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Chapter 16

Sir James Outram at the Alum Bagh – Great rejoicing at the departure of the Heroes of Lucknow – An Army of Donkies led into danger by a King of Monkeys – Sir Colin Campbell’s host – Journey from Calcutta with a gentle jeweller and a cunning gold digger – The great William Howard Russell and his wicked mare – Sir Hugh Rose did well – Siege of Lucknow – Ordered to be shot for going over to the enemy – A dangerous development disliked by Adrian Hope – Sir James Outram across the river – The Martinière captured – The gallant Anson – Jang Bahadur and his odoriferous Goorkhas – Begum’s Palace captured – Captain Macbean’s eleven heads – A terrible storm in the Kaisarbagh – My good guide Kunoujee Lal

When the garrison was withdrawn from Lucknow, it was proposed to abandon the province of Oudh for the present; but, at the earnest request of Sir James Outram, he was allowed to brave, on a plain outside the Alum Bagh, the whole of the insurgent army – nearly tenfold greater than his own. It was a bold venture, for the country all round was supposed to be hostile, and he had a communication of nearly fifty miles to preserve with Kanhpur.

The enemy for a while spent time in rejoicing at the forcible ejection of the Residency defenders, for no one dared say we had defeated and out-manoeuvred them for fear of being killed as a liar and a coward. Many took home their plunder and their boastful tongues to excite the avarice and martial ardour of their benighted

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neighbours, who saluted the braggarts as I would have bowed to our greatest captain. In the city the notes and noises of revelry resounded in the mansions of the mighty men of a little Court; and the common soldier, and professed vagabond, impudently vaunted his valour, and overawed the humble citizens by his ferocity. Monster processions fearlessly marched up and down the broadest streets, filling the air with brazen sounds and the roll of great and little drums, and noisy chants that sent the English to perdition and exalted themselves to paradise. Generals and nobles went out, with great glasses, to look derisively at the heroic little force which was to be exterminated on the conclusion of the feats of victory; and rode home again to curb the fiery spirit of their followers, who could scarce brook the delay, so forward had they grown out of danger.

Sir James Outram calmly waited for the onslaught, caring very little how, or when it came. His troops settled in canvas homes, and enjoyed the fine English sports of quoits, racing, cricketting and betting, hoping that the fun would be increased in the morning by a general action. At last the rejoicings were over – the enemy came out – looked – and went back again, bearing a few imprudent men home on litters. The same thing was performed, with trifling variations, till the enemy, prompted by the Gods, hit upon an expedient which had been successful, before the Christian Era, in the cause of King Rama, of Ajoodia, in Oudh. The sovereign of Ceylon – so old are the triumphs of beauty 1 – smitten by the charms of Queen Seeta, forcibly carried her from the house of Rama, who was driven from his kingdom. His efforts to recover the lovely Seeta were unsuccessful, till he invoked the aid of

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the monkeys, who, under their leader Hunooman, built a bridge over the ocean, across which the avenging army passed into the ravisher’s citadel, and recovered the sorrowing damsel.

Now no one in Oudh is impious enough to doubt Rama, Sects, or the Bridge across the Ocean; and although Monkies have degenerated to monkeys, Hunooman is a fact, and Hunooman may be personified. The martial host of Oudh, on a fine morning, covered the plain and threatened to encircle the camp of the impudent foreigner; and, if the British General had not been previously informed of the artifice, he might have been surprised to see Hunooman, after a lapse of twenty centuries, again at the head of an avenging army. There he was, tail and all, waving a sword far in advance of his force; which, happening to be composed of reasonable beings, did not advance too far, and before long Hunooman disclosed his humanity by lying down to die, and his followers their discretion by leaving him alone to do it.

Sir Colin Campbell, meanwhile, had dissipated the Gwalior army, and swept the miscreants of Furruckabad from the town polluted by innocent blood. Men and material were gathered at Kanhpur for the complete capture of Lucknow, and the re-occupation of the province of Oudh; and the public impatiently waited for the advance of the Commander-in-Chief, who at last started – with twenty thousand troops, forty thousand followers, and fourteen miles of baggage

The Government having dismissed me from the Service after the relief of Lucknow, I was at liberty to follow my own inclinations, and I chose to rejoin Sir Colin Campbell. I was anxious to share in the capture

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of a city which the courage and devotion of my comrades had rendered famous, and I hoped to be useful again during the progress of the army through the narrow streets and the numerous handsome palaces of Lucknow. I travelled up from Calcutta with a gentleman whose jewels were going to the Governor-General, at Allahabad, to bedizen the faithful; and with another who was proceeding, hot haste, to Bithur to lead a forlorn hope to forty million pounds sterling, concealed by the progenitors of the Nana. Whether the men who wear the jewels were faithful, or whether the earth surrendered its enormous riches, I have not heard. At Kanhpur I learnt that the army had been two days gone; and, without waiting for servants or baggage, I started in the company of Captain Trevor Wheler, of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, who was the owner of a poor little nag which we could easily have carried between us. He alternately carried us; and, as the night was dark, the road dangerous, and we alone, he had little rest till we overtook a detachment of the Rifle Brigade, under the command of Captain Thynne, a handsome and gallant gentleman who was afterwards killed. As we neared our resting place for the night, Colonel Macpherson, Quarter Master General of the Army, mounted on a dromedary, went jogging and jingling by, hastening to join his Chief, who took care to have the best of officers with him.

The following morning we reached the army, and as I passed the tent of the lively, clever, and enterprising Captain Patrick Stewart, he invited me in, and introduced me to a gentleman whose portly form was encased in a semi-military suit, and his smiling face shaded by a wide-awake suitable for the crown of a Special Correspondent.

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I stood before the renowned man, unawed by his look, which would not have frightened a child, and unabashed by his erudition, which was familiarly employed to provoke good humour. I, so humble and so small an individual, actually grasped the hand which had sent tingling, to the hearts of Englishmen, the griefs, the joys, and the triumphs of the Crimean Army; whose pen had made and unmade, and who was now present to record the deeds of the dwellers in the canvas houses spread drenching around us. The dark .heavy clouds that had screened us from the sun during our march, had just let go their contents, and the whole camp was soon afloat.

Mr. William Howard Russell, LL.D., is a very wicked man, for the very next morning he let me mount a mare which had pitched him, all against his will, to the bottom of a great trench, and nearly buried him for good. The beast was unmanageable, and would not walk excepting when she chose, and then the motion was like a lively strathspey. After passing the camp of Sir James Outram, I turned her head back to go there, and it was only by the intervention of Providence that I was not carried over to the enemy, who watched me from their cover a mile off. She was brought to a stand only by running her against one of the redoubts constructed for the security of the outposts by Sir James Outram. Never ride the horse of a Commander-in-Chief, or the mare of a Special Correspondent of The Times.

While the drama was being enacted our side of India, Sir Hugh Rose, with singular dash and daring, had made prodigious marches, indifferently supplied by everything but courage and endurance. With signal

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success he proceeded, under a scorching sun, through central India, pursuing the enemy to their strongholds, and forcing them one after the other in spite of numbers and obstinacy. He always overtook an enemy to chastise him, and when the history of his campaign is condensed, it will bear comparison with the best of the operations for the suppression of mutiny and rebellion.

When the Residency was abandoned I was decked in, a red tunic, stitched by a lady of the garrison; French-grey breeches, once worn by a noble fellow lying in the ruined churchyard; a felt helmet, belonging to the Commander-in-Chief; and coarse jack boots. Now I presented myself to His Excellency in the handsome uniform of the Calcutta Volunteer Cavalry Guards, which I joined after the volunteers had given up all hope of an insurrection. Sir Colin smiled at the well-dressed trooper as he bent before him in shining cavalry boots, reflecting everything but the wearer’s conceit. He was as strong, hardy, and determined as before, but now possessed an army which could have gone, without its baggage, all the way to the Caspian. The eye far south encountered tents, carts, and cattle, lodged on hills and in dales, which sent clouds of dust to choke the swarming scarlet host, who impatiently waited for the famed army of Goorkhas to participate in the assault.

The force was at last put in motion, and the enemy learnt what it was to be behind defences that let in showers of shot and shell, and let out themselves. Mounted on a great chestnut horse I inspected the rifle pits of the insurgents, and ventured so close, that by a miracle I escaped from their malice nearly to be deliberately shot as a deserter by order of an English

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officer. This happened on our left, and I next rode across the river on our right to “develop” the fire of the enemy, who lay hid in high fields. I slowly rode down their front, accepting every bullet, to the annoyance of Brigadier Adrian Hope, who expected to be forced to expose his men to -fetch in my body. I had joined the army to be useful, and gratuitously ventured to feel the enemy in a direction Sir James Outram was to go the following morning. I may here remind the reader that I am a civilian; and, being under no military control, could almost go wherever I liked. No other civilian, however, would perhaps have been suffered to do so much, and I have to thank my military friends for the good humour with which they viewed my forwardness, and accepted my services.

Sir James crossed the Gumti by a pontoon bridge; manoeuvred to the village of Chinut; and drove the enemy back to their lines, where the 2nd Dragoon Guards imprudently followed, and dropped their intrepid leader, Major Percy Smith. I remained with Sir James, acting as his aide-de-camp, till the close of the engagement, when Captain Oliver Jones17 and myself rode back to the Head Quarters with an escort. At the request of Sir Colin I went in the night with the heavy guns, after resting for a couple of hours on the damp banks of the river, wrapped up in the cloak of Colonel Riddell, R.A. I returned alone in the afternoon with a note from Sir James to the Chief, riding in a straight line between the two camps, past the defences of the enemy, who yelled and sent a few shots after me. As

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I crossed the pontoon bridge the Highlanders were rushing upon the enemy in the Martinière, and I only reached them in time to see Brigadier Adrian Hope withdraw his Highlanders from the park, through which shot and grape poured from the high defences lining the opposite bank of the canal.

Early in the morning I again joined the force across the Gumti as it formed up in the bed of a stream, and followed the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, and 79th Highlanders, who impetuously pursued the insurgents with deadly effect, and pressed forward, in the general advance along the left bank of the river, through villages, gardens, and standing crops, till Sir James stopped at the Badshah-i-Bagh, and turned his artillery upon the extensive and massive fortifications covering the Palaces. I had often before noticed the hardihood of the Hon. Captain Anson, on the staff of Brigadier Sir Hope Grant, but this day, as he fearlessly rode through woods and lanes, far in advance of the skirmishers, I trembled for his safety. He is an excellent swordsman, and cared very little for numbers as he pushed through them, followed by Captain Moorsom, on the staff of Sir James Outram – a kindred spirit whose ardent and intelligent soul left us soon after18. At the close of the day’s proceedings I returned to the camp of the Commander-in-Chief, fatigued, and glad to repose awhile away from the din of war.

At last Jang Bahadur, G.C.B., arrived, with the famed and stinking army of Goorkhas, to co-operate in the assault: they were preceded by the reputation of

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their wondrous deeds. Sir Colin saw them – embraced the renowned Hill Chief – the Scotch pipers rejoiced at the meeting – British and Nepaulese guns roared the glad tidings abroad – and, the giant Hope Johnson suddenly heightened the effect, by stepping hot and excited through the crowd to announce the capture of the Begum’s Palace. The enemy, cut off from retreat, met with the fate of the defenders of the Sikandarbagh, and more than five hundred burning and mangled bodies covered the area, through which Colonel Leith Hay, of the 93rd Highalnders, and Captain F. Middleton, on the staff of Sir Edward Lugard, carried spears dripping with blood. I hastened to the Palace, where the fight was finishing in a corner house, close to which Captain Macbean, of the 93rd, had just lopped off eleven heads, as they turned their eyes to look for him. He declared “ he did na mean to hurt ‘em I” and, under his muscular arm, they must indeed have died without pain. A regiment of Goorkhas was pushed up to join in the assault, but they only took part in the plunder, to the disgust of the Highlanders, some of whom endeavoured to quicken their movements by threatening to shoot them.

Lord Clyde now occupied the whole of the outer line of defences, which the enemy had constructed, at great trouble and expense, with the avowed intention of defending them – if possible. Sir James Outram and Lord Clyde, in concert, day and night bombarded the intervening squares and the Kaisarbagh, and poured such a storm of shot and shell upon them that many deserted to the west end of the city, where the citizens were already sufficiently alarmed by the mere noise of the cannonading. The plan of the Commander-in-Chief was to drive the enemy from each position by his artillery,

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and assault only when the guns failed to disturb them. The army of Jang Bahadur, was allowed to stay on the left, where the Goorkhas supposed they had the post of honour, because the enemy almost let them alone, and they picked up a few abandoned guns and bundles of old rags. These conceited little creatures went on duty with very great pomp, and left it, strongly scented, with very great joy. They beat more drums and blew more trumpets in their camp than Lord Clyde did in his; and boasted to each other that they were doing all the work.

My good guide, Kunoujee Lal, was employed again in the intelligence department; and the plans in the hands of the Chief of the defences of the enemy, were prepared on information brought out by him after visiting the several places. He had remained with Sir James Outram at the Alum Bagh, and, before the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell, repeatedly visited the enemy as a spy. He was most useful, and, there can be no harm in repeating that – he was badly rewarded.

Footnotes

17. This gallant naval officer went to India to witness the glorious exertions of his countrymen to extinguish the flames of the Mutiny; and he was always prominent, as a volunteer, whenever they were engaged with the enemy, who wounded him once in a hand-to-hand encounter.

18. Captain Moorsom accompanied Havelock’s force for the relief of Lucknow, and his knowledge of the city, and daring spirit, made him one of the best officers with it.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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