CHAPTER VIII
LORD CLYDE'S CAMPAIGNS
Sir Colin Campbell, soon to earn the title of
Lord Clyde, had arrived at Calcutta in the
middle of August, as Commander-in-Chief of
an army still on its way from England by
the slow route of the Cape. He could do
nothing for the moment but stir up the authorities
in providing stores and transport for his
men when they came to hand. All the troops
available in Bengal were needed to guard the
disarmed Sepoys here, and to keep clear the
six hundred miles of road to Allahabad,
infested as it was by flying bands of mutineers
and robbers. But if he had no English
soldiers to command, there was a brigade of
sailors, five hundred strong, who under their
daring leader, Captain William Peel, steamed
up the Ganges, ahead of the army, to which
more than once they were to show the way
on an unfamiliar element.
