the right.
As Smithett was leading his depleted battery to their new position, the enemy gunners turned their attention to the advancing Highlanders and Smithett was out of their line of fire. But he was moving slowly, and the rebel cavalry, observing his predicament, started to move forward with the obvious intention of cutting him off from his support and seizing or disabling his guns before he could again bring them into action. There were about seven or eight hundred of them, all Oudh irregulars and well mounted; with the sun glinting on their tulwars and lance-tips, they looked formidable enough, but they were coming cautiously and at a trot, with a wary eye on the line of advancing Highlanders. Watching them, Alex decided that a charge by his own men—if carried through resolutely and in close formation—might disperse them long enough for Smithett to gain his objective and again unlimber his guns.
His tactic succeeded better, even, than he had dared to hope. His small troop, bunched round him in a single line and with the advantage of the downhill slope, charged into the loosely packed right flank of the Oudh horsemen who, anticipating no opposition and with the sun in their eyes, reeled back, startled, from the unexpected assault. They were given no time to determine how few their attackers were. Alex, thankful now for the hours of patient training which had welded his recruits into a disciplined body, wheeled and halted them and then, his knotted reins loose on his horse’s neck and his sabre in his left hand, spurred back into the mêlée to hack his way through, Mahoney and Cullmane on either side of him, the rest close on their flying heels, yelling like banshees.
As they emerged, miraculously still twenty strong but with blown horses and aching arms, he saw that Smithett’s guns were in position and, leading his troop off at an angle to leave them a clear field of fire, he left the final rout of the Oudh cavalry to the gunners. Aided by a handful of volunteers from the Fusiliers, Smithett’s men completed it.
Minutes later, with a cheer that woke echoes even above the roar of the guns, the Highlanders hurled themselves onto the ridge and, with the Blue Caps challenging them for the honour, entered the battery at its summit without firing a shot. They bayoneted the gunners and then, still cheering, turned two of the 9-pounders they had captured onto the rebel infantry below. It was impossible to see, through the smoke, how the 84th had fared but, as the Highlanders and the Fusiliers drove on toward Busseratgunj, a dense mass of armed peasants and sepoys came pouring out of the village in headlong retreat. A shower of grape from the captured guns sped them on their way and, from the centre of the British line, the Sikhs and the 64th joined the pursuit.
The general was delighted. His centre and his heavy guns had been impeded by the swamp but, once again, his small “force of heroes” had defeated a vastly superior enemy for the loss of thirty-five killed and wounded. The pursuit was halted, as before, at the end of the Busseratgunj causeway and, as the tired infantrymen tramped back toward Mungalwar, followed by the laden sick carts and dhoolies, he counted the cost and found it, if high, at least in his favour. The rebels had lost over 300 killed and six guns captured, and this, their third defeat in less than three weeks, had left them beaten and cowed. He could now, Havelock thought, safely cross back to Cawnpore and deal with the Nana’s force at Bithur. Since entering Oudh, the British column had suffered a total of 335 killed, wounded, and sick, of whom by far the greater number were cholera victims.
After resting his men for a day at Mungalwar, Havelock sent his heavy guns across the newly repaired bridge of boats and then, with the Volunteer Cavalry and the Fusiliers acting as rear guard, the whole force—now numbering 750 Europeans and 250 Sikhs —returned to Cawnpore on Friday, 14th August, blowing up the Oudh end of the bridge behind them. They were worn out by the constant fighting, suffering from the ill effects of exposure, and many—who, until then, had held out—collapsed with cholera, against the ravages of which they now had little resistance.
Soon after Havelock’s arrival in camp, James Neill waited on him and reluctantly gave him a letter he had received from the Commander-in-Chief, instructing him to discuss the feasibility of an immediate advance on Lucknow. The tone of the letter was proof of the disloyalty with which he had communicated his views on the advance during his Chief’s absence, and Havelock told him, with some relish, “If his Excellency requires it absolutely —or if you now think it practicable, General Neill—I will order my bridges over the islands in the Ganges to be restored and march immediately. But of course, if I do so, you will have to deal with the insurgents at Bithur with the resources at your command—I could give you no assistance.”
Describing this interview a little later to his son Harry, the general said, permitting himself a wry little smile, “He replied that he conceived the attempt without reinforcements could only terminate in disaster, without the possibility of relieving the garrison, which would be injurious to our interests in this part of India. I, as might be expected, my dear Harry, concurred in this opinion. He then asked me when I intended to march on Bithur.”
“And what did you tell him, sir?” Harry enquired.
His father sighed. “Since the medical experts had just informed me that, at the present rate of deaths from cholera, the whole force will have disappeared in six weeks … I said we would march at first light on Sunday.”
“Neill has done you irreparable harm,” Harry said. He swore softly and then, meeting the general’s reproachful gaze, apologised. “Forgive me, Father … for many things. You were right not to go on from Busseratgunj. If we had gone, Cawnpore would have gone too—and probably Allahabad after it. But if the people at Lucknow perish before we can relieve them, the guilt of their blood will not be on your head. It will be on the heads of those who, for the mere wish to be able to say that three regiments of the Bengal Army had remained staunch, refused all advice to disarm them at Dinapore and cut the means of relieving them from under our feet! If only they would send us those two European regiments they insist on retaining there, we could still save Lucknow.”
“Pray God they will be sent before it is too late,” Havelock answered gravely. “Neill tells me that they may be here early next month, and Olpherts is on his way from Allahabad. But in the absence of any definite word, I must write again to Colonel Inglis.”
“You are worn out, sir. Let me write for you,” Harry offered, but his father shook his head. “This is a letter I must write myself, my dear boy … though I confess it breaks my heart to write it. But Inglis hints that his native force is losing confidence—he fears they may leave him and says that he cannot man his defences without them—and I fear that, like poor Wheeler, he may endeavour to treat with the enemy. He must not do that, Harry … before heaven, there must not be a second Cawnpore!”
Harry did not argue. He brought pen and paper and the general sat down at his camp-table. His hand shaking visibly, he wrote:
I have your letter, and I can only say do not negotiate but rather perish sword in hand. Reinforcements may reach me in from twenty to twenty-five days. As soon as they do I will prepare everything for a march on Lucknow.
He let his head fall onto his outstretched hands when the brief missive was written, praying silently, and then, from sheer exhaustion, fell asleep.
His A.D.C., William Hargood, entering a few minutes later to inform him that Ungud had not yet returned from his last perilous mission to Lucknow, gave his message, instead, to Harry. He added grimly, “And rumour in camp has it that Archdale Wilson is likely to abandon the siege of Delhi—should not the general be told?”
“Let him sleep, Willie. God knows he has enough to bear already.” Gently Harry Havelock pulled a cloak about his father’s thin, bowed shoulders. Pausing to read the letter to Colonel Inglis, which—as in all communications with Lucknow—was written partly in Greek characters, he expelled his breath in a long-drawn sigh. “This can’t go with anyone but Ungud, obviously. I’ll take charge of it until our courier returns.”
“If he returns,” Hargood qualified.
“You might say that of any of us,” Harry retorted. “For God’s sake, is there no good news?”
“You may consider it good news, Harry, when I tell you that the police thanadar chosen by General Neill to hold office at Bithur—one Aitwurya …” Hargood was smiling—“returned precipitately therefrom after a raid by Oudh irregulars on his thana and was denounced by the relative of a man he had mistreated. His house was searched and large quantities of European clothing—ladies’ clothing—and jewels were found, all taken from the poor captives in the Bibigarh. Aitwurya, under questioning, confessed to have taken a leading part in the massacre and—” he paused.
“Well?” Harry prompted, his mouth a tight, hard line.
“Neill had him flogged, taken to the Bibigarh for some revolting form of retribution he’s devised, and then hanged him from a gallows set up in the courtyard.”
“The Mills of God grind slowly,” Harry quoted. “But they grind exceeding small … Let us hope, Willie my friend, that time is also running out for the Nana. We march on Bithur at first light on Sunday morning, the dear old Governor told me, and if the reports are true and the Nana is there …” his tired, unshaven face relaxed in a smile which echoed Hargood’s. “I’d give my right arm to take him prisoner!”
“You’d be trampled down in the rush,” Hargood told him. “Our Colonel Sheridan has now been joined by four more of General Wheeler’s garrison, and Sheridan has already given his right arm. I think you will have to allow him the prior claim.”
“Gladly,” Harry Havelock conceded. “Very gladly, Willie. I’d allow it to any one of them.”
CHAPTER SIX
IN MOWBRAY THOMSON’S tent, pitched on the glacis of the new entrenchment overlooking the river, Alex sat with the two men he had never expected to see again. It was, for all three of them, a poignant moment and, after the first eager exchange of questions and explanations, they lapsed suddenly into silence, still not quite able to believe that it was happening and hesitating to put their emotions into words.
“You’re looking tired, Alex,” Mowbray Thomson said at last, breaking the silence when he had replenished their glasses. “It’s been an exhausting fourteen days in Oudh, by all accounts.”
“Exhausting and desperately frustrating,” Alex admitted. “I have a better understanding now of what Neill was up against, when he was endeavouring to relieve us with no transport and only a single regiment. We faced very similar problems, but the one single factor that has defeated General Havelock’s attempt to relieve Lucknow has been an enemy we can’t fight—cholera. Our force was decimated by it.”
“It’s bad in camp,” Henry Delafosse said grimly. “And I don’t know of a more ghastly way for a fighting man to meet his end. We were fortunate in that respect, at least, in poor old Wheeler’s entrenchment. Cholera was the one thing we didn’t have to fight against.” He sighed. “The camp is one vast hospital and the surgeons are at their wits’ end. I visited Jim Sullivan—Gunner Sullivan—earlier this evening. The poor chap got several musket balls in him when we were swimming downriver. Rajah Drigbiji Singh did all he possibly could for us whilst we were under his protection but, of course, there’s no hospital at Moorar Mhow, so there wasn’t much his native doctor could do for Jim Sullivan. Dr. Irvine took his right leg off this afternoon—above the knee. He came through the amputation fairly well, but Irvine doesn’t hold out much hope for him.”
Remembering the grey-haired veteran gunner, who had shared more than one vigil with him in Vibart’s overloaded boat, Alex was conscious of a pang. To have survived the siege of the Cawnpore garrison, the three-day-long ordeal in the boat, and the six-mile swim to Drigbiji Singh’s territory and then to die in hospital was tragic. “How about the Irish lad, Murphy of the 84th?” he asked.
Mowbray Thomson’s face—looking absurdly boyish without the red-gold beard which had sprouted during the siege—was lit by a smile of singular warmth. “He’s a fine lad, that … and his regiment gave him a hero’s welcome, by all accounts. I should imagine he’s gloriously drunk by this time, in spite of Garrison Orders!”
“Will he be sent back to his regiment, Tommy?”
“He volunteered to go back. But General Neill took him into his garrison force.” Thomson shrugged. “He’s a very odd sort of fellow, the brigadier-general. There’s nothing he won’t do for the men under his command and his Blue Caps—officers and men—simply worship him. But … he offered me an appointment as assistant-provost-marshal, under Herbert Bruce.”
Alex flashed him a quick, searching glance, puzzled by his tone. “Have you accepted it?”
Mowbray Thomson refilled their glasses. “Frankly, Alex, I’m in two minds as to whether I should. I like Bruce and the civil magistrate, Sherer, very much indeed, and they’re the ones I’d be working with but …” he hesitated. “We heard rumours, even in Moorar Mhow, about General Neill’s reprisals in Allahabad and Benares and in the country districts. We heard of whole villages being burnt to the ground, frequently with the inhabitants inside them. We heard of innocent peasants being strung up from trees along the Trunk Road, having first been defiled, and we … well, we thought our informants were exaggerating and we took the stories with a pinch of salt, didn’t we, Henry?”
Henry Delafosse inclined his shaven fair head. “You can’t take those stories with a pinch of salt here, Alex. They weren’t exaggerated. General Neill has embarked on a truly savage campaign of vengeance—every day he flogs and hangs any man who is even remotely suspected of complicity in the mutiny or of having supported the Nana’s usurpation. Perhaps you’ve heard of how he compels both Muslims and Hindus to break caste before he executes them?”
“I witnessed two examples of that,” Alex confessed. “Before I crossed into Oudh.”
“And do you hold with it?” Thomson asked.
“No, very decidedly not … which appeared to surprise the general. He took it for granted that, as a survivor of poor old General Wheeler’s garrison, I would be thirsting for revenge.” Alex frowned. “I want to see retribution against the Nana and Azimullah and the rest of the leaders who betrayed the surrender terms and ordered—or connived at—the massacre. I shouldn’t be human if I did not …They robbed me of all I held dear, my wife, my child, my friends, my comrades in arms. They defeated us with broken promises and by treachery, they …” He gulped down the contents of his glass and Thomson rose, without being asked, to refill it. “I want to see mutinous sepoys punished, but simply and solely by the forfeit of their lives, Tommy. Neill’s reign of terror, far from stemming the revolt, is causing the Oudh zamindars to rise against us. Thousands of them are supporting the rebels—we saw them at Unao and Busseratgunj.”
