Chapter XIV

AN UNGRATEFUL DUTY--CAPTAIN BURROUGHS--THE DILKOOSHA AGAIN--GENERAL WALPOLE AT ROOYAH--THE RAMGUNGA.

After the Mutiny some meddling philanthropists in England tried to get up an agitation about such stories as wounded sepoys being burnt alive; but owing to the nature of the war it was morally impossible to have prevented such accidents. As to cases of real wanton cruelty or outrage committed by European soldiers, none came under my own notice, and I may be permitted to relate here a story which goes far to disprove any accusations of the sort.

My company had been posted in a large building and garden near the Mint. Shortly after our arrival an order came for a non-commissioned officer and a guard of selected men to take charge of a house with a harem, or _zenana_, of about eighty women who had been rescued from different harems about the Kaiserbagh,--begums of rank and of no rank, dancing girls and household female slaves, some young and others of very doubtful age. Mr. MacBean, our adjutant, selected me for the duty, first because he said he knew I would not get drunk and thus overlook my sense of responsibility; and, secondly, because by that time I had picked up a considerable knowledge of colloquial Hindoostanee, and was thus able to understand natives who could not speak English, and to make myself understood by them. I got about a dozen old soldiers with me, several of whom had been named for the duty by Sir Colin Campbell himself, mostly married men of about twenty years' service. Owing to the vicissitudes of my chequered life I have lost my pocket roll-book, and do not now recollect the whole of the names of the men who formed this guard. However, John Ellis, whose wife had acted as laundress for Sir Colin in the Crimea, was one of them, and James Strachan, who was nicknamed "the Bishop," was another; John M'Donald, the fourth of the name in my company, was a third; I cannot now name more of them. If any of that guard are alive now, they must be from threescore and ten to fourscore years of age, because they were then all old men, tried and true, and, as our adjutant said, Sir Colin had told him that no other corps except the Ninety-Third could be trusted to supply a guard for such a duty. MacBean, along with a staff or civil officer, accompanied the guard to the house, and was very particular in impressing on my attention the fact that the guard was on no pretence whatever to attempt to hold any communication with the begums, except through a shrivelled, parchment-faced, wicked-looking old woman (as I supposed), who, the staff-officer told me, could speak English, and who had been directed to report any shortcomings of the guard, should we not behave ourselves circumspectly. But I must say I had little to fear on that head, for I knew every one of my men could be trusted to be proof against the temptation of begums, gold, or grog, and as for myself, I was then a young non-commissioned officer with a very keen sense of my responsibility.

Shortly after we were installed in our position of trust, and the officers had left us, we discovered several pairs of bright eyes peeping out at us through the partly shattered venetians forming the doors and windows of the house; and the person whom I had taken for a shrivelled old woman came out and entered into conversation with me, at first in Hindoostanee, but afterwards in very good and grammatical English. I then discovered that what I had mistaken for a crack-voiced old woman, a second edition of "the mother of the maids," was no other than a confidential eunuch of the palace, who told me he had been over thirty years about the court of Lucknow, employed as a sort of private secretary under successive kings, as he was able to read and write English, and could translate the English newspapers, etc., and could also, judging from his villainous appearance, be trusted to strangle a refractory begum or cut the throat of any one prying too closely into court secrets. He was almost European in complexion, and appeared to me to be more than seventy years of age, but he may have been much younger. He also told me that most of his early life had been spent at the court of Constantinople, and that he had there learned English, and had found this of great use to him at the court of Lucknow, where he had not only kept up the knowledge, but had improved it by reading.

By this time one of the younger begums, or nautch girls (I don't know which), came out to see the guard, and did not appear by any means too bashful. She evidently wished for a closer acquaintance, and I asked my friend to request her to go back to her companions; but this she declined to do, and wanted particularly to know why we were dressed in petticoats, and if we were not part of the Queen of England's regiment of eunuchs, and chaffed me a good deal about my fair hair and youthful appearance. I was twenty-four hours on that guard before the begums were removed by Major Bruce to a house somewhere near the Martiniere, and during that twenty-four hours I learned more, through the assistance of the English-speaking eunuch, about the virtues of polygamy and the domestic slavery, intrigues, and crimes of the harem than I have learned in all my other thirty-five years in India. If I dared, I could write a few pages that would give the Government of India and the public of England ten times more light on those cherished institutions than they now possess. The authorities professed to take charge of those caged begums for their own safety, but I don't think many of them were over-thankful for the protection. Major Bruce, with an escort, removed the ladies the next day, and I took leave of my communicative friend and the begums without reluctance, and rejoined my company, glad to be rid of such a dangerous charge.

Except the company which stormed the Doorgah, the rest of the Ninety-Third were employed more as guards on our return to the city; but about the 23rd of the month Captain Burroughs and his company were detailed, with some of Brazier's Sikhs, to drive a lot of rebels from some mosques and large buildings which were the last positions held by the enemy. If I remember rightly, Burroughs was then fourth on the list of captains, and he got command of the regiment five years after, through deaths by cholera, in Peshawar in 1862. The Ninety-Third had three commanding officers in one day! Lieutenant-Colonel MacDonald and Major Middleton both died within a few hours of each other, and Burroughs at once became senior major and succeeded to the command, the senior colonel, Sir H. Stisted, being in command of a brigade in Bengal. Burroughs was born in India and was sent to France early for his education, at least for the military part of it, and was a cadet of the _Ecole Polytechnique_ of Paris. This accounted for his excellent swordsmanship, his thorough knowledge of French, and his foreign accent. Burroughs was an accomplished _maitre d'armes_. When he joined the Ninety-Third as an ensign in 1850 he was known as "Wee Frenchie." I don't exactly remember his height, I think it was under five feet; but what he wanted in size he made up in pluck and endurance. He served throughout the Crimean war, and was never a day absent. It was he who volunteered to lead the forlorn hope when it was thought the Highland Brigade were to storm the Redan, before it was known that the Russians had evacuated the position. At the relief of Lucknow he was not the first man through the hole in the Secundrabagh; that was Lance-Corporal Dunley of Burroughs' company; Sergeant-Major Murray was the second, and was killed inside; the third was a Sikh _sirdar_, Gokul Sing, of the Fourth Punjab Infantry, and Burroughs was either the fourth or fifth. He was certainly the first _officer_ of the regiment inside, and was immediately attacked by an Oude Irregular _sowar_ armed with _tulwar_ and shield, who nearly slashed Burroughs' right ear off before he got properly on his feet. It was the wire frame of his feather bonnet that saved him; the _sowar_ got a straight cut at his head, but the sword glanced off the feather bonnet and nearly cut off his right ear. However, Burroughs soon gathered himself together (there was so little of him!) and showed his tall opponent that he had for once met his match in the art of fencing; before many seconds Burroughs' sword had passed through his opponent's throat and out at the back of his neck. Notwithstanding his severe wound, Burroughs fought throughout the capture of the Secundrabagh, with his right ear nearly severed from his head, and the blood running down over his shoulder to his gaiters; nor did he go to have his wound dressed till after he had mustered his company, and reported to the colonel how many of No. 6 had fallen that morning. Although his men disliked many of his ways, they were proud of their little captain for his pluck and good heart. I will relate two instances of this:--When promoted, Captain Burroughs had the misfortune to succeed the most popular officer in the regiment in the command of his company, namely, Captain Ewart (now Lieutenant-General Sir John Alexander Ewart, K.C.B., etc.), and, among other innovations, Burroughs tried to introduce certain _Polytechnique_ ideas new to the Ninety-Third. At the first morning parade after assuming command of the company, he wished to satisfy himself that the ears of the men were clean inside, but being so short, he could not, even on tiptoe, raise himself high enough to see; he therefore made them come to the kneeling position, and went along the front rank from left to right, minutely inspecting the inside of every man's ears! The Ninety-Third were all tall men in those days, none being under five feet six inches even in the centre of the rear rank of the battalion companies; and the right hand man of Burroughs' company was a stalwart Highlander named Donald MacLean, who could scarcely speak English and stood about six feet three inches. When Burroughs examined Donald's ears he considered them dirty, and told the colour-sergeant to put Donald down for three days' extra drill. Donald, hearing this, at once sprang to his feet from the kneeling position and, looking down on the little captain with a look of withering scorn, deliberately said, "She will take three days' drill from a man, but not from a monkey!" Of course Donald was at once marched to the rear-guard a prisoner, and a charge lodged against him for "insubordination and insolence to Captain Burroughs at the time of inspection on morning parade." When the prisoner was brought before the colonel he read over the charge, and, turning to Captain Burroughs, said: "This is a most serious charge, Captain Burroughs, and against an old soldier like Donald MacLean who has never been brought up for punishment before. How did it happen?" Burroughs was ashamed to state the exact words, but beat about the bush, saying that he had ordered MacLean three days' drill, and that he refused to submit to the sentence, making use of most insolent and insubordinate language; but the colonel could not get him to state the exact words used, and the colour-sergeant was called as second witness. The colour-sergeant gave a plain, straightforward account of the ear-inspection; and when he stated how MacLean had sprung to his feet on hearing the sentence of three days' drill, and had told the captain, "She will take three days' drill from a man, but not from a monkey," the whole of the officers present burst into fits of laughter, and even the colonel had to hold his hand to his mouth. As soon as he could speak he turned on MacLean, and told him that he deserved to be tried by a court-martial and so forth, but ended by sentencing him to "three days' grog stopped." The orderly-room hut was then cleared of all except the colonel, Captain Burroughs, and the adjutant, and no one ever knew exactly what passed; but there was no repetition of the kneeling position for ear-inspection on morning parade. I have already said that Burroughs had a most kindly heart, and for the next three days after this incident, when the grog bugle sounded, Donald MacLean was as regularly called to the captain's tent, and always returned smacking his lips, and emphatically stating that "The captain was a Highland gentleman after all, and not a French monkey." From that day forward, the little captain and the tall grenadier became the best of friends, and years after, on the evening of the 11th of March, 1858, when the killed and wounded were collected after the capture of the Begum's Kothee in Lucknow, I saw Captain Burroughs crying like a tender-hearted woman by the side of a _dooly_ in which was stretched the dead body of Donald MacLean, who, it was said, received his death-wound defending his captain. I have the authority of the late colour-sergeant of No. 6 company for the statement that from the date of the death of MacLean, Captain Burroughs regularly remitted thirty shillings a month, through the minister of her parish, to Donald's widowed mother, till the day of her death seven years after. When an action of this kind became generally known in the regiment, it caused many to look with kindly feelings on most of the peculiarities of Burroughs.

The other anecdote goes back to Camp Kamara and the spring of 1856, when the Highland Brigade were lying there half-way between Balaclava and Sebastopol. As before noticed, Burroughs was more like a Frenchman than a Highlander; there were many of his old _Polytechnique_ chums in the French army in the Crimea, and almost every day he had some visitors from the French camp, especially after the armistice was proclaimed.

Some time in the spring of 1856 Burroughs had picked up a Tartar pony and had got a saddle, etc., for it, but he could get no regular groom. Not being a field-officer he was not entitled to a regulation groom, and not being well liked, none of his company would volunteer for the billet, especially as it formed no excuse for getting off other duties. One of the company had accordingly to be detailed on fatigue duty every day to groom the captain's pony. On a particular day this duty had fallen to a young recruit who had lately joined by draft, a man named Patrick Doolan, a real Paddy of the true Handy Andy type, who had made his way somehow to Glasgow and had there enlisted into the Ninety-Third. This day, as usual, Burroughs had visitors from the French camp, and it was proposed that all should go for a ride, so Patrick Doolan was called to saddle the captain's pony. Doolan had never saddled a pony in his life before, and he put the saddle on with the pommel to the tail and the crupper to the front, and brought the pony thus accoutred to the captain's hut. Every one commenced to laugh, and Burroughs, getting into a white heat, turned on Patrick, saying, "You fool, you have put the saddle on with the back to the front!" Patrick at once saluted, and, without the least hesitation, replied, "Shure, sir, you never told me whether you were to ride to Balaclava or the front." Burroughs was so tickled with the ready wit of the reply that from that day he took Doolan into his service as soldier-servant, taught him his work, and retained him till March, 1858, when Burroughs had to go on sick leave on account of wounds. Burroughs was one of the last men wounded in the taking of Lucknow. Some days after the Begum's Kothee was stormed, he and his company were sent to drive a lot of rebels out of a house near the Kaiserbagh, and, as usual, Burroughs was well in advance of his men. Just as they were entering the place the enemy fired a mine, and the captain was sent about a hundred feet in the air; but being like a cat (in the matter of being difficult to kill, I mean), he fell on his feet on the roof of a thatched hut, and escaped, with his life indeed, but with one of his legs broken in two places below the knee. It was only the skill of our good doctor Munro that saved his leg; but he was sent to England on sick leave, and before he returned I had left the regiment and joined the Commissariat Department. This ends my reminiscences of Captain Burroughs. May he long enjoy the rank he has attained in the peace of his island home in Orkney! Notwithstanding his peculiarities, he was a brave and plucky soldier and a most kind-hearted gentleman.

By the end of March the Ninety-Third returned to camp at the Dilkoosha, glad to get out of the city, where we were suffocated by the stench of rotting corpses, and almost devoured with flies by day and mosquitoes by night. The weather was now very hot and altogether uncomfortable, more especially since we were without any means of bathing and could obtain no regular changes of clothing.

By this time numbers of the townspeople had returned to the city and were putting their houses in order, while thousands of _coolies_ and low-caste natives were employed clearing dead bodies out of houses and hidden corners, and generally cleaning up the city.

When we repassed the scene of our hard-contested struggle, the Begum's palace,--which, I may here remark, was actually a much stronger position than the famous Redan at Sebastopol,--we found the inner ditch, that had given us so much trouble to get across, converted into a vast grave, in which the dead had been collected in thousands and then covered by the earth which the enemy had piled up as ramparts. All round Lucknow for miles the country was covered with dead carcases of every kind,--human beings, horses, camels, bullocks, and donkeys,--and for miles the atmosphere was tainted and the swarms of flies were horrible, a positive torment and a nuisance. The only comfort was that they roosted at night; but at meal-times they were indescribable, and it was impossible to keep them out of our food; our plates of rice would be perfectly black with flies, and it was surprising how we kept such good health, for we had little or no sickness during the siege of Lucknow.

During the few days we remained in camp at the Dilkoosha the army was broken up into movable columns, to take the field after the different parties of rebels and to restore order throughout Oude; for although Lucknow had fallen, the rebellion was not by any means over; the whole of Oude was still against us, and had to be reconquered. The Forty-Second, Seventy-Ninth, and Ninety-Third (the regiments which composed the famous old Highland Brigade of the Crimea) were once more formed into one brigade, and with a regiment of Punjab Infantry and a strong force of engineers, the Ninth Lancers, a regiment of native cavalry, a strong force of artillery, both light and heavy,--in brief, as fine a little army as ever took the field, under the command of General Walpole, with Adrian Hope as brigadier,--was detailed for the advance into Rohilcund for the recapture of Bareilly, where a large army still held together under Khan Bahadoor Khan. Every one in the camp expressed surprise that Sir Colin should entrust his favourite Highlanders to Walpole.

On the morning of the 7th of April, 1858, the time had at last arrived when we were to leave Lucknow, and the change was hailed by us with delight. We were glad to get away from the captured city, with its horrible smells and still more horrible sights, and looked forward with positive pleasure to a hot-weather campaign in Rohilcund. We were to advance on Bareilly by a route parallel with the course of the Ganges, so striking our tents at 2 A.M. we marched through the city along the right bank of the Goomtee, past the Moosabagh, where our first halt was made, about five miles out of Lucknow, in the midst of fresh fields, away from all the offensive odours and the myriads of flies. One instance will suffice to give my readers some idea of the torment we suffered from these pests. When we struck tents all the flies were roosting in the roofs; when the tents were rolled up the flies got crushed and killed by bushels, and no one who has not seen such a sight would credit the state of the inside of our tents when opened out to be repitched on the new ground. After the tents were pitched and the roofs swept down, the sweepers of each company were called to collect the dead flies and carry them out of the camp. I noted down the quantity of flies carried out of my own tent. The ordinary kitchen-baskets served out to the regimental cooks by the commissariat for carrying bread, rice, etc., will hold about an imperial bushel, and from one tent there were carried out five basketfuls of dead flies. The sight gave one a practical idea of one of the ten plagues of Egypt! Being now rid of the flies we could lie down during the heat of the day, and have a sleep without being tormented.

The defeated army of Lucknow had flocked into Rohilcund, and a large force was reported to be collected in Bareilly under Khan Bahadoor Khan and Prince Feroze Shah. The following is a copy of one of Khan Bahadoor Khan's proclamations for the harassment of our advance: "Do not attempt to meet the regular columns of the infidels, because they are superior to you in discipline and have more guns; but watch their movements; guard all the _ghats_ on the rivers, intercept their communications; stop their supplies; cut up their piquets and _daks_; keep constantly hanging about their camps; give them no rest!" These were, no doubt, the correct tactics; it was the old Mahratta policy revived. However, nothing came of it, and our advance was unopposed till we reached the jungle fort of Nirput Singh, the Rajpoot chief of Rooyah, near the village of Rhodamow. I remember the morning well. I was in the advance-guard under command of a young officer who had just come out from home as a cadet in the H.E.I. Company's service, and there being no Company's regiments for him, he was attached to the Ninety-Third before we left Lucknow. His name was Wace, a tall young lad of, I suppose, sixteen or seventeen years of age. I don't remember him before that morning, but he was most anxious for a fight, and I recollect that before we marched off our camping-ground, Brigadier Hope called up young Mr. Wace, and gave him instructions about moving along with great caution with about a dozen picked men for the leading section of the advance-guard.

We advanced without opposition till sunrise, and then we came in sight of an outpost of the enemy about three miles from the fort; but as soon as they saw us they retired, and word was passed back to the column. Shortly afterwards instructions came for the advance-guard to wait for the main column, and I remember young Mr. Wace going up to the brigadier, and asking to be permitted to lead the assault on the fort, should it come to a fight. At this time a summons to surrender had been sent to the Raja, but he vouchsafed no reply, and, as we advanced, a 9-pounder shot was fired at the head of the column, killing a drummer of the Forty-Second. The attack on the fort then commenced, without any attempt being made to reconnoitre the position, and ended in a most severe loss, Brigadier Hope being among the killed. Lieutenant Willoughby, who commanded the Sikhs,--a brother of the officer who blew up the powder-magazine at Delhi, rather than let it fall into the hands of the enemy,--was also killed; as were Lieutenants Douglas and Bramley of the Forty-Second, with nearly one hundred men, Highlanders and Sikhs. Hope was shot from a high tree inside the fort, and, at the time, it was believed that the man who shot him was a European.[43] After we retired from the fort the excitement was so great among the men of the Forty-Second and Ninety-Third, owing to the sacrifice of so many officers and men through sheer mismanagement, that if the officers had given the men the least encouragement, I am convinced they would have turned out in a body and hanged General Walpole. The officers who were killed were all most popular men; but the great loss sustained by the death of Adrian Hope positively excited the men to fury. So heated was the feeling on the night the dead were buried, that if any non-commissioned officer had dared to take the lead, the life of General Walpole would not have been worth half an hour's purchase.

After the force retired,--for we actually retired!--from Rooyah on the evening of the 15th of April, we encamped about two miles from the place, and a number of our dead were left in the ditch, mostly Forty-Second and Sikhs; and, so far as I am aware, no attempt was made to invest the fort or to keep the enemy in. They took advantage of this to retreat during the night; but this they did leisurely, burning their own dead, and stripping and mutilating those of our force that were abandoned in the ditch. It was reported in the camp that Colonel Haggard of the Ninth Lancers, commanding the cavalry brigade, had proposed to invest the place, but was not allowed to do so by General Walpole, who was said to have acted in such a pig-headed manner that the officers considered him insane. Rumour added that when Colonel Haggard and a squadron of the Lancers went to reconnoitre the place on the morning of the 16th, it was found empty; and that when Colonel Haggard sent an aide-de-camp to report this fact to the general, he had replied, "Thank God!" appearing glad that Raja Nirput Singh and his force had slipped through his fingers after beating back the best-equipped movable column in India. These reports gaining currency in the camp made the general still more unpopular, because, in addition to his incapability as an officer, the men put him down as a coward.

During the day the mutilated bodies of our men were recovered from the ditch. The Sikhs burnt theirs, while a large fatigue party of the Forty-Second and Ninety-Third was employed digging one long grave in a _tope_ of trees not far from the camp. About four o'clock in the afternoon the funeral took place, Brigadier Hope and the officers on the right, wrapped in their tartan plaids, the non-commissioned officers and the privates on their left, each sewn up in a blanket. The Rev. Mr. Cowie, whom we of the Ninety-Third had nicknamed "the Fighting Padre," afterwards Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand, and the Rev. Mr. Ross, chaplain of the Forty-Second, conducted the service, Mr. Ross reading the ninetieth Psalm and Mr. Cowie the rest of the service. The pipers of the Forty-Second and Ninety-Third, with muffled drums, played _The Flowers of the Forest_ as a dead march. In all my experience in the army or out of it I never witnessed such intense grief, both among officers and men, as was expressed at this funeral. Many of all ranks sobbed like tender-hearted women. I especially remember our surgeon, "kind-hearted Billy Munro" as the men called him; also Lieutenants Archie Butter and Dick Cunningham, who were aides-de-camp to Adrian Hope. Cunningham had rejoined the regiment after recovery from his wounds at Kudjwa in October, 1857, but they had left him too lame to march, and he was a supernumerary aide-de-camp to Brigadier Hope; he and Butter were both alongside the brigadier, I believe, when he was struck down by the renegade ruffian.

We halted during the 17th, and strong fatigue-parties were employed with the engineers destroying the fort by blowing up the gateways. The place was ever after known in the Ninety-Third as "Walpole's Castle." On the 18th we marched, and on the 22nd we came upon the retreating rebels at a place called Sirsa, on the Ramgunga. The Ninth Lancers and Horse-Artillery and two companies of the Ninety-Third (I forget their numbers) crossed the Ramgunga by a ford and intercepted the retreat of a large number of the enemy, who were escaping by a bridge of boats, the material for which the country people had collected for them. But their retreat was now completely cut off, and about three hundred of them were reported either killed or drowned in the Ramgunga.

About 3 P.M. a tremendous sandstorm, with thunder, and rain in torrents, came on. The Ramgunga became so swollen that it was impossible for the detachment of the Ninety-Third to recross, and they bivouacked in a deserted village on the opposite side, without tents, the officers hailing across that they could make themselves very comfortable for the night if they could only get some tea and sugar, as the men had biscuits, and they had secured a quantity of flour and some goats in the village. But the boats which the enemy had collected had all broken adrift, and there was apparently no possibility of sending anything across to our comrades. This dilemma evoked an act of real cool pluck on the part of our commissariat _gomashta_,[44] _baboo_ Hera Lall Chatterjee, whom I have before mentioned in my seventh chapter in reference to the plunder of a cartload of biscuits at Bunnee bridge on the retreat from Lucknow. By this time Hera Lall had become better acquainted with the "wild Highlanders," and was even ready to risk his life to carry a ration of tea and sugar to them. This he made into a bundle, which he tied on the crown of his head, and although several of the officers tried to dissuade him from the attempt, he tightened his _chudder_[45] round his waist, and declaring that he had often swum the Hooghly, and that the Ramgunga should not deprive the officers and men of a detachment of his regiment of their tea, he plunged into the river, and safely reached the other side with his precious freight on his head! This little incident was never forgotten in the regiment so long as Hera Lall remained the commissariat _gomashta_ of the Ninety-Third. He was then a young man, certainly not more than twenty. Although thirty-five more years of rough-and-tumble life have now considerably grizzled his appearance, he must often look back with pride to that stormy April evening in 1858, when he risked his life in the Ramgunga to carry a tin-pot of tea to the British soldiers.

Among the enemy killed that day were several wearing the uniforms stripped from the dead of the Forty-Second in the ditch of Rooyah; so, of course, we concluded that this was Nirput Singh's force, and the defeat and capture of its guns in some measure, I have no doubt, re-established General Walpole in the good opinion of the authorities, but not much in that of the force under his command.

Nothing else of consequence occurred till about the 27th of April, when our force rejoined the Commander-in-Chief's column, which had advanced _via_ Futtehghur, and we heard that Sir William Peel had died of smallpox at Cawnpore on his way to Calcutta. The news went through the camp from regiment to regiment, and caused almost as much sorrow in the Ninety-Third as the death of poor Adrian Hope.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] See Appendix B.

[44] Native assistant in charge of stores.

[45] A wrapper worn by Bengalee men and up-country women.