On the Irrawaddy Part 19

The 13th Light Infantry and the 18th Madras, with 60 cavalry, under Brigadier General Cotton, were ordered to move round the stockade and a.s.sault it on the left rear; while the rest of the troops, some 800 strong, with 100 cavalry under the general himself, were to attack in front. The enemy's works consisted of a central entrenchment, connected with two large entrenched stockades on its flank, but somewhat advanced in front of it.

As soon as the force under General Cotton had gained its position in the rear of the enemy, a gun was fired, and the whole force moved forward to the a.s.sault.. The Burmans regarded the attack by so insignificant a force upon their works with such contempt that they did not, for some time, fire a shot; but continued chanting a war song, swaying themselves to its cadence, stamping and beating time with their hands on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

This delay proved fatal to them. When they opened fire, their a.s.sailants were already close to the ditch and, leaping down into this, were sheltered from the fire of the defenders. Scaling ladders were speedily placed and the troops, running up them, leaped down into the entrenchment. Astounded at this sudden entry into the works they had deemed impregnable, the Burmese hesitated; and the a.s.sailants, being joined by their comrades from behind, rushed impetuously upon the enemy.

The column in the rear had greater difficulty--for they had several strong stockades to carry before they reached the central work--and lost four officers and eight men killed, and forty-nine officers and men wounded, in the 13th Regiment alone. Fifteen minutes after the first shot was fired, the whole of the works were in our possession and the Burmese, who gathered in a confused ma.s.s, had been decimated by our volleys. They were now in full flight, many being cut down by the cavalry before they reached the shelter of the woods. The British troops marched back to Rangoon; while the Burmese retreated to Donabew, leaving strong posts on the two rivers leading in that direction.

Their retirement left it free to the country people to return to Rangoon, and very large numbers came in, including very many of the villagers who had been forced to fight against us. All had alike suffered from famine and hardship. Even the women had been compelled to labour in the work of stockading, and the sufferings of all had been terrible. The work of rebuilding the town began at once, and the wooden huts sprang up with great rapidity; markets were opened and, in a short time, supplies of fish, fruit, game, and vegetables poured in; sufficient not only for the native population, but to effect a most welcome change in the diet of the troops.

As most of the natives were accustomed to the construction and management of boats, the work of preparing the flotilla by which the troops were to proceed up the rivers went on rapidly; and numbers of men were hired as servants and drivers for the commissariat--with which the force was very insufficiently supplied, as the natives of India of that cla.s.s for the most part refused, on account of their caste prejudices, to engage themselves for service across the sea. Reinforcements arrived; and Rangoon, which but six weeks before presented a miserable and deserted appearance was, towards the beginning of January, a cheerful and bustling town.

Preparations were being made in other quarters to a.s.sume the offensive. Some 3000 men were driving the Burmese out of a.s.sam; and a force 7000 strong was marching from Sylhet, to expel them from Cachar and capture Manipur; while 11,000 men were a.s.sembled at Chittagong, and were advancing into Aracan with the intention of driving the Burmese from that province--and they meant, if possible, to cross the mountains and effect a junction with Sir Archibald Campbell's force. The first part of the operations were conducted with complete success, and Aracan wrested from Burma; but it was found impossible to perform the terrible journey across mountain and swamp, or to afford any aid to the main expedition.

Chapter 10: The Advance.

But while the preparations for the advance were being made, the general's aides-de-camp had been kept at work from morning until night. There were constant communications between the military and naval authorities, for the expedition was to be a mixed one.

Transports were daily arriving with troops and stores; innumerable matters connected with the organization, both of the land and water transport, required to be arranged; and the general himself was indefatigable in superintending every detail of the work. It had been settled that the advance could not take place until the second week in February, as the roads would be impa.s.sable until that time, and the 11th was fixed for the commencement of operations.

Upon the day after his arrival at Rangoon, Stanley had written a letter to his uncle; giving him a brief account of his adventures, and stating that he had been appointed one of the general's aides-de-camp. He said that he should, of course, be guided by his uncle's wishes; but that now that he had entered on the campaign as an officer, he should certainly like to remain till the end, when he would at once resign his commission and rejoin him.

He sent this to his uncle's agent at Calcutta, but received no answer until the end of December. After expressing his delight at hearing that Stanley had not, as he had supposed, been killed at Ramoo, but was now safe and well in the British camp, he went on:

"I only received your letter this morning, for I have been moving about from point to point and, owing to the falling off of trade, had no occasion to go to Calcutta, until now; and was, indeed, astounded at finding your letter lying for me here, as they had not forwarded it, having no idea where I was, and knowing that the chance of any letter sent on reaching me was extremely small.

"By all means, lad, stop where you are. Trade is improving again for, now that Bandoola's army has marched away from Ramoo, the scare among the natives has pretty well subsided. Still, I can manage very well without you, and it will certainly be a great advantage to you to serve for a year in the army; and to have been one of Campbell's aides-de-camp will be a feather in your cap, and will give you a good position at all the military stations.

"I am very glad, now, that I abstained from writing to your mother after the battle at Ramoo. I thought it over and over, and concluded that it was just as well to leave the matter alone for a time; not that I had the slightest idea, or even a hope, that you were alive, but because I thought that the cessation of letters from you would, to some extent, prepare her mind for the blow, when it came. It would be very improbable that she would see the gazette, with the list of killed and wounded at Ramoo and, even if she did so, she would not a.s.sociate the death of Ensign Brooke in any way with you. When we have been trading up country, there have been, once or twice, no means of sending off a letter for a couple of months and, therefore, she could not have begun to feel seriously anxious about you before she received your letter from Rangoon.

"Everyone says that you will not be able to advance until February; so that, no doubt, this letter will reach you long before you leave. I hear the losses have been very heavy, from fever; but I am not anxious about you on that score, for I think that you are thoroughly acclimatised. I am trying to get a contract for the supply of a couple of thousand bullocks, for the use of the army; and as I know all the country so well, from Chittagong to Sylhet, and can buy below Indian prices, I think that I shall not only get the contract, but make a very good thing of it, and it may lead to other matters."

After this, Stanley was hardly surprised when, in the last week of January, his uncle walked into his quarters. After the first pleasure of meeting was over, Stanley said:

"I suppose you have got the contract, uncle?"

"I have, lad. I have come down from Ramgur with six dhows, packed full. I have brought a thousand head down and, directly I land them, am going back for the remainder; which will be ready for me by the time I get there.

"I have got hold of an uncommonly good fellow. He was established as a small trader at Chittagong. His business was ruined there, and he was glad to accept my offer of a berth; and he has turned out a very energetic and pushing fellow. He will come down with the next consignment.

"I myself am going to work my way up along the edge of the Tipperah forest; and shall pick up another thousand head, by the time that I get to the Goomtee, and shall send them by water up to Sylhet; and then go up by land, picking up more on the way. I have a contract for five thousand to be sent in, a thousand a month, for the force that is to move against Manipur; while Johnson is to send another two thousand down here. So you see, for the present the store business can wait. It is a good line that I have got into. I shall make a big profit out of it, and have hopes that it will be, to some extent, permanent; for I can get the cattle so cheap in the interior, on the rivers we know, that I can ship them to Calcutta at lower terms than they can buy them in India; and I was as much as told that, if I carried out my present contracts satisfactorily, I should get the supply of the troops there. Of course, that would not be a very great thing of itself but, as I could work it without trouble in connection with my own business, it would make a handsome addition to the profits."

"But how about money, uncle?"

"That is all right, lad. I had no difficulty, whatever, in getting an advance at Calcutta, on the strength of my contract and upon the guarantee of my agents; so that I am all right, in that respect."

"I asked, uncle, because I can let you have eighteen hundred pounds, if you want them."

Tom Pearson looked at him in astonishment.

"Why, what on earth have you been doing--robbing the treasury of the King of Ava?"

"No, uncle. I had a bag of gems given me, by some Burmese bandits.

When I got down here, I took a few of them to a merchant. He advanced fifteen hundred rupees on them, and sent them to Burragee, the jeweller at Madras and, six weeks afterwards, he paid me another three thousand five hundred. I sent up another batch and, last week, I got an order from the jewellers for fifteen hundred pounds; so that I have more than eighteen hundred in hand now, and I don't think that I have sent more than a third of the gems away."

"Well, that is a piece of luck, Stanley! Why on earth did the brigands give you the gems?"

"Well, uncle, they are things that, from what they told me, there is great difficulty and risk in trying to dispose of. They are a royal monopoly, and n.o.body dare buy them or, if they do, will give next to nothing for them; because of the risk of the transaction, and because they know that the vendors are in a fix, and must sell.

Besides, there is a strong chance of their handing over anyone who offers such things to the authorities. That was one reason why they gave them to me. Then, too, they had made a good haul of merchandise which was, to them, a great deal more valuable, as there was no difficulty in disposing of it. Lastly, they had taken a fancy to me, because I saved one of their comrade's lives--the man who showed you up here."

"Well, lad, you shall tell me all about it, this evening. I must be going down to the commissariat yard, to arrange the landing of my beasts. I came straight to see you, directly I landed. We dropped anchor here at daybreak."

"I will go with you, uncle. I will run in and see the chief, first, and get leave off for the day. I have earned a holiday, for I have been at work pretty well morning, noon, and night for the last two months. You see, I have not only the duties of aide-de-camp, but of interpreter; and have helped both the quartermaster's department and the commissariat in making their arrangements with the natives.

I daresay I shall be able to help to hurry your business on, quicker than you would be able to get it done, alone."

The general at once granted Stanley leave, and he went with his uncle down to the commissariat office, and introduced him to the senior officer.

"We shall be glad to do all in our power to help you, Mr. Pearson,"

the officer said. "We have been expecting your arrival for the last week. Of course, we heard from Calcutta that you had the contract for two thousand head; at least half of these were to be delivered by the tenth of February. We were getting rather anxious about it.

The force will probably want to start, before that time; and we shall have to victual both the land and water columns. Of course, I did not know that you were a relation of Mr. Brooke, or I should have mentioned to him that you were likely to come."

"I should like to get off as soon as possible," Tom Pearson said; "for by the time that I get back to Ramgur, the rest of the cattle will be in readiness for me."

"I will write you an order for four large boats, at once. If you had come three weeks sooner, you might have been kept waiting some days; but such a number of native craft have, of late, come down the rivers that we are enabled to get sufficient for our work."

The officer gave him a note to the one in charge of the landing arrangements.

"It is lucky that you have come just at this moment," the latter said. "We have just made our last trip with the baggage of the 47th, and I have six boats disengaged. You may as well take them all."

The craft in question were some of those that had been captured--unwieldy craft, that took fish and salt up the river.

They were almost as large as the dhows in which the cattle had been brought down, but drew very much less water. They were towed off to the dhows, one by one, by two captured war canoes, each having thirty rowers. One was taken to each dhow, and the work of transhipping the cattle began at once. These were in good condition for, although closely packed, they had been well supplied with food and water on the way down; and a herdsman with four men under him had been sent, in each boat, to take care of them, as Tom Pearson was very anxious that his first consignment should be reported upon favourably. The animals were all landed in the course of the afternoon and, with the acknowledgment of their receipt, in excellent order, in his pocket, the contractor went off again, with Stanley, to his own dhow.

"I have told them to have everything in readiness to drop down the river with the tide, tomorrow morning. It will turn just about sunrise. That is a rare bit of business, Stanley; and I doubt if a contractor ever got his work through so quickly, before. Of course, it is princ.i.p.ally due to you. They would never have pushed things through so quickly, had you not gone with me. I thought that very likely I might be detained here a week, before I could get all the cattle on sh.o.r.e--and by that time, if all goes well, I shall be at Ramgur again.

"Now we can have a comfortable evening's talk, which is very much better than my going to dine with you at mess; for there is a great deal to hear about, and I daresay that I can give you as good a dinner as we should have had, on sh.o.r.e."

"A good deal better," Stanley said. "Things have improved immensely, during the last month; still our mess cook is certainly not so good as your man and, at any rate, the quiet of your cabin makes a very pleasant change, after always sitting down with a large party."

After dinner was over, Stanley gave a full account of his adventures, from the time that he was taken prisoner.

"You have done wonderfully well for yourself, lad; wonderfully well. Certainly when you picked up Burmese from my man, we had no idea that it was ever likely to turn out so useful. I thought that it would have been an a.s.sistance among the Mugs on the coast; and I had, too, some idea that the war might lead to the opening of a trade up the Irrawaddy; but it has turned out infinitely more useful than that. If you could not have spoken Burmese, Bandoola would never have thought of asking for you to be spared as an interpreter and, if he had not done so, you would have had your head chopped off, at Ava.

"Of course that leopard business was the turning point of your fortunes but, though it has turned out so well, I must say that I hardly think that you were justified in risking your life in such a desperate act for a native; who might, for aught you know, be already dead. Of course, it was a most gallant action; but the betting was ten to one against your succeeding. However, as it turned out, it was a fortunate business, altogether. I don't say that you might not have made your way down to Rangoon, unaided; but the odds would have been very heavily against it. However, these rubies were a windfall, indeed."

"Will you take the rest of them, uncle, and sell them at Calcutta--or shall I send them to Madras, or home to England?"

"I will take them with me to Calcutta, if you like, Stanley. I don't say that there are better men there than the one you sent to, at Madras; but I think some of them do a larger business up-country with the native princes, who don't care what they give for good gems. At any rate, I will take them there and get them valued by an expert; and then try two or three of the leading firms, and get their offers. If these are as high as the value put on them by the expert, I would send them to England, through my agents, who would do the best they could for you."