Allyghur and Laswaree
I sat down to write gravely and sadly, for (since the appearance of
some of my adventures in a monthly magazine) unprincipled men have
endeavoured to rob me of the only good I possess, to question the
statements that I make, and, themselves without a spark of honour or
good feeling, to steal from me that which is my sole wealth—my
character as a teller of THE TRUTH.
The reader will understand that it is to the illiberal strictures of a
profligate press I now allude; among the London journalists, none
(luckily for themselves) have dared to question the veracity of my
statements: they know me, and they know that I am _in London_. If I can
use the pen, I can also wield a more manly and terrible weapon, and
would answer their contradictions with my sword! No gold or gems adorn
the hilt of that war-worn scimitar; but there is blood upon the
blade—the blood of the enemies of my country, and the maligners of my
honest fame. There are others, however—the disgrace of a disgraceful
trade—who, borrowing from distance a despicable courage, have ventured
to assail me. The infamous editors of the _Kelso Champion_, the _Bungay
Beacon_, the _Tipperary Argus_, and the _Stoke Pogis Sentinel_, and
other dastardly organs of the provincial press, have, although
differing in politics, agreed upon this one point, and, with a
scoundrelly unanimity, vented a flood of abuse upon the revelations
made by me.
They say that I have assailed private characters, and wilfully
perverted history to blacken the reputation of public men. I ask, was
any one of these men in Bengal in the year 1803? Was any single
conductor of any one of these paltry prints ever in Bundelcund or the
Rohilla country? Does this _exquisite_ Tipperary scribe know the
difference between Hurrygurrybang and Burrumtollah? Not he! and
because, forsooth, in those strange and distant lands strange
circumstances have taken place, it is insinuated that the relater is a
liar: nay, that the very places themselves have no existence but in my
imagination. Fools!—but I will not waste my anger upon them, and
proceed to recount some other portions of my personal history.
It is, I presume, a fact which even _these_ scribbling assassins will
not venture to deny, that before the commencement of the campaign
against Scindiah, the English General formed a camp at Kanouge on the
Jumna, where he exercised that brilliant little army which was speedily
to perform such wonders in the Dooab. It will be as well to give a
slight account of the causes of a war which was speedily to rage
through some of the fairest portions of the Indian continent.
Shah Allum, the son of Shah Lollum, the descendant by the female line
of Nadir Shah (that celebrated Toorkomaun adventurer, who had well-nigh
hurled Bajazet and Selim the Second from the throne of Bagdad)—Shah
Allum, I say, although nominally the Emperor of Delhi, was in reality
the slave of the various warlike chieftains who lorded it by turns over
the country and the sovereign, until conquered and slain by some more
successful rebel. Chowder Loll Masolgee, Zubberdust Khan, Dowsunt Row
Scindiah, and the celebrated Bobbachy Jung Bahawder, had held for a
time complete mastery in Delhi. The second of these, a ruthless Afghan
soldier, had abruptly entered the capital; nor was he ejected from it
until he had seized upon the principal jewels, and likewise put out the
eyes of the last of the unfortunate family of Afrasiab. Scindiah came
to the rescue of the sightless Shah Allum, and though he destroyed his
oppressor, only increased his slavery; holding him in as painful a
bondage as he had suffered under the tyrannous Afghan.
As long as these heroes were battling among themselves, or as long
rather as it appeared that they had any strength to fight a battle, the
British Government, ever anxious to see its enemies by the ears, by no
means interfered in the contest. But the French Revolution broke out,
and a host of starving sans-culottes appeared among the various Indian
States, seeking for military service, and inflaming the minds of the
various native princes against the British East India Company. A number
of these entered into Scindiah’s ranks: one of them, Perron, was
commander of his army; and though that chief was as yet quite engaged
in his hereditary quarrel with Jeswunt Row Holkar, and never thought of
an invasion of the British territory, the Company all of a sudden
discovered that Shah Allum, his sovereign, was shamefully ill-used, and
determined to re-establish the ancient splendour of his throne.
Of course it was sheer benevolence for poor Shah Allum that prompted
our governors to take these kindly measures in his favour. I don’t know
how it happened that, at the end of the war, the poor Shah was not a
whit better off than at the beginning; and that though Holkar was
beaten, and Scindiah annihilated, Shah Allum was much such a puppet as
before. Somehow, in the hurry and confusion of this struggle, the
oyster remained with the British Government, who had so kindly offered
to dress it for the Emperor, while His Majesty was obliged to be
contented with the shell.
The force encamped at Kanouge bore the title of the Grand Army of the
Ganges and the Jumna; it consisted of eleven regiments of cavalry and
twelve battalions of infantry, and was commanded by General Lake in
person.
Well, on the 1st of September we stormed Perron’s camp at Allyghur; on
the fourth we took that fortress by assault; and as my name was
mentioned in general orders, I may as well quote the Commander-in-
Chief’s words regarding me—they will spare me the trouble of composing
my own eulogium:-
“The Commander-in-Chief is proud thus publicly to declare his high
sense of the gallantry of Lieutenant Gahagan, of the — Cavalry. In the
storming of the fortress, although unprovided with a single ladder, and
accompanied but by a few brave men, Lieutenant Gahagan succeeded in
escalading the inner and fourteenth wall of the place. Fourteen ditches
lined with sword-blades and poisoned chevaux-de- frise, fourteen walls
bristling with innumerable artillery and as smooth as looking-glasses,
were in turn triumphantly passed by that enterprising officer. His
course was to be traced by the heaps of slaughtered enemies lying thick
upon the platforms; and alas! by the corpses of most of the gallant men
who followed him! When at length he effected his lodgment, and the
dastardly enemy, who dared not to confront him with arms, let loose
upon him the tigers and lions of Scindiah’s menagerie, this meritorious
officer destroyed, with his own hand, four of the largest and most
ferocious animals, and the rest, awed by the indomitable majesty of
BRITISH VALOUR, shrank back to their dens. Thomas Higgory, a private,
and Runty Goss, havildar, were the only two who remained out of the
nine hundred who followed Lieutenant Gahagan. Honour to them! Honour
and tears for the brave men who perished on that awful day!”
I have copied this, word for word, from the _Bengal Hurkaru_ of
September 24, 1803: and anybody who has the slightest doubt as to the
statement, may refer to the paper itself.
And here I must pause to give thanks to Fortune, which so marvellously
preserved me, Sergeant-Major Higgory, and Runty Goss. Were I to say
that any valour of ours had carried us unhurt through this tremendous
combat, the reader would laugh me to scorn. No: though my narrative is
extraordinary, it is nevertheless authentic: and never never would I
sacrifice truth for the mere sake of effect. The fact is this:- the
citadel of Allyghur is situated upon a rock, about a thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by fourteen walls, as his
Excellency was good enough to remark in his despatch. A man who would
mount these without scaling-ladders, is an ass; he who would _say_ he
mounted them without such assistance, is a liar and a knave. We _had_
scaling- ladders at the commencement of the assault, although it was
quite impossible to carry them beyond the first line of batteries.
Mounted on them, however, as our troops were falling thick about me, I
saw that we must ignominiously retreat, unless some other help could be
found for our brave fellows to escalade the next wall. It was about
seventy feet high. I instantly turned the guns of wall _A_ on wall _B_,
and peppered the latter so as to make, not a breach, but a scaling
place; the men mounting in the holes made by the shot. By this simple
stratagem, I managed to pass each successive barrier—for to ascend a
wall which the General was pleased to call “as smooth as glass” is an
absurd impossibility: I seek to achieve none such:-
“I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is neither more nor less.”
Of course, had the enemy’s guns been commonly well served, not one of
us would ever have been alive out of the three; but whether it was
owing to fright, or to the excessive smoke caused by so many pieces of
artillery, arrive we did. On the platforms, too, our work was not quite
so difficult as might be imagined—killing these fellows was sheer
butchery. As soon as we appeared, they all turned and fled
helter-skelter, and the reader may judge of their courage by the fact
that out of about seven hundred men killed by us, only forty had wounds
in front, the rest being bayoneted as they ran.
And beyond all other pieces of good fortune was the very letting out of
these tigers; which was the _dernier ressort_ of Bournonville, the
second commandant of the fort. I had observed this man (conspicuous for
a tricoloured scarf which he wore) upon every one of the walls as we
stormed them, and running away the very first among the fugitives. He
had all the keys of the gates; and in his tremor, as he opened the
menagerie portal, left the whole bunch in the door, which I seized when
the animals were overcome. Runty Goss then opened them one by one, our
troops entered, and the victorious standard of my country floated on
the walls of Allyghur!
When the General, accompanied by his staff, entered the last line of
fortifications, the brave old man raised me from the dead rhinoceros on
which I was seated, and pressed me to his breast. But the excitement
which had borne me through the fatigues and perils of that fearful day
failed all of a sudden, and I wept like a child upon his shoulder.
Promotion, in our army, goes unluckily by seniority; nor is it in the
power of the General-in-Chief to advance a Cæsar, if he finds him in
the capacity of a subaltern: _my_ reward for the above exploit was,
therefore, not very rich. His Excellency had a favourite horn snuff-box
(for, though exalted in station, he was in his habits most simple): of
this, and about a quarter of an ounce of high-dried Welsh, which he
always took, he made me a present, saying, in front of the line,
“Accept this, Mr. Gahagan, as a token of respect from the first to the
bravest officer in the army.”
Calculating the snuff to be worth a halfpenny, I should say that
fourpence was about the value of this gift: but it has at least this
good effect—it serves to convince any person who doubts my story, that
the facts of it are really true. I have left it at the office of my
publisher, along with the extract from the _Bengal Hurkaru_, and
anybody may examine both by applying in the counting- house of Mr.
Cunningham.[3] That once popular expression, or proverb, “Are you up to
snuff?” arose out of the above circumstance; for the officers of my
corps, none of whom, except myself, had ventured on the storming party,
used to twit me about this modest reward for my labours. Never mind!
when they want me to storm a fort _again_, I shall know better.
Well, immediately after the capture of this important fortress, Perron,
who had been the life and soul of Scindiah’s army, came in to us, with
his family and treasure, and was passed over to the French settlements
at Chandernagur. Bourquien took his command, and against him we now
moved. The morning of the 11th of September found us upon the plains of
Delhi.
It was a burning hot day, and we were all refreshing ourselves after
the morning’s march, when I, who was on the advanced picket along with
O’Gawler of the King’s Dragoons, was made aware of the enemy’s
neighbourhood in a very singular manner. O’Gawler and I were seated
under a little canopy of horse-cloths, which we had formed to shelter
us from the intolerable heat of the sun, and were discussing with great
delight a few Manilla cheroots, and a stone jar of the most exquisite,
cool, weak, refreshing sangaree. We had been playing cards the night
before, and O’Gawler had lost to me seven hundred rupees. I emptied the
last of the sangaree into the two pint tumblers out of which we were
drinking, and holding mine up, said, “Here’s better luck to you next
time, O’Gawler!”
As I spoke the words—whish!—a cannon-ball cut the tumbler clean out of
my hand, and plumped into poor O’Gawler’s stomach. It settled him
completely, and of course I never got my seven hundred rupees. Such are
the uncertainties of war!
To strap on my sabre and my accoutrements—to mount my Arab charger—to
drink off what O’Gawler had left of the sangaree—and to gallop to the
General, was the work of a moment. I found him as comfortably at tiffin
as if he were at his own house in London.
“General,” said I, as soon as I got into his paijamahs (or tent), “you
must leave your lunch if you want to fight the enemy.”
“The enemy—psha! Mr. Gahagan, the enemy is on the other side of the
river.”
“I can only tell your Excellency that the enemy’s guns will hardly
carry five miles, and that Cornet O’Gawler was this moment shot dead at
my side with a cannon-ball.”
“Ha! is it so?” said his Excellency, rising, and laying down the
drumstick of a grilled chicken. “Gentlemen, remember that the eyes of
Europe are upon us, and follow me!”
Each aide-de-camp started from table and seized his cocked hat; each
British heart beat high at the thoughts of the coming _mêlée_. We
mounted our horses, and galloped swiftly after the brave old General; I
not the last in the train, upon my famous black charger.
It was perfectly true, the enemy were posted in force within three
miles of our camp, and from a hillock in the advance to which we
galloped, we were enabled with our telescopes to see the whole of his
imposing line. Nothing can better describe it than this:-
___________________ A
/....................
/.
/.
- A is the enemy, and the dots represent the hundred and twenty pieces
of artillery which defended his line. He was moreover, entrenched; and
a wide morass in his front gave him an additional security.
His Excellency for a moment surveyed the line, and then said, turning
round to one of his aides-de-camp, “Order up Major-General Tinkler and
the cavalry.”
“_Here_, does your Excellency mean?” said the aide-de-camp, surprised,
for the enemy had perceived us, and the cannon-balls were flying about
as thick as peas.
“_Here, sir!_” said the old General, stamping with his foot in a
passion, and the A.D.C. shrugged his shoulders and galloped away. In
five minutes we heard the trumpets in our camp, and in twenty more the
greater part of the cavalry had joined us.
Up they came, five thousand men, their standards flapping in the air,
their long line of polished jack-boots gleaming in the golden sunlight.
“And now we are here,” said Major-General Sir Theophilus Tinkler, “what
next?” “Oh, d- it,” said the Commander-in-Chief, “charge,
charge—nothing like charging—galloping—guns—rascally black
scoundrels—charge, charge!” And then turning round to me (perhaps he
was glad to change the conversation), he said, “Lieutenant Gahagan, you
will stay with me.”
And well for him I did, for I do not hesitate to say that the battle
_was gained by me_. I do not mean to insult the reader by pretending
that any personal exertions of mine turned the day,— that I killed, for
instance, a regiment of cavalry or swallowed a battery of guns,—such
absurd tales would disgrace both the hearer and the teller. I, as is
well known, never say a single word which cannot be proved, and hate
more than all other vices the absurd sin of egotism: I simply mean that
my _advice_ to the General, at a quarter-past two o’clock in the
afternoon of that day, won this great triumph for the British army.
Gleig, Mill, and Thorn have all told the tale of this war, though
somehow they have omitted all mention of the hero of it. General Lake,
for the victory of that day, became Lord Lake of Laswaree. Laswaree!
and who, forsooth, was the real conqueror of Laswaree? I can lay my
hand upon my heart and say that _I_ was. If any proof is wanting of the
fact, let me give it at once, and from the highest military testimony
in the world—I mean that of the Emperor Napoleon.
In the month of March, 1817, I was passenger on board the “Prince
Regent,” Captain Harris, which touched at St. Helena on its passage
from Calcutta to England. In company with the other officers on board
the ship, I paid my respects to the illustrious exile of Longwood, who
received us in his garden, where he was walking about, in a nankeen
dress and a large broad-brimmed straw hat, with General Montholon,
Count Las Casas, and his son Emanuel, then a little boy; who I dare say
does not recollect me, but who nevertheless played with my sword-knot
and the tassels of my Hessian boots during the whole of our interview
with his Imperial Majesty.
Our names were read out (in a pretty accent, by the way!) by General
Montholon, and the Emperor, as each was pronounced, made a bow to the
owner of it, but did not vouchsafe a word. At last Montholon came to
mine. The Emperor looked me at once in the face, took his hands out of
his pockets, put them behind his back, and coming up to me smiling,
pronounced the following words:-
“Assaye, Delhi, Deeg, Futtyghur?”
I blushed, and, taking off my hat with a bow, said, “Sire, c’est moi.”
“Parbleu! je le savais bien,” said the Emperor, holding out his
snuff-box. “En usez-vous, Major?” I took a large pinch (which, with the
honour of speaking to so great a man, brought the tears into my eyes),
and he continued as nearly as possible in the following words:-
“Sir, you are known; you come of an heroic nation. Your third brother,
the Chef de Bataillon, Count Godfrey Gahagan, was in my Irish Brigade.”
_Gahagan_. “Sire, it is true. He and my countrymen in your Majesty’s
service stood under the green flag in the breach of Burgos, and beat
Wellington back. It was the only time, as your Majesty knows, that
Irishmen and Englishmen were beaten in that war.”
_Napoleon_ (_looking as if he would say, “D— your candour, Major
Gahagan”_). “Well, well; it was so. Your brother was a Count, and died
a General in my service.”
_Gahagan_. “He was found lying upon the bodies of nine-and-twenty
Cossacks at Borodino. They were all dead, and bore the Gahagan mark.”
_Napoleon_ (_to Montholon_). “C’est vrai, Montholon: je vous donne ma
parole d’honneur la plus sacrée, que c’est vrai. Ils ne sont pas
d’autres, ces terribles Ga’gans. You must know that Monsieur gained the
battle of Delhi as certainly as I did that of Austerlitz. In this way:—
Ce bélitre de Lor Lake, after calling up his cavalry, and placing them
in front of Holkar’s batteries, qui balayaient la plaine, was for
charging the enemy’s batteries with his horse, who would have been
écrasés, mitraillés, foudroyés to a man but for the cunning of ce grand
rogue que vous voyez.”
_Montholon_. “Coquin de Major, va!”
_Napoleon_. “Montholon! tais-toi. When Lord Lake, with his great
bull-headed English obstinacy, saw the _fâcheuse_ position into which
he had brought his troops, he was for dying on the spot, and would
infallibly have done so—and the loss of his army would have been the
ruin of the East India Company—and the ruin of the English East India
Company would have established my Empire (bah! it was a republic then!)
in the East—but that the man before us, Lieutenant Goliah Gahagan, was
riding at the side of General Lake.”
_Montholon_ (_with an accent of despair and fury_). “Gredin! cent mille
tonnerres de Dieu!”
_Napoleon_ (_benignantly_). “Calme-toi, mon fidèle ami. What will you?
It was fate. Gahagan, at the critical period of the battle, or rather
slaughter (for the English had not slain a man of the enemy), advised a
retreat.”
_Montholon_. “Le lâche! Un Français meurt, mais il ne recule jamais.”
_Napoleon_. “_Stupide!_ Don’t you see _why_ the retreat was ordered?—
don’t you know that it was a feint on the part of Gahagan to draw
Holkar from his impregnable entrenchments? Don’t you know that the
ignorant Indian fell into the snare, and issuing from behind the cover
of his guns, came down with his cavalry on the plains in pursuit of
Lake and his dragoons? Then it was that the Englishmen turned upon him;
the hardy children of the North swept down his feeble horsemen, bore
them back to their guns, which were useless, entered Holkar’s
entrenchments along with his troops, sabred the artillerymen at their
pieces, and won the battle of Delhi!”
As the Emperor spoke, his pale cheek glowed red, his eye flashed fire,
his deep clear voice rung as of old when he pointed out the enemy from
beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, or rallied his regiments to the
charge upon the death-strewn plain of Wagram. I have had many a proud
moment in my life, but never such a proud one as this; and I would
readily pardon the word “coward,” as applied to me by Montholon, in
consideration of the testimony which his master bore in my favour.
“Major,” said the Emperor to me in conclusion, “why had I not such a
man as you in my service? I would have made you a Prince and a
Marshal!” and here he fell into a reverie, of which I knew and
respected the purport. He was thinking, doubtless, that I might have
retrieved his fortunes; and indeed I have very little doubt that I
might.
Very soon after, coffee was brought by Monsieur Marchand, Napoleon’s
valet-de-chambre, and after partaking of that beverage, and talking
upon the politics of the day, the Emperor withdrew, leaving me deeply
impressed by the condescension he had shown in this remarkable
interview.