Part 7

Off we set as fast as our horses could carry us. It was late in the evening when we arrived; Sandeman going straight to our lines to turn out our men, while I went to the Fort and obtained an interview with Sir John Inglis.

He was at first apparently disinclined to let so young an officer take a detachment at night so far from support into the wilds; but at last he listened to my arguments, and after impressing on me that I was to act under the orders of Colonel Macdonell, allowed me to go.

When I got to the lines I found the men already mounted and "told off," and fresh horses ready for Sandeman and myself: so that we got under way at once. After crossing the bridge of boats we struck across country in a slanting direction to the left of the road. Night had fallen, but we had the advantage of a certain amount of moonlight, and were able to move pretty rapidly. When we arrived at the rendezvous there were no signs of Colonel Macdonell or his rifles; but a letter from him was put into my hands by a native messenger, who said that the Colonel, after starting from Unao, had gone back there on hearing that at nightfall the rebels had raised the siege of the village, and had retired to another some miles away. This after our long journey to Cawnpore and back was a terrible disappointment.

Possibly, however, the Colonel might have thought it undesirable to follow the enemy so great a distance with infantry, and might wish me to do so with my troop. The thought no sooner struck me than its "sweet reasonableness" began to grow on me; and I had very soon persuaded myself that the yet unopened missive contained instructions which chimed with my wishes. Unfortunately, however, it was too dark to read the letter without a light, and I had no matches! Neither, very curiously, had Sandeman! At any rate, we did not find any in our pockets: so we held a short council of war; and decided that in the absence of instructions, we felt it our duty to proceed to the lately beleaguered village, and learn all we could about the movements of the enemy. We took the messenger with us as a guide, and in another hour had reached our destination.

The brave defenders were delighted to see us; but they informed us that the rebels had not gone far, and would certainly return in the morning; and they implored us not to leave them to their fate.

On inquiring how many fighting men they could muster, we found that they could turn out about a hundred muskets and matchlocks of sorts. I then asked them what they thought was the strength of the enemy. About five or six hundred they said. Allowing for Oriental exaggeration, we guessed that two hundred and fifty or three hundred would probably be nearer the mark; so I asked them if they were game to accompany us and beat up their late assailants, whom we would certainly find quite unprepared for our midnight visit. With the greatest alacrity they agreed: so, without loss of time, I made my dispositions, and formed up my little army in the order which it was to keep till the moment of attack. In the centre I managed with some difficulty to get the police and the armed villagers to arrange themselves in a line, impressing on them that if they could keep that formation till we came in contact with the enemy, they would certainly be mistaken for a company of the dreaded _gora logue_ (white troops), which would be a heavy score in our favour. My own party I divided into two bodies of 25 sabres each and placed one on each flank, giving the command of the left to Lieutenant Sandeman and of the right to a native officer, till the moment of the charge, when I proposed to lead it. I then explained the plan of attack, and took very good care that every man of my motley allies thoroughly understood it, and appreciated the extreme necessity of adhering to it. A guide was placed in front of the centre of the line, where I took up my position; and he was ordered to lead me straight to the camp of the rebels, who, we were assured, would be found "en bivouac" close to a village about three miles away. The very strictest silence was enjoined on all. As my object was to surprise the enemy and fall on him without giving him the slightest hint of our approach, I did not send forward a single scout. The line was to advance quietly and steadily, till I should give a loud "Hurrah," which was to be the signal for the police and village heroes to "loose off" every musket they had, and to yell with all their lungs, when the cavalry from both flanks would charge, also with a shout.

If all that did not freeze the marrow in the bones of a lot of sleepy Pandies, I flattered myself nothing would!

So we moved off over the fields--the soft earth muffling all sound--my improvised infantry keeping a really wonderful line--and all as eager as panthers.

In an hour or so the guide whispered to me that we were close on our quarry, but nothing was to be seen. The night, though not pitch-dark, was sufficiently so to obscure all objects beyond thirty or forty yards. Most fortunately a belt of trees was now behind us, which must have effectually prevented us from being seen from our front. Suddenly I became aware of the _silhouette_ of a man's figure against the sky of the horizon before me, slowly moving, apparently along the top of a low wall. Almost at the same instant from the dim figure came a loud challenge:--"Hookumdar!" He must have been startled by some sound, for he could not have seen us.

I held my breath, for I feared that my villagers might get excited, and spoil my plans by beginning to fire; but they behaved admirably and crept steadily on. Now we were within forty yards of the sentry. "Hookumdar!" he shouted again. For a few yards more we crouched forward, when the sentry, now thoroughly alarmed, once more roared "Hookumdar," and fired his musket. Now was the moment! I gave the signal "Hurrah" as loud as my lungs would let me, and galloped off to my squad of sowars, while the line of villagers simultaneously let off all their fire-arms, and burst into an uproar of wild yells to which the worst efforts of a pack of mad jackals would have been a feeble joke.

A few seconds covered the ground between us and the rebel bivouac, and brought us up to a shallow ditch and a low wall, which, though they brought down one or two of our horses, did not for a moment check the furious charge. So complete was the surprise and so utterly unprepared for, that beyond a few scattered musket shots fired off harmlessly in panic, not the very slightest effort at a stand was made. The wretched Pandies as they jumped up, half dazed with sleep, from the ground and off the charpoys on which they had been lying, must have been utterly bewildered by the fiendish yells and the roar of musketry which for many of them was their last "reveille;" and they fled helter-skelter in all directions into the fields, pursued and mercilessly slain by the Sikh horsemen, whose scanty numbers their fears must have magnified a hundredfold. Some were actually sabred on the ground before they were well awake. Others were caught before they had got a dozen yards away; and in a few minutes the surrounding fields were covered with the bodies of many more; while the lucky survivors, favoured by the darkness, made off at best speed to unknown and distant parts, and doubtless had a gruesome tale to unfold when at last they reached some safe asylum, as to how they had escaped by the favour of God and by the skin of their teeth, after performing prodigies of unavailing valour, from a midnight attack by the whole British army.

The darkness made it inadvisable to push the pursuit very far, more especially as the defeat of the rebels was so decisive that there was practically no danger of their recovering from it and making any effort to rally, and it was very certain that they would not for some time trust themselves in our part of the country, far less attempt to renew the attack on the police outpost. So I re-assembled the troop, and was happy to find that beyond a few trifling scratches we had incurred no casualties whatever.

We now contrived to read Colonel Macdonell's letter, and found that its contents were not exactly what we had persuaded ourselves they might be. The Colonel had in fact desired me to return to camp at Cawnpore, since the voluntary retirement of the besiegers from the threatened village had put an end to the object of our expedition. However, to use a homely phrase, there is no help for spilt milk. What we had done could not be undone, so we decided to finish the job in a workmanlike manner. To this end we collected in heaps such property as had been abandoned by the enemy, and made bonfires of it. We also destroyed by fire the neighbouring fortified village which had harboured them, and which it was most fortunate they were not occupying when we arrived on the scene; for it stood on high ground, and we should have found it a hard nut to crack. It was delightful to witness the exuberant joy and vainglorious excitement of our valiant matchlockmen; and we all marched back in the best of spirits to their home, now released from danger; where we left them to enjoy the congratulations of their womenfolk, while we continued our journey back to Cawnpore--a journey which turned out to be not entirely without adventure.

We had, of course, secured a guide; and for some few miles we marched quietly on, when, judging that we could easily find our way to the bridge over the river by the position of the moon and stars, Sandeman and I, taking an orderly with us, left the party to follow leisurely while we trotted on, for I was anxious to report our success to Sir John Inglis as speedily as possible; but we had not gone more than a mile or two when the sky became so thickly overcast with clouds that not only was the darkness intensified, but our beacons were lost to view. We had to fall into a walk, and very cautiously did we move; for if we did unfortunately lose the proper direction there was no certainty that we might not fall in with a stray camp of the enemy, who at that time infested the district.

Presently we came in sight of a number of twinkling lights, and held a debate as to whether we should make for them or not. We decided, however, that it would be prudent to avoid them, so we moved on in the opposite direction; and after a while came across a small hamlet, the watchful dogs of which all commenced to bark in chorus. Into the village we trotted at a smart pace, and finding a man asleep on a "charpoy" outside his hut, we roused him up, and started him at a run out of the place and into the open fields almost before he had time to wake. We then explained matters to him and offered him a reward if he conducted us safely to the bridge, with the alternative of something quite different if he led us into any trap.

We found that we had, after all, come pretty straight, and were within a mile or two of the river. At the bridge we dismissed our guide with the promised reward; and as dawn was now breaking I went on to the Fort and sought the General's quarters, not without trepidation; for now that cool reflection had time to sit in judgment on hot impulse, I was not quite certain in what light our proceedings would strike that redoubtable officer, and what measure of allowance he would make for the rather lame excuse which I had to offer for not having obeyed Colonel Macdonell's instructions. I began to have grave doubts as to whether he would swallow the match story; and I heartily wished the interview well over.

Sir John gravely listened to my report and then proceeded to administer a "wigging" which took all the conceit out of me, and made me wish that I had passed the previous night quietly in my bed instead of in hunting rebels in the jungle. My twitching face must have betrayed the acuteness of my pain, for the kind old General, laying his hand on my shoulder, went on to say something to the following effect:--"Don't be too much upset about this. As your General I was bound to rebuke you; for if by any chance you had failed instead of succeeded--if your party had lost many lives and had been repulsed into the bargain--you would have got into serious trouble. As things have turned out all has gone well, and you have read these Pandies an excellent lesson; and, in fact, I am not really at heart displeased with you. Perhaps I may find you another job some day soon."

If a condemned criminal were reprieved at the scaffold, and were presented with a handsome fortune into the bargain, his feelings would be like mine at that moment.

The promised job turned up not very long afterwards.

I was directed to take my troop to a point on the river several miles above Cawnpore, and to establish a series of picquets along its course for the purpose of frustrating any attempt on the part of the rebels to cross it. To assist me in this duty a considerable body of newly-raised semi-military police was placed at my disposal, and I was told that I could thoroughly rely on their fidelity. As the length of front which I had to guard stretched for many miles, it was clear that my fifty sabres could do little in the way of furnishing picquets. I therefore made the following dispositions. At favourable points along the river I established a chain of small police posts, of about ten men, each under a non-commissioned officer. Further inland, on the lines of radii leading to my own position, I placed three parties of my own men, each consisting of a duffadar and three sowars.

The rest of the detachment I kept together at a central point a mile or two from the river. The duties of the police posts were to keep an incessant and vigilant look-out, and to patrol the banks, keeping touch with each other. In the event of any suspicious movements being observed on the opposite side of the river, or of any attempt to cross it anywhere, they were at once to communicate with the nearest of my connecting links, who would forward the information to me; and I should thus be always able to move the main body of my detachment promptly to any threatened point. Sandeman and I took it in turns to visit the whole of the picquets--a duty which entailed a ride of between twenty and thirty miles. Having made these arrangements I felt quite easy in my mind, and waited on events. For some time, however, no attempt at evading our vigilance was made.

One morning I was informed that the day was a sort of religious festival, on which a certain rebel Raja, whose territory was on the other side of the river, was accustomed to come with a considerable following to the bank for the purpose of bathing in State; so Sandeman and I betook ourselves to the police post opposite which the "tamasha" was expected to take place. At that point the river was over a thousand yards wide, far beyond the range of any weapons possessed by us, with the exception of a double-barrelled Lancaster oval smoothbore of my own, whose powers I proposed to try if I got the chance. I then procured a couple of "charpoys," and sat upon one while I rigged the other up in front of it, placing it upright on one of its sides in such a manner as to afford an excellent and steady rest for my rifle. Presently a couple of elephants with howdahs on their backs, and surrounded by the usual rag-tag and bobtail which in those days was inseparable from a native magnate, emerged from some trees on the other side of the river, and slowly moved down to it with much waving of "chowries" and beating of "tom-toms."

While the elephants were splashing in the water I drew a bead on the biggest of them, and fired. The bullet sped through the air. Whether it hit the elephant or not I cannot say; but the effect of its arrival on the hitherto festive scene was quite ludicrous. With one accord did both elephants and their attendants turn tail and scamper out of the water, and up the bank into the shelter of the trees, followed by a messenger from the other barrel, which I despatched to hasten their movements. The angry Raja now replied to my insults with half-a-dozen matchlock bullets, which fell harmlessly into the water about half way across; but he did not venture to resume his interrupted bath, and very soon departed _re infecta_.

After he had gone I observed a couple of large "country" boats lying under the opposite bank, and offered a reward to some villagers if they would go across and get them, while I promised to drive off with the rifle, whose wonderful range they had just witnessed, any assailants who might try to interfere with them. A few manjees (boatmen) volunteered for the job, and, by wading in shallow parts and swimming in deeper ones, soon succeeded in crossing the river, each of them taking with him a long bamboo pole. They took possession of the boats without being molested, and had got them half way across to our side when a few matchlock men appeared, running along beside the river and firing at them. A couple of shots from the Lancaster, however, very quickly persuaded them to take themselves out of its reach; and the boats were at length safely moored under the protection of the police picquet.

It was not often that anything of interest happened, and the days sometimes passed rather monotonously. On such occasions we would occasionally beguile the time by getting one or other of the native officers or men to relate their adventures when fighting against "the Sirkar," which many of them had done at Moodkee, Chillianwalla, Sobraon, and many another famous field, when the brave troops of the Khalsa covered themselves with glory, and earned from their British antagonists the respect which all soldiers entertain for "foemen worthy of their steel."

One of the stories we thus heard fixed itself on my memory, and I will endeavour to reproduce it. The narrator, a fine sturdy old Sikh gentleman, had been persuaded to divulge the history of each of the honourable scars which adorned his body, with the exception of one which crossed the bridge of his nose, and rather spoiled its symmetry. On my asking him whether that wound also was a memento of war, he replied:--"Ah, Sahib! I cannot tell you that story. You would be angry with me." "Angry with you," I said, "why should I be angry if, as I suppose, you got the wound in honest fight against us? Even if you killed the man who inflicted it, that was his luck. What is it to me? Come! Tell us all about it." "Very well, Sahib, if you wish it and will promise not to think the worse of me, I will tell you. This is how it was. You have heard of the great battle at Chillianwalla, and you know how fierce it was, and how stoutly the Sikhs of the Khalsa fought that day. The Sirkar Angrez[6] claims the victory; but believe me, Sahib, we won that fight. Did not the Jungie Lat Sahib[7] retire from the field after the battle? Did not we capture four of your guns and the standards of three of your regiments? Did not our horsemen overthrow the Gora regiment and the Hindustani risala? Forgive me, Sahib; but that is true; and if Shere Singh had, next day, pushed his advantage, and had boldly attacked the shaken troops of the Sirkar, he must have driven them clean out of the Punjab. At that time I was--as I am now--a Sirdar; and commanded a tolee[8] of infantry of my own people. At a certain moment of the battle we found ourselves opposed at close quarters to a British battalion, which the fury of our fire had temporarily checked: but if they hesitated, so did we. In vain did I call on my men to throw away their muskets, and rush, sword in hand, to the attack. Neither line dared advance; and neither would retire; and there we knelt--for a dreadful minute or two--pouring a frightful hail of fire into each other at less than a hundred yards. Both sides were actually melting away under it. Such fearful stress could not possibly last. One or other line was certain to give way. Whichever had the courage to rush forward first was sure to win. Frantic were the efforts of the officers of the Gora logue to urge on their men; but in vain. Nothing could get them to move. Suddenly a young officer--so young--he was but a smoothfaced, rosy-cheeked 'butcha'[9]--got beside himself with excitement, and waving over his head his foolish little 'Regulation' blade, and shouting 'Hurrah!' 'Hurrah!' he sprang forward quite alone, and flew at me like a madman; and almost before I could see what he was doing, smote me across the face. Poor boy! What could I do! If I had not protected myself he would have run me through the body with his thin spit of a sword. So I had to smite with my keen tulwar, and smite hard. Next moment the Gora logue were upon us, roaring like tigers, and we were swept away before them. I remember the rush, the clash of steel, and then nothing more. I became _behosh_.[10] When I recovered my senses I found my head bleeding, and a great lump on the top of it; but no other wound except the cut on my nose. I suppose I must have been knocked down by a clubbed musket. Night had fallen, and the field was deserted except by the dead and dying, and by gangs of plunderers. I stumbled along for a _kos_ or two, helped by some of our own people whom I met on the way; and then I found myself once more in safety in the camp of Shere Singh. You are not angry, Sahib! What could I do? That boy would have killed me. Every one must protect his own life."

Thus, with mingled grief and pride, did we listen to the story of how "somebody's darling" had died for his country's honour.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] English Government.

[7] Commander-in-Chief.

[8] Squad.

[9] Youngster.

[10] Senseless.

VII. DILKHOOSHA.