by V. A. Stuart
GUNS TO THE FAR EAST
Historical Fiction by V. A. Stuart
Published by McBooks Press
THE ALEXANDER SHERIDAN ADVENTURES
Victors and Lords
The Sepoy Mutiny
Massacre at Cawnpore
The Cannons of Lucknow
The Heroic Garrison
THE PHILLIP HAZARD NOVELS
The Valiant Sailors
The Brave Captains
Hazard’s Command
Hazard of Huntress
Hazard in Circassia
Victory at Sebastopol
Guns to the Far East
For a complete list of nautical and military fiction
published by McBooks Press, please see pages 237-239.
THE PHILLIP HAZARD NOVELS, NO . 7
GUNS
TO THE
FAR EAST
by
V. A. STUART
MCBOOKS PRESS, INC.
ITHACA, NEW YORK
Published by McBooks Press 2005
Copyright © 1975 by V. A. Stuart
First Published in Great Britain by Robert Hale & Co.Ltd.,
Also published under the title Shannon’s Brigade
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.
Requests for such permissions should be addressed to
McBooks Press, Inc.,
ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.
Cover: British Naval Boat, from a drawing by J. W. Carmichael,
engraved by E. Brandard. Courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stuart, V. A.
[Shannon’s Brigade]
Guns to the Far East / by V.A. Stuart.
p. cm. — (The Phillip Hazard novels ; 7)
Originally published: Shannon’s Brigade. London : Hale, 1975.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-59013-063-4 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Hazard, Phillip Horatio (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. India—History—British occupation, 1765-1947—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 4. Great Britain. Royal Navy—Officers—Fiction. 5. British—India—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6063.A38S53 2005
823’.92—dc22
2004019299
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Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR MY GOOD FRIEND
Colonel Harry H. Bendorf, U.S.A.F.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
Books Consulted
Glossary of Indian Terms
PROLOGUE
At seven-thirty on the morning of Friday, 26th June,1857, heralded by the stirring martial music of their bands, the troops chosen to represent those which had served in the Crimea began to converge on London’s Hyde Park. It was a bright, sunny morning, with a promise of heat to come, and a light breeze stirred the leaves of the trees and rippled the surface of the Serpentine as thousands of spectators made their way to the Park. They came on foot and in carriages or hansom cabs, the women in crinolines, the men in tall hats or wearing uniform, all eager to witness the first presentation of the Victoria Cross by Her Majesty the Queen to sixty-two Crimean heroes.
Under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Colin Campbell, G. C. B., the General whose “thin red line” of 93rd Highlanders had saved Balaclava Harbour from capture by the Russians, the columns of cavalry, artillery, and infantry wheeled into their allotted positions facing Park Lane. The cavalry, led by two regiments of the Household Cavalry—which had not taken part in the campaign—were followed by two regiments which had greatly distinguished themselves at the Battle of Balaclava—the 11th Hussars and the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons.
Resplendent in the striking uniform of the 11th Hussars and mounted on the chestnut horse that had carried him in the now famous Charge of the Light Brigade, Major-General the Earl of Cardigan, K.C.B., rode at their head. The crowd cheered him excitedly although a few isolated catcalls greeted his appearance. Accustomed to the mixed emotions his name and reputation aroused, the Earl ignored both cheers and catcalls, but he bowed gallantly as he caught the eye of a smiling young lady in the gallery to the rear of the saluting base, which had been erected for the accommodation of peers, members of the Court, and the foreign military attachés.
The Commander of the Royal Horse Artillery troop and the two field batteries, Major-General Sir William Williams— no less distinguished, as the saviour of Kars—was less well known than Lord Cardigan and the crowd’s applause was merely polite. It was enthusiastic, however, when Major-General Lord Rokeby rode into the Park at the head of three scarlet-coated battalions of Foot Guards. The 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, the 1st Coldstream, and the Scots Fusilier Guards were heroes of the Alma and Inkerman and of the siege of Sebastopol—honours freshly embroidered on the Colours they bore proudly on to the parade ground—and the cheers were prolonged as they formed up smartly in the required quarter-distance columns and were stood at ease. They were followed by the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, immaculate in their dark green uniforms, marching at their regulation 140 paces to the minute, and preceding them, brave in scarlet and swinging tartan, the 79th Highlanders.
From the opposite end of the Park, a detachment of two hundred seamen of the Fleet and a battalion of Royal Marines took their places to the right of a company of Engineers, Sappers, and Miners and detachments of ambulance, Army Works, and the Land Transport Corps. Last to fall in were boys from the Royal Naval and the Duke of York’s Military Schools and the be-medalled veterans from Chelsea Hospital, who formed up in two lines to the right of the Royal pavilion and immediately in front of the public stand.
The officers who were to be decorated assembled opposite Grosvenor Gate at nine o’clock, to be joined by the other ranks, who had marched from Portman Barracks. The majority were in military or naval uniform, but a few of the officers were in mufti; one corporal wore the tricorne hat and scarlet coat of an enrolled pensioner, a tall, bearded fellow was dressed in the green livery of a Royal Park keeper, and a burly ex-sergeant of the 49th marched up in the tall hat and blue uniform of a Peeler, to earn friendly but faintly derisive applause from the crowd by the gate. Each man had a loop of cord—blue for the Navy, red for the Army—attached to the left breast of his coat, to facilitate the pinning on of his medal.
Just before ten o’clock, a 21-gun salute boomed out across the Park and a squadron of the Blues, with waving plumes and brightly burnished steel cuirasses, could be seen approaching Hyde Park Corner. Behind them, all mounted, came the Royal party. Her Majesty the Queen rode between her consort Prince Albert, and Prince Frederick William of Prussia and, in honour of the occasion, she had adopted a military style of dress. Above a dark blue riding skirt, she wore a scarlet tunic with a gold embroidered sash draped over the left shoulder, and a round hat with a gold band, a red and white plume attached to the right side. The Queen’s appearance, thus attired, was greeted with loud and prolonged cheering and when it was observed that the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred,
mounted on ponies, were with their parents, the cheers were redoubled.
A cavalcade of brilliantly uniformed staff officers and equerries, headed by the Commander-in-Chief, HRH the Duke of Cambridge—himself a veteran of the Alma and Inkerman— passed in front of the reserved stands, followed by the Royal party on horseback and the carriage procession. Reaching the pavilion which had been prepared for her reception, the Queen drew rein but did not—as had been expected—dismount. Instead, sitting her magnificent roan charger, she faced the line of officers and men awaiting decoration, who were drawn up opposite the pavilion, the Prince Consort on her left and the Duke of Cambridge—a burly, bearded figure in his General Officer’s uniform and plumed hat—and the Secretary of State for War, Lord Panmure, in close attendance. Between them stood a table, covered with a scarlet cloth, on which lay the Crosses, fashioned, at the Queen’s own command, by a Bruton Street jeweller from captured cannon supplied for the purpose by the Arsenal at Woolwich.
When all was in readiness for the presentation, a whispered order was given and the waiting line moved forward, to approach Her Majesty one by one. Lord Panmure read out the names and, as each man saluted and came to attention, the Secretary of State handed a Cross to the Queen who, stooping from her saddle, fixed the small bronze symbol of valour to the cord suspended from his tunic.
As representatives of the Senior Service, the twelve naval heroes were the first to receive their medals, pride of place going to Commander Henry Raby of the Naval Brigade, whose award had been won during the terrible carnage which had followed the first full-scale British attack on the Russian Redan on 18th June, 1855. Her Majesty addressed a few gracious words to him, Prince Albert raised a scarlet-clad arm to the brim of his plumed General Officer’s cocked hat in grave salute, Raby replaced his own and then a second youthful Commander, John Bythesed, took his place. The Queen, it was observed by those fortunate few who were in a position to see, paid marked attention to an even younger Lieutenant, William Hewett—fifth in line—who when acting-mate of HMS Beagle, had halted a threatened Russian breakthrough with his single Lancaster gun on the Heights of Inkerman, a few days before the battle.
As each man received his medal and returned to the line, he was enthusiastically clapped but—due to the Queen’s failure to mount the raised dais—she was hidden from the occupants of the various stands and galleries by the mounted officers who surrounded her and by the ranks of Chelsea Pensioners drawn up to her right, in front of the main stand. There were audible murmurs of chagrin, particularly from this stand, in which—crowded to the point of acute discomfort and without seats—relatives of the sixty-two Victoria Cross winners, off-duty and retired officers of distinction and their families, and certain privileged members of the gentry were accommodated.
Leaning heavily on the arm of his handsome wife, the septuagenarian Admiral Sir George Hazard—Vice-Admiral on the retired list—peered with short-sighted blue eyes from his cramped vantage point at the back of the stand and said wrathfully, “That damned fellow Benjamin Hall and his department of works—I can’t see a thing, damme, except the stern-ends of those infernal horses! Just as well Phillip isn’t here to receive his Cross … we shouldn’t have seen any more of the presentation than we’ll see when it’s made by Michael Seymour in China. Are those bluejackets who are being decorated now, Augusta?”
“Yes, dear, I believe so,” his wife answered. “The officers have returned to their places.” No better positioned to view the proceedings than he and considerably shorter in height, Lady Hazard had glimpsed a naval cocked hat between the rows of tricornes and she spoke reassuringly, anxious to prevent any more expression of indignation on the part of her husband. His temper, never equable, had become more easily provoked with advancing years and, disgusted with the arrangement of the stands, he had several times given vent to his displeasure in terms better suited to the quarterdeck than to his present surroundings. Like herself, of course, she thought sadly, he was bitterly disappointed that their son Phillip, who had greatly distinguished himself in the late war, could not be present today to receive the Cross he had been awarded from the Queen’s hands. But Phillip, ever eager to be at sea, had sailed from Spithead on 26th November with his old Commander, Henry Keppel—newly promoted Commodore of the China Squadron—in the fine sailing frigate Raleigh and … She felt the Admiral’s bony fingers tightening about her arm. The Duke of Cambridge had moved from the Queen’s side to quieten his restive mount and, for a moment, their view was unrestricted.
“That’s young Alexander Dunn of the Eleventh Hussars,” the Admiral told her, gesturing towards a tall young officer in the famous “Cherry Pickers’” uniform, fur-trimmed pelisse swinging from his left shoulder, who was now facing the Queen. “Won his Cross for riding back, after the Light Brigade charge at Balaclava, to save the lives of a sergeant and one of his private soldiers, who were cut off and under attack by the Cossacks. They say he accounted for at least three Russians singlehanded.”
“He’s a handsome young man,” Lady Hazard observed.
Her husband chuckled. “Indeed he is—and quite a lively one, from what I’ve heard. Father was Receiver-General of Upper Canada and the boy was brought up there. Considers himself a Canadian and sold out, a couple of years ago—so what he’s doing in uniform I don’t know. Special permission, probably.” He lowered his voice. “It’s said he took his Commanding Officer’s wife back to Canada with him but I don’t know if that’s true … certainly Douglas hasn’t divorced her, has he?”
“I don’t know, dear. But if—”
“Wonder what Cardigan thinks of it,” the Admiral mused, his temper restored. “Dunn’s a man after his own heart, I’d imagine—and now a V.C. Her Majesty didn’t say much to him, did she? Must have been told, I suppose, and … damme, here’s HRH back again on that infernal great horse! Now we shan’t see any more of ’em.”
“There aren’t very many more to come now, George,” his wife pointed out. “It’s taking much less time than I had expected it would.”
The ceremony had, in fact, taken only ten minutes. As the last man to be decorated—an officer of the Rifle Brigade—took his place in line with the other 61, the Guards’ band struck up “See the Conquering Hero Comes” and, led by the cavalry and the Horse Artillery, the troops on parade passed in review between the Royal party and the newly decorated officers and men. Finally the whole force drew up in line, presented arms, and gave three rousing cheers for Her Majesty, which the Queen acknowledged graciously. To the skirling of the Highlanders’ pipes, playing “Auld Lang Syne,” the Royal cortège reformed and left the Park, and the main stand swiftly emptied as the families and friends of the new Victoria Cross holders hastened across the intervening space to offer their congratulations.
“Pity in a way, that young Phillip couldn’t be here,” the Admiral said regretfully. “It would have been a proud moment for both of us actually to be present when he received his Cross. But there it is … he’s off to China, to what looks deuced like another war and, if it does come to that, I don’t doubt he’ll acquit himself well.” His wife shivered involuntarily and he looked down at her anxiously. “Haven’t caught a chill, have you, Augusta?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just that the thought of another war, so soon after the last one, and Phillip likely to be involved in it, is … well, I’m worried, I suppose.”
“Wars offer a splendid chance of advancement to an ambitious young officer, m’dear,” Admiral Hazard reminded her. “The only chance, really. And Phillip’s ambitious … couldn’t wait to go, could he? A couple of months’ shore leave, after the Huntress paid off, and then Keppel had only to crook a finger and Phillip was on his way to Portsmouth to join him. It’s what I’d have done myself at his age, of course but, for all that, I wish he’d waited a little longer. If he had, Their Lordships would have given him another command of his own—with his record and a Victoria Cross, they couldn’t decently have refused. But with the Raleigh going dow
n like that, it’ll be in the lap of the gods, I suppose—both for Phillip and Keppel. I wish the boy would write, though, and tell us what’s happening.”
Lady Hazard, her attention concentrated on leading him through the surging crowd, scarcely took in what he was saying. Pausing at last so that her husband might regain his breath, she said quietly but with conviction, “I fancy Phillip had other reasons for wanting to go back to sea, George—other reasons than ambition and the desire for advancement, I mean.”
“Other reasons? Nonsense, m’dear—what other reasons could he possibly have had?”
“Personal ones. I think it was a shock to him when Graham married Catriona.”
“But good Gad!” The Admiral’s heavy white brows rose in an astonished curve. “You’re not suggesting that Phillip wanted to marry her, are you?”
His wife inclined her head. “I believe he did, yes. You see—”
“She’s a charming girl,” the Admiral conceded. “But for all that,—you’re wrong, Augusta. Phillip knows perfectly well that any officer in Her Majesty’s Navy who marries before he’s reached post-rank is a fool. Why—”
“That was probably why he hesitated,” Lady Hazard put in. She added, with a hint of reproach in her gentle voice, “You drummed it into him often enough, George.”
“Of course I did—damme, it’s the truth, isn’t it? And if I did drum it into him, it was for his own good.”
“Perhaps. Look, I think the crowd is thinning a little now— shall we go on?”
The old Admiral nodded. But, as they continued on their way to the Park gates, he returned to the subject of his elder son’s marriage. “I thought it was a good match for both of them—and they seemed happy, ’pon my soul they did! It was high time Graham married … you said that yourself, Augusta. He needs the settling influence of a wife and he’s fortunate in his choice of one.”
