LUCKNOW AND SIR COLIN CAMPBELL
Havelock fought his way through blood and fire into the Residency, but he
shrank from leading a great procession of women and children and wounded
men along that _via dolorosa_—that pathway of blood—by which, at so grim
a cost, he had himself reached the beleaguered garrison. The Residency,
it was clear, must be held, since the great company of helpless women
and children it sheltered could not be carried off. So what Havelock and
Outram really accomplished was not so much a Relief as a Reinforcement.
Outram assumed the command, and for six weeks the greatly-strengthened
garrison held its own with comparative ease against the revolted swarms,
reckoned—uncertainly—at no less than 60,000 strong, who still maintained
a sullen blockade of the Residency.
Early in November reinforcements were pouring in from England, and a
new actor appeared on the scene. The crisis of the Mutiny called to
the post of commander-in-chief in India the best soldier Great Britain
possessed. Colin Campbell was not, perhaps, a great general, in the
sense in which Sir John Moore, or Wellington, or Sir Charles Napier were
generals. But he was a tough, hard-fighting, much-experienced soldier,
with that combination of wariness and fire which marks the Scotch genius
for battle. What he did not know of the details of a soldier’s business
might almost be described as not worth knowing. He had served his
apprenticeship to war in the perils and hardships of Moore’s retreat to
Corunna. A list of the battles and sieges in which he took part would
cover almost the entire military history of Great Britain between Corunna
and the Crimea. His cool skill and daring as a soldier are picturesquely
illustrated by the famous “thin red line” incident at Balaclava; where,
disdaining to throw his troops into square, he received a charge of
Russian cavalry on a thin extended front, and smote the assailing
squadron into fragments with a single blast of musketry.
Colin Campbell was sixty-five years of age, and regarded his military
career as over; but on July 11, when the news of General Anson’s death
reached England, Lord Panmure offered Campbell the chief command in
India, and with characteristic promptitude the Scottish veteran offered
to start for India the same afternoon! Campbell landed at Calcutta on
August 13, spent some weeks there in “organising victory”—or, rather, in
reorganising the whole shattered military system of the Presidency—and
on October 27 hurried to the seat of war. He reached Cawnpore on
November 3, and on the 9th set out to relieve Lucknow. “Our friends in
Lucknow,” he wrote to his sister, “have food only for five or six days.”
This was a mistake that cost the lives of many brave men. Lawrence had
provisioned the Residency better than was imagined. But the delusion of
imminent starvation, which made Havelock fight his way at such desperate
speed and cost into Lucknow, still prevailed, and governed British
strategy. Delhi had fallen by September 20—a story yet to be told—and
part of its besieging force was thus available for a new march on Lucknow.
On the afternoon of November 11 Campbell reviewed the relieving force
at Buntera. It was modest in numbers—counting only about 4700 men.
But war-hardened, and full of fiery yet disciplined daring, it was as
efficient for all the purposes of battle as Napoleon’s Old Guard or
Wellington’s famous Light Division. The cavalry brigade included two
squadrons of the 9th Lancers, Hodson’s Horse, and three squadrons of
native cavalry. The Naval Brigade was under Peel, the third son of the
great Prime Minister of England, one of the most daring yet gentle
spirits that ever fought and died for England. Evelyn Wood, who served
under him as middy in the Crimea, describes him as “the bravest of the
brave,” and yet “an ideal English gentleman.” “His dark brown wavy hair
was carefully brushed back, disclosing a perfectly oval face, a high
square forehead, and deep blue-grey eyes, which flashed when he was
talking eagerly, as he often did.” The Artillery Brigade consisted of
five batteries. The infantry was made up of detachments from the 4th, the
5th, the 23rd Fusileers, a wing of the 53rd, part of the 82nd, and the
full strength of the 93rd Highlanders, with some Sikh regiments.
The 93rd was 1000 strong, and 700 men in the ranks carried the Crimean
medal on their breasts. It has been described as “the most Scotch of
all the Highland regiments,” and a strong religious—as well as a rich
Celtic—strain ran through its ranks. Forbes-Mitchell, indeed, who
marched in its ranks, says the regiment constituted a sort of military
Highland parish, ministers and elders complete. The elders were selected
from among the men of all ranks, two sergeants, two corporals, and two
privates. It had a regular service of communion plate, and the communion
was administered to the whole regiment by its chaplain twice a year.
The 93rd was drawn up in quarter-distance column on the extreme left of
the line as Colin Campbell rode down to review his forces that November
afternoon. It was in full Highland costume, with kilts and bonnets and
wind-blown plumes. Campbell’s Celtic blood kindled when he reached the
Highlanders. “Ninety-third!” he said, “you are my own lads; I rely on you
to do the work.” And a voice from the ranks in broadest Doric answered,
“Ay, ay, Sir Colin, ye ken us and we ken you; we’ll bring the women and
children out of Lucknow or die wi’ you in the attempt.” And then from
the steady ranks of the Highlanders there broke a shout, sudden and deep
and stern, the shout of valiant men—the men of the hardy North—pledging
themselves to valiant deeds.
Here is the description given by an eye-witness of the little army, less
than 5000 strong, but of such magnificent fighting quality, down whose
ranks Colin Campbell rode as the November sun was going down:—
The field-guns from Delhi looked blackened and service-worn;
but the horses were in good condition, and the harness in
perfect repair; the gunners bronzed, stalwart, and in perfect
fighting case. The 9th Lancers, with their gallant bearing,
their flagless lances, and their lean but hardy horses, looked
the perfection of regular cavalry on active service. Wild
and bold was the bearing of the Sikh horsemen, clad in loose
fawn-coloured dress, with long boots, blue or red turbans and
sashes; and armed with carbine and tulwar. Next to them were
the worn and wasted remains of the 8th and 75th Queen’s, who,
with wearied air, stood grouped under their colours. Then came
the two regiments of Punjab infantry, tall of stature, with
fierce eager eyes under their huge turbans—men swift in the
march, forward in the fight, and eager for the pillage. On the
left of the line, in massive serried ranks, a waving sea of
plumes and tartan, stood the 93rd Highlanders, who with loud
and rapturous cheers welcomed the veteran commander whom they
knew so well and loved so warmly.
On November 12 Campbell had reached the Alumbagh, and, halting there,
decided on the line of his advance to the Residency. Instead of advancing
direct on the city, and fighting his way through loopholed and narrow
lanes, each one a mere valley of death, he proposed to swing round to the
right, march in a wide curve through the open ground, and seize what was
known as the Dilkusha Park, a great enclosed garden, surrounded by a wall
20 feet high, a little over two miles to the east of the Residency. Using
this as his base, he would next move round to the north of the city,
forcing his way through a series of strong posts, the most formidable
of which were the Secundrabagh and the Shah Nujeef, and so reach the
Residency. And the story of the fighting at those two points makes up the
tragedy and glory of the Relief of Lucknow.
Outram, of course, was not the man to lie inertly within his defences
while Campbell was moving to his relief. He had already sent plans of
the city and its approaches, with suggestions as to the best route, to
Campbell by means of a spy, and he was prepared to break out on the
line by which the relieving force was to advance. But if Campbell could
be supplied with a guide, who knew the city as he knew the palm of his
own hand, this would be an enormous advantage; and exactly such a guide
at this moment presented himself. A civilian named Kavanagh offered to
undertake this desperate mission.
Kavanagh was an Irishman, a clerk in one of the civil offices, and
apparently possessed a hundred disqualifications for the business of
making his way, disguised as a native, through the dark-faced hordes that
kept sleepless watch round the Residency, and through the busy streets
of Lucknow beyond. He was a big-limbed, fair man, with aggressively
red hair, and uncompromisingly blue eyes! By what histrionic art could
he be “translated,” in Shakespeare’s sense, into a spindle-shanked,
narrow-shouldered, dusky-skinned Oude peasant? But Kavanagh was a man of
quenchless courage, with a more than Irish delight in deeds of daring,
and he had a perfect knowledge of native dialect and character. He has
left a narrative of his adventure.
A spy had come in from Campbell, and was to return that night, and
Kavanagh conceived the idea of going out with him, and acting as guide
to the relieving force. Outram hesitated to permit the attempt to be
made, declaring it to be too dangerous; but Kavanagh’s eagerness for
the adventure prevailed. He hid the whole scheme from his wife, and,
at half-past seven o’clock that evening, when he entered Outram’s
headquarters, he was so perfectly disguised that nobody recognised him.
He had blackened his face, neck, and arms with lamp-black, mixed with
a little oil. His red hair, which even lamp-black and oil could hardly
subdue to a colder tint, was concealed beneath a huge turban. His dress
was that of a budmash, or irregular native soldier, with sword and
shield, tight trousers, a yellow-coloured chintz sheet thrown over the
shoulders, and a white cummerbund.
A little after eight o’clock Kavanagh, with his native guide, crept
to the bank of the Goomtee, which ran to the north of the Residency
entrenchment. The river was a hundred yards wide, and between four feet
and five feet deep. Both men stripped, crept down the bank, and slipped,
as silently as otters, into the stream. Here for a moment, as Kavanagh in
his narrative confesses, his courage failed him. The shadowy bank beyond
the black river was held by some 60,000 merciless enemies. He had to pass
through their camps and guards, and through miles of city streets beyond.
If detected, he would certainly perish by torture. “If my guide had been
within my reach,” he says, “I should perhaps have pulled him back and
abandoned the enterprise.” But the guide was already vanishing, a sort of
crouching shadow, into the blackness of the further bank; and, hardening
his heart, Kavanagh stole on through the sliding gloom of the river.
Both men crept up a ditch that pierced the river-bank to a cluster of
trees, and there dressed; and then, with his tulwar on his shoulder and
the swagger of a budmash, Kavanagh went boldly forward with his guide.
A matchlock man first met the adventurous pair and peered suspiciously
at them from under his turban. Kavanagh in a loud voice volunteered
the remark that “the night was cold,” and passed on. They had to cross
the iron bridge which spanned the Goomtee, and the officer on guard
challenged them lazily from the balcony of a two-storeyed house. Kavanagh
himself hung back in the shade, while his guide went forward and told
the story of how they belonged to a village some miles distant, and were
going to the city from their homes.
They were allowed to pass, ran the gauntlet of many troops of Sepoys,
re-crossed the Goomtee by what was called the stone bridge, and passed
unsuspected along the principal street of Lucknow, jostling their way
through the crowds, and so reached the open fields beyond the city.
“I had not been in green fields,” writes Kavanagh, “for five months.
Everything around us smelt sweet, and a carrot I took from the roadside
was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted!” But it was difficult to
find their way in the night. They wandered into the Dilkusha Park, and
stumbled upon a battery of guns, which Kavanagh, to the terror of his
guide, insisted upon inspecting.
They next blundered into the canal, but still wandered on, till they
fell into the hands of a guard of twenty-five Sepoys, and Kavanagh’s
guide, in his terror, dropped in the dust of the road the letter he was
carrying from Outram to Campbell. Kavanagh, however, kept his coolness,
and after some parleying he and his guide were allowed to pass on. The
much-enduring pair next found themselves entangled in a swamp, and,
waist-deep in its slime and weeds, they struggled on for two hours, when
they reached solid ground again. Kavanagh insisted on lying down to rest
for a time. Next they crept between some Sepoy pickets which, with true
native carelessness, had thrown out no sentries, and finally, just as the
eastern sky was growing white with the coming day, the two adventurers
heard the challenge, “Who comes there?” from under the shadow of a great
tree!
It was a British cavalry picket, and Kavanagh had soon the happiness
of pouring into Sir Colin Campbell’s ears the messages and information
he brought, while a flag, hoisted at twelve o’clock on the summit of
the Alumbagh, told Outram that his messenger had succeeded, and that
both the garrison and the relieving force had now a common plan. It is
difficult to imagine a higher example of human courage than that supplied
by “Lucknow” Kavanagh, as he was afterwards called, and never was the
Victoria Cross better won.
On the afternoon of the 15th Campbell made an elaborate reconnaissance
on his extreme left, and all night he thundered in that direction
with his guns, and the enemy gathered in full strength on that line,
persuaded that the British would advance on it. But by daybreak on the
16th Campbell was moving off, light-footed and swift, by his right,
exactly where the enemy did not expect him! He had little over 3000
bayonets in his force, but he was strong in artillery, counting in all
thirty-nine guns, six mortars, and two rocket-tubes, and he hoped to
smash by the weight of his fire every obstacle that stood in his path to
the Residency. Yet, be it remembered, he was moving on the arc of a great
fortified central position, held by a hostile force not less than 60,000
strong, or more than fifteen times more numerous than his own.
Blunt’s guns and a company of the 53rd formed Campbell’s advance-guard.
They crossed the canal, followed for a mile the river-bank, and then
swung sharply to the left by a road which ran parallel to the rear of
the Secundrabagh. This was a great garden, 150 yards on each face, with
walls twenty feet high, and a circular bastion at each angle, and from
its rear face, as the head of the British column came in sight, broke
an angry tempest of musket-shot, a fire which, it must be remembered,
smote the advancing British column on the flank. Cavalry and infantry
were helpless in the narrow lane, and something like a “jam” took place.
Blunt, however, an officer of great daring, with an enthusiastic belief
that British guns could go anywhere and do anything, cut the knot of the
difficulty. The bank of the lane was so steep that it seemed impossible
that horses and guns could climb it, but Blunt, with cool decision, put
the guns in motion, swung the horses’ heads sharply round, and, with
whip and spur and shout, his gunners drove the snorting, panting horses
up the bank into the open space under the fire of the Secundrabagh.
Travers, with two of his 18-pounders, came stumbling and struggling
up the steep bank after Blunt. The guns were swung round, and, within
musket-shot distance of the crowded walls and under a tempest of
bullets, they opened a breaching fire on the face of the Secundrabagh.
The British infantry meanwhile, lying down under the bank of the lane,
waited for the moment of assault. Forbes-Mitchell gives a very realistic
picture of the march up the lane, and the waiting under the shelter of
a low mud-wall while the breach was being made, through which they must
charge. Campbell himself, before the men moved up, had given amusingly
prosaic instructions as to how they were to fight. When they swept into
the Secundrabagh they were to “keep together in clusters of threes, and
rely on nothing but the bayonet.” The central man of each group of three
was to attack, and his comrades, right and left, guard him with their
bayonets, &c.
As the 93rd moved up the lane, Forbes-Mitchell relates how they saw
sitting on the roadside a naked Hindu, with shaven head and face streaked
with white and red paint, busy counting his rosary, and unmoved by the
tumult of battle. A Highlander said to a young staff-officer who was just
passing, “I would like to try my bayonet on the hide of that painted
scoundrel, sir; he looks a murderer.” “Don’t touch him,” answered the
staff-officer, “he is a harmless Hindu mendicant; it is the Mohammedans
who are to blame for the horrors of the Mutiny.” Scarcely had he spoken
the words when the Hindu stopped counting his beads, slipped his hands
under the mat on which he sat, and, with a single movement, drew
out a short bell-mouthed blunderbuss and fired into the unfortunate
staff-officer’s breast, killing him instantly, and himself dying a
moment afterwards, under the reddened bayonets of half-a-dozen furious
Highlanders.
Sir Colin Campbell himself stood by the guns, watching the balls tearing
away flakes from the stubborn bricks which formed the immense thickness
of the wall. Every now and then he repressed the eagerness of the
Highlanders or Sikhs, waiting to make their rush. “Lie down, 93rd!” he
said. “Lie down! Every man of you is worth his weight in gold to England
to-day.” For nearly three-quarters of an hour that strange scene lasted,
the British guns battering the tough brick wall, while from hundreds of
loopholes a tempest of bullets scourged the toiling gunners. Twice over
the detachments at the guns had to be renewed before the breach could be
made.
The crouching infantry meanwhile could hardly be restrained. A sergeant
of the 53rd, a Welshman named Dobbin, called out, “Let the infantry
storm, Sir Colin! Let the two Thirds at them”—meaning the 53rd and
93rd—“and we’ll soon make short work of the murdering villains.”
Campbell, always good-tempered when the bullets were flying, recognised
the man, and asked, “Do you think the breach is wide enough, Dobbin?”
The three regiments waiting for the rush were the 53rd, the 93rd, and
a Sikh regiment—the 4th Rifles; and suddenly they leaped up and joined
in one eager dash at the slowly widening breach. Whether the signal to
advance was given at all is doubtful, and which regiment led, and which
brave soldier was first through the breach, are all equally doubtful
points.
Malleson says the rush on the Secundrabagh was “the most wonderful scene
witnessed in the war.” No order was given; but suddenly the Sikhs and
the Highlanders were seen racing for the breach at full speed, bonneted
Highlander and brown-faced Sikh straining every nerve to reach it first.
A Sikh of the 4th Rifles, he adds, outran the leading Highlander, leaped
through the breach, and was shot dead as he sprang. An ensign of the
93rd, named Cooper, was a good second, and, leaping feet first through
the hole like a gymnast, got safely through.
Hope Grant says that “before the order was given a native Sikh officer
started forward, sword in hand, followed by his men.” The 93rd determined
not to let the Sikhs outcharge them, and instantly ran forward. The
Sikhs had a few yards’ start, but “a sergeant of the 93rd, Sergeant-Major
Murray, a fine active fellow, outstripped them, jumped through the
opening like a harlequin, and, as he landed on the other side, was shot
through the breast and fell dead.” Archibald Forbes says the first man
through the breach was an Irishman, Lance-Corporal Donnelly, of the 93rd,
killed as he jumped through the breach; the second was a Sikh, the third
a Scotchman, Sergeant-Major Murray, also killed. Who shall decide when
there is such a conflict of testimony betwixt the very actors in the
great scene!
Roberts confirms Hope Grant in the statement that a Highlander was the
first to reach the goal, and was shot dead as he reached the enclosure;
and he adds one curiously pathetic detail. A drummer-boy of the 93rd, he
says, “must have been one of the first to pass that grim boundary between
life and death; for when I got in I found him just inside the breach,
lying on his back, quite dead, a pretty, innocent-looking, fair-haired
lad, not more than fourteen years old.” What daring must have burned in
that lad’s Scottish blood when he thus took his place in the very van of
the wild rush of veterans into the Secundrabagh!
Forbes-Mitchell, who actually took part in the charge, gives yet another
account. The order to charge, he says, was given, and the Sikhs, who
caught it first, leaped over the mud-wall, behind which they were lying,
shouting their war-cry, and, led by their two British officers, ran
eagerly towards the breach. Both their officers were shot before they had
run many yards, and at that the Sikhs halted. “As soon as Sir Colin saw
them waver, he turned to the 93rd, and said, ‘Colonel Ewart, bring on the
tartan! Let my own lads at them.’” Before the command could be repeated,
or the buglers had time to sound the advance, “the whole seven companies
like one man leaped over the wall with such a yell of pent-up rage as I
never heard before nor since. It was not a cheer, but a concentrated yell
of rage and ferocity, that made the echoes ring again; and it must have
struck terror into the defenders, for they actually ceased firing, and we
could see them through the breach rushing from the outside wall to take
shelter in the two-storeyed building in the centre of the garden, the
gate and doors of which they firmly barred.”
The Secundrabagh, it must be remembered, was held by four strong Sepoy
regiments, numbering in all from 2000 to 3000 men, many of them veteran
soldiers, wearing the medals they had won in British service, and they
fought with desperate courage. The human jet of stormers through the gap
in the wall was a mere tiny squirt, but the main body of the 93rd blew in
the lock of the great gate with their bullets, and came sweeping in.
Lord Roberts gives another version of this incident. The Sepoys, he
says, were driven out of the earthwork which covered the gateway, and
were swept back into the Secundrabagh, and the heavy doors of the great
gateway were being hurriedly shut in the face of the stormers. A subahdar
of the 4th Punjab Infantry reached the gate in time enough to thrust his
left arm, on which was carried a shield, between the closing doors. His
hand was slashed across by a tulwar from within, whereupon he drew it
out, instantly thrusting in the other arm, when his right hand, in turn,
was all but severed from the wrist! But he kept the gates from being
shut, and in another minute the men of the 93rd, of the 53rd, and of the
gallant Punjabee’s own regiment went storming in.
The men of the 53rd again tried, with success, another device. They
lifted their caps on the tips of their bayonets to a line of iron-barred
windows above their heads, and thus drew the fire of their defenders.
Then they leaped up, tore away the bars, and, clambering on each other’s
shoulders, broke through. Forbes-Mitchell was the fifth or sixth man
through the breach, and was immediately fired upon point-blank by a
Sepoy lying in the grass half-a-dozen yards distant. The bullet struck
the thick brass buckle on his belt, and such was the force of the
blow that it tumbled him head over heels. Colonel Ewart came next to
Forbes-Mitchell, who heard his colonel say, as he rushed past him, “Poor
fellow! he is done for.” Ewart, a gallant Highlander, of commanding
stature, played a great part in the struggle within the Secundrabagh. His
bonnet was shot or struck off his head, and, bareheaded, amidst the push
and sway and madness of the fight, he bore himself like a knight of old.
The fight within the walls of the Secundrabagh raged for nearly two
hours, and the sounds that floated up from it as the Sepoys, “fighting
like devils”—to quote an actor in the scene,—were driven from floor to
floor of the building, or across the green turf of the garden, were
appalling. The fighting passion amongst the combatants often took queer
shapes. Thus one man, known amongst the 93rd as “the Quaker,” from his
great quietness, charged into the Secundrabagh like a kilted and male
Fury, and, according to Forbes-Mitchell, quoting a verse of the Scottish
psalm with every thrust of his bayonet or shot from his rifle:—
“I’ll of salvation take the cup,
On God’s name will I call;
I’ll pay my vows now to the Lord
Before His people all.”
Scottish psalm, punctuated with bayonet thrusts: this surely is the
strangest battle-hymn ever heard!
Ewart found that two native officers had carried the regimental flag into
a narrow and dark room, and were defending themselves like wild cats.
Ewart leaped single-handed into the room, and captured the colours,
slaying both officers. The fight within the Secundrabagh was by this
time practically over, and Ewart ran outside, and bareheaded, with
blood-stained uniform and smoke-blackened face, ran up to Sir Colin as
he sat on his grey horse, and cried, “We are in possession, sir! I have
killed the last two of the enemy with my own hand, and here is one of
their colours.” “D⸺ your colours, sir!” was the wrathful response of
Sir Colin. “It’s not your place to be taking colours. Go back to your
regiment this instant, sir.” Sir Colin had a Celtic shortness of temper;
the strain of waiting while the madness of the fight raged within the
great walls had told on his nerves. He was eager to get his 93rd into
regimental shape again; and, as Forbes-Mitchell argues, believed, from
his appearance and bearing, that Ewart was drunk! So he was: but it was
with the passion of battle!
The officers of Sir Colin’s staff read Ewart’s condition more truly,
and as this ragged, blood-stained figure, carrying the captured flag,
came running out from the furnace of the great fight, they cheered
vehemently. Later in the day Sir Colin himself apologised to Ewart for
his brusqueness.
In the whole record of war there are not many scenes of slaughter to be
compared with that which took place within the walls of the Secundrabagh.
The 53rd held the north side of the great quadrangle, the Sikhs and the
93rd the east side, and a mixed force, composed of several regiments,
held the south; on the west there was no escape. The great mass of
Sepoys in the centre of the quadrangle was thus pelted with lead and
fire from the three fronts. “We fired volley after volley into the dense
multitude,” says Jones-Parry, “until nothing was left but a moving mass,
like mites in a cheese!”
Of the 2000 or 2500 Sepoys who formed the garrison of the Secundrabagh
not one man escaped. Its whole area, when the fight was over, was red
with blood and strewn with the bodies of slain men. Four whole regiments
of mutineers were simply blotted out. Many of the slain Sepoys wore
Punjab medals on their breasts; many, too, were found to have leave
certificates, signed by former commanding officers, in their pockets,
showing they had been on leave when the regiment mutinied, and had
rejoined their regiment to fight against the British. The walls of the
Secundrabagh still stand, a long, low mound along one side showing where
the great company of slain Sepoys were buried. What other patch of the
earth’s surface, of equal size, has ever witnessed more of human valour
and of human despair than those few square yards of turf that lie within
the shot-battered walls of this ancient Indian pleasure-garden!
The British losses, curiously enough, were comparatively light, except
amongst the officers. The 93rd had nine officers killed and wounded. The
4th Punjab infantry went into the fight with four British officers; two
were killed, one was desperately wounded, and the regiment was brought
out of the fight by the sole surviving officer, Lieut. Willoughby,
himself only a lad. He was recommended for the V.C., but did not live
to wear that much-coveted decoration, as he was slain in fight shortly
afterwards.
But the strongest post held by the rebels, in the track along which the
British were moving towards the Residency, was the Shah Nujeef, a great
and massively-built mosque, girdled with a high loopholed wall, and
screened by trees and enclosures of various kinds. Campbell brought up
Peel, with his Naval Brigade, to make a breach in the massive walls of
the Shah Nujeef, and that gallant sailor ran his guns up within twenty
yards of the loopholed walls of the great mosque, and, swinging them
round, opened fire, while the gunners were shot down in quick succession
as they toiled to load and discharge their pieces. “It was an action,”
said Sir Colin in his despatch afterwards, “almost unexampled in war.”
Peel, in a word, behaved very much as if he were laying the _Shannon_
alongside an enemy’s frigate!
As the men ran up their guns to the walls of the Shah Nujeef,
Forbes-Mitchell says he saw a sailor lad, just in front of him, who had
his leg carried clean off by a round shot, which struck him above the
knee. “He sat bolt upright on the grass, with the blood spouting from the
stump of his leg like water from the hose of a fire-engine, and shouted,
‘Here goes a shilling a day, a shilling a day! Remember Cawnpore, 93rd;
remember Cawnpore! Go at them, my hearties;’ and then sank down and died.”
But the defence of the Shah Nujeef was stubborn, and for three hours Peel
worked his guns under a double cross-fire, and still his 18-pounders
failed to pierce the solid walls of the great mosque. The 93rd were
brought up, and, lying down under what shelter they could secure,
tried to keep down the musketry fire from the walls, and many of them
were shot down by bullets or arrows from the summit of the mosque.
The external masonry had flaked off, leaving a rough, irregular face,
up which an active cat might possibly have scrambled; and at this a
battalion of detachments—in which clusters from a dozen regiments were
combined—under the command of Major Branston, was launched. The men ran
forward with utmost daring, but the wall was twenty feet high; there were
no scaling-ladders. It was impossible to climb the broken face of the
masonry. Branston fell, shot, and his second in command, the present Lord
Wolseley, kept up the attack, making desperate attempts to escalade.
A tree stood at an angle of the Shah Nujeef, close to the wall, and
giving the chance of firing over it. Peel offered the Victoria Cross to
any of his men who would climb it. Two lieutenants and a leading seaman
named Harrison in a moment, with seamanlike activity, clambered up
the tree, and opened a deadly fire on the enemy. Each man of the three
was in turn shot, but not till they had accomplished the task they had
undertaken.
Nightfall was coming on. It was impossible to turn back; it seemed
equally impossible to carry the Shah Nujeef. Peel’s guns, firing for
nearly three hours at point-blank range, had failed to tear the stubborn
masonry to pieces. The answering fire, both of cannon and musketry, from
either flank, which covered the face of the great mosque being assailed,
grew heavier every moment. Campbell then called upon the 93rd, and told
them he would lead them himself, as the place must be carried. The
lives of the women and children inside the Residency were at stake. A
dozen voices from the ranks called out that they would carry the place,
right enough, but Sir Colin must not expose his own life. “We can lead
ourselves,” cried one after another. Whether even the 93rd could have
clambered over the lofty and unbroken walls of the Shah Nujeef may be
doubted, but at this moment the wit and daring of a Scotch soldier saved
the situation.
There are conflicting versions of the incident, but Forbes-Mitchell shall
tell the story:—
Just at that moment Sergeant John Paton, of my company,
came running down the ravine at the moment the battalion of
detachments had been ordered to storm. He had discovered a
breach in the north-east corner of the rampart, next to the
river Goomtee. It appears that our shot and shell had gone
over the first breach, and had blown out the wall on the other
side in this particular spot. Paton told how he had climbed up
to the top of the ramparts without difficulty, and seen right
inside the place, as the whole defending force had been called
forward to repulse the assault in front. Captain Dawson and his
company were at once called out, and while the others opened
fire on the breach in front of them, we dashed down the ravine,
Sergeant Paton showing the way. As soon as the enemy saw that
the breach behind had been discovered, and their well-defended
position was no longer tenable, they fled like sheep through
the back gate next to the Goomtee, and another in the direction
of the Mootee Munzil. If No. 7 company had got in behind them
and cut off their retreat by the back gate, it would have been
Secundrabagh over again.
Paton received the Victoria Cross for that signal service. He was a
soldier of the finest type, took part in more than thirty engagements,
and passed through them all without so much as a scratch. Paton emigrated
in 1861 to Melbourne; a little later he entered the service of the New
South Wales Government, and became Governor of Goulburn Gaol, retiring on
a pension in February 1896.
A quiet night followed a day so fierce. The troops were exhausted.
Their rifles, in addition, had become so foul with four days’ heavy
work that it was almost impossible to load them. The next day, however,
the advance was continued, and position after position was carried, the
last being what was known as the Mess-house. This was carried by a wing
of the 53rd, led by Captain Hopkins—“one of the bravest men that ever
lived,” says Malleson; “a man who literally revelled in danger.” From
the summit of the Mess-house the Union Jack was hoisted as a signal to
the Residency, but on the flag the exasperated Sepoys concentrated their
fire, and twice in succession it was shot down. Forbes-Mitchell says that
a previous and successful attempt to signal to the Residency had been
made from the Shah Nujeef. The adjutant of the 93rd, Lieutenant M’Bean,
a sergeant, and a little drummer-boy, twelve years old, named Ross, and
tiny for his age, climbed to the summit of the dome of the Shah Nujeef,
put a Highland bonnet on the tip of the staff, waved the regimental
colour of the 93rd, while the boy sounded the regimental call shrilly on
his bugle.
The signal was seen and answered from the Residency, its flag being
raised and lowered three times; but every Sepoy battery within range
instantly opened on the three figures on the summit of the dome. They
quickly descended, but little Ross turned, ran up the ladder again like a
monkey, and, holding on to the spire of the dome with his left hand, blew
the call known as “The Cock of the North” as a blast of defiance to the
enemy!
Outram meanwhile was pushing cautiously on in the direction of Campbell’s
attack, occupying building after building; and late in the afternoon
Outram and Havelock and Campbell had clasped hands on the sloping ground
in front of the Mess-house. A hole had to be broken through the western
wall of the Pearl Palace enclosure to let the chiefs of the beleaguered
garrison through, and a slab in the wall still marks the spot. Campbell,
Havelock, and Outram met on the slope outside the Mess-house, and the
meeting of three such soldiers under such conditions was a memorable
event. No red-coated Boswell, unhappily, has told us how the veterans
greeted each other. The Kaisarbagh, strongly held by the mutineers,
overlooked the little patch of rough soil on which the three famous
soldiers stood, and every gun that could be trained upon the group broke
into fire. It was to an accompaniment of bellowing cannon, of bursting
shells, and of whistling bullets that Campbell, Havelock, and Outram
exchanged their first greeting.
Young Roberts, with Captain Norman, accompanied Outram and Havelock
back to the Residency, and he has described how he passed from post to
post, held with such long-enduring and stubborn courage by the relieved
garrison. “When we came,” he says, “to the Bailey Guard, and looked at
the battered walls and gateway, not an inch without a mark of a round
shot or bullet, we marvelled that Aitken and Loughnan could have managed
to defend it for nearly five months.” It was found difficult to get the
relieved garrison to talk of their own experiences; they were too hungry
for news from the outside world! Jones-Parry says, “The first man of
the garrison I met was my old schoolfellow and chum, Meecham. He was an
excellent specimen of the condition of the defenders, for he looked more
like a greyhound than a man. He was thin as a lath, and his eyes looked
sunken into his head.”
Lucknow was relieved; but to reach the Residency had cost Sir Colin
Campbell a loss of 45 officers and 496 men. Campbell found his position
difficult. He had broken through the besieging force; he had not ended
the siege. To hold the Residency meant to be besieged himself. He decided
to bring off the Residency garrison, with the women and children,
abandoning the shot-wrecked walls and foul trenches to the enemy. To
evacuate the Residency, carrying off in safety, through the lines of a
hostile force five times as numerous as his own, 600 women and children,
and more than 1000 sick or wounded men, was a great feat, but Sir Colin
Campbell accomplished it, and did it so adroitly that not a casualty was
incurred, and not a serviceable gun abandoned. So completely, in fact,
did Sir Colin Campbell deceive the enemy that their guns were pouring
their fire angrily on the Residency for at least four hours after the
last British soldier had left it!
Havelock died just as he was being carried out of the slender and
battered defences he had reached and held so gallantly. He died of an
attack of dysentery, brought on, says Major Anson, “by running nearly
three-quarters of a mile under fire from the Residency to meet the
Commander-in-Chief and greet him as his deliverer.”
He lies buried in the Alumbagh, the place Havelock himself won by an
assault so daring when advancing to relieve Lucknow. He was buried on
the morning of November 25, and round his rude coffin, on which the
battle-flag lay, stood his sorrowing comrades, a group of the most
gallant soldiers that earthly battlefields have ever known—Campbell, and
Outram, and Peel, and Adrian Hope, and Fraser Tytler, and the younger
Havelock, with men of the Ross-shire Buffs and of the Madras Fusileers,
whom Havelock had so often led to victory. On a tree that grew beside the
grave the letter H was roughly carved, to mark where Havelock’s body lay.
To-day the interior of the Alumbagh is a garden, and a shapely obelisk
marks the spot where sleeps the dust of one of the bravest soldiers that
ever fought for the honour and flag of England.