CHAPTER XIII.
INDIA.--THREE BRAVE CIVILIANS: MANGLES, MCDONELL, AND “LUCKNOW” KAVANAGH.
On the 8th of July 1859 an interesting announcement appeared in the _London Gazette_ to the effect that her Majesty the Queen had been pleased to declare that Non-Military Persons who, as Volunteers, had borne arms against the Mutineers, both at Lucknow and elsewhere, during the late operations in India, should be considered as eligible to receive the decoration of the Victoria Cross, subject to the rules and ordinances, etc. etc.
Under this new clause Mr. Ross Lowis Mangles, of the Bengal Civil Service, Assistant-Magistrate at Patna; Mr. William Fraser McDonell, Magistrate of the Saran District; and Mr. Thomas Henry Kavanagh, Assistant-Commissioner in Oudh, were gazetted, for distinguished services rendered at Arrah and Lucknow.
The defence of Arrah, a town in the Shahabad District of Bengal, about thirty-six miles from Patna, was one of the most thrilling incidents of the Indian Mutiny. Here for a whole week a dozen Englishmen and a small body of Sikhs, shut up in a two-storeyed house, successfully kept off over two thousand sepoys until a relief force came to their rescue. One young lieutenant of the Southern Mahratta Irregular Horse, with a few sowars at his back, might storm a seemingly impregnable fort strongly garrisoned by mutineers, and kill or capture every man of them, but reverse the positions and a very different story was told. The history of the Great Mutiny contains many instances of a mere handful of Englishmen holding their own against tremendous odds, as was done at Arrah.
When news came of the outbreak at Arrah and the predicament of the white residents there, a relief expedition was hastily organised at Dinapur under the command of Captain Dunbar. It was destined to fail in its mission, but it was a gallant and notable attempt. The force comprised four hundred men, drawn from the 10th and 37th Regiments, with a sprinkling of volunteers. Among the latter were Messrs. Ross Mangles and McDonell, whose intimate knowledge of the district made them invaluable as guides.
All went well with the expedition in its journey up the Ganges and, on landing, it marched several miles without serious molestation. But when within a few miles of Arrah it was obliged to pass through a thick piece of jungle in which the sepoys had laid an ambuscade. Darkness had fallen as the soldiers pushed their way through the maze of trees and dense undergrowth, and the murderous fire that suddenly broke out threw them into confusion.
All through the night the unequal fight went on, but the loss on the British side was so heavy that when morning dawned the surviving officers saw it would be impossible, or at least unwise, to continue the advance. Captain Dunbar, unfortunately, had been among the first to fall. Very reluctantly, therefore, the order to retreat was given, and the little force, still firing on its foes, slowly fell back. Other sepoys had arrived on the scene in the meantime, and the exhausted soldiers now found themselves compelled to run the gauntlet between two lines of fire. In these conditions something like a panic at last set in; the ranks broke up in disorder.
“But, disastrous as was the retreat,” says one account, “it was not all disgraceful. There will always be acts of individual heroism when Englishmen go out to battle. It may be a soldier or it may be a civilian, in whom the irrepressible warrior instinct manifests itself in some act of conspicuous gallantry and devotion, but it is sure never to be wanting.”
In this instance it was the civilian who rose to the occasion. Early in the engagement Mr. Mangles had been hit by a musket ball, but the shot had luckily only stunned him. Quickly recovering, he lent a hand in helping the wounded, and on the retreat commencing he played an active part in beating off the sepoys. With a number of men round him to reload and supply him with muskets, he shot sepoy after sepoy, the sure eye and hand which had made him a noted tiger shot not failing him in this hour of need.
The especial act for which he was awarded the Cross, however, was the gallant rescue of a wounded private of the Hampshires (the 37th Foot). At the man’s piteous appeal to his comrades not to leave him there helpless to be hacked to pieces by the sepoys, Mangles nobly rushed to his side, bound up his wounds, and then lifted him on to his back. With this heavy burden the brave civilian trudged on among the others.
It was rough going for the greater part of the six miles to the river, the ground being very swampy, and overhead was a broiling July sun. Despite these disadvantages, and the fact that he had not slept for forty-eight hours, Mangles bore the helpless private the whole of the way, only stopping now and then to place his charge on the ground and take a pot-shot at the pursuing rebels. “I really never felt so strong in my life,” he used to say afterwards in referring to this incident. When the waters of the Ganges were reached he plunged in and swam out to the boats with his now unconscious burden. Then, when all the survivors were aboard, the flotilla started on its sad return journey.
Mr. McDonell all this time had been ever to the front, assisting the officers to keep the men together. An excellent shot, like his fellow-magistrate, he accounted for many a rebel ere the river-side was reached, but he did not escape unscathed. A musket shot had lodged in his arm.
In the wild rush for the half-dozen country boats moored close to the river bank, McDonell gave no thought to himself. There were several men very badly hit, and it was not until he had seen these safely over the thwarts that he jumped in and cast the mooring adrift. He was the last man aboard his boat, which was crowded with thirty-five soldiers.
Out into the stream they floated, but now a fresh danger faced them. The rebels had removed the oars from the boat and lashed the rudder tightly, so that the little craft was helpless. To their horror it began to drift back again to the southern bank, on which the sepoys were clustered in joyful expectation of emptying their muskets into the boatload of sahibs. Something had to be done at once, or they were doomed.
To show his face above the gunwale was to court instant death, but McDonell took the risk. With a knife in his hand, he climbed outside on to the canvas roof, worked his way to the stern and with a few deft slashes cut the ropes that held the tiller fast. Bullets pattered all round him as he lay outstretched there, and one passed clean through his helmet, but he was otherwise untouched. Having regained his seat safely, he steered the boat and its precious freight to the opposite bank, where they landed--three men short. The sepoys’ fire had not been all in vain.
While, as I have said, both Mangles and McDonell received the V.C. for their bravery on this occasion, it is a remarkable fact that the former’s exploit would have passed unnoticed by the authorities but for a happy chance. The private whose life he had saved and who had passed some months in Dinapur Hospital before being invalided home, had told the story of his rescue to a surgeon. This worthy noted it down at the time in his journal, and just twelve months later made the true facts public.
It was only in March of last year that Mr. Ross Lowis Mangles died at his home in Surrey, where, after long service in India, he had settled down to spend the remaining years of his life.
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Of the three civilians who have won the V.C. “Lucknow” Kavanagh is the most famous. The story of his daring journey in disguise through the rebel lines in order to act as guide to Sir Colin Campbell’s relief force has been told over and over again, but one can never tire of hearing it. It thrills our pulses now as much as ever it did.
Thomas Henry Kavanagh was an Irishman in the Indian Civil Service. At the time the Mutiny broke out he held the post of Superintendent of the office of the Chief Commissioner of Oudh, and took up his residence in Lucknow. Here with his wife he played no mean part in these fateful months before and after Havelock and Outram had fought their way to the aid of the Residency garrison, taking his share of work in the trenches or at the guns as required.
Early in November 1857, Sir Colin Campbell, marching with a large army to the relief of Lucknow, got as far as the Alumbagh. To save the General from having to make the perilous passage through the narrow streets and lanes which had cost him so many men two months earlier, Outram by means of a native spy sent plans of the city and its approaches to Campbell, and suggested the best route to be followed. There was still the danger, however, of some dreadful blunder being committed, and Outram expressed a wish that he were able to send a competent guide.
This coming to Kavanagh’s ears, he promptly went to Outram’s Chief of Staff, Colonel Robert Napier,[2] and volunteered his services in this capacity. The colonel stared at him in blank astonishment, as well he might, for of all men in Lucknow Kavanagh looked to be the one least suited to play the rôle of spy. He was a tall, big-limbed man, with fair complexion, “aggressively red hair and beard, and uncompromisingly blue eyes.” To transform this healthy specimen of an Irishman into a native seemed an utter impossibility.
But Kavanagh persisted that he could get through to the British lines. He would be disguised, of course and his knowledge of Hindustani and local dialects was perfect. He persisted more strenuously still when, on his being ushered into Outram’s presence, the General refused point blank to consent to his going. After much arguing, he at length persuaded Outram to listen to his plan, and extorted a half-hearted permission to make the attempt. It remained for him to convince his chief of the impenetrability of his disguise.
Kavanagh has told us in his own account of the adventure, how the same evening (Nov. 9th), with face, neck, and arms blackened with lamp-black, his red hair hidden beneath a cream-coloured turban, and the rest of his person disguised in the silk trousers, yellow _koortah_, or jacket, white cummerbund, and chintz mantle of an irregular native soldier, he sauntered with sword and shield into Napier’s quarters.
The experiment was an immense success. Seeing what was evidently a _budmash_ (a worthless fellow) thus insolently thrusting himself upon them, the officers present bade him begone, and a very pretty squabble in low-class Hindustani ensued. In the midst of it Sir James Outram entered the room, and having sufficiently tested his disguise Kavanagh made himself known. To his joy, no opposition was now raised to his plan.
Half an hour later, with the native spy Kunoujee Lal, who was returning to the Alumbagh with a letter from Outram, he bade good-bye to his friends, forded the river Goomtee, and started on his perilous mission.
“My courage failed me,” he confesses, “while in the water, and if my guide had been within my reach I should perhaps have pulled him back and abandoned the enterprise. But he waded quickly through the stream, and, reaching the opposite bank, went crouching up a ditch for three hundred yards to a grove of low trees on the edge of a pond, where we stopped to dress.”
His confidence having returned, Kavanagh went boldly forward, tulwar on shoulder, and even dared to accost a matchlock man near a hut with a remark that the night was cold. A little farther on they were pulled up by the officer of a native picket, and Kunoujee Lal, acting as spokesman, explained that they had come from Mundeon (“our old cantonment”) and were making their way to their homes in the city. This satisfied the sepoy officer, and they passed on with no little relief.
Recrossing the river by the iron bridge, they safely negotiated the streets of Lucknow, though the place swarmed with sentries and armed men, and issuing at last from the city on the other side, breathed more freely.
“I was in great spirits when we reached the green fields, into which I had not been for five months,” says Kavanagh. “Everything around us smelt sweet, and a carrot I took from the roadside was the most delicious I had ever tasted.”
A wrong turning now led them astray into the Dilkusha Park, where the rebels had a battery. Much against his companion’s will, the daring Irishman insisted on inspecting these guns, and Kunoujee Lal was in considerable trepidation until after two hours’ weary tramping across paddy fields and canal cuttings they regained the right road.
At two o’clock in the morning, after several alarms from suspicious villagers who chased them some distance, they stumbled upon a picket of twenty-five sepoys on the outskirts of the city. Kavanagh was for the bold course of going up and questioning the men, but Kunoujee Lal lost heart and threw away the letter entrusted to him for Sir Colin Campbell. Kavanagh kept his still concealed in his turban.
The picket was in some alarm at their approach, but it proved to be fear lest the pair were Englishmen from the Alumbagh camp, only a mile or two in advance of them! With this cheering news, the two spies pushed on, a friendly sepoy having put them on the right road on hearing that they were “walking to the village of Umroula on a sad errand, namely, to inform a friend that his brother had been killed by a ball from the British entrenchments at Lucknow.”
A nasty tumble into a swamp, which washed the black from Kavanagh’s hands, was their next most serious _contretemps_. For some time they waded through it waist-deep, having gone too far to recede before they discovered it was a swamp. An hour afterwards they stole unobserved through two pickets of sepoys and gained the shelter of a grove of trees, where Kavanagh insisted on having a good sleep. Kunoujee Lal, by no means assured that they were out of danger, kept a fearful watch, but nobody came near them save some flying natives, who stated that they had been pursued by British soldiers.
Kavanagh having been roused, the two went on once more. Another mile or so was traversed, and then (it being about four o’clock in the morning of the 10th) the welcome challenge “Who goes there?” rang on their ears. It was a mounted patrol of Sikhs. They had reached the British outposts.
Two men of the patrol guided Kavanagh and his companion to the camp, where they were immediately conducted into the presence of Sir Colin Campbell. When he learned that Kavanagh had come through the rebel lines, the Commander-in-Chief could not find enough words to express his admiration. “I consider his escape,” he wrote in his despatch, “at a time when the entrenchment was closely invested by a large army, one of the most daring feats ever attempted.”
For his part, Kavanagh paid a generous tribute to his fellow-spy, Kunoujee Lal, who had displayed wonderful courage and intelligence in their trying journey. When they were questioned, it was the native who did most of the speaking, and he always had a ready answer for the most searching interrogation.
The news of Kavanagh’s arrival was signalled to Lucknow by means of a flag from the summit of the Alumbagh, and Outram’s mind was set at ease. In due course the plucky Irishman guided Sir Colin into the city, being present through all the fierce fighting at the Secunderabagh and the Moti-Mahal, and further distinguishing himself by saving a wounded soldier’s life. Nor does this close the tale of his adventures, for he passed through many exciting experiences in rebel-hunting ere the Mutiny was suppressed.
Kavanagh lived to wear the Victoria Cross for twenty-three years, dying in 1882 at Gibraltar. His Cross was presented by his son to the N.W.P. and Oudh Provincial Museum at Lucknow, while the tulwar, shield and pistol he bore on his journey, together with other articles of his disguise, are preserved in the Dublin Museum.
[2] Afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala.