ASSAULT ON THE BEGUM'S KOTHEE--DEATH OF CAPTAIN M'DONALD--MAJOR HODSON
WOUNDED--HIS DEATH
We had barely finished our meal when we noticed a stir among the
staff-officers, and a consultation taking place between General Sir
Edward Lugard, Brigadier Adrian Hope, and Colonel Napier. Suddenly the
order was given to the Ninety-Third to fall in. This was quietly done,
the officers taking their places, the men tightening their belts and
pressing their bonnets firmly on their heads, loosening the ammunition
in their pouches, and seeing that the springs of their bayonets held
tight. Thus we stood for a few seconds, when Brigadier Hope passed the
signal for the assault on the Begum's Kothee. Just before the signal was
given two men from the Fifty-Third rushed up to us with a soda-water
bottle full of grog. One of them was Lance-Corporal Robert Clary, who is
at present, I believe, police-sergeant in the Municipal Market,
Calcutta; the other was the friend of Andrew M'Onvill, who had supplied
us with the steaks for our "cannibal feast." I may mention that
Lance-Corporal Clary was the same man who led the party of the
Fifty-Third to capture the guns at the Kalee Nuddee bridge, and who
called out: "Three cheers for the Commander-in-Chief, boys," when Sir
Colin Campbell was threatening to send the regiment to the rear for
breach of orders. Clary was a County Limerick boy of the right sort,
such as filled the ranks of our Irish regiments of the old days. No
Fenian nor Home Ruler; but ever ready to uphold the honour of the
British Army by land or by sea, and to share the contents of his
haversack or his glass of grog with a comrade; one of those whom Scott
immortalises in _The Vision of Don Roderick_.
Hark! from yon stately ranks what laughter rings,
Mingling wild mirth with war's stern minstrelsy,
His jest while each blithe comrade round him flings,
And moves to death with military glee!
Boast, Erin, boast them! tameless, frank, and free,
In kindness warm, and fierce in danger known,
Rough Nature's children, humorous as she.
When Captain M'Donald, whose company we had joined, saw the two
Fifty-Third boys, he told them that they had better rejoin their own
regiment. Clary replied, "Sure, Captain, you don't mean it;" and seeing
Dr. Munro, our surgeon, busy giving directions to his assistants and
arranging bandages, etc., in a _dooly_, Clary went on:--"We have been
sent by Lieutenant Munro of our company to take care of his namesake
your doctor, who never thinks of himself, but is sure to be in the thick
of the fight, looking out for wounded men. You of the Ninety-Third don't
appreciate his worth. There's not another doctor in the army to equal
him or to replace him should he get knocked over in this scrimmage, and
we of the Fifty-Third have come to take care of him." "If that is the
case," said Captain M'Donald, "I'll allow you to remain; but you must
take care that no harm befalls our doctor, for he is a great friend of
mine." And with that Captain M'Donald stepped aside and plucked a rose
from a bush close by, (we were then formed up in what had been a
beautiful garden), and going up to Munro he gave him the flower saying,
"Good-bye, old friend, keep this for my sake." I have often recalled
this incident and wondered if poor Captain M'Donald had any presentiment
that he would be killed! Although he had been a captain for some years,
he was still almost a boy. He was a son of General Sir John M'Donald,
K.C.B., of Dalchosnie, Perthshire, and was wounded in his right arm
early in the day by a splinter from a shell, but he refused to go to the
rear, and remained at the head of his company, led it through the
breach, and was shot down just inside, two bullets striking him almost
at once, one right in his throat just over the breast-bone, as he was
waving his claymore and cheering on his company. After the fight was
over I made my way to where the dead were collected and cut off a lock
of his hair and sent it to a young lady, Miss M. E. Ainsworth, of
Inverighty House, Forfar, who, I knew, was acquainted with Captain
M'Donald's family. I intended the lock of hair for his mother, and I did
not know if his brother officers would think of sending any memento of
him. I don't know if ever the lock of hair reached his mother or not.
When I went to do this I found Captain M'Donald's soldier-servant
crying beside the lifeless body of his late master, wringing his hands
and saying, "Oh! but it was a shame to kill him." And so it was! I never
saw a more girlish-looking face than his was in death; his features were
so regular, and looked strangely like those of a wax doll, which was, I
think, partly the effect of the wound in the throat. But to return to
the assault.
When Captain McDonald fell the company was led by the senior lieutenant,
and about twenty yards inside the breach in the outer rampart we were
stopped by a ditch nearly eighteen feet wide and at least twelve to
fourteen feet deep. It was easy enough to slide down to the bottom; the
difficulty was to get up on the other side! However, there was no
hesitation; the stormers dashed into the ditch, and running along to the
right in search of some place where we could get up on the inside, we
met part of the grenadier company headed by Lieutenant E. S. Wood, an
active and daring young officer. I may here mention that there were two
lieutenants of the name of Wood at this time in the Ninety-Third. One
belonged to my company; his name was S. E. Wood and he was severely
wounded at the relief of Lucknow and was, at the time of which I am
writing, absent from the regiment. The one to whom I now refer was
Lieutenant E. S. Wood of the grenadier company. When the two parties in
the ditch met, both in search of a place to get out, Mr. Wood got on the
shoulders of another grenadier and somehow scrambled up claymore in
hand. He was certainly the first man inside the inner works of the
Begum's palace, and when the enemy saw him emerge from the ditch they
fled to barricade doors and windows to prevent us getting into the
buildings. His action saved us, for the whole of us might have been shot
like rats in the ditch if they had attacked Mr. Wood, instead of flying
when they saw the tall grenadier claymore in hand. As soon as he saw the
coast clear the lieutenant lay down on the top of the ditch, and was
thus able to reach down and catch hold of the men's rifles by the bends
of the bayonets; and with the aid of the men below pushing up behind, we
were all soon pulled out of the ditch. When all were up, one of the men
turned to Mr. Wood and said: "If any officer in the regiment deserves to
get the Victoria Cross, sir, you do; for besides the risk you have run
from the bullets of the enemy, it's more than a miracle that you're not
shot by our own rifles; they're all on full-cock." And so it was!
Seizing loaded rifles on full-cock by the muzzles, and pulling more than
a score of men out of a deep ditch, was a dangerous thing to do; but no
one thought of the danger, nor did anyone think of even easing the
spring to half-cock, much less of firing his rifle off before being
pulled up. However, Mr. Wood escaped, and after getting his captaincy he
left the regiment and became Conservator of Forests in Oude. I may
mention that Mr. Wood was a younger brother of Mr. H. W. I. Wood, for
many years the well-known secretary to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce.
He has just lately retired on his pension; I wonder if he ever recalls
the danger he incurred from pulling his men out of the ditch of the
Begum's palace by the muzzles of their loaded rifles on full-cock!
By the time we got out of the ditch we found every door and window of
the palace buildings barricaded, and every loophole defended by an
invisible enemy. But one barrier after another was forced, and men in
small parties, headed by the officers, got possession of the inner
square, where the enemy in large numbers stood ready for the struggle.
But no thought of unequal numbers held us back. The command was given:
"Keep well together, men, and use the bayonet; give them the
Secundrabagh and the sixteenth of November over again." I need not
describe the fight. It raged for about two hours from court to court,
and from room to room; the pipe-major, John M'Leod, playing the pipes
inside as calmly as if he had been walking round the officers' mess-tent
at a regimental festival. When all was over, General Sir Edward Lugard,
who commanded the division, complimented the pipe-major on his coolness
and bravery: "Ah, sir," said John, "I knew our boys would fight all the
better when cheered by the bagpipes."
"Within about two hours from the time the signal for the assault was
given, over eight hundred and sixty of the enemy lay dead within the
inner court, and no quarter was sought or given. By this time we were
broken up in small parties in a series of separate fights, all over the
different detached buildings of the palace. Captain M'Donald being dead,
the men who had been on piquet with me joined a party under Lieutenant
Sergison, and while breaking in the door of a room, Mr. Sergison was
shot dead at my side with several men. When we had partly broken in the
door, I saw that there was a large number of the enemy inside the room,
well armed with swords and spears, in addition to fire-arms of all
sorts, and, not wishing to be either killed myself or have more of the
men who were with me killed, I divided my party, placing some at each
side of the door to shoot every man who showed himself, or attempted to
rush out. I then sent two men back to the breach, where I knew Colonel
Napier with his engineers were to be found, to get a few bags of
gunpowder with slow-matches fixed, to light and pitch into the room.
Instead of finding Napier, the two men sent by me found the redoubtable
Major Hodson who had accompanied Napier as a volunteer in the storming
of the palace. Hodson did not wait for the powder-bags, but, after
showing the men where to go for them, came running up himself, sabre in
hand. 'Where are the rebels?' he said. I pointed to the door of the
room, and Hodson, shouting 'Come on!' was about to rush in. I implored
him not to do so, saying, 'It's certain death; wait for the powder; I've
sent men for powder-bags,' Hodson made a step forward, and I put out my
hand to seize him by the shoulder to pull him out of the line of the
doorway, when he fell back shot through the chest. He gasped out a few
words, either 'Oh, my wife!' or, 'Oh, my mother!'--I cannot now rightly
remember--but was immediately choked by blood. At the time I thought the
bullet had passed through his lungs, but since then I have seen the
memoir written by his brother, the Rev. George H. Hodson, Vicar of
Enfield, in which it is stated that the bullet passed through his liver.
However, I assisted to get him lifted into a _dooly_ (by that time the
bearers had got in and were collecting the wounded who were unable to
walk), and I sent him back to where the surgeons were, fully expecting
that he would be dead before anything could be done for him. It will
thus be seen that the assertion that Major Hodson was looting when he
was killed is untrue. No looting had been commenced, not even by Jung
Bahadoor's Goorkhas. That Major Hodson was killed through his own
rashness cannot be denied; but for any one to say that he was looting is
a cruel slander on one of the bravest of Englishmen."
Shortly after I had lifted poor Hodson into the _dooly_ and sent him
away in charge of his orderly, the two men who had gone for the powder
came up with several bags, with slow-matches fixed in them. These we
ignited, and then pitched the bags in through the door. Two or three
bags very soon brought the enemy out, and they were bayoneted down
without mercy. One of the men who were with me was, I think, Mr. Rule,
who is now _sans_ a leg, and employed by the G.I.P. Railway in Bombay,
but was then a powerful young man of the light company. Rule rushed in
among the rebels, using both bayonet and butt of his rifle, shouting,
"Revenge for the death of Hodson!" and he killed more than half the men
single-handed. By this time we had been over two hours inside the
breach, and almost all opposition had ceased. Lieutenant and Adjutant
"Willie" MacBean, as he was known to the officers, and "Paddy" MacBean
to the men, encountered a _havildar_, a _naik_, and nine sepoys at one
gate, and killed the whole eleven, one after the other. The _havildar_
was the last; and by the time he got out through the narrow gate,
several men came to the assistance of MacBean, but he called to them not
to interfere, and the _havildar_ and he went at it with their swords. At
length MacBean made a feint cut, but instead gave the point, and put his
sword through the chest of his opponent. For this MacBean got the
Victoria Cross, mainly, I believe, because Sir Edward Lugard, the
general in command of the division, was looking down from the ramparts
above and saw the whole affair. I don't think that MacBean himself
thought he had done anything extraordinary. He was an Inverness-shire
ploughman before he enlisted, and rose from the ranks to command the
regiment, and died a major-general. There were still a number of old
soldiers in the regiment who had been privates with MacBean when I
enlisted, and many anecdotes were related about him. One of these was
that when MacBean first joined, he walked with a rolling gait, and the
drill-corporal was rather abusive with him when learning his drill. At
last he became so offensive that another recruit proposed to MacBean,
who was a very powerful man, that they should call the corporal behind
the canteen in the barrack-yard and give him a good thrashing, to which
proposal MacBean replied: "Toots, toots, man, that would never do. I am
going to command this regiment before I leave it, and it would be an ill
beginning to be brought before the colonel for thrashing the
drill-corporal!" MacBean kept to his purpose, and _did_ live to command
the regiment, going through every rank from private to major-general. I
have seen it stated that he was a drummer-boy in the regiment, but that
is not correct. He was kept seven years lance-corporal, partly because
promotion went slow in the Ninety-Third, but several were promoted over
him because, at the time of the disruption in the Church of Scotland,
MacBean joined the Free Kirk party. This fact may appear strange to
military readers of the present day with our short service and
territorial regiments; but in the times of which I am writing, as I have
before mentioned, the Ninety-Third was constituted as much after the
arrangements of a Highland parish as those of a regiment in the army;
and, to use the words of old Colonel Sparks who commanded, MacBean was
passed over four promotions because "He was a d--d Free Kirker."
But I must hark back to my story and to the Begum's palace on the
evening of the 11th of March, 1858. By the time darkness set in all
opposition had ceased, but there were still numbers of the mutineers
hiding in the rooms. Our loss was small compared with that inflicted on
the enemy. Our regiment had one captain, one lieutenant, and thirteen
rank and file killed; Lieutenant Grimston, Ensign Hastie, and
forty-five men wounded. Many of the wounded died afterwards; but eight
hundred and sixty of the enemy lay dead in the centre court alone, and
many hundreds more were killed in the different enclosures and
buildings. That night we bivouacked in the courts of the palace, placing
strong guards all round. When daylight broke on the morning of the 12th
of March, the sights around were horrible. I have already mentioned that
many sepoys had to be dislodged from the close rooms around the palace
by exploding bags of gunpowder among them, and this set fire to their
clothing and to whatever furniture there was in the rooms; and when day
broke on the 12th, there were hundreds of bodies all round, some still
burning and others half-burnt, and the stench was sickening. However,
the Begum's palace was the key to the enemy's position. During the day
large parties of camp-followers were brought in to drag out the dead of
the enemy, and throw them into the ditch which had given us so much
trouble to cross, and our batteries were advanced to bombard the
Imambara and Kaiserbagh.
During the forenoon of the 12th, I remember seeing Mr. Russell of _The
Times_ going round making notes, and General Lugard telling him to take
care and not to attempt to go into any dark room for fear of being
"potted" by concealed Pandies. Many such were hunted out during the day,
and as there was no quarter for them they fought desperately. We had
one sergeant killed at this work and several men wounded. During the
afternoon a divisional order by General Sir Edward Lugard was read to
us, as follows:--
"Major-General Sir Edward Lugard begs to thank Brigadier the Honourable
Adrian Hope, Colonel Leith-Hay, and the officers and men of the
Ninety-Third who exclusively carried the position known as the Begum's
Kothee. No words are sufficient to express the gallantry, devotion, and
fearless intrepidity displayed by every officer and man in the regiment.
The Major-General will not fail to bring their conduct prominently to
the notice of his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief."
During the day Sir Colin himself visited the position, and told us that
arrangements would be made for our relief the following day, and on
Saturday, the 13th, we returned to camp and rested all the following
Sunday. So far as I remember, the two men of the Fifty-Third,
Lance-Corporal Clary and his comrade, remained with us till after the
place was taken, and then returned to their own regiment when the
fighting was over, reporting to Lieutenant Munro that they had gone to
take care of his brother, Doctor Munro of the Ninety-Third.
There were many individual acts of bravery performed during the assault,
and it is difficult to single them out. But before closing this chapter
I may relate a rather laughable incident that happened to a man of my
company named Johnny Ross. He was a little fellow, and there were two
of the same name in the company, one tall and the other short, so they
were named respectively John and Johnny. Before falling in for the
assault on the Begum's palace, Johnny Ross and George Puller, with some
others, had been playing cards in a sheltered corner, and in some way
quarrelled over the game. When the signal was given for the "fall in,"
Puller and Ross were still arguing the point in dispute, and Puller told
Ross to "shut up." Just at that very moment a spent bullet struck Ross
in the mouth, knocking in four of his front teeth. Johnny thought it was
Puller who had struck him, and at once returned the blow; when Puller
quietly replied, "You d--d fool, it was not I who struck you; you've got
a bullet in your mouth." And so it was: Johnny Ross put up his hand to
his mouth, and spat out four front teeth and a leaden bullet. He at once
apologised to Puller for having struck him, and added, "How will I
manage to bite my cartridges the noo?" Those were the days of
muzzle-loading cartridges, which had to be torn open with the teeth when
loading.
We returned to our tents at the Dilkoosha on Saturday, the 13th, and the
whole regiment formed a funeral party for our killed near the palace;
but I could not find the place on my late visit to Lucknow, nor do I
think any monument marks it. When going round the Dilkoosha heights I
found no trace of the graves of the Ninety-Third, nor was there any one
who could point them out to me. The guide took me to see the grave of
Major Hodson. I found it in excellent preservation, with a wall round
it, and an iron gate to it near the entrance to the Martiniere College.
This care had been taken of Hodson's last resting-place by his friend,
Lord Napier of Magdala, and I cut a branch from the cypress-tree planted
at his head, and posted half of it to the address of his brother in
England.
NOTE
HODSON OF HODSON'S HORSE
Sir Colin Campbell wrote thus at the time of Major Hodson's
death: "The whole army, which admired his talents, his
bravery, and his military skill, deplores his loss.... I
attended his funeral yesterday evening, in order to show
what respect I could to the memory of one of the most
brilliant officers under my command.--(Signed) C.
CAMPBELL, Commander-in-Chief in East Indies."
The following tributes were also paid to Hodson's memory at
the time. From a leading article in _The Times_: "The
country will receive with lively regret the news that the
gallant Major Hodson, who has given his name to an
invincible and almost ubiquitous body of cavalry, was killed
in the attack on Lucknow. Major Hodson has been from the
very beginning of this war fighting everywhere and against
any odds with all the spirit of a Paladin of old. His most
remarkable exploit, the capture of the King of Delhi and his
two sons, astonished the world by its courage and coolness.
Hodson was indeed a man who, from his romantic daring and
his knowledge of the Asiatic character, was able to beat the
natives at their own weapons."
From _Blackwood's Magazine_: "Then fell one of the bravest
in the Indian Army, an officer whose name has been brought
too often before the public by those in high command to need
my humble word of praise. There was not a man before Delhi
who did not know Hodson; always active, always cheery, it
did one's heart good to look at his face when all felt how
critical was our position."