CHAPTER VII

THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW

The focus of the insurrection was now at Lucknow, where ever since the end of June the Residency defences had been besieged by the rebels of Oudh, and thus most serviceably kept engaged a host of fighters, who might else have marched to turn the wavering scale at Delhi. Apart from its practical result, the gallantry displayed, both by the much-tried garrison and by two armies which successfully broke through to their aid, has marked this defence as one of the principal scenes of the Indian Mutiny and one of the most stirring episodes in modern history. Some of the closing scenes of the war, also, long after the Residency had been gloriously abandoned, came to be enacted round the same spot, for ever sacred to English valour.

There is no Englishman's heart but must thrill to behold those patches of blackened and riddled ruin, half-hidden among gorgeous Eastern flowers, where idle cannon stand now as trophies by the battered walls, and brown-limbed gardeners water the smooth turf-lawns once drenched with so brave blood. Set in a beautiful garden, the remnants of the Residency buildings are preserved no less reverently than the tombs and monuments of their defenders, over which rises the flowery mound that bears aloft a white cross sacred to the memory of the Christian dead, famous and nameless, lying side by side around. Pillars and tablets carefully record the situation of this and that post, house, or battery, some hardly traceable now, some mere shells, or no more than names; but the ground has been so much changed by the clearing away of _débris_ and the demolition of adjacent structures, that it is difficult for us to realize the scene, some of the chief actors in which, years afterwards, found themselves not quite clear as to all its original features. A model, however, preserved in the Lucknow Museum, presents the localities restored as far as possible to their original state, according to the best authorities, giving us some idea of what this frail fortress was, and exciting our amazement that it held out for a single day.[5]

We must not, then, imagine a citadel enclosed by solid walls like those of Delhi or the palatial fort at Agra, but a group of buildings widely scattered round the tower of the Residency, the outer ones turned each into a defensive work, with its own separate garrison, the gaps between filled up as means or accidents of situation best allowed. Mud walls, banks, hedges, ditches, lanes, trees, palisades and barricades, were all put to use for these irregular and extemporary fortifications, composed among other materials of carriages, carts, boxes, valuable furniture, and even a priceless library that went to stop bullets. It would take too long to give a full description of all the points made memorable by this siege, such as the Bailey Guard Gate, the Cawnpore Battery, the Sikh Square, Gubbins' House, the Church Post, the Redan, which formed the most salient features of the circle marked out for defence. The hastily thrown-up bastions were not finished when that rout of Chinhut made them so needful. A bolder enemy might have carried the lines at once with a rush. The half-ruined buildings outside gave the assailants cover within pistol-shot of the besieged; while indeed the latter were thus to a large extent shielded against artillery fire, as had been Lawrence's design in not completing his work of destruction here. Some of the rebel batteries played upon the works at a range of from fifty to a hundred yards. On one side, only a dozen yards of roadway separated the fighters; and from behind their palisades the loyal Sepoys could often exchange abuse, as well as shots, with the mutineers, who would steal up at night, tempting them to desert, as many did in the course of the siege, yet not so many as might have been expected under such trying circumstances.

This entrenchment was occupied by nearly a thousand soldiers, civilians, clerks, traders, or travellers turned by necessity into fighting-men, with a rather less number of staunch Sepoys, as well as about five hundred women and children, shuddering at the peril of a fate so fearful that English ladies kept poison ready for suicide in case of the worst, and loving husbands promised to shoot their wives dead, rather than let them fall alive into hands freshly blood-stained from the horrors of Cawnpore. As there a girls' school were among the victims, so at Lucknow the motley garrison included the boys of the Martinière College, whose experiences have been already mentioned. In all, counting some hundreds of native servants, not far short of three thousand persons must have been crowded within an irregular enclosure about a mile round, where on that disastrous last day of June the enemy's bullets began to fly across a scene of dismay and confusion--men hardly yet knowing their places or their duties; women wild with fear; bullocks, deserted by their attendants, wandering stupidly about in search of food; horses, maddened by thirst, kicking and biting one another, in the torment which no one had time to relieve. The siege had come to find these people too little prepared for its trials, or for the length to which it was protracted. Some thought they might have to hold out a fortnight. Few guessed that their ordeal would endure nearly five months.

When, on June 30th, the city fell into the hands of the rebels, we still occupied another position not far from the Residency, the old fortress of Muchee Bhawun, which, though more imposing in appearance, was not fit to resist artillery, nor, after the losses of Chinhut, were there men enough to defend both points. On the second day of the siege, therefore, Colonel Palmer, commanding here, was ordered by semaphore signals from the Residency tower, to bring his force into the other entrenchment, spiking the guns, and blowing up what ammunition he could not carry away. At midnight he marched silently through the city, without attracting any notice from the enemy, who were perhaps too busy plundering elsewhere. They had hardly joined their comrades, when a terrific explosion announced the destruction of the Muchee Bhawun, blown up by a train set to go off in half-an-hour. One soldier had been accidentally left behind, who, strange to say, escaped unhurt from the explosion, and next morning walked coolly into the Residency, meeting no one to stop him, perhaps because he was quite naked, and the people took him for a madman or a holy man!

It was sad news that awaited Colonel Palmer. His daughter, while sitting in an upper room of the Residency, had been wounded by a shell, one of the first among many victims. She died in a few days, by which time the besieged had to mourn a greater loss. The Residency building, elevated above the rest, was soon seen to be a prominent mark for the enemy's fire, and on the first day, after a shell had burst harmlessly in his own room, Lawrence was begged to move into less dangerous quarters. With characteristic carelessness of self, he put off doing so; then next morning, July 2, was mortally wounded while lying on his bed. Two days later he died, visited by many weeping friends, of whom he took leave in the spirit of an earnest Christian. Well known is the epitaph which, amid the din of shot and shell, he dictated for his grave: "_Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty. May the Lord have mercy on his soul!_" He nominated Major Banks as his successor in the Commissionership and Brigadier Inglis to command the troops. The latter had his wife with him throughout all, to whose recently published reminiscences we owe one of the most interesting narratives of the siege.

Gloom fell upon the garrison when they came to learn this heavy loss. Every man had so much to do at his own post, that he hardly knew what went on a few hundred yards off, and some days seem to have passed before it leaked out to all how their leader had been buried "darkly at dead of night," in the same pit with less distinguished dead. A common grave had to be dug each night, the churchyard being exposed to fire. Every day now had its tale of deaths, soon from fifteen to twenty, once the enemy had got the range and given up wild firing at random--an average which grew smaller as the besieged were taught to be more cautious in exposing themselves. Six weeks passed before the diary of the chaplain's wife can record, for once, a day without a single funeral. Death was busy everywhere in various forms. Men were more than once buried beneath the ruins of houses crushed by the storm of shot. Delicate women panted for air in crowded cellars, and sickened amid the pestilential stenches that beset every corner of the entrenchment, or despairingly saw their children pine away for want of proper nourishment. The poor sufferers in hospital would sometimes be wounded afresh or killed outright by balls crashing among them. An amputation was almost certain death in that congregation of gangrened sufferers, increased hour by hour. There were daily duties to be done always at the peril of men's lives, and spots where no one could show himself without the risk of drawing fire. "Many a poor fellow was shot, who was too proud to run past places where bullets danced on the walls like a handful of peas in a fry-pan." One building, called "Johannes' House," overlooking the defences as it did, was long a thorn in the side of the besieged, from the top of which a negro eunuch, whom they nicknamed "Bob the Nailer," was believed to have shot down dozens of them by the unerring aim of a double-barrelled rifle that gave him such grim celebrity.

The native servants soon began to desert, adding to the troubles of masters whose pride and practice had been to do nothing that could be helped for themselves. Then the younger Martinière boys were told off to take their place in the cramped households, set to perform the menial services looked upon as belonging to the lowest caste. They attended the sick, too, and were of especial use in defending them against an Egyptian plague of flies which assailed the entrenchment, as well as in pulling punkahs to cool fevered brows. All these school-boys, whose terrible holidays began so unseasonably, took their turns in washing, grinding corn, bringing wood and water, besides general fetching and carrying at various posts, while some dozen of the oldest stood guard, musket in hand, or helped to work the signals on the tower--a service of no small danger, as the movements of the semaphore drew a hot fire; and, what with the clumsiness of the apparatus and the cutting of the ropes by shot, it took three hours to convey the order for evacuation of the Muchee Bhawun.

Though their post seems to have been an exposed one, just opposite Johannes' House, where that black marksman stationed himself, and where the enemy were literally just across the street, the school-boys had throughout only two of their number wounded, while two died of disease. Mr. Hilton, whose narrative has been already quoted, can tell of more than one narrow escape, once when a spent cannon-ball passed between his legs; again when a fragment of shell smashed the cooking pot from which he was about to draw his ration; and another time he was assisting to work the semaphore on the roof, when a shell burst so near as to disgust him with that duty. He did manage to get hurt in a singular manner. A badly-aimed shell from one of their own batteries fell into the court-yard where he was sitting, and in the wild stampede which ensued he stumbled over his sister and cut his knee on a sharp stone. This wound ought to have healed in a few days, but constant hardship had thrown him into such a bad state of health, that it festered and kept him in pain for more than two months, under the terrible warning that his leg might have to be amputated if he did not take care of it.

Before this accident he had entered into his duties as a soldier with rather more zeal than discretion. The boys trusted with arms, used, it seems, to take ten or twenty rounds to the top of the house, and fire through the loop-holes at whatever seemed a fair target. Fed on stews of tough beef and coarse _chupatties_, the hand-cakes of the country, their mouths watered at the sight of pumpkins and other vegetables growing in Johannes' garden, just beyond the line of their defences, so near yet so far out of reach; for the Sepoy marksmen were always on the watch to shoot any one who exposed himself here. Seeing they could not get these gourds for themselves, the lads found amusement in shooting at them to spoil them at least for the enemy. But this sport was soon interfered with. One boy having been wounded by a rebel lurking in the sheds opposite, Hilton and a comrade, named Luffman, went up to the roof to get a shot at the fellow. While they were firing from a loop-hole protected by a basket full of rubbish, another boy came out to join them with a fresh supply of ammunition; then their attention being for a moment diverted to him, the Sepoy over the way saw his chance for an aim. His bullet struck Luffman's musket, glanced along the barrel, and lodged in the lad's left shoulder. This accident drew on the young marksmen a severe reprimand from the Principal, and their supplies of ammunition for promiscuous shooting were henceforth cut off.

Mr. Hilton makes no complaint on his own account; but Mr. Rees, an ex-master of the Martinière, who has also given us an account of the siege, says that the boys were rather put upon in his opinion. He describes them as going about "more filthy than others, and apparently more neglected and hungry." Up till the end of June they had been able to draw supplies of food and clean clothes from the college. Now they were reduced to what they had on their backs, a serious trial in the Indian climate, and had to do their washing for themselves as best they could. The Martinière was in the hands of the mutineers, who had wreaked their wrath by digging up poor General Martin's tomb and scattering his bones.

One honourable charge these youngsters had. There was a store of wines and spirits in the garrison, which some of the soldiers broke into, and were once found helplessly drunk when called to arms on a sudden alarm. After that, the liquor was guarded in the Martinière post, till it could be disposed of so as to do least mischief.

The women, who in private houses or in the underground vaults of the Residency were kept out of danger as well as possible, had their share of toils, to which some would be little used. Many found enough to do in looking after their own ailing families. Others distinguished themselves by zeal in tending the sick and wounded. The wonder is that the diseases which had broken out from the first did not sweep off the whole community, pent up in such unwholesome confinement. Fortunately, in the course of a few days, a heavy shower of rain fell to wash away the filth that was poisoning them. This was the opening of the rainy season, on the whole welcome, yet not an unmixed blessing. The climate of India runs always to extremes; so glare and dust were exchanged only for the enervation of a perpetual vapour-bath.

In heat and wet, by night and day, every able-bodied man must take weary spells of watching and working, and at all hours be ready to run to his post on the first sign of danger. Nearly fifty guns had to be served. Officers and men, civilians and soldiers, black and white, laboured side by side, a tool in one hand, it may be said, a weapon in the other. At the quietest intervals, they had to be repairing their defences, shifting guns, carrying stores, burying the bodies of putrid animals. Constant false alarms kept them harassed before they had completed their works. For hours together the enemy sometimes went on shouting and sounding the advance, without showing themselves, so that all night the defenders, exhausted by the day's toil, might still have to stand on guard. Yet, overwrought as they were, small parties would here and there dash from their lines to spike a gun or drive away the occupants of some annoying outpost.

On our side there were many instances of daring prowess, but few of cowardice and shirking, as is testified by Lady Inglis. "As an example of brilliant courage, which to my mind made him one of the heroes of the siege, I must instance Private Cuney, H.M. 32nd. His exploits were marvellous; he was backed by a Sepoy named Kandial, who simply adored him. Single-handed and without any orders, Cuney would go outside our position, and he knew more of the enemy's movements than any one else. It was impossible to be really angry with him. Over and over again he was put into the guard-room for disobedience of orders, and as often let out when there was fighting to be done. On one occasion he surprised one of the enemy's batteries, into which he crawled, followed by his faithful Sepoy, bayoneting four men, and spiking the guns. If ever there was a man deserving the V.C., it was Cuney. He seemed to bear a charmed life. He was often wounded, and several times left his bed to volunteer for a sortie. He loved fighting for its own sake. After surviving the perils of the siege, he was at last killed in a sortie made after General Havelock's arrival."

Three weeks passed thus before the besiegers, swarming soon in tens of thousands around them, took courage for a general assault. The signal was an ineffectual explosion of a mine against the Redan battery; then from all sides they came pouring up to the works under cover of their cannon. But here every man was at his post to receive them desperately, many believing that their last hour was come. Some of the wounded had staggered out of hospital, pale and blood-stained, to lend a weak hand in the defence. The whole enclosure became quickly buried in sulphureous smoke, so that men hardly saw how the fight went in front of them, and still less knew but that their comrades had been overwhelmed at some other point, as well they might be, and whether at any moment the raging foe might not break in upon their rear. Again and again the Sepoys were urged on, to be mowed down by grape and musketry. Here they got right under our guns, driven away by hand grenades, bricks toppled over upon them, and whatever missiles came to hand; there they brought ladders against the walls, but were not allowed to make use of them. At one point, led on by the green standard of Islam in the hands of a reckless fanatic, they succeeded in bursting open a gate, only to block up the opening by their corpses. Four hours the din went on, under the fatal blaze of a July sun; but at length the enemy fled, leaving some thousands fallen round the unbroken walls, within which a surprisingly small number had been hurt.

This repulse put new heart into the victors, so much in need of cheering; and their spirits were soon raised still further by news of Havelock's army on its way to relieve them. They were not without communications from the outside world. An old pensioner named Unged several times managed to slip through the enemy's lines, bringing back messages and letters which were not always good news. Thus they had learned the fate of their kinsmen at Cawnpore; and their own temporary elation soon passed away under continued sufferings and losses.

The day after the assault, Major Banks was shot dead. Others who could be ill-spared fell one by one, every man placed _hors de combat_ leaving more work to be done by his overstrained comrades. Then there were dissensions among the remaining leaders. The English soldiers, made reckless by peril, sometimes gave way to a spirit of insubordination, or disgraced themselves by drunkenness. The Sepoys could not be fully trusted. The enemy, there was reason to fear, had spies within the place to report its weak points and the embarrassment of its defenders. A proof of this was that they had ceased firing on the hospital when some native dignitaries, held as prisoners, were quartered there in the lucky thought of making them a shield for the sick. It was hard on those hostages, who had to take their share of the general want and peril. The rations of coarse beef and unground grain were found insufficient to keep the garrison in good case; and before long these had to be reduced, while the price of the smallest luxury had risen beyond the means of most. If a hen laid an egg it came as a god-send; a poor mother might have to beg in vain for a little milk for her dying child. What the English soldiers missed most was tobacco; and when some of the Sikhs deserted, they left a message that it was because they had no opium. The priceless Crown Jewels of Oudh, and the public treasure guarded in the Residency, were dross indeed in the eyes of men longing for the simplest comforts. How yearningly they fixed their eyes on the green gardens and parks blooming among the towers of Lucknow! And Havelock did not come to fulfil their hopes, soon dashed by news that he had been forced to fall back on Cawnpore, to recruit his own wasted forces.

At the beginning of August, our people had heard heavy firing and the sound of English music in the city, which brought them out cheering and shaking hands with each other on the tops of the houses, eager to catch the first sight of their approaching friends. That night they slept little, and rose to be bitterly disappointed. The rebels tauntingly derided this short-lived joy, shouting over the cause of yesterday's commotion. They had been saluting the boy crowned as puppet-king of Oudh. Their bands, indeed, were often heard playing familiar tunes, taught them in quieter days, and always wound up their concerts with "God Save the Queen!" which must have sounded a strange mockery in those English ears. Once it was the turn of the English to make a joyful demonstration, firing off a general salute on a report of the fall of Delhi, which turned out false, or at least premature.

On August 10, the Sepoys delivered another assault, but were more easily beaten off this time. It began by the explosion of a mine, which threw down the front of the Martinière post, ruining also some fifty feet of palisading and other bulwarks on each side. The assailants wanted boldness to master the breach thus made; but they lodged themselves in an underground room of this house, from which they had to be expelled by hand-grenades, dropped among them through a hole in the floor, and they got no further within the quickly-restored defences. At first, it is said, they could have walked in through an open door, which Mr. Schilling and his boys had the credit of shutting in their faces. The School would all have been blown up, but for the good fortune of having just been called in to prayers in an inner room. Three soldiers had been hurled by the explosion on to the enemy's ground, but ran back into the entrenchment, unhurt, under a shower of bullets.

The Sepoys' fire was kept up as hotly as ever, though at times they seemed to be badly off for shot, sending in such strange projectiles as logs of wood bound with iron, stones hollowed out for shells, twisted telegraph wires, copper coins and bullocks' horns; even the occasional use of bows and arrows lent a mediæval feature to the siege.

Their main effort now seemed directed to the destruction of the walls by mining. Here they were foiled, chiefly through the vigilance of Captain Fulton, an engineer-officer, who took a leading part in the defence, only to die before its end, like so many others. In the ranks of the 32nd, he found a number of old Cornish miners, with whose help he diligently countermined the subterranean attacks. Now the burrowing Sepoy broke through into an unsuspected aperture, to find Fulton patiently awaiting him, pistol in hand. Again, a deep-sunk gallery from within would be pushed so far, that our men blew up not only the enemy's mine, but a house full of his soldiers. The garrison had always their ears strained to catch those muffled blows, which announced new perils approaching them underground; then, as soon as the situation and direction of the mine could be recognized, Fulton went to work and the dusky pioneers either gave up the attempt or came on to their doom.

Once, however, they did catch the watchers at fault. At the corner of the defences called the Sikh Square, the warning sounds were mistaken for the trampling of horses tied up close by--a mistake first revealed by an explosion which made a breach in the works, overwhelming some of its defenders and hurling others into the air, most of whom came off with slight hurt. The Sepoys rushed on, but did not venture beyond the gap they had made, while some time passed before our men could dislodge them. One native officer was shot within the defences, the first and last time they were ever penetrated till they came to be abandoned. Of nearly forty mines attempted, this was the only one that could be called a success.

Several unhappy drummers, buried among the ruins, cried lamentably for assistance; but the risk of going to their assistance under fire was too great. A brave fellow did steal forward, and with a saw attempted to release one of the men held down by a beam across his chest, but the Sepoys drove him back when they saw what he was at. These half-buried lads had all died a miserable death of suffocation or thirst, if not from their injuries, when towards nightfall a party of the 32nd, shielding themselves behind bullet-proof shutters, advanced to recapture the lost ground at the point of the bayonet, which they not only did, and barricaded the breach with doors, but, while they were about it, made a dash forth to blow up some small houses that had given cover to the enemy.

This was one of several gallant sorties, in another of which Johannes' House was blown up, and the redoubtable "Bob the Nailer" killed in the act of exercising his deadly skill from the top of it. But his place as a marksman was taken by a brother negro of scarcely less fatal fame; and the enemy always expressed their resentment for these attacks by fresh bouts of more furious bombardment. Once, they had nearly destroyed a vital point of our line by piling up a bonfire against the Bailey Guard Gate; but Lieutenant R.H.M. Aitken, the burly Scot who held this post with his Sepoys, rushed out and extinguished the flames, under a rain of bullets, before much mischief could be done.

By this time the inmates of the Residency, from looking death so hard in the face, had grown strangely callous both to suffering and to danger. Men now showed themselves indifferent before the most heart-rending spectacles, while they coolly undertook perilous tasks at which, two months ago, the boldest would have hesitated. Children could be seen playing with grape-shot for marbles, and making little mines instead of mud-pies. Women took slight notice of the hair-breadth escapes that happened daily with them as with others. "Balls fall at our feet," says Mr. Rees in his journal, "and we continue the conversation without a remark; bullets graze our very hair, and we never speak of them. Narrow escapes are so very common that even women and children cease to notice them. They are the rule, not the exception. At one time a bullet passed through my hat; at another, I escaped being shot dead by one of the enemy's best riflemen, by an unfortunate soldier passing unexpectedly before me, and receiving the wound through the temples instead; at another, I moved off from a place where, in less than the twinkling of an eye afterwards, a musket-ball stuck in the wall. At another, again, I was covered with dust and pieces of brick by a round-shot that struck the wall not two inches away from me; at another, again, a shell burst a couple of yards away from me, killing an old woman and wounding a native boy and a native cook, one dangerously, the other slightly--but no; I must stop, for I could never exhaust the catalogue of hair-breadth escapes which every man in the garrison can speak of as well as myself."

Still, their hearts could not but grow heavy at times, especially as the feast of the Mohurrem drew near, when Moslem zeal might be expected to stimulate its votaries to more desperate fury. Desertions went on fast among the servants, and it was feared that, if relief came not soon, the Sepoys would go over to their mutinous comrades, who daily tried to seduce them with threats and promises. Some native Christians and half-castes, of whom better might have been expected, did run away in a body, only to be butchered by the fanatics among whom they so faithlessly cast their fortunes. A third of the Europeans had perished; the rest were worn with sickness and suffering, but they had not lost an inch of ground.

It was no fault of Havelock if he still lay at Cawnpore, forty miles away. Once and again he had advanced, beating the enemy every time they ventured to face him; but after two pitched battles, in which this fearless General had already had six horses killed under him, and several minor combats, the country-people rising up about him in fierce opposition, cholera also decimating the ranks, his losses were so heavy that he could not yet hope to force a way to Lucknow, much less through the narrow streets, where every house might be found a fortress.

Now reinforcements were being pushed up from Calcutta; and at the end of August, the besieged had a letter promising relief in twenty-five days. "Do not negotiate," was Havelock's warning to them, "but rather perish, sword in hand." So they meant to do, if it came to that, rather than fall alive into the power of such a cruel and treacherous foe. Meanwhile, there was nothing for it but to hold out doggedly till their deliverer could gather strength to reach them.

On September 5 the enemy tried another assault, which was more of a failure than ever. Evidently, on their side, they were losing heart. And at last, on the night of the 22nd, Unged, the trusty messenger, rushed into the entrenchment under fire, with news that Havelock and Outram were at hand. The latter's noble generosity here is one of his best titles to fame. He came to supersede the General who had so long strained every nerve in vain; but, knowing how Havelock had at heart the well-deserved honour of relieving Lucknow, the "Bayard of India," for the time, waived his own right to command, serving as a volunteer till this task should have been accomplished. In this, Sir James Outram afterwards judged himself to have done wrong, as putting sentiment before duty.

Two days of suspense followed, every ear within the Residency bent to catch the sound of the cannon of the advancing army. On the third day, the welcome din drew nearer, clouds of smoke marked the progress of a hot battle through the streets, and, as a hopeful sign, routed natives could be seen flying by hundreds, their bridges of boats breaking down under a confused mob of horsemen and foot-passengers, camels, elephants, and carriages. Havelock had forced the Char Bagh bridge of the canal, and was working round by its inner bank, to turn along the north side of the city, the ground here being more open. But all that long day lasted the doubt and the fear, as well as the joy, for our troops, their entrance once won into Lucknow, had to make a devious circuit about the most thickly-built quarters, and after all blunderingly fought their way, inch by inch, through the streets into a narrow winding road that led to the Residency. It was not till nightfall those strained eyes within could, by flashes of deadly fire, see the van of their countrymen struggling up to the riddled buildings, where--

"Ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew."

The struggling progress of the column is described, in a letter home, by Mr. Willock, a young civilian, who had volunteered to share its perils.

"The fire from the King's Palace, known as the 'Kaiser Bagh,' was so severe that we had to run double-quick in front of it, as hard as we could; and a scene of great confusion ensued when we halted--guns and infantry mixed up, soldiers wandering in search of their companies, and the wounded in the dhoolies carried here and there without any orders. We had been there about half-an-hour when the Second Brigade joined us, passing in front of the palace, emerging from a narrow lane close to it. Here they had to pass under the very walls, while the rebels on the walls hurled down stones and bricks, and even spat at our fellows, a fierce fire being kept up from the loop-holes. After a little time order was re-established, and after a fresh examination of the map, the column was drawn up, and we started again. It was cruel work--brave troops being exposed to such unfair fighting. What can men do against loop-holed houses, when they have no time to enter a city, taking house by house? In fact, we ran the gauntlet regularly through the streets.

"After we passed the Palace, our men were knocked down like sheep, without being able to return the fire of the enemy with any effect. We passed on some little way, when we came to a sudden turning to the left, with a huge gateway in front, and through this we had to pass, under a shower of balls from the houses on each side. The Sikhs and 5th Fusiliers got to the front, and kept up a steady fire at the houses for some time, with the hope of lessening the enemy's musketry fire, but it was no use. Excited men can seldom fire into loop-holes with any certainty, and we had to make the best of our way up the street, turning sharp round to the right, when we found ourselves in a long, wide street, with sheets of fire shooting out from the houses. On we went, about a quarter of a mile, being peppered from all sides, when suddenly we found ourselves opposite to a large gateway, with folding doors completely riddled with round-shot and musket-balls, the entrance to a large enclosure.

"At the side of this was a small doorway, half blocked up by a low mud wall; the Europeans and Sikhs were struggling to get through, while the bullets were whistling about them. I could not think what was up, and why we should be going in there; but after forcing my way up to the door, and getting my head and shoulders over the wall, I found myself being pulled over by a great unwashed hairy creature,[6] who set me on my legs and patted me on the back, and, to my astonishment, I found myself in the 'Bailey Guard!'"

The scene then ensuing has been often described--the garrison pressing forward with cheers of welcome and triumph--the rough Highlanders suddenly appearing through the darkness among the ruins they had fought so many battles to save--their begrimed faces running with tears in the torchlight, as they caught up in their arms the pale children, and kissed their country-women, too, in that spasm of glad emotion; even the ladies ready to hug them for hysteric joy--the gaunt, crippled figures tottering out to join in the general rejoicing, now that for a moment all believed their trials at an end. That picturesque incident of a Highland Jessie, first to catch the distant strains of the bagpipes, appears to be a fiction. But bagpipes were not wanting; and one of the defenders, strolling over as soon as he could leave his own post, hardly able to believe the good news true, tells us how he found dancing going on to the music of two Highland pipers--a demonstration, however, soon put a stop to by Havelock's orders.

Havelock had cause to think this no time for dancing. While the common soldiers might exult over their melodramatic victory, the leaders knew too well at what a cost it had been won, and what dangers still encompassed them. Not all the little army of two thousand five hundred men had pushed through on that memorable evening. Nearly a fifth part of them were lost in the attempt. Neill had been shot dead, with the goal already in sight. Outram himself was hurt. It had been necessary to leave most of the wounded on the way, many of whom, deserted by the natives who bore their litters, suffered a horrible fate, massacred or burned alive while their comrades were making merry within the works. Part of the relieving force bivouacked all night on the road outside, where in the confusion a lamentable affair occurred, some of our faithful Sepoys at the Bailey Gate being attacked in mistake by the excited new-comers.

Only two days later, the rear-guard, hampered by the heavy guns, could join its commander at the Residency; and even then a force, in charge of baggage and ammunition, was left besieged in the Alum Bagh, a fortified park beyond the city, which henceforth became an isolated English outpost.

The relieving army had been hurried on at all risks, under a mistaken belief that the garrison was in immediate straits of famine. It turned out they had still food to last some weeks, even with so many more mouths to fill, an unreckoned store of grain having been found heaped up, by Lawrence's foresight, in the plunge-bath below the Residency. Means of transport, however, were wanting; and Outram, who now assumed command, could not undertake to fight his way out again with the encumbrance of a long train of non-combatants. Much less was he in a position to clear the city, still occupied by the enemy in overwhelming numbers. All he could do was to hold on where he was, awaiting the arrival of another army now on the march.

It was a relief and not a rescue over which so much jubilation had been spent. It came just in time, now that the fall of Delhi had set free a swarm of Sepoys to swell the ranks of the Lucknow besiegers. The mere sight of their countrymen, and the sure news they brought, was enough to put fresh spirit into the defenders, who, by the help of such a reinforcement, no longer doubted to hold the fortress that had sheltered them for three miserable months, with the loss of more than seven hundred combatants by death and desertion.

Here, then, the siege entered upon a second period, the characteristic of which was an extended position occupied by the garrison. Now that they had plenty of men, they seized some of the adjacent palaces, and pushed their lines down to the river-bank. Like men risen from a long sickness, they stretched their legs on the ground that for weeks had been raining death into their enclosure. There must have been a strange satisfaction in strolling out from their own half-ruined abodes, to examine the damage they had wrought among the enemy's works, at the risk of an occasional shot from his new posts, as the Martinière boys found when they let curiosity get the better of caution.

Some of these youngsters soon managed to run into mischief. A few days after the relief, being sent out to pick up firewood among the _débris_, they stole a look where still lay the mutilated corpses of Havelock's wounded men murdered so basely, then rambled into one of the royal palaces--a labyrinth of courts, gardens, gateways, passages, pavilions, verandahs, halls, and so forth, all in the bewildering style of Eastern magnificence, where it was difficult not to lose one's way. Here a general plunder was going on, and our people, even gleaning after the Sepoys, could help themselves freely to silks, satins, velvets, cloth of gold, embroideries, costly brocade, swords, books, pictures, and all sorts of valuables. In some rooms were nothing but boxes full of gorgeous china, ransacked so eagerly that the floors soon became covered a foot deep with broken crockery. Others of the besieged pounced most willingly upon articles of food, especially on tea, tobacco, and vegetables, which to them seemed treasures indeed. For their part, the Martinière boys ferreted out a store of fireworks, and must needs set off some rockets towards the enemy. One of these dangerous playthings, however, exploded in their hands, kindling others and setting fire to the building. The boys scampered out without being noticed, and took care to hold their tongues about this adventure, so that it was not ascertained at the time, though strongly suspected, on whom to lay the blame of a conflagration that went on for several days. The former King of Oudh who built this costly pile, little thought how one day its glories were to perish by the idle hands of a pack of careless school-boys.

The trials of the garrison were by no means over. Sickness continued to make havoc among them for want of wholesome food, especially of vegetables, the best part of their diet being tough artillery bullocks. The smallest luxury was still at famine price. The cold weather drawing on found many of these poor people ill-provided with clothing. One officer had gained asylum here in such a ragged state, that he was fain to make himself a suit of clothes from the green cloth of the Residency billiard-table. All were heartily sick of confinement and anxiety. Yet nearly two months more had to be passed in a state of blockade, the enemy no longer at such close quarters, but still bombarding them with his artillery, and keeping them on the alert by persistent attempts to mine their defences.

They were now, however, able to do more than stand on the defensive, making vigorous sallies, before which the Sepoys readily gave way, and held their own ground only by the weight of numbers. Good news, too, cheered the inmates of this ark of refuge. All round them the flood of mutiny seemed to be subsiding. Delhi had fallen at length, while they still held their shattered asylum. Sir Colin Campbell was coming to make a clean sweep of the rebel bands who kept Oudh in fear and confusion. The heroes of Lucknow knew for certain that they were not forgotten by their countrymen. They could trust England to be proud of them, and felt how every heart at home would now be throbbing with the emotion, which the Laureate was one day to put into deathless verse.

"Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight-- But to be soldier all day and be sentinel all through the night! Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms, Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to arms; Ever the labour of fifty that had to be done by five; Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive; Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loop-holes around; Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the ground.

* * * * *

Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief; Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief; Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butchered for all that we knew. Then day and night, night and day, coming down on the still shattered walls, Millions of musket bullets and thousands of cannon balls-- But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: The author has gone over the ground, noting its features on the spot; but for refreshing his memory and making all the positions clear, he has to acknowledge his obligation especially to the pictures and plans in General McLeod Innes' _Lucknow and Oude in the Mutiny_.]

[Footnote 6: This "great unwashed hairy creature" appears to have been "Jock" Aitken, in whom, as his kinsman, the author must own to a special interest. A monument to him now stands by the post he guarded so well.]