The Cannons of Lucknow, page 18
On the right, the Fusiliers and the 78th kept pace with Maude’s bullock-drawn guns; the rebels, waiting behind their breastwork, held their fire until the advancing line was five hundred yards from them and then, displaying an unusual measure of disciplined courage, poured volley after volley into the British ranks. Major Stephenson, commanding the Fusiliers, led both regiments into a field of sugar cane, and emerging from this to the left of the breastwork, they stormed and entered it. Hand-to-hand fighting ensued, of which the onlookers could see little, and then, to the cheers of his men, the 78th’s adjutant, Lieutenant Macpherson, mounted the parapet and waved his sword high above his head to signify that they had taken the position.
The rebels were retreating across the bridge into the town now, and as Lousada Barrow cantered up to join him, Alex begged, in a fever of impatience, “Can’t you get the general’s permission for us to pursue them? If the Nana is here, he can’t be allowed to escape—he must not!”
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Barrow answered with bitterness. “A pursuit has been ordered, but by the infantry. We’re to cover the bridge, in case any of them break back or the cavalry threaten our rear.”
The Highlanders and the Fusiliers, who had borne the brunt of the attack, flung themselves down exhausted in such shade as they could find, and Alex watched, fuming, as the bridge and the road beyond it filled with fleeing mutineers. They were so close that he could distinguish their uniforms; he saw a company of the 42nd Native Infantry, carrying their Colours, go running across the bridge without a shot being fired after them until Lieutenant Crump galloped up with a 9-pounder and, at his behest, sprayed their retreating backs with grape. The rebel cavalry were nowhere to be seen—which, he reminded himself wryly, was typical of the Second, who had not distinguished themselves during the siege, and he wondered whether Subedar Teeka Singh was still commanding them.
“Ah, here are the Sikhs at last!” Barrow exclaimed. “I gather that they and the 84th were held up by a loop in the stream. The general’s orders are that they are to lead the pursuit.”
Led by Jeremiah Brasyer and supported by the two Queen’s regiments which had been with them on the left flank, the Sikhs charged eagerly across the bridge, yelling their battle cry, but, to their evident disappointment, meeting with little opposition. The weary Highlanders and the Blue Caps dragged themselves to their feet and prepared to march in after them and the dhoolie-bearers and sick carts went about the melancholy task of picking up wounded. The sun was sinking before the last of these were borne in the wake of the infantry into Bithur, and Alex, once again consumed with impatience, called Tom Vibart over to him.
“Ride in, Tom,” he ordered. “Find out what’s happening and whether or not the Nana has been taken prisoner. If he hasn’t, ask Captain Barrow’s permission for me to take a patrol to make a search along the riverbank.”
“Right, sir.” Vibart hesitated. “Do you—do you suppose he has been taken?”
“No, I do not!” Alex answered explosively. “But I’m hoping against hope that he has.”
He waited, a prey to conflicting emotions, as the light faded and the sick carts returned, with a burial party, to pick up the dead, and Lieutenant Crump led half a dozen of his gunners into the rebels’ entrenchment to spike the 24-pounder they had left behind them there. The artillery officer was cursing as he rode back across the bridge.
“They saved their field guns, blast them to hell! Must have taken them out under cover of the smoke while our fellows were coming up. And the infernal Sikhs kicked up such a shindy that about two hundred Pandies, who were in the Palace garden plundering anything they could lay their hands on, managed to get clean away. They were cavalry, regulars, too, and they’d evidently been camping in the garden—their tents are still there and a few of their horses as well.”
“What about the Nana?” Alex demanded.
“Neither sight nor sound of him, alas!” Crump answered regretfully. “The devil take him!”
Young Vibart cantered up a few minutes later to confirm this disappointing news. “Captain Barrow obtained the general’s permission for you to make a search of the riverbank, sir, but he told me to tell you that he fears it will be too late. On very reliable information, he said, sir, the Nana fled from the town two or three hours ago.”
“Alone, Tom?”
“No, apparently he had some of the women of his zenana with him and an escort of several hundred of his own troops. They rode out toward the river, where there were boats waiting, Captain Barrow said.”
Alex concealed his chagrin. As Lousada Barrow had feared, his search of the riverbank proved abortive, but some frightened fishermen, at a village half a mile beyond Bithur, confirmed that the Nana, with his escort, had crossed to the Oudh shore some two hours previously. It was useless to prolong the search and, with darkness over taking them, the patrol rode back to Bithur to bivouac for the night in the grounds of the Palace.
Receiving an urgent message from Neill, who had been left to hold Cawnpore with barely a hundred fit men, warning him that a large detachment of rebels was advancing from the south, General Havelock led the column back next morning, leaving the Nana’s defences in ruins behind him. He had achieved his ninth victory, for the loss of 49 killed and wounded—against the rebels’ 250—but he felt little elation, for the Nana had once again eluded him, and reports coming in from Oudh confirmed his worst fears. His withdrawal across the Ganges had had a disastrous effect; where, initially, local rajahs and zamindars had refused to join in the revolt, now, encouraged by his retreat to Cawnpore, virtually all of them had done so, and spies brought reports of rebellion and anarchy throughout the province. This augered ill for Lucknow but, with only 700 of his column still capable of fighting, there was nothing Havelock could do until reinforcements reached him, save wait with what patience he could muster and rest the men who had served him so well.
Returning to his old Headquarters, he found a copy of the official Calcutta Gazette awaiting him. It was dated 5th August and contained the announcement that Major-General Sir James Outram, under whom he had served in Persia, had been appointed to command the Dinapore and Cawnpore Divisions, which were to be combined in one command. Havelock read it, at first conscious of bitter disappointment; his independent command was ended and his task of relieving Lucknow would now fall to his new Chief.
“Neill will say that you have been superseded, Father,” his son Harry told him indignantly. “And if you have, it will be thanks to the reports he has been sending behind your back to Calcutta. A plague on him for his disloyalty!”
“No,” General Havelock said. “This is not intended as supersession, Harry. After all, it is dated the fifth of August, when Government—and, indeed, we ourselves—still had hopes of being able to fight our way to Lucknow. James Outram is the first senior general to become available; I’m still only a brigade commander, don’t forget, not of sufficient seniority to be appointed to the combined command. In any case, my dear boy”—his smile, like his tone, held genuine warmth—“James Outram and I are old friends. There is no one in the British or Indian Army under whom I would rather serve … and he’ll get things done, he’ll see to it that we are sent the two Dinapore regiments. And when Sir Colin Campbell arrives to take over from Pat Grant as Commander-in-Chief, we may confidently expect an improvement in the allocation of reinforcements and supplies, to enable us to go forward into Oudh once more. What matters it who is given the honour and glory of saving Lucknow? What is essential is to save the garrison, and Sir James Outram will do it, if anyone can.”
“Yes, but—” Harry began, still angry. His father shook his white head in reproof.
“We have no cause for resentment, Harry—even against General Neill, because this is not his doing. It might have been kinder, perhaps, had General Grant written to me personally concerning the appointment, but he, too, has been superseded by Sir Colin, so …” He spread his small, neat hands in a gesture of resignation. “Our task is now to restore our brave fellows to health and fitness. They must be rested, but their fighting powers must not be impaired by any lapse of discipline and, above all, there must be no drunkenness. The first thing I want to do is tell them how splendidly they have fought, because every man deserves the highest praise a commander can bestow on him.”
He seated himself at his table and, when Harry brought him pen and paper, set to work to compose the last Order of the Day he would issue as Force Commander.
The brigadier-general congratulates the troops on the result of their exertions in the combat of yesterday. The enemy was driven, with the loss of 250 killed and wounded, from one of the strongest positions in India, which they obdurately defended. They were the flower of the mutinous soldiery flushed with the successful defection at Saugor and Fyzabad; yet they stood only one short hour against a handful of soldiers of the State, whose ranks had been thinned by sickness and the sword. May the hopes of treachery and rebellion be ever thus blasted! And if conquest can now be achieved under the most trying circumstances, what will be the triumph and retribution of the time when the armies from China, from the Cape, and from England shall sweep through the land?
Soldiers, in that moment your labours, your privations, your sufferings, and your valour will not be forgotten by a grateful country! You will be acknowledged to have been the stay and prop of British India in the time of her severest trial.
Harry read the Order when he had done. “I believe, Father,” he observed, “that you may have written your own epitaph. Did you intend to?”
The general smiled. “Yes, my dear boy,” he admitted. “I rather think I did … and indeed, I think I’m entitled to, don’t you?” He did not wait for Harry’s answer but, pulling out a fresh sheet of paper, took up his pen again. “Now,” he said, his smile fading. “I will make a few notes concerning recreation and the maintenance of discipline. We need a Chaplain at one end of the scale and more cavalry at the other; I want band concerts organised as soon as possible and … yes, why not some horse racing, to raise the men’s spirits? Can you think of anything else we could do, Harry?”
“We could end the custom of having the Last Post sounded at funerals, sir,” Harry suggested practically. “Constant repetition becomes somewhat depressing. And how about General Neill’s reprisals at the Bibigarh? From what I can gather they, too, are constantly repeated and they’re not doing us much good in the eyes of the native population.”
A steely glint lit General Havelock’s grey eyes. “Yes, indeed—those are most timely suggestions. Perhaps, dear boy, you would be so good as to send General Neill a request that he present himself here at his earliest convenience?”
“With great pleasure, sir,” Harry Havelock acknowledged. “And by the way, my cousin Charley writes that he and Johnson have 40 loyal cavalry sowars, who aided their escape to Benares when the rest of the regiment mutinied. Their behaviour has been exemplary and Charley is most anxious to offer you their services, sir, with his own. Shall I tell him they may join us?”
General Havelock’s hesitation was brief. “By all means, Harry. But to be honest, when I mentioned more cavalry I had Europeans in mind … men of the calibre of Barrow’s Volunteers and those infantrymen Sheridan trained so well. We could give him another forty or fifty, perhaps. On every occasion, I have felt the lack of cavalry. We beat the enemy in the field but are never able to follow up our victories by determined pursuit, and we shall require to do so, if we are to relieve Lucknow. Ask Captain Barrow and Colonel Sheridan to come and see me also, would you please?”
“Sheridan was very frustrated yesterday evening at Bithur,” Harry said, “because we failed to lay the Nana by the heels, and I’m damned if I blame him, in the circumstances. We ought to have had the fellow.”
“We never had a chance of taking him,” Havelock said, with asperity. “He took to his heels soon after we fired our first shot. I’m thankful, though, that he went into Oudh. I was very much afraid he might go to Calpi, in the hope of urging the Gwalior Contingent to launch an attack on us here. So far they appear not to have committed themselves, but if they do come here—”
“It will be an end to the Cawnpore Horse Races,” Harry finished for him, his tone flippant. “And the band concerts and the rest for our men.”
“It might well be an end to Cawnpore,” the general returned sharply. He bent again over his papers and Harry went in search of William Hargood, whom he despatched to summon General Neill.
For Alex Sheridan, the respite which followed the return of the column from Bithur came none too soon. A heavy downpour had succeeded Sunday’s blazing heat, and man after man had fallen out during the march back, gripped by dysentery or shaking with fever. By the exercise of all the will power he possessed, Alex contrived to sit his horse, head down against the driving rain, but when he dismounted outside the tent he shared with Lousada Barrow, he found it impossible to stand upright.
Barrow and his old bearer, Mohammed Bux, assisted him into the tent and he collapsed on the bed, shivering uncontrollably. “Lou,” he urged, through chattering teeth. “I may have the cholera and I don’t want to infect you with it, for God’s sake! Have me moved, will you please?”
“I’ll get one of the surgeons to have a look at you,” Barrow evaded. “Just lie where you are, Alex, there’s a good fellow. Time enough to worry about me when we find out what’s wrong with you. In any case, I’m immune to infection now—I must be, I’ve been exposed to it so often.”
When Dr. Irvine, the Artillery’s surgeon, appeared some two hours later, Alex was barely conscious. The doctor’s examination was brief.
“It’s not cholera … yet,” he said, his voice harsh with weariness. “But it could turn to that all too easily. My diagnosis is exhaustion, coupled with exposure and malnutrition—and what everyone in this force is suffering from, chronic dysentery. I’d have Colonel Sheridan moved to the Hotel, where we’ve set up an officers’ hospital, but it’s overcrowded and his resistance is so low that he would almost certainly catch the infection if I did. He’d be better off here, quite honestly, Captain Barrow, if he can be looked after.”
“He can be looked after, Doctor,” Barrow assured him.
“Then I’ll leave you some medicine for him,” Irvine promised. “What he needs is rest, as much nourishing gruel as he can swallow, a dry bed, and no exertion. If you can see that he has these, then he should pull through. I can’t guarantee it, though; he’s in a pretty weak state. The after-effects of the siege, undoubtedly, have caught up with him.” He rose and stood for a moment looking down at his new patient with eyes red-rimmed and swollen from lack of sleep. “I wish to God there were more we could do for poor fellows like this, but damn it, there isn’t. We lost another of the survivors of General Wheeler’s garrison last night—the gunner, Sullivan. He put up quite a fight, but the shock of having his leg taken off proved too much for him. I’m sorry; he was a brave man.” He added some more instructions for Alex’s care and then said grimly, studying his scarred face, “What astounds me, Barrow, is that he kept going for so long. Look at that head wound, for heaven’s sake! It would have killed most men, but Sheridan’s been campaigning with it and it’s healed perfectly. You wonder, sometimes—especially in my profession—what makes some men survive and others die.”
“Will power?” Lousada Barrow suggested, smiling. “Mind over matter? Or are these just other words for courage?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Irvine confessed. “All I can tell you is that the majority of the fellows we’re losing from cholera and other sicknesses are the young and seemingly healthy, who arrive with fresh drafts from Calcutta. They go down like ninepins, almost as soon as they get here, and they’re dead in a few hours. But the seasoned campaigners, the veterans, pull through … and, so far as the cholera is concerned, there are more cases in camp than you had during your fortnight in Oudh, without tents and on reduced rations—taking total numbers into consideration, that’s to say.”
“The ground between the lines in camp is being fouled,” Barrow said. He frowned. “Perhaps if the whole camp were moved to fresh ground it might reduce the spread of infection.”
“They tried that in the Crimea,” Dr. Irvine answered, “without conspicuous success, but … we’re requesting that it be considered and we’re increasing the number of latrines in the hope that the dysentery cases will use them. Another possibility is that water can be infected and we’re trying to ensure that all drinking water, at least, is boiled. Try it with Colonel Sheridan … he’s going to need a lot of fluids and it just might help.”
Alex’s fever continued for the next week, and he lay, frequently delirious and sometimes deeply unconscious, on Lousada Barrow’s camp bed, cared for by the faithful Mohammed Bux and, when he was free of his duties, by Barrow himself. He was dimly aware of them by his bedside, but it was not until his fever abated and consciousness returned that he began to realise how much he owed to them both. His old bearer’s anxious, bearded face was the first he recognised, as the servant knelt beside him, holding a cup to his lips; later, when Barrow came in, tired and soaked to the skin, he, too—before changing his clothes—enquired as to Alex’s welfare and opened a bottle of champagne which he instructed Mohammed Bux to give him, drop by drop.
