CHAPTER X.
Late in the afternoon succeeding the victory, the European troops, formed into three sides of a hollow square under the peaceful azure sky, witnessed the burial of the killed. And the sad ceremony of the funeral service that was observed over the mortal remains of those fine fellows, who had but just fought and fallen by the side of those now looking on, must have touched every heart there, even were its nature at other times cold and hard as a stone. And doubtless there were many noble fellows of all ranks in that assemblage who, though ordinarily taking little heed of military obsequies, in this last duty due to the honourable slain, whispered a prayer to the gates of Heaven, on behalf of their fallen comrades in arms.
Amidst manifestations of general rejoicing, mingled with sorrow after the action, it was not forgotten that the camp was put in jeopardy by the rebels out-flanking the Brigade. Had they boldly precipitated their attempt to capture it, the disastrous consequences would undoubtedly have been the annihilation of the feeble guard, the indiscriminate massacre of our sick and wounded, the helpless flight of the camp followers, the destruction of the magazine and commissariat stores; while the Brigade itself, attacked simultaneously both in front and from the rear by an exasperated foe, would probably have had to retreat with calamitous loss.
To guard against the possibility of such a disaster happening, however, it was decided to encompass the camp with trenches, so as to render it somewhat secure; while for the protection of the hospital and magazine, the erection of earthworks, mounted with the captured guns, and made defensible against everything but regular siege operations, was deemed necessary to meet any emergency that might arise. Accordingly the work of entrenching and fortifying commenced, while all huts or houses that stood in the line of fire were levelled — the baggage elephants being employed in the latter task, instead of sappers, of whom there were none, and very serviceable they proved. Much spirit and steady labour having been thrown into the work, the position soon became defensible, and in consequence considerable saving in watchfulness temporarily followed.
The result of the victory paralysed the rebels; and was productive of so salutary an effect upon the inhabitants of the district that shoals of the peasantry, who in numbers form the most important part of the population, returned to their homes, from which they had fled at the commencement of hostilities. And as therefore a short interval of tranquillity has now to be recorded, I will slightly digress in the course of the narrative, in order to speak of these good and gentle people (among whom it has been my lot to be thrown for years, and with whom I have often had to pass months consecutively, without seeing a white face, or speaking a word of my native tongue), as well as to show the attitude they assumed in the dreadful times of the Mutiny.
It is impossible for those who have not actually lived among the peasantry of Upper India, and who have not themselves had experience of their innate character and of their inner life, to be able fully to realise their amiability of disposition and inborn goodness of heart. They are a people so mild, so docile, so humane, so submissive in deportment, and withal so faithful, that their nature would recoil with horror at any act of cruelty or treachery. They are known to venerate even the very insects of the earth, and regard all animals as having been formed like themselves by the decree of God, whose life they have no more right to take away or to put it to corporal pain wantonly than that of a human being. Moreover, taking them all together, they possess a wonderful similarity of disposition in showing much sympathy and kindness, not alone towards each other when in trouble or distress, but even to perfect strangers. “Live and let live” is their undying maxim, and so rigidly do they adhere to the principle of this sympathetic fellow-feeling, that the most productive lands adjoining their villages are often gratuitously set apart as Bhiya-Chara, which, being interpreted, means provision for the poor Brotherhood. Where in the wide civilised world, it may be asked, will one find more forethought, kindness of heart, and less personal selfishness than this? And yet, the phenomenal fact remains, that the Sepoys who conmiitted the bloodthirsty massacres and murders, were actually recruited from among these very peasantry.
The limits which I have prescribed to myself in these fragmentary pages, prevent my going into a detail of circumstances to prove the above-stated startling fact in this place; but I shall have something to say on the subject, when I come to speak of the cause that led the Sepoys to commit such cruel and inhuman atrocities, as positively shocked and horrified their own rustic parents and brethren.
Whatever may have been their natural feelings of indignation raised by the perfidious cry of their caste being on the brink of destruction, these faithful peasantry remained steadfast in their allegiance to the Government that had brought them within the pale of civilisation. And through all the vicissitudes of the Mutiny — through all the horrors of that sanguinary epoch, their sympathies were with the Sahibs (European gentry). As a rule, they not only manifested the utmost repugnance to the cause of the rebellion, but fearlessly supported the authorities where they were able to resist the influence of the vortex in which vast numbers were engulfed, like thousands of the Sepoys; who were positively the victims of the revolt themselves. The sweets of the East India Company’s rule — albeit with all its bitter faults — were not to them untasted. They compared the humiliating oppression to which they were yoked, under a Mahomedan dynasty, and in some measure treated as beasts of burden, to the freedom they had enjoyed within the last century. Impartial justice and kind treatment had mitigated the evils of their former lot; and these reminiscences, comparatively fresh in their minds, were not susceptible of being erased by any sudden change of circumstances that partially successful rebellion might temporarily have brought. Moreover, their traditional metnorials indicated the degrading and hopeless bondage, so to speak, through which their forefathers had passed, and which was not likely to be forgotten by a people, whose ancestors were reduced through despotism to a position of abject serfs. Influenced, therefore, by such bitter reminiscences, they could not act otherwise than maintain a staunch adherence to the Government where they were strong, and continue virtually neutral where they were weak. They were, in fact, either passively, or actively, loyal.
No doubt the wealthy, high-caste Hindu could have stirred up, and led away into the raging flood tens of thousands of these rustic peasantry by the influence of his social position, religion, and caste; but knowing as he well did that the Mahomedan was the Prime Agitator of the struggle for Empire, as well as at the bottom of the Mutiny, and comprehending to the full extent the ambitious character of that population, he firmly abstained from a share in the rebellion, lest, by the re-establishment of pitiless despotism, he should be the greater loser in the end.
That many aggrieved Hindus, and some of them, too, of exalted rank and great wealth, had just cause to deplore the cruel wrongs they had suffered through the “policy” of the East India Company, and in consequence took advantage of the Sepoy revolt by joining the mutineers, nobody denies — no more than that the local peasantry who so eagerly plunged into the rebellion, were those associated in some capacity or other with these wronged Hindu families.
As a mark of gratitude due, therefore, to the great bulk of the Hindu peasantry of Upper India — in which are included those of the Punjab — I am glad to bear tribute to their faithful conduct, and have accordingly recorded their sincere loyalty in these pages. For, considering that the Mutiny developed the most formidable military revolt on record, and produced such a catastrophe as history has never known, had they cast in their lot with their Sepoy brethren, and made common cause with them in the revolt — even if only to the extent of cutting off all food supplies — what would have been the fate of India? I will leave those who were in the Empire during those disastrous days to answer so momentous a question, without venturing to proffer my own opinion on the subject.
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Resuming the course of the narrative from the above digression, the approach of the “fiery dragon, the scorching ordeal,” has to be recorded.
Time rolled on — the torrid season was coming fast, while rich crops ready for the sickle waved in the hot winds then setting in. By degrees the harvest was garnered, and the country shorn of its vegetation wore a dreary aspect. Its genial charm was gone; where bountiful fields had been, there were now bare flat plains. The atmosphere day by day increased to a fiercer heat, and the whole face of the visible earth dazzled the eye that looked upon it. The bracing cold weather, in fact, had been succeeded by the flaming furnace that blazes over Upper India during its “summer” months.
Without the slightest exaggeration, it may be safely said that no one who has not himself had personal experience of the open-air heat of the above-mentioned region, can form any conception of its intensity. In the compass of the heavens, without a cloud even as diminutive as a butterfly to screen his blinding rays, the sun appears from day to day, and for months, like an enormous ruby set in a burnished dome of brass, whence descends a fiery glow almost akin to that derivable from the focus of a burning-glass. There was no thermometer in the camp, but it required no meteorologist to pronounce what the temperature would have registered in the shade about noon; no less than from a hundred and thirty, to a hundred and forty degrees, we were sure. But all Englishmen stimulated by necessity, “the mother of invention,” are not dilatory in discovering solutions for their difficulties — especially when they are abroad. So we excavated the ground under our tents to a depth of several feet; and in these miserable “underground apartments,” or rather living tombs, with reading and writing, cards and pipes, sentimental ditties and comic songs — which were, of course, always encored — to say nothing of spinning endless yarns and telling mirthful stories, we contrived to while away the weary and fiery hours, as pleasantly as rabbits are wont to do in their appropriate warrens. And it was in holes such as these, that I employed myself in writing the journal from which is transcribed this narrative, so far as it relates to our life and operations in the field.
While domiciled in these inhospitable burrows, we were sometimes molested by such unwelcome visitors as the deadly snake called the Karith — in search of, perhaps, a more agreeable temperature than that of above ground? Yet it seems strange, and it will hardly be believed, but it is nevertheless a fact, that the karith, like the cobra, is naturally partial to places where men live. And although this dangerous reptile is only half the size of a cobra, it is equally venomous. A sting from either is certain death in a few hours; and that being indisputably true, it is curious to note that the karith and cobra persistently haunt the dwellings of men, whilst the other numerous species of snakes far less poisonous — some indeed harmless — rarely approach human habitations at all. No wonder, then, that thousands and thousands of the rural population year after year die from the fatal bite of the karith and cobra, from which recovery has never been known.
At this time, too, yet another fatal foe appeared in these subterranean ovens, in the form of small-pox, which broke out and spread through the camp. Although sickness is ever to be found in the footsteps of war, the frightful nature of this disease could not but be deplored as a terrible calamity by any force pent up, as we were, like worms under earth, and undergoing manifold trials almost beyond belief. What with the camp having become a lazaretto, for the very air we breathed must have been heavily laden with infection; what with the misery of existing in disease-tainted holes; the excruciating heat, the suffocating dust, the inconceivable swarms of flies; with fever, dysentery, gangrene sores, all simultaneously prevalent in the camp, the contagious disease was helped but too fatally in finding easy victims among us.
In the midst of these horrors and this gloomy state of things, it may be asked how we fared in respect to commissariat provisions. Well, to tell the truth, it was always sheer hunger that forced us to cram them down our throats. Meat particularly was seldom barely better than carrion itself, and sometimes indeed so uninviting to the appetite and eye that one could hardly look at it without holding one’s nose — no facetiousness is here implied — and this, too, be it remembered by all who read this, in times when at any moment our mettle, energy, and biceps were liable to be tested against a desperate and bloodthirsty foe in the field. Smokable tobacco was not procurable for its weight in gold; and as to wine or ale, no such luxury was now even dreamt of — execrable rum diluted with foul tepid water, was the vile and poisonous alcoholic beverage to which all were confined. I could dwell a great while upon the woful subject contained in this sombre paragraph, but I think I have said enough already, to represent the complicated distress and misery through which we had passed, and were passing during this dreadful time.
Dismal as this melancholy combination of circumstances had rendered our wretched existence, the news of the capture of Luknow threw a cheerful gleam of light over the gloom of despondency that pervaded the camp. Besides, by the fall of that turbulent city, the confidence of the people became so reassured that they voluntarily acted as spies on our behalf in the enemy’s lines; while such was the alarm created by that event that, although the rebel force had lately been augmented, they seemed more reluctant than ever to venture beyond the precincts of their stronghold.
Meanwhile the vigilance, zeal, and devotedness of the Brigade never relaxed or flagged for an hour, and the same precautions for its protection as were observed when it first reached Amorah still continued.
It was during this anxious time of unceasing vigilance that the Corps had Death ever present by its side; for while scouring the surrounding country throughout the night and reconnoitring by moonlight, a close, well-directed volley from any of the deserted villages that lay along the line of roads we patrolled, must inevitably have brought down the whole patrolling party, like a flock of birds as with a single shot. But familiarity with danger breeds contempt for it; though, at the same time, it was a matter for congratulation that the rebels preferred their comfortable sleep within the Belwa fort, to lurking in ambush out of it.