BAGPIPES AT LUCKNOW--A BEWILDERED BABOO--THE FORCED MARCH TO
CAWNPORE--OPIUM--WYNDHAM'S MISTAKE
Since commencing these reminiscences, and more particularly during my
late visit to Lucknow and Cawnpore, I have been asked by several people
about the truth of the story of the Scotch girl and the bagpipes at
Lucknow, and in reply to all such inquiries I can only make the
following answer.
About the time of the anniversary dinner in celebration of the relief of
Lucknow, in September, 1891, some writers in the English papers went so
far as to deny that the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders had their bagpipes
with them at Lucknow, and in _The Calcutta Statesman_ of the 18th of
October, 1891, I wrote a letter contradicting this assertion, which with
the permission of the editor I propose to republish in this chapter. But
I may first mention that on my late visit to Lucknow a friend showed me
a copy of the original edition of _A Personal Narrative of the Siege of
Lucknow_, by L. E. R. Rees, one of the surviving defenders, which I had
never before seen, and on page 224 the following statement is given
regarding the entry of Havelock's force. After describing the prevailing
excitement the writer goes on to say: "The shrill tones of the
Highlanders' bagpipes now pierced our ears; not the most beautiful music
was ever more welcome or more joy-bringing," and so on. Further on, on
page 226: "The enemy found some of us dancing to the sounds of the
Highlanders' pipes. The remembrance of that happy evening will never be
effaced from my memory." While yet again, on page 237, he gives the
story related by me below about the Highland piper putting some of the
enemy's cavalry to flight by a blast from his pipes. So much in proof of
the fact that the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders had their bagpipes with
them, and played them too, at the first relief of Lucknow.
I must now devote a few remarks to the incident of Jessie Brown, which
Grace Campbell has immortalised in the song known as _Jessie's Dream_.
In the _Indian Empire_, by R. Montgomery Martin, vol. ii. page 470,
after denying that this story had its origin in Lucknow, the author
gives the following foot-note: "It was originally a little romance,
written by a French governess at Jersey for the use of her pupils; which
found its way into a Paris paper, thence to the _Jersey Times_, thence
to the London _Times_, December 12th, 1857, and afterwards appeared in
nearly all the journals of the United Kingdom." With regard to this
remark, I am positive that I heard the story in Lucknow in November,
1857, at the same time as I heard the story about the piper frightening
the enemy's _sowars_ with his bagpipes; and it appears a rather
far-fetched theory about a French governess inventing the story in
Jersey. What was the name of this governess, and, above all, why go for
its origin to such an out-of-the-way place as Jersey? I doubt very much
if it was possible for the news of the relief of Lucknow to have reached
Jersey, and for the said French governess to have composed and printed
such a romance in time for its roundabout publication in _The Times_ of
the 12th of December, 1857. This version of the origin of _Jessie's
Dream_ therefore to my thinking carries its own refutation on the face
of it, and I should much like to see the story in its original French
form before I believe it.
Be that as it may, in the letters published in the home papers, and
quoted in _The Calcutta Statesman_ in October, 1891, one lady gave the
positive statement of a certain Mrs. Gaffney, then living in London, who
asserted that she was, if I remember rightly, in the same compartment of
the Residency with Jessie Brown at the very time the latter said that
she heard the bagpipes when dull English ears could detect nothing
besides the accustomed roar of the cannon. Now, I knew Mrs. Gaffney very
well. Her husband, Sergeant Gaffney, served with me in the Commissariat
Department in Peshawur just after the Mutiny, and I was present as his
best man when he married Mrs. Gaffney. I forget now what was the name of
her first husband, but she was a widow when Sergeant Gaffney married
her. I think her first husband was a sergeant of the Company's
Artillery, who was either killed in the defence of the Residency or
died shortly after. However, she became Mrs. Gaffney either in the end
of 1860 or beginning of 1861, and I have often heard her relate the
incident of Jessie Brown's hearing the bagpipes in the underground
cellar, or _tykhana_, of the Residency, hours before any one would
believe that a force was coming to their relief, when in the words of
J. B. S. Boyle, the garrison were repeating in dull despair the lines so
descriptive of their state:
No news from the outer world!
Days, weeks, and months have sped;
Pent up within our battlements,
We seem as living dead.
No news from the outer world!
Have British soldiers quailed
Before the rebel mutineers?--
Has British valour failed?
If the foregoing facts do not convince my readers of the truth of the
origin of _Jessie's Dream_ I cannot give them any more. I am positive on
the point that the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders _had_ their bagpipes and
pipers with them in Lucknow, and that I first heard the story of
_Jessie's Dream_ on the 23rd of November, 1857, on the Dilkoosha heights
before Lucknow. The following is my letter of the 18th of October, 1891,
on the subject, addressed to the editor of _The Calcutta Statesman_.
SIR,--In an issue of the _Statesman_ of last week
there was a letter from Deputy-Inspector-General Joseph Jee,
V.C., C.B., late of the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders
(Ross-shire Buffs), recopied from an English paper,
contradicting a report that had been published to the
effect that the bagpipes of the Seventy-Eighth had been left
behind at Cawnpore when the regiment went with General
Havelock to the first relief of Lucknow; and I write to
support the assertion of Deputy-Inspector-General Jee that
if any late pipe-major or piper of the old Seventy-Eighth
has ever made such an assertion, he must be mad! I was not
in the Seventy-Eighth myself, but in the Ninety-Third, the
regiment which saved the "Saviours of India" (as the
Seventy-Eighth were then called), and rescued them from the
Residency, and I am positive that the Seventy-Eighth had
their bagpipes and pipers too inside the Residency; for I
well remember they struck up the same tunes as the pipers of
the Ninety-Third, on the memorable 16th of November, 1857. I
recollect the fact as if it were only yesterday. When the
din of battle had ceased for a time, and the roll of the
Ninety-Third was being called outside the Secundrabagh to
ascertain how many had fallen in that memorable combat,
which Sir Colin Campbell said had "never been surpassed and
rarely equalled," Pipe-Major John McLeod called me aside to
listen to the pipers of the Seventy-Eighth, inside the
Residency, playing _On wi' the Tartan_, and I could hear the
pipes quite distinctly, although, except for the practised
_lug_ of John McLeod, I could not have told the tune.
However, I don't suppose there are many now living fitter to
give evidence on the subject than Doctor Jee; but I may
mention another incident. The morning after the Residency
was evacuated, I visited the bivouac of the Seventy-Eighth
near Dilkoosha, to make inquiries about an old school chum
who had enlisted in the regiment. I found him still alive,
and he related to me how he had been one of the men who were
with Dr. Jee collecting the wounded in the streets of
Lucknow on the 26th of September, and how they had been cut
off from the main body and besieged in a house the whole
night, and Dr. Jee was the only officer with the party, and
that he had been recommended for the Victoria Cross for his
bravery in defending the place and saving a large number of
the wounded. I may mention another incident which my friend
told me, and which has not been so much noticed as the
Jessie Brown story. It was told to me as a fact at the time,
and it afterwards appeared in a Glasgow newspaper. It was as
follows: When Dr. Jee's detachment and the wounded were
fighting their way to the Residency, a wounded piper and
three others who had fired their last round of ammunition
were charged by half-a-dozen rebel _sowars_[27] in a side
street, and the three men with rifles prepared to defend
themselves with the bayonet; but as soon as the _sowars_
were within about twenty paces of the party, the piper
pointed the drones of his bagpipes straight at them and blew
such a wild blast that they turned tail and fled like the
wind, mistaking the bagpipes for some infernal machine! But
enough of Lucknow. Let us turn to more ancient history. Who
ever heard of a Highland regiment going into action without
their bagpipes and pipers, unless the latter were all
"kilt"? No officer who ever commanded Highlanders knew the
worth of a good piper better than Colonel John Cameron, "the
grandson of Lochiel, the valiant Fassifern." And is there a
Highland soldier worthy of the name who has not heard of his
famous favourite piper who was shot at Cameron's side when
playing the charge, while crossing the Nive in face of the
French? The historian of the Peninsula war relates: "When
the Ninety-Second Highlanders were in the middle of the
stream, Colonel Cameron's favourite piper was shot by his
side. Stooping from his saddle, Fassifern tried to rescue
the body of the man who had so often cheered the regiment to
victory, but in vain: the lifeless corpse was swept away by
the torrent. 'Alas!' cried the brave Cameron, dashing the
tears from his eyes, 'I would rather have lost twenty
grenadiers than you.'" Let us next turn to McDonald's
_Martial Music of Scotland_, and we read: "The bagpipes are
sacred to Scotland and speak a language which Scotchmen only
know, and inspire feelings which Scotchmen only feel. Need
it be told to how many fields of danger and victory the
warlike strains of the bagpipes have led? There is not a
battlefield that is honourable to Britain where their
war-blast has not sounded! When every other instrument has
been silenced by the confusion and the carnage of the scene,
the bagpipes have been borne into the thick of battle, and
many a devoted piper has sounded at once encouragement to
his clansmen and his own _coronach_!"
In the garb of old Gaul, with the fire of old Rome,
From the heath-covered mountains of Scotia we come;
Our loud-sounding pipe breathes the true martial strain,
And our hearts still the old Scottish valour retain.
We rested at the Alumbagh on the 26th of November, but early on the 27th
we understood something had gone wrong in our rear, because, as usual
with Sir Colin when he contemplated a forced march, we were served out
with three days' rations and double ammunition,--sixty rounds in our
pouches and sixty in our haversacks; and by two o'clock in the afternoon
the whole of the women and children, all the sick and wounded, in every
conceivable kind of conveyance, were in full retreat towards Cawnpore.
General Outram's Division being made up to four thousand men was left in
the Alumbagh to hold the enemy in check, and to show them that Lucknow
was not abandoned, while three thousand fighting men, to guard over two
thousand women and children, sick and wounded, commenced their march
southwards. So far as I can remember the Third and Fifth Punjab Infantry
formed the infantry of the advance-guard; the Ninth Lancers and Horse
Artillery supplied the flanking parties; while the rear guard, being the
post of honour, was given to the Ninety-Third, a troop of the Ninth
Lancers and Bourchier's light field-battery, No. 17 of the Honourable
East India Company's artillery. We started from the Alumbagh late in the
afternoon, and reached Bunnee Bridge, seventeen miles from Lucknow,
about 11 P.M. Here the regiment halted till daylight on the
morning of the 28th of November, but the advance-guard with the women
and children, sick and wounded, had been moving since 2 A.M.
As already mentioned, all the subaltern officers in my company were
wounded, and I was told off, with a guard of about twenty men, to see
all the baggage-carts across Bunnee Bridge and on their way to Cawnpore.
While I was on this duty an amusing incident happened. A commissariat
cart, a common country hackery, loaded with biscuits, got upset, and its
wheel broke just as we were moving it on to the road. The only person
near it belonging to the Commissariat Department was a young _baboo_
named Hera Lall Chatterjee, a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years
of age, who defended his charge as long as he could, but he was soon put
on one side, the biscuits-bags were ripped open, and the men commenced
filling their haversacks from them. Just at this time, an escort of the
Ninth Lancers, with some staff-officers, rode up from the rear. It was
the Commander-in-Chief and his staff. Hera Lall seeing him rushed up and
called out: "O my Lord, you are my father and my mother! what shall I
tell you! These wild Highlanders will not hear me, but are stealing
commissariat biscuits like fine fun." Sir Colin pulled up, and asked the
_baboo_ if there was no officer present; to which Hera Lall replied, "No
officer, sir, only one corporal, and he tell me, 'Shut up, or I'll shoot
you, same like rebel mutineer!'" Hearing this I stepped out of the crowd
and saluting Sir Colin, told him that all the officers of my company
were wounded except Captain Dawson, who was in front; that I and a party
of men had been left to see the last of the carts on to the road; that
this cart had broken down, and as there was no other means of carrying
the biscuits, the men had filled their haversacks with them rather than
leave them on the ground. On hearing that, Hera Lall again came to the
front with clasped hands, saying: "O my Lord, if one cart of biscuits
short, Major Fitzgerald not listen to me, but will order thirty lashes
with provost-marshal's cat! What can a poor _baboo_ do with such wild
Highlanders?" Sir Colin replied: "Yes, _baboo_, I know these Highlanders
are very wild fellows when hungry; let them have the biscuits;" and
turning to one of the staff, he directed him to give a voucher to the
_baboo_ that a cart loaded with biscuits had broken down and the
contents had been divided among the rear-guard by order of the
Commander-in-Chief. Sir Colin then turned to us and said: "Men, I give
you the biscuits; divide them with your comrades in front; but you must
promise me should a cart loaded with rum break down, you will not
interfere with it." We all replied: "No, no, Sir Colin, if rum breaks
down we'll not touch it." "All right," said Sir Colin, "remember I trust
you," and looking round he said, "I know every one of you," and rode on.
We very soon found room for the biscuits, until we got up to the rest of
the company, when we honestly shared them. I may add that _baboo_ Hera
Lall Chatterjee is still living, and is the only native employe I know
who served through the second relief of Lucknow. He now holds the post
of cashier in the offices of Messrs. McNeill and Co., of Clive Ghat
Street, Calcutta, which doubtless he finds more congenial employment
than defending commissariat stores from hungry wild Highlanders, with
the prospect of the provost-marshal's cat as the only reward for doing
his best to defend his charge.
About five miles farther on a general halt was made for a short rest and
for all stragglers to come up. Sir Colin himself, being still with the
column, ordered the Ninety-Third to form up, and, calling the officers
to the front, he made the first announcement to the regiment that
General Wyndham had been attacked by the Nana Sahib and the Gwalior
Contingent in Cawnpore; that his force had been obliged to retire within
the fort at the head of the bridge of boats, and that we must reach
Cawnpore that night, because, if the bridge of boats should be captured
before we got there, we would be cut off in Oude with fifty thousand of
our enemies in our rear, a well-equipped army of forty thousand men,
with a powerful train of artillery numbering over forty siege guns, in
our front, and with all the women and children, sick and wounded, to
guard. "So, Ninety-Third," said the grand old Chief, "I don't ask you to
undertake this forced march, in your present tired condition, without
good reason. You must reach Cawnpore to-night at all costs." And, as
usual, when he took the men into his confidence, he was answered from
the ranks, "All right, Sir Colin, we'll do it." To which he replied,
"Very well, Ninety-Third, remember I depend on you." And he and his
staff and escort rode on.
By this time we could plainly hear the guns of the Gwalior Contingent
bombarding General Wyndham's position in Cawnpore; and although terribly
footsore and tired, not having had our clothes off, nor a change of
socks, since the 10th of the month (now eighteen days) we trudged on our
weary march, every mile making the roar of the guns in front more
audible. I may remark here that there is nothing to rouse tired soldiers
like a good cannonade in front; it is the best tonic out! Even the
youngest soldier who has once been under fire, and can distinguish the
sound of a shotted gun from blank, pricks up his ears at the sound and
steps out with a firmer tread and a more erect bearing.
I shall never forget the misery of that march! However, we reached the
sands on the banks of the Ganges, on the Oude side of the river opposite
Cawnpore, just as the sun was setting, having covered the forty-seven
miles under thirty hours. Of course the great hardship of the march was
caused by our worn-out state after eighteen days' continual duty,
without a change of clothes or our accoutrements off. And when we got in
sight of Cawnpore, the first thing we saw was the enemy on the opposite
side of the river from us, making bonfires of our spare kits and baggage
which had been left at Cawnpore when we advanced for the relief of
Lucknow! Tired as we were, we assisted to drag Peel's heavy guns into
position on the banks of the river, whence the Blue-jackets opened fire
on the left flank of the enemy, the bonfires of our spare baggage being
a fine mark for them.
Just as the Nana Sahib had got his first gun to bear on the bridge of
boats, that gun was struck on the side by one of Peel's 24-pounders and
upset, and an 8-inch shell from one of his howitzers bursting in the
midst of a crowd of them, we could see them bolting helter-skelter.
This put a stop to their game for the night, and we lay down and rested
on the sands till daybreak next morning, the 29th of November.
I must mention here an experience of my own which I always recall to
mind when I read some of the insane ravings of the Anti-Opium Society
against the use of that drug. I was so completely tired out by that
terrible march that after I had lain down for about half an hour I
positively could not stand up, I was so stiff and worn out. Having been
on duty as orderly corporal before leaving the Alumbagh, I had been much
longer on my feet than the rest of the men; in fact, I was tired out
before we started on our march on the afternoon of the 27th, and now,
after having covered forty-seven miles under thirty hours, my condition
can be better imagined than described. After I became cold, I grew so
stiff that I positively could not use my legs. Now Captain Dawson had a
native servant, an old man named Hyder Khan, who had been an officers'
servant all his life, and had been through many campaigns. I had made a
friend of old Hyder before we left Chinsurah, and he did not forget me.
Having ridden the greater part of the march on the camel carrying his
master's baggage, Hyder was comparatively fresh when he got into camp,
and about the time our canteen-sergeant got up and was calling for
orderly-corporals to draw grog for the men, old Hyder came looking for
me, and when he saw my tired state, he said, in his camp English:
"Corporal _sahib_, you God-damn tired; don't drink grog. Old Hyder give
you something damn much better than grog for tired mans." With that he
went away, but shortly after returned, and gave me a small pill, which
he told me was opium, and about half a pint of hot tea, which he had
prepared for himself and his master. I swallowed the pill and drank the
tea, and _in less than ten minutes_ I felt myself so much refreshed as
to be able to get up and draw the grog for the men of the company and to
serve it out to them while the colour-sergeant called the roll. I then
lay down, rolled up in my sepoy officer's quilt, which I had carried
from the Shah Nujeef, and had a sound refreshing sleep till next
morning, and then got up so much restored that, except for the sores on
my feet from broken blisters, I could have undertaken another forty-mile
march. I always recall this experience when I read many of the ignorant
arguments of the Anti-Opium Society, who would, if they had the power,
compel the Government to deprive every hard-worked _coolie_ of the only
solace in his life of toil. I am certainly not an opium-eater, and the
abuse of opium may be injurious, as is the abuse of anything; but I am
so convinced in my own mind of the beneficial effects of the temperate
use of the drug, that if I were the general of an army after a forced
march like that of the retreat from Lucknow to the relief of Cawnpore, I
would make the Medical Department give every man a pill of opium and
half a pint of hot tea, instead of rum or liquor of any sort! I hate
drunkenness as much as anybody, but I have no sympathy with what I may
call the intemperate temperance of most of our teetotallers and the
Anti-Opium Society. My experience has been as great and as varied as
that of most Europeans in India, and that experience has led me to the
conviction that the members of the Anti-Opium Society are either
culpably ignorant of facts, or dishonest in the way they represent what
they wish others to believe to be facts. Most of the assertions made
about the Government connection with opium being a hindrance to
mission-work and the spread of Christianity, are gross exaggerations not
borne out by experience, and the opium slave and the opium den, as
depicted in much of the literature on this subject, have no existence
except in the distorted imagination of the writers. But I shall have
some more observations to make on this score elsewhere, and some
evidence to bring forward in support of them.[28]
Early on the morning of the 29th of November the Ninety-Third crossed
the bridge of boats, and it was well that Sir Colin had returned so
promptly from Lucknow to the relief of Cawnpore, for General Wyndham's
troops were not only beaten and cowed,--they were utterly demoralised.
When the Commander-in-Chief left Cawnpore for Lucknow, General Wyndham,
known as the "Hero of the Redan," was left in command at Cawnpore with
instructions to strengthen his position by every means, and to detain
all detachments arriving from Calcutta after the 10th of November,
because it was known that the Gwalior Contingent were in great force
somewhere across the Jumna, and there was every probability that they
would either attack Cawnpore, or cross into Oude to fall on the rear of
the Commander-in-Chief's force to prevent the relief of Lucknow. But
strict orders were given to General Wyndham that he was _on no account_
to move out of Cawnpore, should the Gwalior Contingent advance on his
position, but to act on the defensive, and to hold his entrenchments and
guard the bridge of boats at all hazards. By that time the entrenchment
or mud fort at the Cawnpore end of the bridge, where the Government
Harness and Saddlery Factory now stands, had become a place of
considerable strength under the able direction of Captain Mowbray
Thomson, one of the four survivors of General Wheeler's force. Captain
Thomson had over four thousand _coolies_ daily employed on the defences
from daybreak till dark, and he was a most energetic officer himself, so
that by the time we passed through Cawnpore for the relief of Lucknow
this position had become quite a strong fortification, especially when
compared with the miserable apology for an entrenchment so gallantly
defended by General Wheeler's small force and won from him by such black
treachery. When we advanced for the relief of Lucknow, all our spare
baggage, five hundred new tents, and a great quantity of clothing for
the troops coming down from Delhi, were shut up in Cawnpore, with a
large quantity of spare ammunition, harness, and saddlery; in brief,
property to the value of over five _lakhs_ of rupees was left stored in
the church and in the houses which were still standing near the church
between the town and the river, a short distance from the house in which
the women and children were murdered. All this property, as already
mentioned, fell into the hands of the Gwalior Contingent, and we
returned just in time to see them making bonfires of what they could not
use. Colonel Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) lost
all the records of his long service, and many valuable engineering
papers which could never be replaced. As for us of the Ninety-Third, we
lost all our spare kits, and were now without a chance of a change of
underclothing or socks. Let all who may read this consider what it meant
to us, who had not changed our clothes from the 10th of the month, and
how, on the morning of the 29th, the sight of the enemy making bonfires
of our kits, just as we were within reach of them, could hardly have
been soothing to contemplate.
But to return to General Wyndham's force. By the 26th of November it
numbered two thousand four hundred men, according to Colonel Adye's
_Defence of Cawnpore_; and when he heard of the advance of the Nana
Sahib at the head of the Gwalior Contingent, Wyndham considered himself
strong enough to disobey the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, and moved
out of his entrenchment to give them battle, encountering their advance
guard at Pandoo Nuddee about seven miles from Cawnpore. He at once
attacked and drove it back through a village in its rear; but behind
the village he found himself confronted by an army of over forty
thousand men, twenty-five thousand of them being the famous Gwalior
Contingent, the best disciplined troops in India, which had never been
beaten and considered themselves invincible, and which, in addition to a
siege train of thirty heavy guns, 24 and 32-pounders, had a
well-appointed and well-drilled field-artillery. General Wyndham now saw
his mistake, and gave the order for retreat. His small force retired in
good order, and encamped on the plain outside Cawnpore on the Bithoor
road for the night, to find itself outflanked and almost surrounded by
Tantia Topee and his Mahrattas on the morning of the 27th; and at the
end of five hours' fighting a general retreat into the fort had again to
be ordered.
The retiring force was overwhelmed by a murderous cannonade, and, being
largely composed of young soldiers, a panic ensued. The men got out of
hand, and fled for the fort with a loss of over three hundred,--mostly
killed, because the wounded who fell into the hands of the enemy were
cut to pieces,--and several guns. The Rev. Mr. Moore, Church of England
Chaplain with General Wyndham's force, gave a very sad picture of the
panic in which the men fled for the fort, and his description was borne
out by what I saw myself when we passed through the fort on the morning
of the 29th. Mr. Moore said: "The men got quite out of hand and fled
pell-mell for the fort. An old Sikh _sirdar_ at the gate tried to stop
them, and to form them up in some order, and when they pushed him aside
and rushed past him, he lifted up his hands and said, 'You are not the
brothers of the men who beat the Khalsa army and conquered the Punjab!'"
Mr. Moore went on to say that, "The old Sikh followed the flying men
through the Fort Gate, and patting some of them on the back said, 'Don't
run, don't be afraid, there is nothing to hurt you!'" The fact is the
men were mostly young soldiers, belonging to many different regiments,
simply battalions of detachments. They were crushed by the heavy and
well-served artillery of the enemy, and if the truth must be told, they
had no confidence in their commander, who was a brave soldier, but no
general; so when the men were once seized with panic, there was no
stopping them. The only regiment, or rather part of a regiment, for they
only numbered fourteen officers of all ranks and a hundred and sixty
men, which behaved well, was the old Sixty-Fourth, and two companies of
the Thirty-Fourth and Eighty-Second, making up a weak battalion of
barely three hundred. This was led by brave old Brigadier Wilson, who
held them in hand until he brought them forward to cover the retreat,
which he did with a loss of seven officers killed and two wounded,
eighteen men of the Sixty-Fourth killed and twenty-five wounded, with
equally heavy proportions killed and wounded from the companies of the
Thirty-Fourth and Eighty-Second. Brigadier Wilson first had his horse
shot, and was then himself killed, while urging the men to maintain the
honour of the regiment. The command then devolved on Major Stirling,
one of the Sixty-Fourth, who was cut down in the act of spiking one of
the enemy's guns, and Captain M'Crea of the same regiment was also cut
down just as he had spiked his fourth gun. This charge, and these
individual acts of bravery, retarded the advance of the enemy till some
sort of order had been re-established inside the fort. The Sixty-Fourth
were then driven back, and obliged to leave their dead.
This then was the state of matters when we reached Cawnpore from
Lucknow. The whole of our spare baggage was captured: the city of
Cawnpore and the whole of the river-side up to the house where the Nana
had slaughtered the women and children were in the hands of the enemy;
but they had not yet injured the bridge of boats, nor crossed the canal,
and the road to Allahabad still remained open.
We marched through the fort, and took up ground near where the jute mill
of Messrs. Beer Brothers and Co. and Joe Lee's hotel now stand. We
crossed the bridge without any loss except one officer, who was slightly
wounded by being struck on the shin by a spent bullet from a charge of
grape. He was a long slender youth of about sixteen or seventeen years
of age, whom the men had named "Jack Straw." He was knocked down just as
we cleared the bridge of boats, among the blood of some camp-followers
who had been killed by the bursting of a shell just in front of us.
Sergeant Paton, of my company, picked him up, and put him into an empty
_dooly_ which was passing.
During the day a piquet of one sergeant, one corporal, and about twenty
men, under command of Lieutenant Stirling, who was afterwards killed on
the 5th of December, was sent out to bring in the body of Brigadier
Wilson, and a man named Doran, of the Sixty-Fourth, who had gone up to
Lucknow in the Volunteer Cavalry, and had there done good service and
returned with our force, volunteered to go out with them to identify the
brigadier's body, because there were many more killed near the same
place, and their corpses having been stripped, they could not be
identified by their uniform, and it would have been impossible to have
brought in all without serious loss. The party reached the brigadier's
body without apparently attracting the attention of the enemy; but just
as two men, Rule of my regiment and Patrick Doran, were lifting it into
the _dooly_ they were seen, and the enemy opened fire on them. A bullet
struck Doran and went right through his body from side to side, without
touching any of the vital organs, just as he was bending down to lift
the brigadier--a most extraordinary wound! If the bullet had deviated a
hair's-breadth to either side, the wound must have been mortal, but
Doran was able to walk back to the fort, and lived for many years after
taking his discharge from the regiment.
During the time that this piquet was engaged the Blue-jackets of Peel's
Brigade and our heavy artillery had taken up positions in front of the
fort, and showed the gunners of the Gwalior Contingent that they were no
longer confronted by raw inexperienced troops. By the afternoon of the
29th of November, the whole of the women and children and sick and
wounded from Lucknow had crossed the Ganges, and encamped behind the
Ninety-Third on the Allahabad road, and here I will leave them and close
this chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Native cavalry troopers.
[28] See Appendix D.