Saved—Captain Cowley pursues the enemy, and we fall on our
feet—Have to wear Sepoys’ boots—Halt at Leimatak—Transitions
of climate—Manipuri attack—Tables turned on them—Shortness of
food—The Nagas—Cross the Jhiri and regain the British frontier.
We were saved! That was the one thought in my mind when I was able to
recover my senses sufficiently to be able to think at all. Saved from the
terrors of starvation, and from the hands of our enemies; and in my heart
I thanked God for having given me the strength which had enabled me to
bear all the misery and weariness of the last few days. We human beings
are so given to forgetfulness, and fail so often to remember that we owe
thanks to Providence for preserving us when man’s help is of no avail.
We are ready enough to thank our fellow-men for what they do for us, but
we forget the rest. This time I can honestly say that I thanked God from
the bottom of my heart.
As I sat there by the side of the road, bereft of everything I possessed
in the world save only the clothes I wore, I did not think of what I had
lost, but only of the life that was still mine. This world is very good
and pleasant to live in. Home and friends are very dear to one at all
times. But all these are never so precious as when we see them slipping
from our grasp, and feel that even our breath, and the lifeblood coursing
through our veins, are to be taken from us; then alone do we fully rouse
ourselves to action, while we struggle and fight for the life that is so
dear.
It was some time before I recovered my senses sufficiently to be able to
join with the rest in giving the rescuing party a detailed account of
our miraculous escape. Some of Captain Cowley’s men were still pursuing
the now-retreating foe, and we could hear shots being fired from the
brow of the hill above us. We remained where we were for some time, and
our rescuers produced biscuits and potted meat and soda-water. They had
whisky with them too, so we really felt we had fallen on our feet. I was
too exhausted to eat much, and did not feel at all hungry; but I was glad
enough to drink a peg,[21] and felt very much better for it. My ankle was
very painful, so the doctor, who was among the newcomers, bound it up for
me, and I went to sleep by the roadside for a short time.
I have said we were saved, but that does not mean that we were entirely
out of danger of being fired upon by the Manipuris. They had not spared
Captain Cowley’s party, though they had allowed him to march up to within
twenty miles of us without making themselves unpleasant. But the night
before he met us he had marched as usual into a new camping-ground,
wholly ignorant of what had occurred in Manipur, and to his great
surprise had been fired on. Shortly afterwards fugitives from our party
arrived, and told him that we were wandering about in the jungle with
every chance of coming to grief before very long, unless rescued. This
news was startling, to say the least of it, and caused him to hurry on
to our help. When, some miles away, he heard shots being fired from the
top of the hill, he concluded that we were not far off, and before long
caught sight of the stockade and arrived in the nick of time with men,
food, and ammunition to our aid.
The rest of our march was a different thing to what the commencement had
been, though discomforts were still many and great. Food was none too
plentiful for the Sepoys, though we did not fare badly, and after two
days of starvation one is not particular. The 43rd had got a supply of
beer, whisky, and cocoa, which were all most acceptable commodities, and
I was able to get other luxuries from one of the party, viz., a brush,
a sponge, a grand pair of woollen stockings, and some Sepoys’ boots,
which each measured about a foot and a half in length and were broad in
proportion. However, beggars can’t be choosers, and as my ankle was very
much swollen the commodious boots did not come amiss.
After we had rested some hours we pushed on down the hill to Leimatak,
which place was reached before sunset. I was carried in a dooly, as my
ankle was too painful to allow of my walking.
When we arrived at the camp we found a string of elephants and mules,
which had been travelling up with the detachment, and which had been left
behind by Captain Cowley when he discovered the state of affairs we were
in, and had to hurry on to our help. It seemed difficult to realize that
we were still in a hostile country, surrounded by enemies, for the camp
looked just the same as it had done in more peaceful regions.
I had travelled down from Shillong, in the winter of 1890, with the 43rd
Ghoorka Rifles, and was consequently quite accustomed to the bustle and
movement accompanying a regiment on the march.
We halted at Leimatak for four or five hours, and had a very respectable
dinner, to which we did full justice. Afterwards I lay down and went to
sleep again, until it was time to move on.
From this time our march was very monotonous. We got up at three every
morning and marched until sunset. We had a meal of army rations and cocoa
in the morning, and another meal of army rations and beer in the evening,
after which we all went to sleep as we were, and never woke until the
bugle sounded the reveille.
We were always dead-tired. The hills were very steep, and as we got
nearer Cachar the heat was intense during the day, and the cold piercing
at night. We could only move very slowly, and with caution, for we never
knew when we might be attacked. Pickets were posted all around us on the
hills at night, for the purpose of keeping a look-out against the enemy.
We were fired at several times during the march, but the Manipuris did
not like the look of a large party, and kept a respectful distance,
sometimes firing at us from such a long way off that we did not take the
trouble to reply to it. And yet I was more nervous and unstrung at this
time than I had been when the danger was really imminent, and bullets
coming fast. A stray shot used to make my heart beat with terror, and at
last I got so nervous that whenever a shot was fired my companions used
to say it was only a bamboo burning in the jungle behind us.
We set fire to nearly all the Thanas on the road, which we found for the
most part deserted and empty. At one place called Khowpum, the Manipuris
had only left the Thana a few minutes before our arrival. They were lying
in wait for us though, on the top of a small ridge, hoping to catch us
as we came round the turn of the road. But they were caught themselves,
as the Ghoorkas made a small detour and appeared on the top of the ridge
instead of below it, and opened fire upon them, causing them to retreat
hastily, after a very slight show of resistance.
We then marched into the Thana, and found a quantity of rice in baskets,
which had evidently just arrived from the Maharajah’s Godowns[22] for
the monthly rations. We could not take the whole amount with us, but the
Sepoys were allowed to carry as much as they could, and it was a lucky
find. It was often very difficult to procure food for the men, and they
had more than once to go without dinner when they got in at night,
though as a rule they had half-rations. We had managed to get a supply of
rice from one of the Naga villages situated near the road.
The Nagas were for the most part friendly disposed towards us, but here
and there they gathered together near their villages, which they had
deserted for the meanwhile, and had a stray shot at us as we passed
along. We never burned these villages, thinking they might be useful to
the troops when they should return.
I walked most of the way, except the first march after meeting Captain
Cowley. He had a pony which he lent me, but the hills were very steep
at the best of times for riding, and on this occasion I had to balance
myself as best I could on a man’s saddle, with the off stirrup crossed
over the pony’s neck to make some sort of pommel. Riding thus downhill
was an impossibility, and I never made the attempt.
My ankle pained me very much at times, but for the most part it seemed to
have no feeling in it at all, and was swollen into an unsightly mass.
We came across one or two poor old Manipuri women on the road as we
neared the frontier. They had been peaceably travelling up to their homes
when the trouble came, and the men with them forsook them to hide in the
jungles around until we should have passed by. Poor old ladies! As soon
as they saw me they rushed at me and clung to my skirts, refusing to let
me out of their sight for a minute. We took them with us to Cachar, and
let them remain there until peace should be restored once more.
Day by day brought the same routine: the weary march in the hot sun, and
the worn-out slumber at night; but at last the day dawned which was to
see us across the frontier in British territory once more, saved in every
sense of the word.
It was sunset on the last day of March as we crossed the river Jhiri. I
had come all those weary miles through dangers great and terrible, and
was alive to tell the tale. Illness had spared us all. We might have had
cholera amongst us, to add to the rest of our troubles; but we had been
free from that.
To me, a woman, solitary and alone amongst so many men, the march had
been doubly trying; but to hear them say that I had not been a burden
upon them was some reward for all I had endured.
It has been said lately by some that this retreat to Cachar was in a
great measure due to my presence in Manipur at the time, and that my
helplessness has been the means of dragging the good name of the army,
and the Ghoorka corps in particular, through the mire, by strongly
influencing the officers in their decision to effect ‘the stampede to
Cachar.’
But I scarcely think that they would have allowed the presence of, and
danger to one woman to deter them from whatever they considered their
duty; and had they decided to remain at the Residency that night, I
should never have questioned their right to do so, even as I raised no
argument for or against the retreat to Cachar.
I think that the honour of England is as dear to us women as it is to
the men; and though it is not our vocation in life to be soldiers, and
to fight for our country, yet, when occasion offers, I have little doubt
that the women of England have that in them which would enable them to
come out of any dilemma as nobly and honourably as the men, and with just
as much disregard for their own lives as the bravest soldier concerned.
But such an insinuation as I have quoted is not, I am happy to think, the
unspoken opinion of the many to whom the story of Manipur is familiar. It
is but the uncharitable verdict of a few who are perhaps jealous of fair
fame honestly won, and who think to take a little sweetness from the
praise which England has awarded to a woman.
That such praise has been bestowed is more than sufficient reward for
what, after all, many another Englishwoman would have done under similar
circumstances.