Volunteering in India/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
Hardly an incident showing an insurrectionary temper in the people, occurred while our route lay through Bengal Proper; but no sooner had we crossed the quiet Gunduk, and invaded the Gorukpūr district, where martial law had been proclaimed, than the hostile disposition of the inhabitants began to make itself manifest without the slightest disguise.
The sudden mortality among our horses and beasts of burden inspired us with misgivings that they were falling a sacrifice to poison; but as cattle-poisoning with arsenic, for the sake of the hides, is followed by low-caste curriers as a professional calling in many parts of India, this mortality may not, perhaps, have been occasioned by feelings of hostility among the people with whom our acquaintance had only just commenced. To allay our suspicions, however, the carcases of all animals that died in camp, were always sabred and slashed into ribbons prior to our changing ground.
The budmāshes (vagabonds), too, were “up and doing,” and with such daring boldness were they at work that some were actually seized in broad daylight freebooting in disguise on the outskirts of the camp. Now, as we carried “the law” in our own free hands, and had almost entirely thrown off the restraints of civilisation, they were without ceremony lashed to trees, and thrashed with a severity that in other times would have been far from gratifying to witness. Still, it must be confessed that, for correcting native vagabonds in the most effectual way during those days, there was nothing like the application of unrelenting rods of iron.
While passing rapidly through the Gorukpūr station, we were unable to notice the full extent of the dismal wreck the rebels had left behind them. But, as we rode along, the loyal inhabitants of the town informed us that, immediately the Europeans abandoned the station, their houses were occupied by the rebel usurper — Mahomed Husain — and his followers; that the Christian church and cemetery had been desecrated, and that the whole neighbourhood at once became a huge den of iniquity and vice.
As we advanced, the signs of anarchy became more prominently defined. Fortifications, or rather loop-holed earthworks, erected here and there, forcibly illustrated systematised rebellion; while the people began to put on a more insolent air.
Wild rumours, too, were busy concerning the usurper of the Gorukpūr district, who, it was stated, had proclaimed a jehād (Crusade, or Holy War) against all Europeans invading his district! Neither was the intelligence received from the Oudh frontier cheering; and among other evil tidings that got spread abroad it was reported: that the territory adjacent to the river Ghagrā swarmed with insurgents, and that the very position to which we were proceeding was not free from them. Nevertheless, discrediting these rumours, onward we pressed ; and as within thirty miles or so in front of our right flank a Nipalese “ally” army, many thousands strong, was moving on towards Luknow, we did not anticipate experiencing annoyance, or interruption, on the line of our march through this hostile and dangerous section of the country.
I have already stated that in these flying marches the trees stood duty for tents; and as we had now arrived at a large tope wherein some masonry wells marked a halting stage, we bivouacked, and made preparations for passing the night there.
Hard by this bivouac, suspended in the tope, we saw for the first time the fruits of retributive punishment in the corpses of rebels dangling from many branches of the trees, and recording the vengeance of some advanced British force, which had left in its trail these ghastly memorials of stem retribution. Some of the bodies — encased in gorgeous apparel — hung so close to the ground that the limbs to the knees had been eaten away by pariah dogs and jackals; while the upper portions, literally “alive” through decomposition, tainted the very atmosphere of the surrounding neighbourhood. A more revolting spectacle it would be difficult to imagine; and we were only too glad when the hour arrived for us to leave these fetid fumes and hideous relics of horror, and respond to the braying of trumpets rousing the Corps to march on again.
Our next halting ground was in the town of Buste; where the inhabitants — though with disguised sycophancy they pretended to be pleased with our arrival — could not hide from us their hostile looks, which seemed to express the truth that we were not welcome.
The only animals for the conveyance of the baggage now being elephants, they were left to follow us leisurely, while we made a long, rattling march to Amorah; and on our way, as we passed through a large village named Cuptāngung, it was noticed that a portion of it was fortified, in order to overawe the surrounding country, as well as to facilitate communication with our advanced posts.
In this village several officers of a native infantry regiment perished. Poor fellows! they were decoyed while endeavouring to escape the brutal Sepoys, and cruelly murdered. What the living men had suffered while being hunted down can never be known — except this: that exhausted, foot-sore, wounded, and bleeding, they were slain by the savage foe with demoniac barbarity, as we ascertained on the spot. I mention this cruel tragedy here, merely to show how distressed and distracted our unfortunate countrymen were in the Mutiny days. Not knowing what to do, or whither to fly — like ensnared birds awaiting their doom — but flying at length for their lives, they actually flew into the very jaws of death.
We did not loiter here, but were soon again jogging along through a dismal scene, from which all life and animation seemed almost wholly absent; and as we rode on, sometimes across enormous tracts of open country, sometimes in and out of gigantic topes and deserted villages, only a few gaping peasants, or the lowing of stray cattle relieved the dreary aspect and ominous stillness — deepened rather than broken by the monotonous tramp of our horses’ hoofs.
But the severest toil, in whatever form, has an end, like everything else. And so this long, weary march ended at length at the village of Amorah; too late, however, after nightfall for us to do more than bivouac in open fields, and rest there on generous earth, with a star-lit, sympathising, cloudless sky above us all.
At Amorah we burst into the full blaze and storm of the rebellion, and found ourselves, after many months of unceasing marches, counter-marches, and flying marches, covering an extent of country which in length of mileage would have embraced European kingdoms, suddenly halted for unexplained reasons, and an unknown period.
Although our harassing marches now closed, the circumstance was a disappointment to the Corps, and considered by no means satisfactory; for having at last reached, to use a hackneyed phrase, within measurable distance of Luknow (where preparations for the re-capture of that important city were in progress), we all felt impatient for removal to those more stirring quarters. Subsequent events, however, following as they did one after another in quick succession, amply justified the peremptory orders that detained us at Amorah. For to have left the position we now held, would undoubtedly have resulted in again abandoning the surrounding country to the rebels ; for notwithstanding they had been attacked and driven out of the district, they were still in the neighbourhood, and the sullen booming of their morning, noon, and evening guns afforded the means of ascertaining the direction of their whereabouts — a few miles away at Belwa, and tête-à-tête, as it were, with ourselves.
Our position now, with its overpowering sense of loneliness, was not an enviable one; for here we were thrown out on the confines of Oudh, isolated and beyond the support of any force, menaced from Belwa in front by the usurper's insurgents, and from Nugger in rear by a body of mutineers, having to turn out daily for some real or threatened attack, watchworn and jaded with incessant duty, and the apparent impossibility of succour reaching us in time to overawe the rebels — who would have envied such a position? It was an anxious time; but there was no falling off — in the confidence of the “B.Y.C.” — to use the initials of the Corps’ designation, as invariably used amongst ourselves. And so from day to day, with bull-dog pertinacity and clenched teeth, we held on to the position, and bore up against the perils that beset us; never thinking we could do so, but we never know how much we can do or bear till we have done or borne it. All of us knew that every man in the Corps carried his life in his hand, that he was under the shadow of death, and that his safety, for some time at least, must depend upon his own vigilance and exertions; and the vigilance and exertions of patrols, pickets, sentries, and even of the camp followers never flagged for a moment. In fact, every man in the camp, whether sick or sorry, was permanently on “sentry go” day after day, and night after night.
This prominent allusion to so critical a state of affairs is, I assure you, reader, unalloyed with braggadocio, and the Government record (that is to say, the date of the Gazette), relating to the dangerous isolation of the Corps at this period, is inserted elsewhere in this narrative, and that document will show the forlorn and perilous position into which we had helplessly drifted — a position infested with mutineers, and where every native (the unfortunate peasantry having fled from their homes) was an enemy, or prepared to become such on the first symptoms of wavering on our part. In truth, the surrounding country was surging with revolt; treachery and death lurked on every side; and if we had shown any signs of retreat, or suffered ourselves to be forced from Amorah, the rebels would have been free to overrun the district once more, and carry fire and sword whithersoever they pleased.
Looking back over the whole course of our difficulties, I conscientiously say — without any vain boasting — that nothing during the campaign, not even the desperate ordeals through which we subsequently passed, tried our dogged tenacity, and unflinching endurance, more than the unceasing duty at that perilous and important post.