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Chapter 5

Stores of English merchants plundered, and private supplies squandered – Cholera, fever, and small-pox – Garland and McGrennan save me – A wretched hospital – Sisters of charity, Polehampton, Barbor, Birch, Gall, Parry, Erith, Alone, and a good soldier’s wife – The Report of the Defence not impartial – Captain McCabe – Under Arrest – A good soldier killed in his fourth sortie – Lieutenant Bonham, gentle, skilful, and devoted – Look out – Processions of the enemy – Jolly companions every one – Bad rhymes, but good verses

The dying injunctions of Sir Henry Lawrence, and the care of Captain James of the Commissariat, preserved and husbanded our public supplies. But private stores were wastefully used, especially the stimulants which would have sustained the sick and wounded afterwards. In all the stages of life it is remarkable how few bring the requirements of the future into their calculations, and how little the mind is startled by prospective dangers. “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,” was well exemplified during the first sixty days of the siege. English provisions, which had been stored by the merchants Depratt, Sinclair, and Johannes, were remorselessly plundered, regardless of the morrow; and, whilst anything dainty lasted, it was greedily consumed. “Let us live and be merry,” was the exclamation of some; and scarcely any had the remotest suspicion that a time was coining when we were to repent our prodigality.

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Besides the calamities of war, cholera, fever, and small-pox, about the end of July, began to lessen our ranks, and to destroy our children. At one time, there was three young ones lying ‘near me suffering from the latter infectious disease, and I feared it would affect me before I could leave my bed of sickness. Four days’ illness killed our youngest daughter, and we were in great anxiety for the others, whom it was impossible to keep away from the diseased children. We encouraged our children to play in the open air, exposed to the fire of the enemy, rather than remain in our pestilential quarters; and, by the mercy of Providence, they enjoyed better health, in consequence, than most of the youngsters in the garrison;

On the 4th of August I ventured to leave my own quarters to visit some friends, and to show myself to my immediate superior. I was that day rescued from death by Messrs. Garland and McGrennan, while tottering by their post towards the hospital. I had unconsciously got under a fatal fire from Johannes’ house outside the entrenchment, when they warned me of my danger and kindly supported me into their quarters. The hard-working and kind-hearted Garland is dead; but McGrennan is again at his post earning the good will of his superiors by his assiduity and respectability. The Government of India awarded a sum of money3 to him for rescuing the records of the Office of the Chief Commissioner of Oudh from destruction, which he effected, at great trouble and discomfort to himself, when the Residency defences were abandoned.

By a safer road I found my way, to the wounded civilians whom I was anxious to relieve. What a distressing

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sight was there! The upper galleries of the hospital were almost deserted, being exposed to the shot of the enemy. The rooms on the ground floor were low, dark, narrow, ill-ventilated, and unbearable from the stench of sloughing wounds and other causes, and could not be cleaned as often as necessary. The servants had deserted, and no one could be spared from duty. At this time I saw none of the ladies whose attentions to the suffering afterwards earned them special mention in the Report of the Defence; but I was eyewitness to the gentle and assiduous care of a young cheerful woman, the wife of a Serjeant-Major, whose soothing kindness has found no voice in the memories of her superiors4. I frequently visited the hospital afterwards, with nourishment for persons whom I knew, and on those occasions I saw Mesdames Polehampton, Barbor, Birch, and Gall, generously waiting upon the wounded, and sometimes reading to them. But I also saw Mesdames Parry, Erith, and Alone, at the bedsides of the sufferers feeding them with porridge cooked by themselves. These ladies, too, have found no one generous enough to record their compassionate services. The Defence of Lucknow was an event which ought to have induced an impartial record.

I urged Captain McCabe, of the 32nd Foot, (who commanded at the Post Office Garrison,) to allow me to take my turn of duty, but he smiled as he surveyed my trembling figure, and resisted my entreaties. The alarm of an attack one night drew me out at last, and fancying that I saw some of the enemy, I fired without orders, and was rebuked by Captain McCabe, who was in the end provoked to put me under arrest. The

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following day I was released. Captain McCabe will be remembered for his incessant watchfulness; his fiery courage, which shrunk from no danger; and his coolness and discretion under fire, which perceived and overcame all difficulties. His spirit and promptitude especially fitted him for the most hazardous sorties. He survived three of them, but was mortally wounded in the fourth by a discharge of grape from a battery, into which he was gallantly leading his party. The Service thus lost a soldier whose intrepidity first brought him to notice in the ranks during Lord Gough’s campaign against the Sikhs. He was an honour to his regiment, rough and rugged as were his manners.

I soon begun to take my turn of duty. The guns and mortars were my especial favourites, and I stuck so-close to them while yet weak, that my hearing was injured by their incessant roar. I hoped to secure the management of the mortars on a vacancy occurring, but there were others, with more right to that honour, and quite as much zeal as myself, who coveted that distinguished duty, and it consequently never fell to me. In all sieges, excepting in making and resisting assaults, musketry does little execution, and our extraordinary success against the hordes who surrounded us, is attributable to the perfection of the artillery, and the zeal of the officers, soldiers, and volunteers of that arm. Lieut. Bonham was most conspicuous at our post; his gentle temper, skill, and devoted attention to the guns, even when sick and wounded, won for him the admiration of the whole garrison.

When not defending the walls from an attack, our principal duty was to sit on the roof of our dwelling; protected by a thin earthen parapet, and observe the

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enemy in a street running parallel to the Kaisarbagh, along which the guards passed to relieve the besiegers. As the native chiefs resided in the direction of the Palace, all extraordinary movement of troops was thus known to us at once. We relieved each other every two hours, and recorded in a book whatever was remarkable. The assaults were usually made in the day, and were always preceded by constant reports from the lookout, like this:–

“A large body of infantry, with six standards, gone from left to right – A long line of matchlock-men, with numerous green and red colours, gone in the same direction, – in all about six thousand. – About five hundred cavalry, regular and irregular, preceded by drums, apparently escorting men of rank mounted on elephants; swordsmen mixed with bowmen following for about ten minutes. – Two brass guns, seemingly twelve-pounders, drawn by bullocks, and escorted by infantry and cavalry went by at a trot – two small horse artillery guns, and waggons, pulled by bullocks. – A small party of regular cavalry, some in grey uniform, escorting a man of consequence, preceded by drums and two standards. – Several doolies. – More infantry and matchlock-men in irregular order, and a long line of running swordsmen and archers.”

The look-out, although an excessively hot and unsafe place, was a point of intense attraction on these occasions, and some authority had to be exerted to keep all the curious off the roof, over the parapet of which it was dangerous to lift your head.

The enemy, after the assaults, invariably returned home in the same order, followed by the wounded on litters; but the infantry, matchlock-men, and swordsmen, no longer walked with head erect, chest puffed

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out, arms stiffly swinging to and fro. Nor did the cavalry plunge and caracole, nor the dark, slim, Parsee5 caper and stretch his bow, as he glibly followed in the wake of his discomfited compatriots. To us, in the distance, the whole procession, there and back again, resembled a pantomimic display. But they always left us to bemoan the death of some fine fellows, who had nobly borne their share in repelling the onslaught.

We usually had a few days’ relief after these great processions, when the look-out was rather monotonous. We spent some of the time there in reading, composing satirical rhymes reflecting on the idle and selfish, and scratching caricatures of each other upon the walls at the top of the staircase: where we took shelter from rain and sun, when nothing remarkable was happening. The duties and dangers of war attracted us to each other, and loosened our thoughts and actions from the bonds of conventionality, so that a pleasant feeling of brotherhood existed at our important post. We bore the twits and fancies of each other with temper, and many a joyous moment have we passed together amidst the patter of bullets, the bursting of shells, and the accompaniments of noise, dust, and smoke.

I hope, dear friends, that the same hearty and charitable spirit will actuate you wherever and whenever you may meet again. Your gallantry maintained the British character for courage, devotion, and endurance: may God grant that the hopeful smiles, which cheered you in the hour of want and peril, may illumine your hearts and smooth your course to the end of life.

The following rhymes, written in pencil on the walls

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of the stairs, were suggested by the sentiments breathed by those young spirits, and, very indifferent as they are, I bequeath them to the public as the only fruit of idleness which I have preserved.

All honour to those,

Who, encompassed by foes,

Grew stronger in courage and might:

All honour to them,

Who, like brave Englishmen,

Are ready, aye ready, to fight!

All hail to the dead,

Who by treachery fled

From husbands, from parents, from friends.

There are brave hearts still here

Who your memory revere,

And will trample the heads of the fiends!

You wretches without,

Who go sneaking about,

A terror to none but the weak,

Beware of the wrath

Which your acts have brought forth –

‘Tis the vengeance of Britons you seek!

Think not that your babes

Shall redden our blades,

Or their mothers have reason to care;

For an Englishman’s pride –

It is known far and wide –

Is the innocent always to spare.

The aged he’ll respect,

And the feeble protect,

And the simple he’ll pass them with scorn;

But the vicious – ah! they

Shall remember the day

That an Englishman’s vengeance was born.

Footnotes

3. One hundred pounds.

4. I do not remember the good creature’s name.

5. A low caste of natives in Oudh, who are expert bowmen, and incorrigible rogues.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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