Guns to the Far East

by V. A. Stuart

  “The poor Queen’s regiments—the 8th and the 75th—which apparently suffered very heavy casualties in the assault on Delhi, looked worn and wasted. Their uniforms, which were originally white, are now a dull slate-colour and during Sir Colin’s inspection, they stood silent and wearied, lacking the spirit even to cheer him, although he paid them compliments and praised them highly for their achievements.

  “The 93rd Highlanders made up for this a little later, though. They were on the extreme left of the line and, out of a thousand of them, more than half were wearing medals for the Crimea so, of course, the Chief is well known to them and they revere him greatly. They made a grand sight in Sutherland tartan and plumed feather bonnets—the latter, they tell us, afford ample protection from swords as well as sun and, in addition, serve them as pillows at night. Certainly they look well, although, being intended to serve in China, on the Canton River, when they left England they were issued with brown holland blouses, with scarlet facings, instead of their normal scarlet tunics, this in no wise detracted from their appearance.

  “At all events, when Sir Colin came abreast of them, they received him with such tumultuous cheering that I swear it must have been heard in Lucknow, ten miles away! He addressed them at some length, telling them that when he had taken leave of them, after the Crimea, he had never thought to see them again. ‘But,’ he said, ‘another Commander has decreed it otherwise. There is danger and difficulty before us. The eyes of Europe and of the whole of Christendom are upon us, and we must relieve our countrymen, women, and children, now shut up in the Residency of Lucknow. You are my own lads, 93rd—I rely on you to do the work!’

  “That brought more cheering, for he delivered his address in the broadest Scots, and the men shouted back that he could depend on them—they would bring the women and children out or die in the attempt. I was moved close to tears when I heard of it, thinking of Harriet and her three little ones and praying, with all my heart, that we may succeed in bringing them safely out.”

  Phillip paused, the pen in his hand. He had not intended to make more than passing mention of either of his sisters; his father and mother would have heard the terrible news of the Cawnpore garrison’s massacre and read of it in the London papers weeks before his letter could arrive. Anything he might write concerning Lavinia and her husband would serve only to open old wounds; he could offer them no comfort, since he did not know when or how either had died and—until Sir Colin Campbell’s Relief Force gained the Lucknow Residency— Harriet’s fate was a matter for prayer and speculation. The four-month siege must inevitably have taken heavy toll of the women and children—from sickness and semi-starvation, as well as from enemy shot and shell, so that … He sighed and took a fresh page, to finish his description of the parade with a list of the other units and detachments which had taken part.

  “The 93rd are the only regiment of ours at full strength,” he wrote. “For the rest, our Infantry Brigade is made up of detachments—a wing of the 53rd, two companies of the 82nd and of the 23rd Fusiliers. They will be augmented by detachments from the Alam Bagh garrison, which will bring our total strength up to almost five thousand with, I think, about fifty guns. We—that is to say, the Naval Brigade and the Royal, Bengal, and Madras Artillery—are under the command of Brigadier-General Crawford, four batteries being horsed and ours the only siege-guns.”

  There was nothing more he could write … Phillip put his pen down. The mail was going out that evening, he knew; after that, there would be little time for letter-writing with the fate of the Lucknow garrison in the balance. He added a few personal messages and was about to seal his letter when the tent flap parted and, looking up, he saw Edward Daniels’s tall, thin figure framed in the aperture.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you, sir,” the midshipman said uncertainly. “If you’re busy with your mail, I can come back, I …” He sounded as if he would have preferred to postpone his visit but Phillip, gesturing to his letter, invited him to come in.

  “No, I’ve finished. Sit down, Mr Daniels. A drink … I’ve only got whisky, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s all right, sir. To tell you the truth, I’ve developed quite a taste for whisky since my attachment to the Army. They drink a lot more than we do and without Captain Peel to tell me my mess bill’s too high, I … well, as I said, I’ve developed quite a taste for whisky. And champagne, sir. The Army officers regard champagne as a necessity in this climate … some of them even have it at breakfast. Or they did in Cawnpore. And I … that is, sir—”

  His voice, Phillip realised, was slurred and his over-thin young face unusually flushed. “Mr Daniels,” he demanded curtly, “are you sober?”

  The boy shook his head. “No, sir, not very. I … well, I’ve been dining with some of the Delhi column … the Cavalry. They seem to think we’re … well, a bit out of the ordinary because we’re sailors and I … I’ve got rather a thick head now. But I needed some Dutch courage to come to you, sir.”

  “Dutch courage to come to me, Eddie?” Phillip challenged wryly. “In God’s name, why? Here, sit down, there’s a good fellow, and I’ll get you some coffee.”

  Midshipman Daniels sat down. “I don’t need coffee, sir, thanks all the same. It’s just that I—I’ve something to give you but I’m not sure if I should or whether you’d want it because … well, you see, sir, it proves something you might rather not know for certain and …” He was floundering helplessly and Phillip eyed him in some astonishment. Normally Edward Daniels was the most composed, as well as the most efficient of the Shannon’s “young gentlemen”; Captain Peel had chosen him to go to Cawnpore as artillery officer because of his reliability, yet here he was now what the bluejackets called “half seas over” and fumbling for words, like some newly joined cadet, as if …

  “Pull yourself together, Mr Daniels,” he said, an edge to his voice. “I suggest you go to your tent and sleep it off—for heaven’s sake, lad, you don’t want the Captain to see you in this state, do you?”

  “God forbid, sir!” Daniels answered feelingly. “But”—he was fumbling in his pockets and finally succeeded in bringing to light a small, leather-bound book. Holding it as if its very touch were painful to him, he blurted out unhappily, “It’s this, sir. I got it from Captain Mowbray Thomson—he was one of the only four survivors of the Cawnpore garrison and now he’s acting as Garrison Engineer in General Windham’s entrenchment. That was how I met him, you see, sir, and we … that is, we talked quite a bit about the siege and the massacre. I told him that your sister and brother-in-law were in the garrison—General Wheeler’s, I mean—and, of course, he asked their names. I remembered you’d told me that your sister’s name was Lavinia and that her husband was one of the Queen’s 32nd officers and—”

  “I told you?” Phillip questioned, feeling the colour drain from his cheeks. “I don’t recall that I—”

  “You let it out, sir,” Edward Daniels explained apologetically. “When we were in that house where—the one they call the Bibigarh—and I remembered. Captain Thomson remembered too, of course, and he—he gave me this to give you. An officer of Havelock’s Force found it in the Bibigarh and entrusted it to him for safe keeping, it … it’s a Bible, sir.” He held out the leather-bound book, opened at the flyleaf and Phillip saw, as he took it, that both binding and flyleaf were ominously stained. Written on the flyleaf was an inscription and he felt a lump rise in his throat as he recognised the neat, masculine hand and read: “For my darling Lavinia … with fondest love from Tom.”

  “I do hope, sir …” Daniels’s anxious and still slightly slurred voice broke into his thoughts and Phillip roused himself, forestalling the boy’s question.

  “You were right to give me this,” he said, forcing himself to speak without emotion. “I’m grateful, my dear lad, I …” A vision of the room in which Lavinia’s Bible had been found swam before his eyes, in all its remembered horror. He had prayed, often and fervently, that she had died in the entrenchment or even in the a
ttack on the boats and might thus have been spared the final appalling torture of confinement in that darkly shadowed room and death, at the hands of brutal, merciless butchers, at the end of it. But now … He looked at the little leather-bound book and could not suppress a shudder as he thrust it into the breast pocket of his frock coat. Dear God, how could he say that he would treasure the hideous, bloodsmeared relic? How could he … He met Daniels’s unhappy gaze and managed to smile at him reassuringly. “I shall always keep it. I’m only sorry it caused you so much heart-searching and … distress.”

  Young Daniels looked relieved. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want it, sir. But Captain Thomson said you would. He also said, sir, that Lieutenant Hill was a very gallant officer.” He rose, obviously thankful that his self-imposed task had been completed and added, before taking his leave, “He was one of those who formed a guard of honour for poor old General Wheeler, Thomson said. The terms of the surrender granted them the honours of war, so the guard formed up outside the entrenchment when the General was leaving to go down to the ghat. They presented arms to him and then marched ahead of him to the boats and most of them were killed, trying to push the boats out into the channel. Thomson thinks that your—your brother-in-law was among them. I … that is goodnight, Commander Hazard.”

  “Goodnight, Mr Daniels,” Phillip responded automatically. “And … thank you again.”

  Left alone he sat for a long time, his head resting on his hands. He must seal his letter, he knew—the Chaplain was collecting mail for dispatch and would be here soon, asking for his, and he had not yet written to Graham. That could wait, of course—in all probability, Graham and Catriona had not yet returned to Calcutta—and in any case, mail to Calcutta was getting through fairly regularly and quickly now, thanks to the re-establishment of the dak and the recently opened rail link from Lahonda to Allahabad. But the letter to his father must go and … He opened it, to read through what he had written. It was a cheerful letter, he decided, and was better so. He picked up his pen again and added a postscript.

  “One thing may amuse you, Father,” he wrote. “The natives apparently have a wholesome fear of our Jacks. They believe them to be ‘little men, four feet high and four feet in the beam, always laughing and dragging their guns about.’ Some wag—I suspect one of our younger lieutenants—spread the story that we are cannibals, who salt down the bodies of the slain for future use and, for this purpose, each man carries a clasp-knife at his side! Despite its patent absurdity, this tale has gained credence even among our native camp followers who, it seems, will believe anything.”

  They also believed that the kilted 93rd were the ghosts of the women massacred at Cawnpore, Phillip recalled, and a knife twisted in his heart. But the cannibal story would undoubtedly give the old Admiral a quiet chuckle, so he signed his name and sealed the letter. It was ready when the Naval Brigade’s Chaplain, the Reverend Edward Bowman, came to collect it.

  At daybreak the following morning, the advance began. After marching for some three miles, the advance-guard came under attack by a body of rebel infantry with two guns, positioned near the old fort of Jellalabad on the right. Captain Bouchier’s Field Battery, from the Delhi Column, swiftly and efficiently silenced the enemy’s guns, while a squadron of Hodson’s Horse, under the command of Lieutenant Hugh Gough, made a detour and under cover of some fields of cane, came up unseen on their left flank. Although there were an estimated two thousand sepoy and zamindari troops opposed to them, the squadron made a spirited charge through swampy ground and, taking them completely by surprise, succeeded in routing them and capturing both guns.

  Camp was pitched that evening in the rear of the Alam Bagh, a large walled palace four miles from Lucknow, which had been held by three hundred men of Havelock’s first Relief Force, under the command of Major McIntyre of the 78th Highlanders, since 25th September. McIntyre had maintained contact with the Residency by means of a semaphore, mounted on the roof and, whilst waiting for the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell, his garrison had been supplied and substantially reinforced from Cawnpore and by Hope Grant’s Delhi Column, which had evacuated his sick and wounded. Now his gallant garrison, formed into a batallion of detachments from the regiments besieged in the Residency and commanded by Major Barnston of the 78th, marched out to join the Relief Force, their places being taken by the three hundred-strong 75th Regiment* and fifty Sikhs.

  Baggage, tents, and reserve supplies were moved into the Alam Bagh and each man of the Relief Force was issued with three days’ haversack rations as, by semaphore, Sir Colin Campbell signalled to Sir James Outram in the Residency that it was his intention to continue the advance at first light on the 14th. William Peel, returning from a brief unit Commanders’ conference next day, explained the plan of action that had been decided upon to his assembled officers, a map of the area spread out before him.

  “We are to advance due east from the Alam Bagh, gentlemen,” he told them. “Across flat country, much of which is under cultivation, to the Dilkusha, which is a double-storied palace standing on a plateau near the river—here, to the northeast.” His finger jabbed at the map, as he went into details concerning the terrain. “When the Dilkusha is occupied, the advance will continue northwards for half a mile, to the Martinière, which is a vast pile of buildings with a central tower and four turrets. This, in turn, will be occupied and Sir Colin intends to use it as his base for the next part of the operation with which we shall be directly concerned—the capture of a very formidable obstacle indeed, the Sikanderbagh Palace. This, I am told, is a very extensive building of strong masonry set in a large garden and encircled by a twenty-foot-high wall— loopholed, for musketry, of course, and with bastions at each angle. To reach it, the canal must be crossed—here—we must follow the river bank for about a mile, and then swing sharply to the left—or west—to join a road which runs to the rear of the Sikanderbagh.” He paused, inviting questions, and Lieutenant Vaughan asked about expected opposition.

  “Sir Colin expects little from the Dilkusha and the Martinière.” Peel grinned. “The worst you’ll have to contend with will be getting our guns across the fields and streams, whilst the advance guard and the Horse Artillery clear the way ahead to the Martinière. There’s a bridge over the canal but some villages will have to be cleared—here and here—before it can be used. Two of our twenty-four-pounder guns are to take up position to cover the leading infantry brigade as it passes the Martinière and heads towards the canal … here. We shall have to use our best endeavours to get them there by noon, which is the time Sir Colin estimates that the Martinière will be in our hands. He intends to make a strong reconnaissance towards the Char Bagh Bridge—here—in the hope of deluding the Pandies into the belief that he’ll follow General Havelock’s route to the Residency but he’ll call on the horsed guns for that, because the terrain is difficult.”

  Again he went into details and Phillip listened with rapt attention, peering over his shoulder at the map.

  “As to opposition,” Peel went on, “that is expected to be heavy at the Sikanderbagh. It is said to be held by about two thousand trained sepoy troops and there’s a village, also occupied by Pandies, close to it, so the advance may be held up there. However, once it’s been taken, Sir Colin intends to use the shortest route to the Residency—the one Havelock took—westwards, to aim at joining up with Outram at the Moti Mahal … here. He’ll make a sally and set up gun batteries to cover our advance. Between us and the Moti Mahal is a flat plain … here. It’s approximately twelve hundred yards wide, gentlemen, crossed by a good road. About three hundred yards along it is a village, with garden enclosures round it, which is expected to be held and a mosque, called the Shah Nujeef, beyond and about a hundred and fifty yards east of the Moti Mahal, which we know to be very strongly held. Well …” He paused. “We need not to go into that part of our route in detail now, because Sir Colin doesn’t expect today’s advance to take us further than the Martinière.”

  A number of questi
ons were asked and answered, with admirable lucidity, by Peel; commands were allocated and the order of march settled. As First Lieutenant, Jim Vaughan was officially designated second-in-command and Phillip, to his own surprise, was appointed to act as naval liaison officer to the Commander-in-Chief … the same role that he had played, three years before, at Balaclava, when Sir Colin Campbell had commanded the Highland Brigade.

  At dawn on 14th November, the column began to form and at nine o’clock the advance began across a wide, flat plain, well cultivated with corn and sugar-cane and dotted with clumps of trees. Screened by cavalry, the advance guard moved forward steadily for three miles and encountered the first opposition at the wall of the Dilkusha, which was lined by musketeers. They were quickly driven back by the guns of the Horse Artillery; a gap in the wall was found and cavalry and guns galloped through, the enemy retreating before them. The Dilkusha Palace was occupied with scarcely a shot fired but, on reaching the crest of the plateau, the cavalry advance guard came under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry and was compelled to halt until Captain Remmington’s horsed battery, a Royal Artillery howitzer, and Captain Bouchier’s eighteen-pounder Field Battery could unlimber and reply to the enemy guns.