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Chapter 3

Confusion within doors and without – Sick and helpless – Nothing to eat from the Commissariat – Thanks for kindness – Get worse health – Everybody makes a noise – Frenzied by glory – The works of nature most charming – Great people will let little folks walk to fame through the Vale of Death – Affairs improve and the defenders are cheerful – Mr. Alexander Bryson, my brother-in-law, a hero, and his wife and children paupers

I rose sick from my bed, and went out to help in the defence, with a vague idea of the extent of the disaster. I found every one in Motion, and confused by a feeling ‘which looked like fear. Gates were rapidly being shut – doors closed – barricades constructed – walls loop-holed – guns rolled into position. Surprise and wonder were depicted on almost every face. The suddenness of the assault, and the disgrace it followed, bewildered all. I sat on a cot, (near what was always called our defences, but was only a thin wall five feet high), with my face buried in my hands, unable to ask any questions, and fretting at my helplessness when action was so much needed. The force of the sun and my excited feelings soon drove me back to my bed burning with fever. Within doors there was the same commotion. Clothes and furniture were being dragged from room to room – women squabbled for the safest places, distracted by screaming children – loud orders seemed to come from everyone, and masters and mistresses

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screamed for servants, who were fast deserting them. Before the fighting began, accommodation was apportioned to families according to their respective positions in life; that is to say, the greatest lady had the most airy and comfortable room; but, when the enemy’s artillery and musketry poured in their shot and shell, those places did not always prove the safest, and nearly all changed their residences without distinction – for danger is a great leveller. We were fortunate in the selection of a room early in May, and several women and children occupied it.

For two days I could be little attended to, for every one was too absorbed by the wants and the dangers around them, and the thoughts of the women were distracted by the terrific roar of musketry and artillery, and by the near patter of balls and bullets. I sank into a state of languor, and when the fits of feverish delirium were off, did nothing but grieve at the condition to which I was reduced. No one but my distressed wife thought of me, and she too was constantly frightened from my side, for fear of the children, who unconsciously ran into danger.

A general alarm prevailed in the garrison. For a week few persons received their rations. There was no method in the issue, and many knew not that food was being served out by the Commissariat. The provisions I had fortunately put by were now drawn upon by the families near us, and by my servants. I had, besides, a couple of cows, which I ventured to bring from outside the defences on the second night of the siege, and their milk afforded sustenance to several infants when their mothers’ strength began to fail. We endeavoured in all things to maintain a character for kindness among our

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fellow-sufferers, and in return we experienced it from many when kindness was greatly needed. I am glad to have an opportunity of expressing our grateful remembrance of those precious favours. To Ensign James May2 I am especially indebted, for, when I began to recover, he did his utmost to procure such food as was suited for an invalid.

An attack of erysipelas in the left leg, from the foot to the hip, aggravated my case, and I lay for days insensible to everything but pain. The awful noise of artillery close to the door increased my distress; for every shot shook me, and the poor women and children seemed to forget my existence, as they ran screaming from corner to corner to avoid the shots that penetrated the rooms.

By the middle of July there was little hope of my recovery, and my fond wife had a sad prospect before her. She was unremitting in her care of me, and I was indebted to her devotion, and to Dr. Greenhow’s skill and attention, for a change for the better by the 20th of the month. But a new danger threatened me now, of a kind beyond the cure of the doctor. An intense eagerness to know all that went on in the defences seized upon my mind, which every attack, and every success, affected almost to frenzy. Good and gallant deeds have always greatly touched me; and the news of the first sortie – in which a couple of guns were spiked by three men against great odds – filled my heart with such violent emotions that it would have burst, had not

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Mr. Dorrett forcibly leant on my chest to keep down its convulsions. As these rapturous fits might bring on a relapse of sickness, I was kept in ignorance of the incidents of the defence for a few days, till I could bear being carried into the verandah, where I insisted upon going after so long and so painful a confinement. Oh I how charming are the works of nature, which neither time nor the violence of man can obliterate. I surveyed the sky and the green fields from my seat, like one restored to sight, and silently offered up thanks to the Almighty that I had lived to gaze on his works once more, and to take my allotted part in that prodigious struggle, which, to my great joy, was not yet over.

The period, I thought, had arrived when I might earn a character for devotion to duty equal to that of others. I had always striven to be a good servant, but -my assiduity and impetuosity were attributed to selfish ambition, and I gained no credit for my exertions. After more than twenty years of toil, my spirits sank at the miserable prospect of a life of drudgery, under the eye of a service that slowly, very slowly, recognised any merit not its own. Reader, you may blame the spirit that rejoiced at a revolution which opened a broad field for fair play, if you have never laboured under a despotic rule; but I could not, and did not, attempt to conceal the pleasure which the contemplation of the future now afforded; and I resolved to die in the struggle rather than survive it with no better fame than I took into it. Some persons are born with moderate desires, and others with high aspirations, which they endeavour to realize; and he who walks in a straight course to the pinnacle of his hopes the world will applaud – when he has got there.

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When I retired to my sick chamber, at the beginning of the month, all was confusion, and success was doubtful: when I issued from it, after the severe fight of the 20th July, in which the defenders fought all day with signal valour, all was cheerfulness and confidence. It pleased me to look on their gallant faces, as they passed to and fro in their clay-stained dresses, with hopeful greetings for each other. I never tired of listening to the stories of singular daring that several of the garrison were daily performing, and more and more longed for the recovery of my strength, to bear a share of their dangerous duty.

I have before mentioned that Mr. Alexander Bryson was Serjeant Major of the Volunteer Cavalry, for which office his experience and intelligence, and his manly bearing, made him the best fitted of the troop. Many who were in the Upper Provinces of India will doubtless remember the lively and handsome young artist who took their likenesses. He grew tired of this occupation, which often separated him from his family for half a year at a time, and I induced him to accept service in Oudh, where his talents and industrious habits were sure to advance his fortune.

When the mutineers attacked our position he was removed by Captain McCabe from the garrison in which I had placed him, to a more exposed post, where the utmost vigilance and daring were needed to resist the frequent assaults of the enemy. On the ninth day of the defence a weak point was discovered that ought to be barricaded. It was without shelter from the fire of the enemy, who were strongly posted in lofty houses only forty paces off, and the duty was so dangerous that Captain McCabe could scarce appeal to the members

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of the garrison to execute it. In the coming darkness lay the only chance of escaping death. Bryson, feeling that the honour of his garrison was concerned, went out to the point referred to, and, under a heavy fire of musketry, which his exposed position at once attracted, finished the barricade; but, as he descended, a bullet pierced his head, and he fell dead to the ground. Bryson’s services were so conspicuous that he obtained honourable mention in the report of the defence of Lucknow, and his widow received from the Government a pension of thirty-six pounds a-year! He left three sons, who are being educated from the funds collected for the relief of the sufferers by the mutiny in India, and it is thus to the benevolence of the public that they are indebted for support and education, which the Government grant of £19 a-year would not have afforded, except in a station of life for which their excellent father was not reared.

Footnotes

2. This young gentleman served in the Artillery as a volunteer, and made himself extremely useful in serving the guns and mortars. He was of great assistance to the Chief Artillery Officer in giving the bearings of the enemy’s position with the aid of the prismatic compass; he prepared plans for the relief, and for the capture of Lucknow, when he was also employed, occasionally, on the dangerous duty of guiding the troops.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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