The Heroic Garrison Page 8

  He found Sir James Outram, with Colonel Inglis of Her Majesty’s 32nd Regiment—who had succeeded to the command of the Lucknow garrison following the death of Sir Henry Lawrence—with various members of their staffs, including Colonel Napier, standing outside Dr. Fayrer’s house. By happy chance, they were watching as a long line of doolies passed through the Bailey Guard gate and climbed the slight slope to the two-storied hospital building opposite.

  Outram still had his arm in a sling, but he looked fit and rested and was moving about briskly among the survivors of the ill-fated convoy, handing out cheroots to some of the wounded and shaking hands with others. Seeing Havelock, he came over to offer his congratulations on Harry’s safe arrival, his pleasure and concern very evident.

  “He’d be a loss, Henry—a loss we could ill afford—that boy of yours. I’m deeply relieved to know that he’s safe and that his wound isn’t too serious.You have him at Mr. Gubbins’ house, I understand, with Tytler?”

  Havelock nodded. After replying to inquiries as to his chief of staff’s progress, he asked about the convoy of wounded and Outram’s swarthy, bearded face clouded over.

  “It was a bad business. I imagine Harry’s told you about it. They took the wrong turning, it seems, and ran into trouble between the Hirun Khana and the outer wall of the Chutter Munzil—the place where poor James Neill was shot down last night.” He went into details, most of which confirmed Harry’s account of what had occurred, and added regretfully, “At least thirty officers and men, lying wounded in doolies, have been brutally murdered . . . devil take it, Henry, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Poor unfortunate fellows! But I suppose we must be thankful that the rest got through . . . quite easily, I understand, once they were on the right path.”

  “I fear that my niece’s husband was responsible for their taking the wrong route, Sir James,” Havelock began. “Bensley Thornhill—”

  “If he was responsible, he has paid very dearly for his error,” Outram told him. “I was talking to the surgeon who was with the convoy, Dr. Bradshaw, a few minutes ago. He says that young Thornhill was severely wounded when he ran across, under heavy fire, to warn the rear part of the column to turn back—an action that undoubtedly saved many lives. They’ve taken him to hospital, but . . .” he shrugged despondently.

  Poor Mary Thornhill, Havelock thought, married for so short a time . . . He sighed, as Outram went on, “Campbell’s asking urgently for reinforcements, Henry, and Bob Napier will be ready to march out in half an hour. I’ve had to let him take a company of your Highlanders, done up though they are, and Stisted’s going in command of them. I had told Olpherts to take two of his guns, but he thinks there may be a risk of losing them, and he’s requested permission to take a couple of bullock teams instead, with which he’s assured me he’ll get that twenty-fourpounder back to us—you know they’ve got one of the infernal things jammed in a lane outside the Moti Mahal?”

  “Yes, Harry told me they had. I take it you’ve agreed?”

  General Outram permitted himself a brief smile. “Yes, I’ve agreed. If it had been anyone but Hellfire Jack, I might not have done so, but no one can accuse him of avoiding action, can they? And Bob’s quite happy about it . . . besides, we want that twenty-four-pounder back and Jack Olpherts will get it back, if it’s humanly possible.”

  “He’ll certainly try,” Havelock conceded. “But he may regret not taking his guns, all the same.”

  Outram lit a fresh cheroot from the butt of the one he had been smoking. “I shall have to watch my supply of these things,” he said, inhaling smoke. “I left a couple of hundred at the Alam Bagh and I seem to have given the devil of a lot away this morning. Talking of the Alam Bagh, Henry, we shall have to try and establish communication with them as soon as we can. It might be a sound idea to send the cavalry out there—Barrow’s and the irregulars and possibly Hardinge’s Sikhs as well, because the garrison is short of fodder We’d have a job to feed so many horses and, in any event, the cavalry will be of more use to us in the Alam Bagh than they will be shut up here. We shall need carriage, if we’re to evacuate the women and children to Cawnpore, and the cavalry will have to find it—Inglis says he has none at all.”

  Havelock’s frown was thoughtful. “You still think that we shall be able to evacuate the women and children?”

  “My God, I hope we shall! The wounded, too, if it’s possible ...but I don’t know. Inglis doesn’t think there’s a chance of it. He estimates that the enemy have a strength of over sixty thousand and he believes the sepoys have completely terrorized the townsfolk, so that even those who might be well disposed toward us will be afraid to give us aid.You’d better talk to him yourself, Henry. He’s in a better position to know than we are.”

  “Oh, certainly,” Havelock agreed, his tone carefully expressionless.

  “You consider he’s being unduly pessimistic?” Outram said shrewdly.

  “In certain respects, perhaps. His letters to me during the siege made me suspect that he’s inclined to look on the black side. But he’s had a great deal to contend with, and in the matter of the evacuation of the women and the wounded, I fear he’s probably right.” Havelock sighed. “It remains to be seen, of course, but—the lack of carriage apart—in my view we have not sufficient troops to hold the Residency and cover the evacuation to Cawnpore, Sir James.”

  “As you say, my dear Henry, it remains to be seen.” General Outram echoed his sigh. “In the meantime, it is essential, whatever we do, that we establish a compact position here, extended to hold the whole river-face from the Iron Bridge to the Chutter Munzil and including the palaces. Aitken and his loyal sepoys of the 13th made a sortie from the Bailey Guard last night, as you know, and occupied the Terhee Kothee. A damned good thing he did or we’d never have got Maude’s and Olpherts’ guns in. At Inglis’ suggestion, I sent 150 men of his regiment to clear the Kaptan’s Bazaar area and take the Iron Bridge, first thing this morning . . .” With his gold-headed Malacca cane, he traced an outline of the position in the dust at their feet.

  Havelock studied it, still frowning. “Have you had word of their progress, Sir James?”

  “Yes—and they’ve done well.They were unable to get beyond the buildings on the near side of the bridge, unfortunately, but they took an eighteen-pounder and several light guns, and then went on, in accordance with my orders, to link up with Aitken and occupy the Furhut Baksh. As soon as Bob Napier joins up with them, they’ll push on to the Chutter Munzil and open up a road for Campbell’s rear-guard and, it’s to be hoped, Eyre’s guns.” Outram’s cane indicated the direction and scope of the movement. “The main thing now is to bring the rear-guard in without loss.After that, we’ll extend our position along the southern face of the present defenses—here and here. But the Chutter Munzil is a veritable labyrinth of a place, and I don’t think any of the garrison are really familiar with its ramifications, which is no doubt why the convoy of wounded went astray.”

  “You will avail yourself of Moorsom, will you not?” Havelock asked.

  “Yes, indeed,” Outram assured him warmly. “That young man and his maps of the city are worth their weight in gold. He has volunteered to accompany Napier and so has a civilian named Kavanagh, who is serving in the Post Office garrison as a volunteer and appears to know the city and its surroundings intimately. But . . .” he broke off, head raised, watching with critical eyes as a salvo of shells came hissing through the air from an enemy battery on the south-east side, to burst among the battered buildings eight or nine hundred yards from where he and Havelock were standing.A single gun answered the challenge and a brief artillery duel ensued, which ended as suddenly as it had begun.

  “They tell me,” the general went on, “that the Residency itself has had to be abandoned as a dwelling. It has been hit so often and so severely that it is now quite unsafe. Poor Sir Henry Lawrence was in his bedroom on the upper floor when he received his fatal wound . . . a shell had struck the room the previous day, and he had prom
ised to change his quarters. But he did not, and, poor brave man, he was resting on his bed, quite done up, when a second shell entered through the window. His nephew George and his A.D.C., Captain Wilson, were with him at the time, but only Lawrence was injured. They did what they could for him, of course, and he was moved to Dr. Fayrer’s, but his left thigh was fractured and amputation was impossible. It took him forty-eight hours to die, and he was in mortal agony, but his last words were: ‘Let every man die at his post but never surrender. God help the poor women and children.’ He must have been thinking of the fate of the Cawnpore garrison when he said that, I imagine.”

  “Yes. I expect he was,” Havelock agreed sadly. He had heard the story of Henry Lawrence’s last hours during dinner the night before, and there had been no pity in Martin Gubbins’ voice as he had told it.Yet none of them would have survived the 88-day siege but for Lawrence’s farsightedness, his careful organization of their defenses, his influence over the native troops of the garrison, and they would have starved had he not, for weeks before the outbreak of the mutiny, secretly brought in provisions, under the very noses of those who had finally betrayed him. But for the defeat at Chinhat on June 30, which had cost two hundred British lives, Lucknow could have held out for months, since there would have been sufficient troops to have garrisoned the Machhi Bhawan Fort, which had dominated the native city. As it was, Lawrence had been compelled to blow up the fortress, with its vast stock of reserve ammunition, and evacuate the garrison to swell the depleted numbers of the Residency’s defenders . . . and Chinhat had been Gubbins’ doing. Havelock sighed, recalling the letter he had received at Allahabad, just after the battle.

  “I look upon our position now as ten times as bad as it was yesterday,” Henry Lawrence had written. “Indeed, it is very critical . . . unless we are relieved quickly, say in ten or fifteen days, we shall hardly be able to maintain our position . . .”

  It had been Martin Gubbins who had goaded Lawrence to lead out a small force to “trounce the enemy,” who, his spies had told him, numbered less than a thousand “with one wretched gun.” And it had been Gubbins who, seemingly, had suppressed a second and accurate report, which put the enemy’s strength at six thousand, with the six-gun Fyzabad battery manned by the finest gunners in Oudh . . . certainly it had been he who had taunted poor Lawrence when he hesitated in an agony of indecision, “We shall be branded at the bar of history as cowards, Sir Henry, if we fail to face our enemies,” the financial commissioner had declared, but last night, as he poured champagne for his deliverers, he had made no mention of Chinhat and, in describing his death, had denied Henry Lawrence the savior’s role which, undoubtedly, he had played.

  Havelock repeated his sigh, and Outram said, uncannily as if he had spoken his thoughts aloud, “I think that we shall have to make Mr. Gubbins’ house a hospital for officers, if you are agreeable, Henry. Dr. Fayrer has room in his house, so perhaps you might care to make your quarters there with me—at any rate, until other arrangements can be made?”

  “Certainly, Sir James.” Relieved, Havelock smiled. “I should prefer it. My two invalids, however—”

  “They must, of course, remain. They’ll be well fed and cared for—Mr. Gubbins contrives to keep a good table, I’m told, and even has an English parlor maid to serve him!” The general’s tone was dry, his dark eyes bright with what might have been anger.

  “I’ve seen no evidence of that,” Havelock said, as always anxious to be fair. “But . . . I will have my traps moved this afternoon.”

  “Good!” Outram approved. He bent his head once again to study the plan he had traced in the dust. “Whether or not we are able to evacuate the women and the wounded, we must extend our perimeter without delay. And we’ll divide the command. I think . . . you’ll take over the outer defenses when they’re secured, and Inglis the inner, with the old garrison, if that’s also agreeable to you.”

  “It is for you to decide, Sir James,” Havelock answered stiffly. “I’ll serve you in any way you wish, that goes without saying.”

  “Thank you, my dear Henry.” Sir James Outram put an affectionate arm about the bowed shoulders of the man he had now superseded. “You have achieved your goal, and all England will acclaim your feats of valor and endurance, when the news reaches London. Credit for the relief of this garrison is yours and yours alone . . . but you have worn yourself out with your endeavors. It’s time you were granted respite, and sharing the responsibility for the continued defense of Lucknow with Inglis and myself will enable you to rest and recoup your strength, in readiness for the honors that will be heaped upon you. So take advantage of the opportunity, will you not?”

  “Of course, I will, James,” Havelock acknowledged. “I am grateful to you, as I trust you know. Indeed, I . . .”

  “We’ll talk of gratitude later, my friend,” Outram said, cutting him short. He took a battered gold timepiece from the pocket of his stained frock coat, grunted when he saw what time it was and started to move toward the little group of staff officers patiently awaiting him. “I must see Napier on his way. Will you accompany me, or do you want to go back to Harry?”

  “No,” Havelock decided. “I will go to the hospital first, I think, and visit some of those poor fellows they have just brought in . . . unless you need me, of course?”

  “No, you go to the hospital—they’ll be better for the sight of you, Henry,” Outram assured him. “I wonder, while you’re there, if you’d be so good as to ascertain if there’s any news of Becher—Andrew Becher of the 41st N.I.? He didn’t come in with the rest, and Surgeon Bradshaw told me he saw Alex Sheridan of Barrow’s Horse in the cul-de-sac when he left it . . . he was with the 90th’s surgeon, Dr. Home. All three of them appear to be missing. Home was in charge of the wounded, and my poor friend Becher in one of the doolies, it seems. And Sheridan, gallant fellow that he is, after spending most of the night helping to bring in wounded from the Khas Bazaar area, went to the Moti Mahal with Thornhill.”

  “If they were left in the square with the abandoned doolies, I very much fear that they are lost,” Havelock said. “But I will find out what I can, Sir James.” They separated, and Havelock crossed the sloping roadway, acknowledging the salute of a subaltern of the 78th, whose company was marching down toward the Bailey Guard gate, led by a single piper.

  The hospital, established in what had, in happier days, been the Banqueting Hall, like all the buildings within the Residency perimeter, bore the scars of the long siege. Round shot had so frequently penetrated its walls that they were honeycombed, and the upper story had recently been so severely damaged that it had had to be evacuated, leaving only the ground floor for the accommodation of both the sick and the wounded. The long, low room, with its shuttered and sandbagged windows, was dark and suffocatingly hot and, with the influx of injured men from the rear-guard convoy, it was now appallingly overcrowded and all but reduced to chaos.

  Aided by orderlies and some women of the garrison, the hard-pressed surgeons did what they could for the new arrivals, but it was little enough, for the hospital no longer possessed even basic medical necessities. Every corner was now occupied, the floors could not be swept, bedding and bandages were lacking, and there were too few helpers even to respond to the constantly reiterated pleas for water, which echoed from end to end of the evil-smelling, airless ward.

  General Havelock was accustomed to the hideous sights and sounds of field hospitals after battle, but even he hesitated momentarily before entering this one.The men lay on bloodstained straw palliasses or on the bare ground, some in their own excreta, the cholera and dysentery cases cheek by jowl with those who had sustained gunshot, bayonet, and saber wounds during the recent fighting. Here a poor wretch, his weight reduced to that of a child, spewed his heart out, the vomit tinged with blood; there a bearded veteran, with leeches clinging obscenely to both arms, stormed and raged in delirium, while beside him another—all too conscious of his surroundings—prayed quietly to his Maker to put an end to
his torment.

  Few of them had, as yet, had their wounds dressed or their makeshift bandages changed; they lay in their dusty, blood-caked uniforms, just as they had entered, and waited with varying degrees of stoicism until someone would have time to attend to their needs. A number, with fractured or shattered limbs, had been waiting since the previous night for amputation, compelled to witness the operation being performed on others at a table in the center of the ward, around which they had been grouped in the order of their admission.They knew that, although the waiting list was long, their turn would inevitably come—unless death came first—since amputation offered the only chance of recovery they had.

  The two surgeons on duty at the operating table sweated in the heat from the oil lanterns suspended above it. They worked with practiced speed and dexterity, but they had already been at the table for several hours, and, while fatigue had rendered neither less skillful, it had induced in both a shortness of temper, which they were inclined to vent on any man who displayed reluctance to place himself in their hands. Lucknow’s supply of chloroform—which had, initially, enabled amputations to be performed without the terrible pain normally associated with the loss of a limb—had long since been exhausted. Laudanum was reserved for the desperately sick, so that the man who must submit himself to the ordeal of knife and hacksaw was expected to do so without fuss, fortified at best by a draught of rum or porter and held down by orderlies, whom long habit had inured to the pain of others.

  The surgeons’ skill lay in the speed with which they could slice through skin and bone and muscle, and no time was wasted in cleaning instruments or washing hands between one operation and the next. In bloody, sweat-soaked white coats, they worked with scarcely a pause, seeking thus to minimize the shock induced by pain. Within a matter of minutes, a double flap of skin was fashioned to allow for shrinkage and muscle contraction, the injured limb was severed and discarded, ligatures applied to control bleeding, and the flap stitched into place in such a way as to permit the drainage of pus, still considered “laudable” by the leading body of medical opinion.