The Heroic Garrison Page 9

  In hospitals throughout the world, the percentage of deaths following amputation varied between 25 and 60—in Lucknow’s one-time banqueting hall only one or two had survived their terrible ordeal since the siege began. Pyemia, erysipelas, and what had come to be known as “hospital gangrene” killed even men who had been in tough fighting condition when they were admitted. Infection was rampant, and many, whose wounds required no more than probing for a bullet, had succumbed to it.The surgeons despairingly attributed their high mortality rate to congestion and tainted air, little realizing that they themselves were conveying the dreaded septic diseases from one patient to another through the medium of contaminated hands and unsterilized instruments. As yet the existence of microorganisms and the part these played in the spread of infection was unsuspected; Lister’s theories and experiments in antisepsis had barely begun, while those of Semmelweis, in far-off Vienna, had been almost universally ignored or ridiculed as the ravings of a madman.

  Within the boundaries of their knowledge and experience of battle casualties—much of it gained in the Crimea—the military surgeons did the best they could, but Havelock, as a fighting general, was only too well aware of the suffering his wounded men were called upon to endure and the risks they ran, even in the best-equipped hospitals. During the campaign in Oudh and after the return of his Field Force, decimated by cholera, to Cawnpore, he had deemed it his duty to pay regular visits to the hospitals. Careless of his own safety, he had spent long hours at the bedsides of sick and injured alike, his prayers often the only solace he could offer to those facing the long, slow agony of death or maimed recovery. A deeply religious man, convinced that his prayers would be heard by the God to whom they were directed, he prepared to offer them now. Picking up a pitcher of water and a ladle, he went resolutely and compassionately about his task, a small, erect, white-haired figure, whose eyes were misted with tears.

  At the operating table, Surgeon Charles Scott of Her Majesty’s 32nd recognized him with dismay, and, cursing under his breath, said resentfully to his assistant, “For God’s sweet sake, Dickie, that’s General Havelock, isn’t it? Does he expect us to stop and take him on a tour of inspection, d’you suppose?”

  The Hospital Sergeant of the 78th Highlanders answered his outburst, the sibilant Ross-shire voice reproachful. “He will expect nothing of the kind, Doctor. General Havelock is coming here for to visit his soldiers, and he will not be thanking you if you interrupt your work to receive him.”

  “Man, I stand corrected!” Surgeon Scott exclaimed wryly. “I’d no idea he was that sort of general—thank you for enlightening me, Sergeant Walker.” He passed a blood-smeared hand across his streaming brow and reached for his scalpel. “Right, then, let’s have the next! What is it—another leg?” To the shrinking drummer boy in the crumpled scarlet cotton tunic of the 5th Fusiliers, who was sobbing for his mother, he said with gruff reassurance, “Never fear, laddie, we’ll have that leg off you before you know it. It’s only hanging by a few sinews. There . . .” he sliced deftly and took a ligature from the cluster threaded through his coat lapel. “This had better be cauterized, Dickie, before we stitch it up.Let’s have the pernitrate, if you please.” The boy’s sobs became a shriek, as the pernitrate of mercury bit into the flesh of his stump, and Sergeant Walker, struggling to hold his tortured body still, sternly bade him be silent, lest the general hear his screams. To Scott’s astonishment, the boy obeyed him and, as he stitched the wound, the surgeon asked, with more than a hint of sarcasm, “Do his soldiers appreciate the general’s visits, Sergeant?”

  “Indeed they do, sir,” the grizzled Highlander returned. “Indeed they do.” He lifted the slight body of the little drummer from the table and carried him across to where Havelock knelt with his water pitcher. “Here’s a brave laddie who is deserving of your prayers, General Havelock, sir,” he stated simply and laid the boy down beside him.

  Havelock smiled. “Very well, Sergeant Walker,” he acknowledged. “You may leave him with me.” He dipped his ladle into the pitcher and, an arm round the boy’s shoulders, invited him to drink. “Now, Drummer,” he announced, “We will say a prayer together. Almighty God, Father of All Men, the only Giver of Peace . . .” his voice carried almost the length of the ward, and the men lying there started, in twos and threes, to join in, their responses an oddly contrasting echo to the distant thunder of the guns.

  “Great Jumping Jehoshaphat!” Surgeon Scott exploded. “Now I have seen everything, damn me if I haven’t!”

  “With respect, sir, you have not,” his next patient informed him. He braced himself, half on, half off the operating table and held out his left arm, bared to the shoulder, directing the probe for the spent bullet that was lodged there with professional exactitude. “Assistant Surgeon Bradshaw, Her Majesty’s 90th,” he explained, in answer to Scott’s question and added, with a grin, “About our general, doctor . . . you haven’t seen him fight, have you?”

  “No,” the garrison surgeon admitted. “But I’m beginning to believe the stories I’ve been hearing about him. Leads his troops from the front, they say, and every man jack is prepared to follow him anywhere?”

  “To hell and back, sir,” Bradshaw claimed proudly. He winced as the probe was twisted, deep in the deltoid muscle of his arm, but a moment later, it was withdrawn and Scott, with a grunt of satisfaction, displayed a flattened lump of metal on his palm.

  “There’s your musket-ball, my friend. You’re lucky, it’s done little damage. But now I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you for your shirttail if you want the arm dressed.We’re out of bandages. Tell me . . .” he worked busily. “You were with the wounded from the Moti Mahal this morning, were you not? How many are missing, do you know?”

  Bradshaw shook his head. “I shall try to find out, as soon as you’ve finished with me. General Havelock also wants to be informed. At least forty, I fear, including Dr. Home of my regiment, and possibly the general’s son.”

  “No, he was brought in.” Surgeon Scott glanced across at the kneeling figure in the faded blue frock coat and shrugged. “At least the poor old man has that to thank his God for, hasn’t he?”

  The light was fading when sheer exhaustion compelled General Havelock to bring his visit to an end. As he walked stiffly toward the main door, Surgeon Bradshaw caught up with him and, belatedly recalling Sir James’s request, Havelock asked if Captain Becher had been among the survivors of the convoy.

  “No, sir, I regret to say he hasn’t been brought in,” Bradshaw answered. “Lieutenant Arnold of the Madras Fusiliers is missing too, and I’ve been told that Colonel Sheridan of the Volunteer Cavalry was last seen with Surgeon Home, of ours, sir, in the square where we were attacked. Mr.Thornhill was with the survivors. He—”

  “I have seen poor young Thornhill,” Havelock put in, his tone bleak. “He was able to tell me very little, and he’s sinking fast.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Bradshaw responded politely. He offered a few sheets of paper torn from a notebook. “I’ve made out a list of the missing, sir, as well as I could from the information available. It’s not complete but . . .”

  Eventually it would be completed, Havelock thought sadly. Harry had said that it was of little use to hope that any of the missing would have survived, but perhaps the rear-guard, when they joined up with Napier’s reinforcements and commenced their withdrawal from the Moti Mahal, perhaps they would be able to send a party to the scene of the ambush to make sure. He would have to send orders to . . . no, Outram was in command now, not himself. He would have to find Outram and request that a search be made. He took the crumpled sheets of paper from the young assistant surgeon, thanked him and continued on his way to the main door of the hospital.

  “God bless you, sir!” one of the Highlanders called after him, and those who had the strength to raise their voices gave him a ragged cheer.

  He had called them his “camp of heroic soldiers” at Mungalwar, he recalled, and they had more than merited that descript
ion. But now, alas, the butcher’s bill had to be paid. His throat was tight and his heart heavy as he walked slowly out into the gathering darkness.

  Colonel Napier’s reinforcements, ably guided by the civilian clerk, Henry Kavanagh, and aided by Lieutenant Moorsom’s survey maps, emerged from the Furhut Baksh Palace and onto the narrow path along the bank of the river.They met with no opposition and, joined by the small force of the 32nd and a half-company of the 78th, which, under Captain Lowe, had earlier cleared the Kaptan’s Bazaar area, they advanced to Martin’s House through the enclosed part of the Chutter Munzil gardens held by a detachment of the 90th. The Chutter Munzil itself was given as wide a berth as possible and, after halting until dusk behind the walls of Martin’s House, Napier left a holding party there to reinforce the 5th Fusiliers and the Sikhs, and led his main body to the Moti Mahal, braving heavy cannon and musketry fire as he crossed the open ground between the two positions.

  Colonel Robert Napier had joined Sir James Outram as chief of staff and military secretary, but until now—since his chief had renounced command of the Relief Force to General Havelock— his official status had been that of a volunteer, and he had chafed at the limitations of the advisory capacity in which this chivalrous action had placed him. Now, relishing his first opportunity to command a force in active opposition to the enemy, he was determined that nothing like this morning’s tragic error should mar the successful evacuation of the rear-guard.

  His fighting record had been a distinguished one, in both Sikh campaigns and later in fiercely contested battles against the Afridis on the Northwest Frontier, at the conclusion of each of which he had figured prominently in the official dispatches and won brevet promotion. A studious, cultured man, he was also an exceptionally able engineer and, as chief engineer of the Punjab, he had directed the construction of the great highway between Peshawar and Lahore and completed the monumental task in a little under three years. By comparison, the task facing him now was a simple one, but he set about it with characteristic forethought and efficiency.

  The gallant Colonel Campbell, exhausted and in great pain from the wound in his leg, was ordered into a doolie and, under the escort of Captain Hardinge’s Sikh cavalrymen, he and a second convoy of wounded were sent, under Kavanagh’s guidance, safely back to the Residency by the river bank route. Hardinge returned, with a fresh supply of doolies, to report that he had seen no sign of the enemy and, by a little after midnight, all the sick and wounded had been taken in, together with the reserves of ammunition, laden onto camels.

  With the fall of darkness, the bombardment had ceased, and scouts reported that, although the guns ringing the Moti Mahal were still in position, the majority of the besieging infantry appeared to have withdrawn. Only the twenty-four-pounder, still jammed—seemingly inextricably—between two walls in a narrow lane in front of the palace prevented Napier from ordering an immediate withdrawal. The heavy gun defied all efforts to remove it, and rebel marksmen, posted behind the loopholed walls of the 32nd’s former mess house, kept the approaches to it under constant and accurate fire.They had its range measured to a foot and, even after dark, contrived to maintain both their vigilance and their accuracy.

  Already the abortive attempts to reach it had cost several lives, including that of the Brigade Artillery officer, Major Cooper. Faced with the prospect of finding a safe alternative route for both Eyre’s heavy guns—since the narrow, twisting path by the river was practicable only for doolies and camels in single file— Napier was tempted to order them blown up and abandoned, rather than risk incurring more casualties trying to save them.

  Captain Jack Olpherts, however, accompanied by Lieutenant Crump, Eyre’s second-in-command, pleaded to be allowed to make one final attempt to dislodge the jammed monster and, with a reluctance he made not the smallest pretense of hiding, Napier agreed.

  “I want to get our whole force out of here while the going’s good,” he told them. “Young Knight of the 90th has just been brought in, shot through both legs. He says he made his escape from the ambushed doolies late this afternoon—the only man who did, apparently. According to him, some of our people are holding one of the houses. He doesn’t know how many, but he heard them firing and thinks they may still be alive, so I must investigate . . . and be damned to your gun, gentlemen! It’s cost us too much as it is.” He sighed and went on, his tone one that brooked no argument, “I’ll give you half an hour to get both guns on the road. If you can’t, then they’re to be blown up, is that clear? The infernal things should have been left in the Alam Bagh, as Sir James advised. It was madness to bring them with the ground in the waterlogged state it is—and without any elephants to draw them!”

  The two artillery officers exchanged rueful glances, but neither offered any comment. It had been General Havelock who had insisted on bringing Eyre’s twenty-four-pounders, and yesterday, when they had made their final advance on the Residency, those guns had proved their worth. The battery commander, Major Vincent Eyre, had been taken to the Residency, suffering from an attack of fever and his young second-in-command said indignantly, when they were out of earshot, “Bloody staff, always knowing best, as usual! Over my dead body will Napier abandon those guns to the blasted Pandies. I tell you, Jack, I gave my word they’d be brought in and—”

  “Don’t you worry, old son,” Jack Olpherts retorted. “We’ve got half an hour, haven’t we, and our plan of action worked out? Duffy’s so small, the Pandies won’t spot him—so come on, let’s see if we’ve done our sums right.” His jaw obstinately set, he stalked over to his patiently waiting bullock teams, and the man who had volunteered to assist him, a stocky little private of the Madras Fusiliers named Duffy, picked up the length of rope he had been working on and said breathlessly, “I’m ready, sorr, when you are.”

  “Get your breath, man—you’ll need it,” Olpherts chided him. He subjected the chain that had been lashed to the end of the rope to a careful inspection and nodded, satisfied. “Right, you know what to do. Crawl out slowly and keep in the shadow of the wall. Above all, don’t rush—if they fire on you, freeze, and remember they can’t see you, they’re firing blind. We will try to draw their fire, in any case, and Mr.Crump will cover you.When you get to the gun, use it as cover, and take your time . . . understand?”

  “To be sure I do, sorr.” Duffy grinned, his smoke-blackened, unshaven face aglow with excitement. “And when I have the rope secured, I’m to leg it back to you with the end and—”

  “You’re to crawl back slowly,” Olpherts corrected. “Right, off you go and good luck, lad!”

  Duffy obediently set off, bent low, with Crump after him, armed with an Enfield. He adhered to his instructions until he reached the wall he had to climb; then, vaulting nimbly over it, he ran, and Crump was hard put to keep up with him. Shots spattered the ground all about them, but in the dim light, the two crouching, shadowy figures presented an elusive target, and the riflemen Olpherts had mustered to answer the rebels’ fire effectively distracted their attention. Duffy flung his small body flat beneath the gun and, under its massive cover, took his time attaching his rope, in strict accordance with Olpherts’s orders, Crump lying behind him to make sure that he did.

  “’Tis done, sorr,” he announced, breathing hard. “’Tis through the trail.”

  “Good lad!” Crump said. “Right, then—back with you to Captain Olpherts.”

  Duffy needed no urging. He was off, the end of the rope secured to his belt, wriggling and squirming his way back to where Olpherts waited. The battery commander took the rope from him, pulled in the slack and, as the heavy chain rattled into place, he made it fast to the limber, and Crump, dashing back to join him, yelled to the drivers to get their bullock teams in motion. The animals heaved and strained, men on either side urging them on with yells and curses, while others put their shoulders to the wheels of the limber and pushed. It was a laborious task, even with two teams of bullocks yoked to the limber, but the great gun, at long last, started to mo
ve. It came free with a crash of shattered masonry, as part of the retaining wall collapsed, permitting its huge, iron-shod wheels to turn. A fusillade of shots came from the mess house sharpshooters, and Crump, who had gone forward to free the chain from an obstacle, went down with a strangled cry.

  He was dead when Duffy got to him, but the gun, ponderously, reluctantly it seemed, was moving out of the lane now, and, well within Colonel Napier’s stipulated thirty minutes, it was safe and under cover in the outer courtyard of the Moti Mahal Palace.

  At 3 A.M. the night became overcast, the moon was obscured, and rain started to fall in a steady torrent.With no sign of enemy activity between the Moti Mahal and Martin’s House, Napier gave the order for the evacuation of the rear-guard to begin.The picket he had dispatched to investigate Lieutenant Knight’s report had been driven back by a large force of the enemy, but they, too, had reported firing from a house in the square in which the doolies had been ambushed and a sergeant asserted that he had heard the sound of British voices, cheering them on.

  “We’ll get those infernal guns parked, under guard, in the Chutter Munzil garden enclosure,” Napier told Colonel Stisted of the 78th, as they passed Martin’s House, and its weary defenders thankfully prepared to form up in their rear. “And then Moorsom says he can guide us through the palace and close enough to the square where the doolies were abandoned to make a reconnaissance in strength. If any of our fellows are still holding out there, I’d like to get them out if I can.”

  “You can count on my support, of course,” the Highlanders’ commander assured him. “But do you really think we can get them out?”

  “We can have a damned good try.There’s just one thing that worries me though . . .” Napier hesitated, peering anxiously into the rain-wet darkness to where, ahead of them, Captain Hardinge and his sowars were spread out, scouting the river bank and the open ground they were about to cross.