THE STRANGE STORY OF JAMIE GREEN
When we returned to Cawnpore, although we had been barely two months
away, we found it much altered. Many of the burnt-down bungalows were
being rebuilt, and the fort at the end of the bridge of boats had become
quite a strong place. The well where the murdered women and children
were buried was now completely filled up, and a wooden cross erected
over it. I visited the slaughter-house again, and found the walls of the
several rooms all scribbled over both in pencil and charcoal. This had
been done since my first visit in October; I am positive on this point.
The unfortunate women who were murdered in the house left no writing on
the walls whatever. There was writing on the walls of the barrack-rooms
of Wheeler's entrenchment, mostly notes that had been made during the
siege, but none on the walls of the slaughter-house. As mentioned in my
last chapter, we only halted one day in Cawnpore before crossing into
Oude, and marching to Oonao about the 10th of February, we encamped
there as a guard for the siege-train and ordnance-park which was being
pushed on to Lucknow.
While at Oonao a strange thing happened, which I shall here set down.
Men live such busy lives in India that many who may have heard the story
at the time have possibly forgotten all about it, while to most of my
home-staying readers it will be quite fresh.
Towards the end of February, 1858, the army for the siege of Lucknow was
gradually being massed in front of the doomed city, and lay, like a huge
boa-constrictor coiled and ready for its spring, all along the road from
Cawnpore to the Alumbagh. A strong division, consisting of the
Forty-Second and Ninety-Third Highlanders, the Fifty-Third, the Ninth
Lancers, Peel's Naval Brigade, the siege-train, and several batteries of
field-artillery, with the Fourth Punjab Infantry and other Punjabee
corps, lay at Oonao under the command of General Sir Edward Lugard and
Brigadier Adrian Hope. We had been encamped in that place for about ten
days,--the monotony of our lives being only occasionally broken by the
sound of distant cannonading in front--when we heard that General
Outram's position at the Alumbagh had been vigorously attacked by a
force from Lucknow, sometimes led by the Moulvie, and at others by the
Begum in person. Now and then somewhat duller sounds came from the rear,
which, we understood, arose from the operations of Sir Robert Napier and
his engineers, who were engaged in blowing up the temples of Siva and
Kalee overlooking the _ghats_ at Cawnpore; not, as some have asserted,
out of revenge, but for military considerations connected with the
safety of the bridge of boats across the Ganges.
During one of these days of comparative inaction, I was lying in my tent
reading some home papers which had just arrived by the mail, when I
heard a man passing through the camp, calling out, "Plum-cakes!
plum-cakes! Very good plum-cakes! Taste and try before you buy!" The
advent of a plum-cake _wallah_ was an agreeable change from ration-beef
and biscuit, and he was soon called into the tent, and his own maxim of
"taste and try before you buy" freely put into practice. This plum-cake
vendor was a very good-looking, light-coloured native in the prime of
life, dressed in scrupulously clean white clothes, with dark, curly
whiskers and mustachios, carefully trimmed after the fashion of the
Mahommedan native officers of John Company's army. He had a
well-developed forehead, a slightly aquiline nose, and intelligent eyes.
Altogether his appearance was something quite different from that of the
usual camp-follower. But his companion, or rather the man employed as
_coolie_ to carry his basket, was one of the most villainous-looking
specimens of humanity I ever set eyes on. As was the custom in those
days, seeing that he did not belong to our own bazaar, and being the
non-commissioned officer in charge of the tent, I asked the plum-cake
man if he was provided with a pass for visiting the camp? "Oh yes,
Sergeant _sahib_," he replied, "there's my pass all in order, not from
the Brigade-Major, but from the Brigadier himself, the Honourable Adrian
Hope. I'm Jamie Green, mess-_khansama_[37] of the late (I forget the
regiment he mentioned), and I have just come to Oonao with a letter of
introduction to General Hope from Sherer _sahib_, the magistrate and
collector of Cawnpore. You will doubtless know General Hope's
handwriting." And there it was, all in order, authorising the bearer, by
name Jamie Green, etc. etc., to visit both the camp and outpost for the
sale of his plum-cakes, in the handwriting of the brigadier, which was
well known to all the non-commissioned officers of the Ninety-Third,
Hope having been colonel of the regiment.
Next to his appearance what struck me as the most remarkable thing about
Jamie Green was the purity and easy flow of his English, for he at once
sat down beside me, and asked to see the newspapers, and seemed anxious
to know what the English press said about the mutiny, and to talk of all
subjects connected with the strength, etc., of the army, the
preparations going forward for the siege of Lucknow, and how the
newly-arrived regiments were likely to stand the hot weather. In course
of conversation I made some remarks about the fluency of his English,
and he accounted for it by stating that his father had been the
mess-_khansama_ of a European regiment, and that he had been brought up
to speak English from his childhood, that he had learned to read and
write in the regimental school, and for many years had filled the post
of mess-writer, keeping all the accounts of the mess in English. During
this time the men in the tent had been freely trying the plum-cakes, and
a squabble arose between one of them and Jamie Green's servant about
payment. When I made some remark about the villainous look of the
latter Green replied: "Oh, never mind him; he is an Irishman, and his
name is Micky. His mother belongs to the regimental bazaar of the
Eighty-Seventh Royal Irish, and he lays claim to the whole regiment,
including the sergeant-major's cook, for his father. He has just come
down from the Punjab with the Agra convoy, but the commanding officer
dismissed him at Cawnpore, because he had a young wife of his own, and
was jealous of the good looks of Micky. But," continued Jamie Green, "a
joke is a joke, but to eat a man's plum-cakes and then refuse to pay for
them must be a Highland joke!" On this every man in the tent,
appreciating the good humour of Jamie Green, turned on the man who had
refused payment, and he was obliged to fork out the amount demanded.
Jamie Green and Micky passed on to another tent, after the former had
borrowed a few of the latest of my newspapers. Thus ended my first
interview with the plum-cake vendor.
The second one was more interesting, and with a sadder termination. On
the evening of the day after the events just described, I was on duty as
sergeant in charge of our camp rear-guard, and at sunset when the
orderly-corporal came round with the evening grog, he told us the
strange news that Jamie Green, the plum-cake _wallah_, had been
discovered to be a spy from Lucknow, had been arrested, and was then
undergoing examination at the brigade-major's tent; and that it being
too late to hang him that night, he was to be made over to my guard for
safe custody, and that men had been warned for extra sentry on the
guard-tent. I need not say that I was very sorry to hear the
information, for, although a spy is at all times detested in the army,
and no mercy is ever shown to one, yet I had formed a strong regard for
this man, and a high opinion of his abilities in the short conversation
I had held with him the previous day; and during the interval I had been
thinking over how a man of his appearance and undoubted education could
hold so low a position as that of a common camp-follower. But now the
news that he had been discovered to be a spy accounted for the anomaly.
It would be needless for me to describe the bitter feeling of all
classes against the mutineers, or rebels, and for any one to be
denounced as a spy simply added fuel to the flames of hatred. Asiatic
campaigns have always been conducted in a more remorseless spirit than
those between European nations, but the war of the Mutiny, as I have
before remarked in these reminiscences, was far worse than the usual
type of even Asiatic fighting. It was something horrible and downright
brutalising for an English army to be engaged in such a struggle, in
which no quarter was ever given or asked. It was a war of downright
butchery. Wherever the rebels met a Christian or a white man he was
killed without pity or remorse, and every native who had assisted any
such to escape, or was known to have concealed them, was as
remorselessly put to death wherever the rebels had the ascendant. And
wherever a European in power, either civil or military, met a rebel in
arms, or any native whatever on whom suspicion rested, his shrift was as
short and his fate as sure. The farce of putting an accused native on
his trial before any of the civil officers attached to the different
army-columns, after the civil power commenced to reassert its authority,
was simply a parody on justice and a protraction of cruelty. Under
martial law, punishment, whether deserved or not, was stern but sharp.
But the civilian officers attached to the different movable columns for
the trial of rebels, as far as they came under my notice, were even more
relentless. No doubt these men excused themselves by the consideration
that they were engaged in suppressing rebellion and mutiny, and that the
actors on the other side had perpetrated great crimes.[38] So far as the
Commander-in-Chief was concerned, Sir Colin Campbell was utterly opposed
to extreme measures, and deeply deplored the wholesale executions by the
civil power. Although as a soldier he would have been the last man in
the country to spare rebels caught with arms in their hands, or those
whose guilt was well known (and I know for certain that he held the
action of Major Hodson with regard to the Delhi princes to have been
justifiable), I well remember how emphatically I once heard him express
his disgust when, on the march back from Futtehghur to Cawnpore, he
entered a mango-tope full of rotting corpses, where one of those special
commissioners had passed through with a movable column a few days
before.
But I must return to my story. I had barely heard the news that Green
had been arrested as a spy, when he was brought to my guard by some of
the provost-marshal's staff, and handed over to me with instructions to
keep him safe till he should be called for next morning. He was
accompanied by the man who had carried his basket, who had also been
denounced as one of the butchers at Cawnpore in July, 1857. And here I
may state that the appearance of this man certainly did tally with the
description afterwards given of one of these butchers by Fitchett, an
Eurasian drummer attached to the Sixth Native Infantry which mutinied at
Cawnpore, who embraced the Mahommedan religion to save his life, and was
enrolled in the rebel force, but afterwards made his escape and
presented himself at Meerut for enlistment in the police levy raised in
October, 1858. What I am relating took place in February, 1858, about
eight months before the existence of Fitchett was known to the
authorities. However, when it was discovered that Fitchett had been
serving in one of the mutineers' regiments, he was called on to say what
he knew about the Cawnpore massacre, and I remember his statement was
considered the most consistent of any of the numerous narratives
published about it. Fitchett alleged that the sepoys of the Sixth
Native Infantry and other regiments, including the Nana Sahib's own
guard, had refused to kill the European women and children in the
_bibi-ghur_,[39] and that five men were then brought by a slave-girl or
mistress of the Nana to do it. Of the five men employed, two were
butchers and two were villagers, and the fifth man was "a stout
_bilaitee_[40] with very hairy hands." Fitchett further described one of
the butchers as a tall, ugly man, very dark, and very much disfigured by
smallpox, all points that tallied exactly with the appearance of this
_coolie_. I don't suppose that Fitchett could have known that a man
answering to his description had been hanged, as being one of the actors
in the Cawnpore tragedy, some eight months before, for I don't recollect
ever having seen the matter which I am relating mentioned in any
newspaper.
But to proceed with my own story. My prisoners had no sooner been made
over to me, than several of the guard, as was usual in those days,
proposed to bring some pork from the bazaar to break their castes, as a
sort of preparation for their execution. This I at once denounced as a
proceeding which I certainly would not tolerate so long as I held charge
of the guard, and I warned the men that if any one attempted to molest
the prisoners, I should at once strip them of their belts, and place
them in arrest for disobedience of orders and conduct unworthy of a
British soldier, and the better-disposed portion of the guard at once
applauded my resolution. I shall never forget the look of gratitude
which came over the face of the unfortunate man who had called himself
Jamie Green, when he heard me give these orders. He at once said it was
an act of kindness which he had never expected, and for which he was
truly grateful; and he unhesitatingly pronounced his belief that Allah
and his Prophet would requite my kindness by bringing me safely through
the remainder of the war. I thanked my prisoner for his good wishes and
his prayers, and made him the only return in my power, viz., to cause
his hands to be unfastened to allow him to perform his evening's
devotions, and permitted him as much freedom as I possibly could,
consistent with safe custody. His fellow-prisoner merely received my
kindness with a scowl of sullen hatred, and when reproved by his master,
I understood him to say that he wished for no favour from infidel dogs;
but he admitted that the sergeant _sahib_, deserved a Mussulman's
gratitude for saving him from an application of pig's fat.
After allowing my prisoners to perform their evening devotions, and
giving them such freedom as I could, I made up my mind to go without
sleep that night, for it would have been a serious matter for me if
either of these men had escaped. I also knew that by remaining on watch
myself I could allow them more freedom, and I determined they should
enjoy every privilege in my power for what would certainly be their last
night on earth, since it was doubtful if they would be spared to see
the sun rise. With this view, I sent for one of the Mahommedan
shopkeepers from the regimental bazaar, and told him to prepare at my
expense whatever food the prisoners would eat. To this the man replied
that since I, a Christian, had shown so much kindness to a Mussulman in
distress, the Mahommedan shopkeepers in the bazaar would certainly be
untrue to their faith if they should allow me to spend a single _pie_,
from my own pocket.
After being supplied with a savoury meal from the bazaar, followed by a
fragrant hookah, to both of which he did ample justice, Jamie Green
settled himself on a rug which had been lent to him, and said "_Shook'r
Khooda!_, (Thanks be to God)," for having placed him under the charge of
such a merciful _sahib_, for this the last night of his life! "Such," he
continued, "has been my _kismut_, and doubtless Allah will reward you,
Sergeant _sahib_, in his own good time for your kindness to his
oppressed and afflicted servant. You have asked me to give you some
account of my life, and if it is really true that I am a spy. With
regard to being a spy in the ordinary meaning of the term, I most
emphatically deny the accusation. I am no spy; but I am an officer of
the Begum's army, come out from Lucknow to gain reliable information of
the strength of the army and siege-train being brought against us. I am
the chief engineer of the army of Lucknow, and came out on a
reconnoitring expedition, but Allah has not blessed my enterprise. I
intended to have left on my return to Lucknow this evening, and if fate
had been propitious, I would have reached it before sunrise to-morrow,
for I had got all the information which was wanted; but I was tempted to
visit Oonao once more, being on the direct road to Lucknow, because I
was anxious to see whether the siege-train and ammunition-park had
commenced to move, and it was my misfortune to encounter that son of a
defiled mother who denounced me as a spy. A contemptible wretch who, to
save his own neck from the gallows (for he first sold the English), now
wishes to divert attention from his former rascality by selling the
lives of his own countrymen and co-religionists; but Allah is just, he
will yet reap the reward of his treachery in the fires of Jehunnum.[41]
"You ask me," continued the man, "what my name is, and state that you
intend to write an account of my misfortune to your friends in Scotland.
Well, I have no objection. The people of England,--and by England I mean
Scotland as well--are just, and some of them may pity the fate of this
servant of Allah. I have friends both in London and in Edinburgh, for I
have twice visited both places. My name is Mahomed Ali Khan. I belong to
one of the best families of Rohilcund, and was educated in the Bareilly
College, and took the senior place in all English subjects. From
Bareilly College I passed to the Government Engineering College at
Roorkee, and studied engineering for the Company's service, and passed
out the senior student of my year, having gained many marks in excess of
all the European pupils, both civil and military. But what was the
result? I was nominated to the rank of _jemadar_, of the Company's
engineers, and sent to serve with a company on detached duty on the hill
roads as a native commissioned officer, but actually subordinate to a
European sergeant, a man who was my inferior in every way, except,
perhaps, in mere brute strength, a man of little or no education, who
would never have risen above the grade of a working-joiner in England.
Like most ignorant men in authority, he exhibited all the faults of the
Europeans which most irritate and disgust us, arrogance, insolence, and
selfishness. Unless you learn the language of my countrymen, and mix
with the better-educated people of this country, you will never
understand nor estimate at its full extent the mischief which one such
man does to your national reputation. One such example is enough to
confirm all that your worst enemies can say about your national
selfishness and arrogance, and makes the people treat your pretensions
to liberality and sympathy as mere hypocrisy. I had not joined the
Company's service from any desire for wealth, but from the hope of
gaining honourable service; yet on the very threshold of that service I
met with nothing but disgrace and dishonour, having to serve under a man
whom I hated, yea, worse than hated, whom I despised. I wrote to my
father, and requested his permission to resign, and he agreed with me
that I the descendant of princes, could not serve the Company under
conditions such as I have described. I resigned the service and returned
home, intending to offer my services to his late Majesty
Nussir-ood-Deen, King of Oude; but just when I reached Lucknow I was
informed that his Highness Jung Bahadoor of Nepal, who is now at
Goruckpore with an army of Goorkhas coming to assist in the loot of
Lucknow, was about to visit England, and required a secretary well
acquainted with the English language. I at once applied for the post,
and being well backed by recommendations both from native princes and
English officials, I secured the appointment, and in the suite of the
Maharaja I landed in England for the first time, and, among other
places, we visited Edinburgh, where your regiment, the Ninety-Third
Highlanders, formed the guard of honour for the reception of his
Highness. Little did I think when I saw a kilted regiment for the first
time, that I should ever be a prisoner in their tents in the plains of
Hindustan; but who can predict or avoid his fate?
"Well, I returned to India, and filled several posts at different native
courts till 1854, when I was again asked to visit England in the suite
of Azeemoolla Khan, whose name you must have often heard in connection
with this mutiny and rebellion. On the death of the Peishwa, the Nana
had appointed Azeemoolla Khan to be his agent. He, like myself, had
received a good education in English, under Gunga Deen, head-master of
the Government school at Cawnpore. Azeemoolla was confident that, if he
could visit England, he would be able to have the decrees of Lord
Dalhousie against his master reversed, and when I joined him he was
about to start for England, well supplied with money to engage the best
lawyers, and also to bribe high officials, if necessary. But I need not
give you any account of our mission. You already know that, so far as
London drawing-rooms went, it proved a social success, but as far as
gaining our end a political failure; and we left England after spending
over L50,000, to return to India _via_ Constantinople in 1855. From
Constantinople we visited the Crimea, where we witnessed the assault and
defeat of the English on the 18th of June, and were much struck by the
wretched state of both armies in front of Sebastopol. Thence we returned
to Constantinople, and there met certain real or pretended Russian
agents, who made large promises of material support if Azeemoolla could
stir up a rebellion in India. It was then that I and Azeemoolla formed
the resolution of attempting to overthrow the Company's Government, and,
_Shook'r Khooda!_ we have succeeded in doing that; for from the
newspapers which you lent me, I see that the Company's _raj_ has gone,
and that their charter for robbery and confiscation will not be renewed.
Although we have failed to wrest the country from the English, I hope we
have done some good, and that our lives will not be sacrificed in vain;
for I believe direct government under the English parliament will be
more just than was that of the Company, and that there is yet a future
before my oppressed and downtrodden countrymen, although I shall not
live to see it.
"I do not speak, _sahib_, to flatter you or to gain your favour. I have
already gained that, and I know that you cannot help me any farther than
you are doing, and that if you could, your sense of duty would not let
you. I know I must die; but the unexpected kindness which you have shown
to me has caused me to speak my mind. I came to this tent with hatred in
my heart, and curses on my lips; but your kindness to me, unfortunate,
has made me, for the second time since I left Lucknow, ashamed of the
atrocities committed during this rebellion. The first time was at
Cawnpore a few days ago, when Colonel Napier of the Engineers was
directing the blowing up of the Hindoo temples on the Cawnpore _ghat_,
and a deputation of Hindoo priests came to him to beg that the temples
might not be destroyed. 'Now, listen to me,' said Colonel Napier in
reply to them; 'you were all here when our women and children were
murdered, and you also well know that we are not destroying these
temples for vengeance, but for military considerations connected with
the safety of the bridge of boats. But if any man among you can prove to
me that he did a single act of kindness to any Christian man, woman, or
child, nay, if he can even prove that he uttered one word of
intercession for the life of any one of them, I pledge myself to spare
the temple where he worships.' I was standing in the crowd close to
Colonel Napier at the time, and I thought it was bravely spoken. There
was no reply, and the cowardly Brahmins slunk away. Napier gave the
signal and the temples leaped into the air; and I was so impressed with
the justness of Napier's remarks that I too turned away, ashamed."
On this I asked him, "Were you in Cawnpore when the Mutiny broke out?"
To which he replied: "No, thank God! I was in my home in Rohilcund; and
my hands are unstained by the blood of any one, excepting those who have
fallen in the field of battle. I knew that the storm was about to burst,
and had gone to place my wife and children in safety, and I was in my
village when I heard the news of the mutinies at Meerut and Bareilly. I
immediately hastened to join the Bareilly brigade, and marched with them
for Delhi. There I was appointed engineer-in-chief, and set about
strengthening the defences by the aid of a party of the Company's
engineers which had mutinied on the march from Roorkee to Meerut. I
remained in Delhi till it was taken by the English in September. I then
made my way to Lucknow with as many men as I could collect of the
scattered forces. We first marched to Muttra, where we were obliged to
halt till I threw a bridge of boats across the Jumna for the retreat of
the army. We had still a force of over thirty thousand men under the
command of Prince Feroz Shah and General Bukht Khan. As soon as I
reached Lucknow I was honoured with the post of chief-engineer. I was in
Lucknow in November when your regiment assisted to relieve the
Residency. I saw the horrible slaughter in the Secundrabagh. I had
directed the defences of that place the night before, and was looking
on from the Shah Nujeef when you assaulted it. I had posted over three
thousand of the best troops in Lucknow in the Secundrabagh, as it was
the key to the position, and not a man escaped. I nearly fainted; my
liver turned to water when I saw the green flag pulled down, and a
Highland bonnet set up on the flag-staff which I had erected the night
before. I knew then that all was over, and directed the guns of the Shah
Nujeef to open fire on the Secundrabagh. Since then I have planned and
superintended the construction of all the defensive works in and around
Lucknow. You will see them when you return, and if the sepoys and
artillerymen stand firmly behind them, many of the English army will
lose the number of their mess, as you call it, before you again become
masters of Lucknow."
I then asked him if it was true that the man he had called Micky on our
first acquaintance had been one of the men employed by the Nana to
butcher the women and children at Cawnpore in July? To this he replied:
"I believe it is true, but I did not know this when I employed him; he
was merely recommended to me as a man on whom I could depend. If I had
known then that he was a murderer of women and children, I should have
had nothing to do with him, for it is he who has brought bad luck on me;
it is my _kismut_, and I must suffer. Your English proverb says, 'You
cannot touch pitch and escape defilement,' and I must suffer; Allah is
just. It is the conduct of wretches such as these that has brought the
anger of Allah on our cause." On this I asked him if he knew whether
there was any truth in the report of the European women having been
dishonoured before being murdered. "_Sahib_," he replied, "you are a
stranger to this country or you would not ask such a question. Any one
who knows anything of the customs of this country and the strict rules
of caste, knows that all such stories are lies, invented to stir up
race-hatred, as if we had not enough of that on both sides already. That
the women and children were cruelly murdered I admit, but not one of
them was dishonoured; and all the sentences written on the walls of the
houses in Cawnpore, such as, 'We are at the mercy of savages, who have
ravished young and old,' and such like, which have appeared in the
Indian papers and been copied from them into the English ones, are
malicious forgeries, and were written on the walls after the
re-occupation of Cawnpore by General Outram's and Havelock's forces.
Although I was not there myself, I have spoken with many who were there,
and I know that what I tell you is true."
I then asked him if he could give me any idea of the reason that had led
the Nana to order the commission of such a cold-blooded, cowardly crime.
"Asiatics," he said, "are weak, and their promises are not to be relied
on, but that springs more from indifference to obligations than from
prearranged treachery. When they make promises, they intend to keep
them; but when they find them inconvenient, they choose to forget them.
And so it was, I believe, with the Nana Sahib. He intended to have
spared the women and children, but they had an enemy in his _zenana_ in
the person of a female fiend who had formerly been a slave-girl, and
there were many about the Nana (Azeemoolla Khan for one) who wished to
see him so irretrievably implicated in rebellion that there would be no
possibility for him to draw back. So this woman was powerfully supported
in her evil counsel, and obtained permission to have the English ladies
killed; and after the sepoys of the Sixth Native Infantry and the Nana's
own guard had refused to do the horrible work, this woman went and
procured the wretches who did it. This information I have from General
Tantia Topee, who quarrelled with the Nana on this same matter. What I
tell you is true: the murder of the European women and children at
Cawnpore was a woman's crime, for there is no fiend equal to a female
fiend; but what cause she had for enmity against the unfortunate ladies
I don't know--I never inquired."
Those of my readers who were in India at the time may remember that
something about this slave-girl was said in all the native evidence
collected at the time on the subject of the Cawnpore massacre.
I next asked Mahomed Ali Khan if he knew whether there was any truth in
the stories about General Wheeler's daughter having shot four or five
men with a revolver, and then leaped into the well at Cawnpore. "All
these stories," was his answer, "are pure inventions with no foundation
of truth. General Wheeler's daughter is still alive, and is now in
Lucknow; she has become a Mussulmanee, and has married according to
Mahommedan law the man who protected her; whether she may ever return to
her own people I know not."
In such conversation I passed the night with my prisoner, and towards
daybreak I permitted him to perform his ablutions and morning devotions,
after which he once more thanked me, and prayed that Allah might reward
me for my kindness to His oppressed servant. Once, and only once, did he
show any weakness, in alluding to his wife and two boys in their faraway
home in Rohilcund, when he remarked that they would never know the fate
of their unfortunate father. But he at once checked himself, saying, "I
have read French history as well as English; I must remember Danton, and
show no weakness." He then produced a gold ring which was concealed
among his hair, and asked me if I would accept it and keep it in
remembrance of him, in token of his gratitude. It was, he said, the only
thing he could give me, as everything of value had been taken from him
when he was arrested. He went on to say that the ring in question was
only a common one, not worth more than ten rupees, but that it had been
given to him by a holy man in Constantinople as a talisman, though the
charm had been broken when he had joined the unlucky man who was his
fellow-prisoner. I accepted the ring, which he placed on my finger with
a blessing and a prayer for my preservation, and he told me to look on
it and remember Mahomed Khan when I was in front of the fortifications
of Lucknow, and no evil would befall me. He had hardly finished speaking
when a guard from the provost-marshal came with an order to take over
the prisoners, and I handed this man over with a sincere feeling of pity
for his fate.
Immediately after, I received orders that the division would march at
sunrise for Lucknow, and that my party was to join the rear-guard, after
the ammunition-park and siege-train had moved on. The sun was high in
the heavens before we left the encamping-ground, and in passing under a
tree on the side of the Cawnpore and Lucknow road, I looked up, and was
horrified to see my late prisoner and his companion hanging stark and
stiffened corpses! I could hardly repress a tear as I passed. But on the
11th of March, in the assault on the Begum's Kothee, I remembered
Mahomed Ali Khan and looked on the ring. I am thankful to say that I
went through the rest of the campaign without a scratch, and the
thoughts of my kindness to this unfortunate man certainly did not
inspire me with any desire to shirk danger. I still have the ring, the
only piece of Mutiny plunder I ever possessed, and shall hand it down to
my children together with the history of Mahomed Ali Khan.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] Butler.
[38] It must also be remembered that these officials knew much more of
the terrible facts attending the Mutiny--of the wholesale murder (and
even worse) of English women and the slaughter of English children--than
the rank and file were permitted to hear; and that they were also, both
from their station and their experience, far better able to decide the
measures best calculated to crush the imminent danger threatening our
dominion in India.
[39] Lit. Lady-house.
[40] Foreigner. Among the sepoys the word usually signified an Afghan or
Caubuli.
[41] This very man who denounced Jamie Green as a spy was actually
hanged in Bareilly in the following May for having murdered his master
in that station when the Mutiny first broke out.