Lang Andrew
The Red Book of Heroes
It is impossible to tell all the details of the march, but much of the burden of it fell on Havelock's shoulders, as Sale could not go about and see after things himself. Here, as always, he proved himself, as Kaye the historian says, 'every inch a soldier.' 'Among our good officers,' wrote Broadfoot at the time, 'first comes captain Havelock. The whole of them together would not compensate for his loss. He is brave to admiration, invariably cool, and, as far as I can see or judge, correct in his views.'
All along the march up the Cabul these qualities were badly needed, for it was necessary to watch night and day lest the little army should be taken unawares by the hill tribes. At last the rocky country was left behind, and they halted in the rich and well-wooded town of Gundamak, to rest for a little and to wait Elphinstone's orders. The letters, when they came, told a fearful tale. The Afghans had risen in Cabul; Burnes, the East India Company's officer in Afghanistan, had been murdered, together with other men, among them Broadfoot's brother, and though there were five thousand British troops stationed only two miles away, as Havelock well knew, they had never been called out to quell the insurrection.
Under these circumstances Elphinstone implored Sale to return without delay to Cabul.
A council of war was held to decide what was to be done. They all saw that if it had been difficult to get through the passes before, it would be almost impossible now, when the success at Cabul had given fresh courage and audacity to the hill-men, and thousands who had hung back waiting to know if the insurrection would be successful or not would have rushed to the help of their country. Besides, with five thousand fresh troops close to the city, the English could hardly be in such desperate straits. So Sale decided to disobey Elphinstone's orders and to push on to Jellalabad further up the river.
Jellalabad was not reached without much fighting, and when they entered the town it was clear that it would not be easy to hold, and that the walls stood in much need of repair. However, Broadfoot was the kind of man who felt that whatever had to be done could be done, and he turned out his corps, consisting of natives of every tribe, to work on the fortifications. Happily he had brought with him from Cabul all the tools that were necessary, and the Afghan fire which poured in upon them was soon checked by Colonel Monteath, who scattered the enemy for the time being.
This left the garrison a chance of getting in supplies; but they were short of powder and shot, and orders were issued that it should not be used unnecessarily.
On the morning of January 8, 1842, three Afghans rode into the town, bearing a letter from Cabul, signed both by sir Henry Pottinger and general Elphinstone. This told them that a treaty had been concluded by which the English had agreed to retire from Afghanistan, and bidding Sale to quit Jellalabad at once and proceed to India, leaving behind him his artillery and any stores or baggage that he might not be able to carry with him.
With one voice the council of war, which was hastily summoned, declined once more to obey these instructions, which they declared had been wrung out of Elphinstone by force. Jellalabad should be held at any cost, and the news that they received during the following week only strengthened their resolution. The British in Cabul were hemmed in by their enemies, the cantonments or barracks were deserted, and the sixteen thousand fugitives had been surrounded outside the city by Afghan troops led by the son of the Dost Mohammed. These things gave the defenders of Jellalabad enough to think of, and to fear.
Five days later some officers on the roof of a tall house were sweeping the horizon with their field glasses to see if there was any chance of an attack from the Afghans, who were always hovering about watching for some carelessness on the part of the besieged. But gaze as they might, nothing was moving in the broad valley, or along the banks of the three streams which watered it. They were turning away satisfied that at present there was no danger, when one of them uttered a sudden cry, and snatching the glasses from his companion, exclaimed, 'Yes, I am right. A man riding a pony has just come round that corner. It is the Cabul road, and his clothes are English. Look!'
The others looked, and saw for themselves. The pony's head drooped, and he was coming wearily down the road, while it was clear that the rider was urging the poor beast to his best speed. A chill feeling of disaster filled the little group; they hastened down to the walls and gave a shout of welcome, and the man waved his cap in answer.
'Throw open the gate,' said the major, and they all rushed out to hear what the stranger had to tell.
It was a fearful tale. The general in Cabul had listened to the promises of the son of the Dost Mohammed, and had ordered the five thousand troops and ten thousand other hangers-on of the British army to leave their position, in which they were safe, and trust themselves solely to the Afghans. Cold, hungry, and tired they struggled to the foot of the mountains; then the signal was given, the Afghans fell on their victims, and the few who escaped were lost among the snows of the passes. Only Dr. Brydon had been lucky enough to strike a path where no one followed him, and in spite of wounds and exhaustion had managed to reach the walls of Jellalabad.
In silence the men listened, horror in their faces. It seemed impossible that Englishmen should have walked blindfold into such a trap, and besides the grief and rage they felt at the fate of their countrymen another thought was in the minds of all. The Afghans would be intoxicated by their success, and at any moment might swoop down upon the ill-defended Jellalabad. Instantly the gates were closed, the horses saddled, and every man went to his post. At night bonfires were lit and bugles sounded every half-hour to guide to the city any fugitives that might be hiding in the woods or behind the rocks. But none came – none ever came save Brydon.
Meanwhile Sale was daily expecting a relief force under Wild; but instead there arrived the news that Wild had been unable to fight his way through the terrible Khyber Pass – the scene of more than one tragedy in Indian history.
In face of this a council of war was again held to consider what was best to be done. Most of the officers wished to abandon the city and make terms with the Afghans, in spite of the lesson that had already been given them of what was the fate of those who trusted to Afghan faith. Only Broadfoot and Havelock opposed violently this resolution, and in the end their views prevailed. Jellalabad was to be defended by the garrison till general Pollock arrived from the East.
So matters went for the next three months. By this time the raw troops that had entered the city had become steady and experienced soldiers. There was a little fighting every now and then, which served to keep up their spirits, and though food needed to be served out carefully, they were able sometimes to drive in cattle from the hills, which gave them fresh supplies. On February 19 Sale received a letter from general Pollock asking how long they could hold out, and he was writing an answer at a table, with Havelock beside him, when suddenly the table began to rock and the books slid on to the ground. Then a whirlwind of dust rushed past the window, making everything black as night, and the floor seemed to rise up under their feet.
The two men jumped up, and, blinded and giddy as they were, made their way outside, where they were nearly deafened with the noise of tumbling houses and the cries of hurt and frightened people. It was no use to fly, for havoc was all round them, and they were no safer in one place than another. At last the earth ceased to tremble and houses to fall; the dust stopped dancing and whirling, and the sun once more appeared.
During the first shock of the earthquake Broadfoot was standing with another officer on the ramparts, his eyes fixed on the defences, which had caused him so much labour, and were now falling like nine-pins.
'This is the time for Akbar Khan,' he said, and if Akbar had not dreaded the earthquake more than British guns the massacre of Cabul would have been repeated in Jellalabad. But though Akbar feared greatly, he knew that his soldiers feared yet more; he waited several days till the earth seemed peaceful again, and then rode up to a high hill from which he could overlook the city.
'Why, it is witchcraft!' he cried, as he saw the defences all in their places; for Broadfoot's men had worked so well that in a week everything had been rebuilt exactly as before.
March passed with some skirmishes, but when April came the senior officers told Sale that they strongly advised an attack on Akbar, who, with six thousand men, had taken up a position on the Cabul river two miles from Jellalabad, and had placed an outpost of three hundred picked men only three-quarters of a mile outside the walls. Broadfoot had been badly wounded in a skirmish a fortnight before, and could not fight, so the attacking party, consisting of three divisions of five hundred each, were led by Dennie, Monteath and Havelock. Dennie was mortally wounded in trying to carry the outpost, and Havelock halted and formed some of his men into a square to await Akbar's charge, leaving part of his division behind a walled enclosure to the right.
Having made his arrangements, Havelock stood outside the square and near to the wall, so that he could command both parties, and told his troops to wait till the Afghans were close upon them before they fired; but in their excitement they disobeyed orders, and Havelock's horse, caught between two fires, plunged and threw him. In another moment he would have been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry had not three of his soldiers dashed out from the ranks and dragged him into the square.
The enemy were thrown into confusion and retired to re-form. They charged again, and were again repulsed, and by seven that morning Akbar's camp was abandoned and his power broken.
Pollock's assistance had not been needed; the garrison of Jellalabad had delivered themselves.
There is no room in this story to tell of the many wars in which Havelock took part during the next fifteen years, always doing good work and gaining the confidence of his commanding officers. He fought in the war with the Mahrattas in 1843, and was made lieutenant-colonel after the battle of Maharajpore. The following year he was fighting by sir Hugh Gough's side in the Punjaub against the Sikhs, who were the best native soldiers in India, and had been carefully trained by French officers. In this war four battles took place in fifty-five days, all close to the river Sutlej, but the last action at the village of Sobraon put an end to hostilities for two years to come.
'India has been saved by a miracle,' writes Havelock, 'but the loss was terrific on both sides.'
In 1849 Havelock, who had exchanged from the 13th into the 39th, and again into the 53rd, applied for leave of absence to join his family in England. It was his first visit home for twenty-six years, and everything was full of interest to him. His health had broken down, and if he had been rich enough he would certainly have retired; but he had never been able to save a six-pence, and there were five sons and two daughters to be educated and supported. Should he die, Mrs. Havelock would have a pension of 70l. a year, and the three youngest children 20l. each till they were fourteen, when it would cease. This, in addition to 1,000l. which he possessed, was all the family had to depend on.
Therefore, leaving them at Bonn, on the Rhine, where teaching was good and living cheap, he returned to India in December 1851, rested both in mind and body, and in good spirits. To his great joy a few months later his eldest son was given the adjutancy of the 10th Foot, and he himself was promoted to various posts where the pay was good and the work light. Now that he had some leisure he went back to his books, and in a letter to his youngest son, George, on his fifth birthday, he bids him read all the accounts he can find of the battles that had just been fought in the Crimea – Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman – and when his father came home to England again he would make him drawings, and show him how they were fought. But little George had to understand the battles as best he might, for his father never came back to explain them to him.
After serving in Persia during the early part of 1857, Havelock was suddenly ordered to return to India to take part in the struggle which gave him undying fame, and a grave at Lucknow before the year was out. According to the testimony of Kaye the historian, for half a century he had been seriously studying his profession, and knew every station between Burmah and Afghanistan! 'Military glory,' says Kaye, 'was the passion of his life, but at sixty-two he had never held an independent command.'
Now, in the mutiny which had shaken our rule to its foundation, all Havelock's study of warfare and all his experience were to bear fruit. A great many causes had led up to that terrible outbreak of the native soldiers, or sepoys, early in 1857. India is, as you perhaps know, a huge country made up of different nations, some of whom are Mahometans, or followers of the prophet Mahomet, and worshippers of one God, while most of the rest have a number of gods and goddesses. These nations are divided into various castes or classes, each with its own rules, and the man of one caste will not eat food cooked by the man of another, or touch him, or marry his daughter, lest he should become unclean.
It is easy to see how an army composed of all these races would be very hard to manage, especially as it is impossible for any white man, who is used to changes going on about him, really to understand the minds of people who have followed the same customs from father to son for thousands of years. And if it is difficult for the English officers to understand the Hindoos, it is too much to expect that soldiers without education should do so either.
The true cause of the mutiny which wrought such havoc in so short a time in the north of India was that the number of our British soldiers had been greatly reduced, and some had been sent to the Crimea, some to Persia, and some to Burmah. Besides this, the government had been very weak for many years in its dealings with the native troops. Whenever the sepoys chose to grumble, which was very often indeed, their grievances were listened to, and they were generally given what they wanted – and next time, of course, they wanted more. To crown all, our arsenals containing military stores were mostly left unprotected, as well as our treasuries, and from the Indus to the Ganges the native army was waiting for a pretext to shake off the British rule.
This they found in an order given by the commander-in-chief that a new sort of rifle, called the Enfield rifle, should be used throughout India, and it was necessary that the cartridges with which it was loaded should be greased. As early as the month of January an English workman employed in the factory of Dumdum, near Calcutta, where the cartridges were made, happened one day to ask a sepoy soldier belonging to the 2nd Grenadiers to give him some water from his brass pot. This the sepoy refused, saying that he did not know what caste the man was of, and his pot might be defiled if he drank from it. 'That is all very fine,' answered the workman, 'but you will soon have no caste left yourself, as you will be made to bite off the ends of cartridges smeared with the fat of pigs and cows' – animals which the Hindoos held to be unclean.
This story speedily reached the ears of the officer in charge at Dumdum, and on inquiry he found that the report had been spread through the native army that their caste was to be destroyed by causing them to touch what would defile them.
General Hearsey, the commander of the Bengal division, instantly took what steps he could to prove to the sepoys that the government had no intention of making them break their caste, but it was too late. Chupatties, little cakes which are the common food of the people, were sent from town to town as a signal of revolt, and on February 19, 1857, the first troops mutinied.
This was only the beginning; the message of the chupatties spread further and further, but even now the government failed to understand the temper of the people. The regiment which had been the earliest to rebel were merely disarmed and disbanded, and even this sentence was not carried out for five weeks, while they were allowed to claim their pay as usual. It is needless to say that in a few weeks the whole of Northern India was in a flame; the king of Delhi was proclaimed emperor, and every European who came in the way of the sepoys was cruelly murdered.
Such was the state of things found by Havelock when he landed in Bombay from Persia, and was immediately sent on by the governor by sea to Calcutta, to resume his appointment of adjutant-general to the royal troops in Bengal. On the way his ship was wrecked, and he had to put in to Madras, where he heard that the commander-in-chief was dead, and that sir Patrick Grant, an old friend of Havelock's, had been nominated temporarily to the post.
As soon as possible Havelock hurried on to Calcutta in company with Grant, and there the news reached them that Lucknow was besieged by the celebrated Nana Sahib, the leader of the sepoys and a skilful general, and that a force was being got ready to go to its relief.
'Your excellency, I have brought you the man,' said Grant to lord Canning as he presented Havelock, and the command of the 64th and the 78th Highlanders was entrusted to him. These last he knew well, as they had been with him in Persia, and he thought them 'second to none' in the service.
But before you can understand all the difficulties Havelock had to fight with I must tell you a little about the towns on his line of march.
The instructions given to Havelock were to go first to the important city of Allahabad, situated at the place where the Ganges joins the Jumna. Allahabad had revolted in May, and the English garrison now consisted mainly of a few artillerymen between fifty and seventy years of age. Benares, the 'Holy City' of the Hindoos, a little further down the Ganges, had been saved by the prompt measures of the resident and the arrival of colonel Neill with a detachment of the 1st Fusiliers. The soldiers had come up from Madras and were instantly ordered to Benares, but when they reached the Calcutta station they found that the train which was to take them part of the way was just starting.
The railway officials declared that there was no time for the troops to get in, and they would have to wait for the next train – many hours after. For all answer Neill turned to his troops, and told them to hold the engine driver and stoker till the company was seated. But for this the soldiers could not have got to Benares in time, for that very night had been fixed for the revolt.
Having put down the rising at Benares, Neill pushed on over the eighty miles that separated him from Allahabad, the largest arsenal in India except Delhi. For five days the sepoys had been killing and plundering the British. On hearing of Neill's approach, two thousand of them encamped near the fort in order to hold it, but an attack of the Fusiliers soon dispersed them, and the commander ordered a large number to be executed in order to strike terror into the rest.
Bad as was the state of things at Allahabad, where the railway had been destroyed and the garrison was weak, it was still worse in Cawnpore, a hundred and twenty miles higher up the Ganges. Here sir Hugh Wheeler was in command, and having spent his whole life among the sepoys it was long before he would believe in the tales of their treason. Even when at length his faith was partly shaken by the deeds done under his eyes, he still did not take all the precautions that were needful. His little fort, which was to be the last refuge of the sick and wounded, women and children, in case of attack, was a couple of barracks one brick thick, which had hitherto been used as a hospital, and in this he gave orders that provisions for a twenty-five days' siege should be stored. This was the place for which he intended to abandon the powder magazine, where he could have held the enemy at bay for months.
With inconceivable carelessness nobody saw that the orders for provisioning the fort were properly carried out, or the works of defence capable of resisting an attack. By May 22, however, even sir Hugh Wheeler was convinced that there was danger abroad, and he directed that the women and children, whose numbers were now swelled by fugitives from Lucknow and the surrounding towns, should be placed in it. Altogether the refugees amounted to about five hundred, and the force of men to defend them was about equal.
The expected siege did not begin till June 6, when the plain which surrounds Cawnpore was black with sepoys, led by the treacherous Nana. For three weeks the prisoners inside the fort underwent the most frightful sufferings of every kind, and had it not been for the women the garrison would have tried to cut their way through to the river. As it was they felt they must stay – till the end.
So the soldiers fought on, and the women helped as best they might, giving their stockings as bags for grape-shot, and tearing up their clothes to bind up wounds, till they had scarcely a rag to cover them. One, the gallant wife of a private of the 32nd, Bridget Widdowson, stood, sword in hand, over a number of prisoners tied together by a rope. Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her; her gun was instantly levelled at the hand which was trying to untie the rope, and not a man of them escaped while in her charge. By-and-by she was relieved by a soldier, and in his care many of them got away.
At length hope sprung up in their hearts, for Nana offered a safe-conduct for the garrison down the Ganges to Allahabad, if only sir Hugh Wheeler would surrender the city. It was a hard blow to the old general, and but for the women and children he and his men would gladly have died at their posts. But for their sakes he accepted the terms, first making Nana swear to keep them by the waters of the Ganges, the most sacred of all oaths to a Hindoo.
The following morning a train of elephants, litters and carts was waiting to carry the sick, the women, and children down to the river, a mile away, for after their terrible imprisonment they were all too weak to walk; and behind them marched the soldiers, each with his rifle. Crowds lined the banks and watched them as they got into the boats, and pushed off with thankful hearts into the middle of the stream, leaving behind them, as they thought, the place where they had undergone such awful suffering. Suddenly those looking towards the shore saw a blinding flash and heard a loud report. Nana had broken his oath and ordered them to be fired on.
One boat alone out of the whole thirty-nine managed to float down the stream, and the men in it landed and took refuge in a little temple, the maddened sepoys at their heels. But the fourteen Englishmen were desperate, and drove back their enemies again and again, till the sepoys heaped wood outside the walls and set it on fire. It was blowing hard, and the wind instead of fanning the flames put them out, and the defenders breathed once more. But their hopes were dashed again as they saw the besiegers set fire to the logs a second time, and, retiring to a safe distance, lay a trail of powder to blow up the temple. Then the men knew they had but one chance, and fixing their bayonets they charged into the crowd towards the river.
When they reached the banks, seven had got through, and flung themselves into the stream. Half-starved and weak as they were, they could scarcely make head against the swift current, and three sank and disappeared. The other four were stronger swimmers, and contrived to hold out till they arrived at the territory of an Oude rajah who was friendly to the English.
It was while they were resting here that they heard of the awful fate of their countrymen. After a time Nana had desired that the women and children should be spared, and the remnant were brought back to Cawnpore. They were lodged, all of them, in two rooms, and here these stayed, hardly able to breathe, and almost thankful when the expected doom fell on them. After their sufferings death was welcome, even though it came by the hand of Nana Sahib.
All this time Havelock (now brigadier-general), ignorant of the horrors that were taking place, was advancing towards Cawnpore, which he knew must be in the hands of the English before it was possible to relieve Lucknow, lying further away across the plain to the north-west of Allahabad. Neill had sent forward a detachment of four hundred British soldiers and three hundred Sikhs under major Renaud, and Havelock, who had arrived in the town just as they were starting, promised to follow in a day or two, as soon as he could get ready a larger force. Eager soldier though he was, he had long ago laid to heart the truth of the old saying, 'for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the man was lost; for want of a man the kingdom was lost,' and he always took care that his nails were in their places. Therefore he waited a few days longer than he expected to do, and spent the time in enlisting a body of volunteer cavalry, formed partly of officers of the native regiments who had mutinied, of ruined shopkeepers, of fugitive planters, and of anybody else that could be taught to hold a gun.
The general was still asleep in the hot darkness of July 1 when a tired horseman rode into camp and demanded to see him without delay. He was shown at once into the general's tent, and in a few short words explained that he had been sent by Renaud with the tidings of the massacre of Cawnpore.
Six days later 'Havelock's Ironsides,' numbering under two thousand men, of whom a fourth were natives, began the march to Cawnpore, and five days after the start they had won about half-way to the city the battle of Futtehpore. It was the first time since the mutiny broke out that the sepoys had been beaten in the field, and it shook their confidence, while it gave fresh courage to sir Henry Lawrence and the heroic band in the residency of Lucknow. But the relief which they hoped for was still many months distant, and Havelock was fighting his way inch by inch, across rivers, over bridges, along guarded roads, with soldiers often half-fed, and wearing the thick clothes that they had carried through the snows of a Persian winter. But they never flinched and never grumbled – they could even laugh in the midst of it all! During a fierce struggle for a bridge over the Pandoo river, one of the 78th Highlanders was killed by a round shot close to where Havelock was standing.
'He has a happy death, Grenadiers,' remarked the general, 'for he died in the service of his country'; but a voice answered from behind:
'For mysel, sir, gin ye've nae objection, I wud suner bide alive in the service of ma cuntra.' And let us hope he did.
The guns across the bridge were captured with a dash, and the sepoys retreated on Cawnpore. In spite of their victory our men were too tired to eat, and flung themselves on the ground where they were. Next morning, July 16, they set out on a march of sixteen miles, after breakfasting on porter and biscuits, having had no other food for about forty hours.
At the end of the sixteen miles march, which they had performed under a burning sun, the bugles sounded a halt. For three hours the troops rested and fed, and then two sepoys who had remained loyal to their salt came in with the news that in front of us Nana Sahib, with five thousand men and eight guns, was drawn up across the Grand Trunk road, down which he expected our guns to pass; and doubtless they would have been sent that way had it not been for the timely warning. Now Havelock, with a strong detachment, crept round through some mango groves between the enemy's left flank and the Ganges, and attacked from behind; the sepoys wheeled round in a hurry and confusion, and the Nana dared not order his right and centre to fire lest they should injure his own men, and before he could re-form them the pipers of the 78th had struck up and the Highlanders were upon them, the sound of the slogan striking terror into the heart of the Hindoos. Once more the Scots charged, led this time by Havelock himself, and the position was carried.
Yet the Nana was hard to beat, and on the road to Cawnpore he halted again, and fresh troops streamed out from the gates to his help. It was his last chance; but he knew that the little British army was wearied out, and he counted on his reinforcements from the city. But Havelock noted the first sign of flagging as his men were marching across the ploughed fields heavy with wet, and knew that they needed the spur of excitement. 'Come, who is to take that village, the Highlanders or the Sixty-fourth?' cried he, and before the words were out of his mouth there was a rush forwards, and the village was taken.
Still, even now the battle of Cawnpore was not ended. Once more the sepoys re-formed, but always nearer the city, and their deadly fire was directed full upon us. The general would have waited till our guns came up to answer theirs, but saw that the men were getting restless. So turning his pony till he faced his troops, while the enemy's guns were thundering behind him, he said lightly:
'The longer you look at it the less you will like it. The brigade will advance, the left battalion leading.'
