The Cannons of Lucknow (26 page)

“Don't do that, “Barrow besought him, in mock dismay. “We need you—there are another batch of volunteers from the infantry to be licked into shape and none of us has your touch.”

“Square it with the surgeon and I'll report for duty tomorrow, Lou.”

Barrow shook his head. “You'll take whatever time Dr. Irvine says you need, Alex. That's an order and be damned to that brevet of yours!” He rose, setting down his glass. “I must go. We're mounting a reconnaissance in the Calpi direction at first light tomorrow —the usual scare about the blasted Gwalior Contingent, who appear to be mercifully inactive—but the general wants a report, so I must select who's to go on it.” He stumped out, shoulders wearily bowed, and Alex cursed his own weakness. But his recovery continued and three days later Dr. Irvine permitted him to return to light duties in camp. By 10th September, he was once again training the last batch of recruits for Barrow's Volunteers, and the whole Force was cheered by the news that General Outram expected to reach Cawnpore on the 15th, with reinforcements numbering nearly 1,300 men, in addition to Major Eyre's battery and two howitzers.

On the 12th, the engineers started to prepare the pontoons and boats required to repair the bridge across the Ganges, and at dusk on Tuesday, 15th September, General Outram marched in at the head of his column, having decisively defeated a rebel force which had attempted to dispute his passage from Allahabad.

The following morning, he issued his first Divisional Order to the Cawnpore column, which began:

The important duty of relieving the garrison of Lucknow had at first been entrusted to Brigadier-General Havelock, C.B., and Major-General Outram feels that it is due to this distinguished officer, and to the strenuous and noble efforts which he has already made to effect that object, that to him should accrue the honour of the achievement.

Major-General Outram is confident that the great end for which General Havelock and his brave troops have so long and so gloriously fought will now, under the blessing of Providence, be accomplished.

The Major-General, therefore, in gratitude for and admiration of the brilliant deeds of arms achieved by General Havelock, will cheerfully waive his rank on the occasion and will accompany the force to Lucknow in his Civil capacity —as Chief Commissioner of Oudh—tendering his military services to General Havelock as a volunteer.

Havelock's reply ran:

Brigadier-General Havelock, in making known to the column the kind and generous determination of Major-General Sir James Outram, K.C.B., to leave to it the task of relieving Lucknow and of rescuing its gallant and enduring garrison, has only to express his hope that the troops will strive, by their exemplary and gallant conduct in the field, to justify the confidence thus reposed in them.

The men cheered their little general when they read these Orders. Awaiting them, on the Oudh side of the river, were an estimated force of 7,000 rebel foot, 1,000 cavalry, and 18 guns. The British column, consisting of 2,300 Queen's infantry and 250 Sikhs, with 80 Volunteer Cavalry, two 9-pounder batteries, one heavy battery of four 24-pounders, and two howitzers, began to cross the river on the 19th. By dusk on the 20th, Major Eyre's heavy guns, which had covered the crossing, and the rear guard passed over the bridge of boats into Oudh, and General Havelock with his son Harry left the bungalow on the riverbank—once owned by a Prince of Oudh—which they had occupied since August, to join the column. In the entrenchment, 300 men were left to hold Cawnpore, under Colonel Wilson of the Queen's 64th; Brigadier-General James Neill commanded one wing of the Lucknow relief column and Colonel Hamilton of the 78th the other, whilst Sir James Outram, mounted on a mottled roan horse, joined the ranks of the Volunteer Cavalry.

At daybreak on 21st September, in a deluge of rain, Havelock gave the order to advance once more on Lucknow.

D
URING THE RIVER CROSSING
, the rebels had attempted, with skirmishers and some horsed 9-pounder guns, to impede the British column, but the attacks had not been pressed home and a few rounds from Francis Maude's well-trained gunners served effectively to discourage them. They retired to General Havelock's old camping ground at Mungalwar where, some seven to eight thousand strong, they waited for the expected attack, firing on the Volunteer Cavalry when they rode forward to reconnoitre.

At first light on 21st September, when Alex and Lousada Barrow went with Colonel Tytler and General Outram's Chief of Staff, Colonel Napier, to report on their position, they came under so heavy a fire from sepoys and matchlock men, concealed in the breast-high corn bordering the road, that they had themselves to take cover until their assailants were dispersed. Trotting forward again, they saw that the enemy had positioned infantry to defend the fortified mud huts of the village and a newly constructed walled enclosure to the left of the road. To the right, a line of breastworks had also been built, behind which six guns were sited to cover the road—one of them a 24-pounder, mounted to the rear of a separate stockade of interlaced brushwood and timber, which was lined with sepoy musketeers.

As the British column advanced in drizzling rain to the attack, with Major Eyre's heavy battery in the centre, covered by the 5th Fusiliers in skirmishing order, the rebel guns opened an accurate fire. A round-shot wounded one of the battery elephants, and the great beast turned, trumpeting in pain and fury, to charge and scatter the British gunners. The remaining elephants in the battery, sensing danger, held their ground but refused to drag the guns any further and, when all attempts to goad them on had failed, bullock teams had to be brought up to take their places.

After some delay and confusion, Vincent Eyre was able to deploy his cumbersome pieces across the road and engage the rebel front with great effect, and Havelock, after studying the position, decided to employ his favourite turning movement. He sent his main force, with Olpherts' horsed battery, to the left, leaving the 90th Light Infantry to clear the village, which they did in dashing style, eager to show themselves the equal of the column's veteran regiments. The Highlanders and the Blue Caps, not to be outdone, surged forward and stormed the breastworks and, as the enemy line started to waver and break, Havelock cantered over to where the Volunteer Cavalry were drawn up in two lines, with Outram and Barrow at their head.

He bowed to General Outram and said, addressing Lousada Barrow, “Be so good as to pursue the beaten enemy with your squadron, Captain Barrow!”

“With pleasure, sir,” Barrow acknowledged. It was the moment for which the Volunteers had been waiting, and they took full advantage of the opportunity to show their mettle. Led by their commandant with their Volunteer general beside him, they charged furiously into the mass of rebel infantry, wielding their sabres mercilessly. Outram, on his big Australian waler, was in his element, his gold-topped Malacca cane doing duty in place of the cavalry sabre he lacked, and the rebels' retreat became a rout. Havelock himself rode with the second line, which Alex was leading, but his horse sustained a number of wounds, which compelled him to pull up, and he waved them on as he coaxed his limping animal from the fray.

“Close up and take cover!” Barrow yelled, as a bend in the road disclosed a body of mutineers, who had rallied under the command of a mounted
subedar
into a loosely-knit square. They fired a volley at over-long range; the Volunteers closed ranks and continued their charge. The sepoy riflemen did not wait to receive it but scattered without attempting to fire a second volley, diving desperately for cover in the tall-growing corn or seeking refuge in flight along the open road.

To the right, Alex saw, two 9-pounder guns mounted in a well-constructed entrenchment barred the way and, as the gunners tried frantically to bring their guns to bear on the charging cavalry, he wheeled his line to take the battery in flank. The tall Mahoney beside him, yelling like a fiend, he put his horse at the breastwork and, before the gunners could get off a shot, he and his troop were inside, cutting them down. He saw, out of the tail of his eye, that Outram was with him, using the battered and bloodstained cane like a flail and yelling as loudly as any of the rest. Some of the men had been unhorsed, and when they dashed up to enter the battery on foot, the general bade them stay with the guns.

“They're our prizes!” he shouted and, digging spurs into his bony waler, galloped on after Barrow, whose line was spread out across a cornfield on the far side of the road, in hot pursuit of the fleeing foe. Alex was about to follow him when he noticed that shots were coming from his left. Turning to ascertain the cause, he saw that fifty yards from him, in an entrenched enclosure, a company of sepoys in regulation scarlet full dress uniforms had gathered about their Colour and, with more courage than the majority of their comrades had shown, were firing into the advancing ranks of the 5th Fusiliers as they emerged, in extended order, on the far side of the village.

Mahoney shouted something he could not catch, and the next moment he was making for the enclosure, intent, it seemed, on taking it single-handedly. Rallying his troop, Alex cantered after him, delayed by the necessity to form them into line, and then watched, in astonished admiration, as the tall young sergeant, bearing a charmed life, leapt his horse over the breastwork of the enclosure and fought his way through the scarlet-clad defenders. The next moment, he had seized the Colour and was bearing it away in triumph, its gilt-embroidered folds draped over his horse's quarters.

With the loss of their Colour, the sepoys' resistance petered out. A few spasmodic shots were fired at the approaching horsemen, but when they reached the enclosure, the mutineers did not contest it with them. They ran from behind their breastwork as Mahoney rejoined the troop with his trophy, his horse bleeding from several bayonet wounds but he himself grinning broadly and miraculously unscathed. Leaving the scattered sepoys to be rounded up by the Fusiliers, Alex shouted a breathless “Well done!” to his sergeant and, observing that Lousada Barrow had returned to the road to rally and reform his command, led his troop back to join them.

After a brief halt to deal with casualties and rest their blown horses, the Volunteer Cavalry resumed the pursuit, augmented by the sixty Irregulars commanded by Captain Johnson and Lieutenant Charles Havelock. They tore past the village of Unao—now a deserted cluster of blackened, burned-out huts—through the narrow passageway, and out onto the Busseratgunj road, to see the bulk of the fleeing enemy streaming along it toward the town. Hitherto, although defeated by Havelock's small column, they had never suffered pursuit in any previous engagement, and now, following their usual practice, they were endeavouring to take out their guns and ammunition, with the evident intention of making a stand when they gained the walled defences of the town. Outram and Barrow allowed them no time and showed them no mercy and, as the British cavalry fell on their rear, sabring them down, the ammunition tumbrils were abandoned or upended into the swamp. A third gun was captured, intact and with its gun-cattle, when Lousada Barrow led a spirited attack on the gunners, whose escorting infantry made a panic-stricken bid for escape, leaving the
golandazes
to their fate.

Only when Busseratgunj was as empty of rebel troops as Unao had been did Barrow regretfully call a halt to permit the infantry to catch up with them. Their casualties had been amazingly light—ten wounded but still mounted and six men missing. The mutineers', by contrast, were estimated at approaching 200, the majority of these killed; but the horses of both Volunteer and Irregular squadrons were quite done up and the men in little better state. Thankful for the respite, they dismounted and flung themselves onto the damp ground; only Cullmane and two or three others of his troop, Alex noticed, loosened their girths and rubbed their sweating animals down before taking their own ease. But they were all happy, and when General Havelock rode up on a fresh horse, accompanied by James Neill, to congratulate them on their achievement, both officers and men cheered him enthusiastically. Mahoney, very red of face at being singled out, was brought up by Neill and invited to display the Colour he had taken. On this being identified as having belonged to one of the original Cawnpore regiments, the 1st Bengal Native Infantry, Havelock shook him warmly by the hand and Outram, his dark, bearded face wreathed in smiles, took half a dozen of his Manilla cheroots from his pocket and presented them to the delighted sergeant.

“These, my lad,” he announed, “are the most precious gift I have to bestow, but you've earned them twice over. That was a very gallant action of yours and, if we both survive, I shall see to it that your name is put forward with a recommendation for a Victoria Cross.”

Mahoney stammered his thanks and, as he rejoined his comrades, General Neill said, with conscious pride, “The lad's a Blue Cap, you know, sir … I lent him to Barrow as a Volunteer.”