1864-1868
A voyage round the Cape--Cholera camps--The Abyssinian expedition
--Landed at Zula
Early in the New Year (1864) Sir Hugh Rose, with the Head-Quarters
camp, marched into Peshawar, where we remained until the middle of
February. The time was chiefly spent in inspections, parades, and
field-days, varied by an occasional run with the hounds. The hunting
about Peshawar was very fair, and we all, the Chief included, got a
great deal of fun out of our small pack.
On the 25th January a full-dress parade was held to announce to the
garrison that Sir John Lawrence had been appointed Viceroy of India,
and soon afterwards we left Peshawar and began our return march to
Simla.
We changed our house this year and took one close to the Stewarts, an
arrangement for which I was very thankful later, when my wife had a
great sorrow in the death of her sister, Mrs. Sladen, at Peshawar. It
was everything for her at such a time to have a kind and sympathizing
friend close at hand, when I was engaged with my work and could be
very little with her during the day. At this time, as at all others,
Sir Hugh Rose was a most considerate friend to us; he placed his house
at Mashobra at my wife's disposal, thus providing her with a quiet
resort which she frequently made use of and which she learned to love
so much that, when I returned to Simla as Commander-in-Chief, her
first thought was to secure this lovely 'Retreat' as a refuge from the
(sometimes) slightly trying gaiety of Simla.
The Commander-in-Chief was good enough to send in my name for a brevet
for the Umbeyla expedition, but the Viceroy refused to forward the
recommendation, for the reason that I was 'too junior to be made a
Lieutenant-Colonel.' I was then thirty-two!
Throughout the whole of 1864 I was more or less ill; the office work
(which never suited me quite as well as more active employment) was
excessive, for, in addition to the ordinary routine, I had undertaken
to revise the 'Bengal Route-Book,' which had become quite obsolete,
having been compiled in 1837, when Kurnal was our frontier station. A
voyage round the Cape was still considered the panacea for all Indian
ailments, and the doctors strongly advised my taking leave to England,
and travelling by that route.
We left Simla towards the end of October, and, after spending the next
three months in Calcutta, where I was chiefly employed in taking up
transports and superintending the embarkation of troops returning to
England, I was given the command of a batch of 300 time-expired men
on board the _Renown_, one of Green's frigate-built ships which was
chartered for their conveyance. Two hundred of the men belonged to
the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Rifle Brigade, the remainder to the
Artillery and various other corps; they had all been twelve years in
the army, and most of them were decorated for service in the Crimea
and Indian Mutiny.
At the inspection parade before we embarked, a certain number of men
were brought up for punishment for various offences committed on
the way down country; none of the misdemeanours appeared to me very
serious, so I determined to let the culprits off. I told the men that
we had now met for the first time and I was unwilling to commence our
acquaintance by awarding punishments; we had to spend three or four
months together, and I hoped they would show, by their good behaviour
while under my command, that I had not made a mistake in condoning
their transgressions. The officers seemed somewhat surprised at
my action in this matter, but I think it was proved by the men's
subsequent conduct that I had not judged them incorrectly, for they
all behaved in quite an exemplary manner throughout the voyage.
We had been on board more than six weeks, when one of the crew was
attacked by small pox--an untoward circumstance in a crowded ship. The
sailor was placed in a boat which was hung over the ship's side, and a
cabin-boy, the marks on whose face plainly showed that he had already
suffered badly from the disease, was told off to look after him. The
man recovered, and there was no other case. Shortly before we reached
St. Helena, scurvy appeared amongst the troops, necessitating
lime-juice being given in larger quantities, but what proved a more
effectual remedy was water-cress, many sacks of which were laid in
before we left the island.
On the 29th May, 1865, we sighted the 'Lizard,' and took a pilot on
board, who brought with him a few newspapers, which confirmed the
tidings signalled to us by an American ship that the war between the
Federals and Confederates was at an end. How eagerly we scanned the
journals, after having heard nothing from home for four months, but
the only piece of news we found of personal interest to ourselves was
that my father had been made a K.C.B.
On the 30th May we reached Portsmouth, and landed between two showers
of snow! I had a final parade of the men before leaving the ship, and
I was quite sorry to say good-bye to them; some of the poor fellows
were already beginning to be anxious about their future, and to regret
that their time with the colours was over.
My father, mother, and sister came up to London to meet us, very
little changed since I had left them six years before. I remained in
England till March, 1866, when I returned to India, leaving my wife
behind to follow in the autumn.
While I was at home, Sir Hugh Rose's term of the chief command in
India came to an end, and his place had been taken by Sir William
Mansfield. On my arrival in Calcutta, I received orders to join the
Allahabad division, and thither I proceeded. In October I went to
Calcutta to meet my wife and take her to Allahabad, where we remained
for nearly a year, her first experience of a hot season in the plains,
and a very bad one it was. Cholera was rife; the troops had to be sent
away into camps, more or less distant from the station, all of which
had to be visited once, if not twice, daily; this kept me pretty well
on the move from morning till night. It was a sad time for everyone.
People we had seen alive and well one day were dead and buried the
next; and in the midst of all this sorrow and tragedy the most
irksome--because such an incongruous--part of our experience was that
we had constantly to get up entertainments, penny readings, and the
like, to amuse the men and keep their minds occupied, for if once
soldiers begin to think of the terrors of cholera they are seized with
panic, and many get the disease from pure fright.
My wife usually accompanied me to the cholera camps, preferring to do
this rather than be left alone at home. On one occasion, I had just
got into our carriage after going round the hospital, when a young
officer ran after us to tell me a corporal in whom I had been much
interested was dead. The poor fellow's face was blue; the cholera
panic had evidently seized him, and I said to my wife, 'He will be the
next.' I had no sooner reached home than I received a report of his
having been seized.
We were fortunate in having at Allahabad as Chaplain the present
Bishop of Lahore, who, with his wife, had only lately come to India;
they never wearied in doing all that was possible for the soldiers.
Bishop Matthew is still one of our closest friends; his good, charming
and accomplished wife, alas! died some years ago.
We remained at Allahabad until August, 1867, when we heard that a
brigade from Bengal was likely to be required to take part in an
expedition which would probably be sent from Bombay to Abyssinia for
the relief of some Europeans whom the King, Theodore, had imprisoned,
and that the Mountain battery, on the strength of which my name was
still borne, would in such case be employed. I therefore thought I had
better go to Simla, see the authorities, and arrange for rejoining
my battery, if the rumour turned out to be true. The cholera had now
disappeared, so I was at liberty to take leave, and we both looked
forward to a cooler climate and a change to brighter scenes after the
wretched experience we had been through. On my arrival at Simla I
called upon the Commander-in-Chief and told him that, if my battery
was sent on service, I wished to join it and was quite ready to resign
my staff appointment.
Sir William Mansfield was particularly kind in his reception of me,
from which I augured well; but I could learn nothing definite, and it
was not until quite the end of September that it was announced that
Colonel Donald Stewart was to have command of the Bengal Brigade
with the Abyssinian Force, and that I was to be his Assistant-
Quartermaster-General. We at once hastened back to Allahabad, where
we only remained long enough to pack up what we wanted to take with
us, and arrange for the disposal of our property; thence we proceeded
to Calcutta, where, for the next two months, I had a busy time taking
up transports and superintending the equipment of the force.
I had often read and heard of the difficulties and delays experienced
by troops landing in a foreign country, in consequence of their
requirements not being all shipped in the same vessels with
themselves--men in one ship, camp equipage in another, transport and
field hospital in a third, or perhaps the mules in one and their
pack-saddles in another; and I determined to try and prevent these
mistakes upon this occasion. With Stewart's approval, I arranged that
each detachment should embark complete in every detail, which resulted
in the troops being landed and marched off without the least delay as
each vessel reached its destination.[1]
We were living with the Stewarts in the Commander-in-Chief's quarters
in Fort William, which His Excellency had placed at our disposal for
the time being. On the 1st November Calcutta was visited by the second
cyclone within my experience. We had arranged to go to the opera that
evening, but when it was time to start the wind was so high that there
seemed every chance of the carriage being blown over before we could
get there, so we decided not to attempt it. It was well we did, for
the few adventurous spirits who struggled through the storm had the
greatest difficulty in getting back to their homes. The opera-house
was unroofed before the performance was half over, and very little
of the building remained standing the next day. At bedtime we still
thought it was only a bad storm, but towards midnight the wind
increased to an alarming extent, and my wife awoke me, and begged me
to get up, as the windows were being burst open and deluges of rain
coming in. Stewart and I tried to reclose the windows, but the thick
iron bars had been bent in two and forced out of their sockets; a
heavy oak plate-chest and boxes, which we with much difficulty dragged
across the windows, were blown into the middle of the dining-room,
like so much cardboard, and the whole place was gradually flooded.
We were driven out of each room in turn, till at length we all took
refuge in a small box room, about ten feet wide, right in the middle
of the house, where we remained the rest of the night and 'hoped for
the day.'
Towards morning the wind abated, but what a scene of desolation was
that upon which we emerged! The rooms looked as if they could never be
made habitable again, and much of our property was floating about in a
foot of water.
My first thought was for the shipping, and I hurried down to the river
to see how my transports had fared. Things were much better than I
expected to find them--only two had been damaged. Most fortunately the
cyclone, having come from a different direction, was not accompanied
by a storm-wave such as that which worked so much mischief amongst the
shipping on a former occasion, but the destruction on land was even
greater: all the finest trees were torn up by the roots, a great part
of the Native bazaar was levelled, and lay from two to three feet deep
in water, while many houses were wholly or partly demolished. We came
across most curious sights when driving round Calcutta in the evening;
some of the houses were divided clean down the centre, one half
crumbled into a heap of ruins, the other half still standing and
displaying, as in a doll's house, the furniture in the different
stories.
The work of filling up and loading the vessels was greatly retarded,
owing to a large number of cargo boats having been sunk, consequently
it was the 5th December before the first transport got off; from that
date the others started in quick succession, and on the 9th January,
1868, Stewart and his staff left Calcutta in the P. and O. steamer
_Golconda_. The officers and men of the Mountain battery were also on
board, Captain Bogle in command, my friend Jemmy Hills in my place as
second Captain, and Collen[2] and Disney as subalterns. Mrs. Stewart
and my wife accompanied us as far as Aden, where they were left to the
kind care of Major-General Russell,[3] commanding there at the time,
until the arrival of the mail-steamer in which they were to proceed to
England.
On the 3rd February we anchored in Annesley Bay and landed at Zula.
[Footnote 1: The average strength of the regiments was as follows:
10th and 12th Bengal Cavalry, each 9 British officers, 13 Native
officers, 450 non-commissioned officers and men, 3 Native doctors, 489
horses, 322 mules, 590 followers. 21st and 23rd Punjab Infantry, each
9 British officers, 16 Native officers, 736 non-commissioned officers
and men, 3 Native doctors, 10 horses, 350 mules, 400 followers. I
found that six ships were required for the conveyance of a Cavalry and
four for that of an Infantry regiment; for the Mountain battery three
ships were necessary, and for the coolie corps (1,550 strong) four; in
all twenty-seven ships, besides nine tugs. In selecting ships, care
was taken to secure those intended for Artillery or Cavalry as high
'tween-decks as possible; a sufficient number of these were procurable
at Calcutta, either iron clippers from Liverpool or large North
American built traders, with decks varying from 7 feet 6 inches to 8
feet 2 inches high. I gave the preference to wooden ships, as being
cooler and more easily ventilated. The vessels taken up were each from
1,000 to 1,400 tons, averaging in length from 150 to 200 feet, with a
beam varying from 30 to 35 feet, and usually they had a clear upper
deck, where from forty to fifty animals were accommodated.]
[Footnote 2: Now Major-General Sir Edwin Collen, K.C.I.E., Military
Member of the Governor-General's Council.]
[Footnote 3: Now General Sir Edward Lechmere Russell, K.C.S.I.]
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