Twelve Years Of A Soldier's Life In India Part 4

"By Jove, Hodson, they ought to make you Commander-in-Chief for this,"

shouts the enthusiast to whom the prisoners were handed over. "Well, I'm glad you have got him, but I never expected to see either him or you again," says the Commander-in-Chief, and sits down and writes the following despatch:--

"The King, who accompanied the troops for some short distance last night, gave himself up to a party of Irregular Cavalry, whom I sent out in the direction of the fugitives, and he is now a prisoner under a guard of European soldiers."

Delhi is ours; but at what a cost in officers and men! and Nicholson is dead.

"With the single exception of my ever revered friend, Sir Henry Lawrence, and Colonel Mackeson, I have never met his equal in field or council; he was preeminently our best and bravest, and his loss is not to be atoned for in these days.

"The troops have behaved with singular moderation towards women and children, considering their provocation. I do not believe, and I have some means of knowing, that a single woman or child has been purposely injured by our troops, and the story on which your righteous indignation is grounded is quite false; the troops have been demoralized by drink, but nothing more."

In November he gets a few weeks' leave, and is off to Umbala to meet his wife for the last time, safe after all, and no longer a lieutenant under a cloud. What a meeting must that have been.

With the taking of Delhi our narrative, already too long, must close, though a grand five months of heroic action still remained. Nothing in the book exceeds in interest the ride of ninety-four miles from Seaton's column, with young Macdowell, to carry a despatch to Sir Colin, on December 30th. The tale of the early morning summons, the rumors of enemies on the road, the suspense as to the Chief's whereabouts, the leaving all escort behind, their flattering and cordial reception by Sir Colin, (who gets them "chops and ale in a quiet friendly way,") the fifty-four miles' ride home, the midnight alarm and escape, and the safe run in, take away our breath. And the finish is inimitable.

"All Hodson said," writes Macdowell, "when we were at Bewar, and safe, was 'By George! Mac, I'd give a good deal for a cup of tea,' and immediately went to sleep. He is the coolest hand I have ever yet met. We rode ninety-four miles.

Hodson rode seventy-two on one horse, the little dun, and I rode Alma seventy-two miles also."

One more anecdote, however, we cannot resist. On the 6th of January, 1858, Seaton's column joins the Commander-in-Chief; on the 27th, at Shumshabad, poor young Macdowell (whose letters make one love him) is killed, and Hodson badly wounded. They were in advance, as usual, with guns, and had to charge a superior body of cavalry:--

"But there was nothing for it but fighting, as, had we not attacked them, they would have got in amongst our guns. We were only three officers, and about one hundred and eighty hors.e.m.e.n,--my poor friend and second in command, Macdowell, having received a mortal wound a few minutes before we charged. It was a terrible _melee_ for some time, and we were most wonderfully preserved. However, we gave them a very proper thrashing, and killed their leaders. Two out of the three of us were wounded, and five of my men killed and eleven wounded, besides eleven horses. My horse had three sabre-cuts, and I got two, which I consider a rather unfair share. The Commander-in-Chief is very well satisfied, I hear, with the day's work, and is profusely civil and kind to me."

In another letter he writes:--

"They were very superior in number, and individually so as hors.e.m.e.n and swordsmen, but we managed to 'whop' them all the same, and drive them clean off the field; not, however, until they had made two very pretty dashes at us, which cost us some trouble and very hard fighting. It was the hardest thing of the kind in which I ever was engaged in point of regular '_in_ fighting,' as they say in the P. R.; only _Bell's Life_ could describe it properly. I got a cut, which laid my thumb open, from a fellow after my sword was through him, and about half an hour later this caused me to get a second severe cut, which divided the muscles of the right arm, and put me _hors de combat_; for my grip on the sword-handle was weakened, and a demon on foot succeeded in striking down my guard, or rather his tulwar glanced off my guard on to my arm. My horse, also, got three cuts. I have got well most rapidly, despite an attack of erysipelas, which looked very nasty for three days, and some slight fever; and I have every reason to be thankful."

He is able, notwithstanding wounds, to accompany the forces, Colonel Burn kindly driving him in his dog-cart. Nothing could exceed Sir Colin's kind attentions. Here is a chief, at last, who can appreciate a certain captain, late lieutenant under a cloud. The old chief drinks his health as colonel, and, on Hodson's doubting, says:--

"_I_ will see that it is all arranged; just make a memorandum of your services during the Punjaub war, and I venture to prophesy that it will not be long before I shake hands with you as Lieutenant-Colonel Hodson, C.B., with a Victoria Cross to boot."

By the end of February he is well, and in command of his regiment again, and in his last fight saves the life of his adjutant, Lieut.

Gough, by cutting down a rebel trooper in the very act of spearing him.

And now comes the end. For a week the siege had gone on, and work after work of the enemy had fallen. On the 11th of March the Begum's Palace was to be a.s.saulted. Hodson had orders to move his regiment nearer to the walls, and while choosing a spot for his camp heard firing, rode on, and found his friend Brigadier Napier directing the a.s.sault. He joined him, saying, "I am come to take care of you; you have no business to go to work without me to look after you." They entered the breach together, were separated in the _melee_, and in a few minutes Hodson was shot through the chest. The next morning the wound was declared to be mortal, and he sent for Napier to give his last instructions.

"He lay on his bed of mortal agony," says this friend, "and met death with the same calm composure which so much distinguished him on the field of battle. He was quite conscious and peaceful, occasionally uttering a sentence, 'My poor wife,' 'My poor sisters.' 'I should have liked to have seen the end of the campaign and gone home to the dear ones once more, but it was so ordered.' 'It is hard to leave the world just now, when success is so near, but G.o.d's will be done.' 'Bear witness for me that I have tried to do my duty to man. May G.o.d forgive my sins, for Christ's sake.' 'I go to my Father.' 'My love to my wife,--tell her my last thoughts were of her.' 'Lord receive my soul.' These were his last words, and without a sigh or struggle his pure and n.o.ble spirit took its flight."

"It was so ordered." They were his own words; and now that the first anguish of his loss is over, will not even those nearest and dearest to him acknowledge "it was ordered for the best?" For is there not something painful to us in calculating the petty rewards which we can bestow upon a man who has done any work of deliverance for his country? Do we not almost dread--eagerly as we may desire his return--to hear the vulgar, formal phrases which are all we can devise to commemorate the toils and sufferings that we think of with most grat.i.tude and affection? There is somewhat calming and soothing in the sadness which follows a brave man to his grave in the very place where his work was done, just when it was done. Alas, but it is a bitter lesson to learn, even to us his old schoolfellows, who have never seen him since we parted at his "leaving breakfast." May G.o.d make us all braver and truer workers at our own small tasks, and worthy to join him, the hard fighter, the glorious Christian soldier and Englishman, when our time shall come.

On the next day, March 13th, he was carried to a soldier's grave, in the presence of the head-quarters, staff, and of Sir Colin, his last chief, who writes thus to his widow:--

"I followed your n.o.ble husband to the grave myself, in order to mark, in the most public manner, my regret and esteem for the most brilliant soldier under my command, and one whom I was proud to call my friend."

What living Englishman can add one iota to such praise from such lips?

The man of whom the greatest of English soldiers could thus speak, needs no mark of official approbation, though it is a burning disgrace to the authorities that none such has been given. But the family which mourns its n.o.blest son may be content with the rewards which his gallant life and glorious death have won for him and them,--we believe that he himself would desire no others. For his brothers-in-arms are erecting a monument to him in Lichfield Cathedral; his schoolfellows are putting up a window to him, and the other Rugbaeans who have fallen with him, in Rugby Chapel; and the three regiments of Hodson's Horse will hand down his name on the scene of his work and of his death as long as Englishmen bear rule in India. And long after that rule has ceased, while England can honor brave deeds and be grateful to brave men, the heroes of the Indian mutiny will never be forgotten, and the hearts of our children's children will leap up at the names of Lawrence, Havelock, and Hodson.

To the Memory OF SIR HENRY LAWRENCE, K. C. B.

THE TRUE CHRISTIAN, THE BRAVE SOLDIER, THE FAITHFUL FRIEND,

THESE EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF ONE WHOM HE TRAINED TO FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS, AND WHO NOW RESTS NEAR HIM AT LUCKNOW, Are Dedicated

BY THE EDITOR.

They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their deaths they were not divided.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

I have now been able to complete the series of extracts from my brother's letters, down to the morning of the fatal 11th March. The greater portion of the Fourth Chapter of Part II. will be found to have been added since the first edition.

I have to apologize for an inaccuracy in the quotation which I gave from Sir Colin Campbell's letter on the occasion of my brother's death. A correct copy of the letter in full will be found at page 431.

I have not found it necessary to make any other corrections of importance. Cases have been pointed out to me, in which officers who took part in different operations described, and did good service, are not mentioned by name; but I felt that I could not supply any such omissions, without taking upon myself a responsibility which I have disclaimed.

It was very natural that my brother, in writing to his wife, should make especial mention of those in whom she was interested. It is probable, too, that in some cases, subsequent information would have modified views expressed at the moment, but I have adhered to the principle of giving his letters as they were written day by day.

The favorable reception given to the former editions of this work, has quite satisfied me that I was not wrong in supposing that my brother's character only required to be known, in order to be estimated as it deserved, by Englishmen of every cla.s.s and profession.

COOKHAM DEANE, _July, 1859_.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

It can scarcely be needful to make any apology for offering to the public this record of one who has attracted to himself so large a measure of attention and admiration. Many, both in this country and in India, have expressed, and I doubt not many others have felt, a desire to know more of the commander of Hodson's Horse, and captor of the King of Delhi and his sons.

My original intention was to have compiled from my brother's letters merely an account of the part he bore in the late unhappy war. I very soon, however, determined to extend the work, so as to embrace the whole of his life in India.

I felt that the public would naturally inquire by what previous process of training he had acquired, not merely his consummate skill in the great game of war, but his experience of Asiatics and marvellous influence over their minds.

The earlier portions of this book will serve to answer such inquiries; they will show the gradual development of my brother's character and powers, and that those exploits which astonished the world by their skill and daring, were but the natural results of the high idea of the soldier's profession which he proposed to himself, honestly and consistently worked out during ten years of training, in perhaps the finest school that ever existed for soldiers and administrators. They will explain how it was that, in the midst of a struggle for the very existence of our empire, he was able to call into being and bring into the field around Delhi an "invincible and all but ubiquitous" body of cavalry.

The dragon's teeth which came up armed men, had been sown by him long before in his earlier career in the Punjaub. There, by many a deed of daring and activity, by many a successful stratagem and midnight surprise, by many a desperate contest, he had taught the Sikhs, first to dread him as an enemy, and then to idolize him as a leader. Already in 1849 the Governor-General had had "frequent occasions of noticing not only his personal gallantry, but the activity, energy, and intelligence with which he discharged whatever duties were intrusted to him." Even then the name of Hodson, although unknown in England, except to the few who watched his course with the eyes of affection, was a sound of terror to the Sikhs, and a bugbear to their children.

In 1852 he earned this high praise from one best qualified to judge: "Lieutenant Hodson, marvellously attaching the Guides to himself by the ties of mutual honor, mutual daring, and mutual devotion, has on every opportunity proved that the discipline of a public school and subsequent University training are no disqualification for hazardous warfare, or for the difficult task of keeping wild tribes in check."

The t.i.tle given to this book will sufficiently indicate the principle on which, particularly in the first part, I have made selections from my brother's letters. My object has been to show what a soldier's life in India may be, and what in his case it was; how wide and varied is the field which it opens for the exercise of the highest and n.o.blest qualities, intellectual and moral, of our nature; and how magnificently he realized and grasped the conception.

His letters, written in all the freedom of unreserved intercourse, will give a truer notion of his character than the most labored description; they exhibit the undercurrent of deep feelings that ran through even his most playful moods, the yearning after home that mingled with the dreams of ambition and the thirst for the excitement of war, the almost womanly tenderness that coexisted with the stern determination of the soldier. They show that though his lot was cast in camps, he was not a mere soldier; though a hanger-on on the outskirts of civilization amidst wild tribes, he had a keen appreciation of the refinement and elegancies of civilized life; that though in India, he remembered that he was an Englishman; that though living amongst the heathen, he did not forget that he was a Christian.

I have not attempted to write a biography, but have allowed my brother to speak for himself, merely supplying such connecting links as seemed absolutely necessary.

Indeed, I could do no otherwise; for unhappily, during the twelve years of his soldier's life,--those years in which his character received its mature development,--I knew him only by his letters, or by the reports of others; when we parted on board the ship that carried him from England, in 1845, we parted to meet no more in this world. My recollections of him, vivid as they are, are not of the leader of men in council and the battle-field, but of the bright and joyous boy, the life of the home circle, the tender and affectionate son, the loving brother, the valued friend, the popular companion.