Following the Equator by Mark Twain (best e books to read TXT) 📖

midst of spacious grounds, with its due complement of outbuildings, and the grounds were enclosed by a walla wall not for defense, but for privacy. The mutinous spirit was in the air, but the whites were not afraid, and did not feel much troubled.

Then came the outbreak at Meerut, then the capture of Delhi by the mutineers; in June came the three-weeks leaguer of Sir Hugh Wheeler in his open lot at Cawnpore40 miles distant from Lucknowthen the treacherous massacre of that gallant little garrison; and now the great revolt was in full flower, and the comfortable condition of things at Lucknow was instantly changed.

There was an outbreak there, and Sir Henry Lawrence marched out of the Residency on the 30th of June to put it down, but was defeated with heavy loss, and had difficulty in getting back again. That night the memorable siege of the Residencycalled the siege of Lucknowbegan. Sir Henry was killed three days later, and Brigadier Inglis succeeded him in command.

Outside of the Residency fence was an immense host of hostile and confident native besiegers; inside it were 480 loyal native soldiers, 730 white ones, and 500 women and children.

In those days the English garrisons always managed to hamper themselves sufficiently with women and children.

The natives established themselves in houses close at hand and began to rain bullets and cannon-balls into the Residency; and this they kept up, night and day, during four months and a half, the little garrison industriously replying all the time. The women and children soon became so used to the roar of the guns that it ceased to disturb their sleep. The children imitated siege and defense in their play. The womenwith any pretext, or with nonewould sally out into the storm-swept grounds. The defense was kept up week after week, with stubborn fortitude, in the midst of death, which came in many formsby bullet, small-pox, cholera, and by various diseases induced by unpalatable and insufficient food, by the long hours of wearying and exhausting overwork in the daily and nightly battle in the oppressive Indian heat, and by the broken rest caused by the intolerable pest of mosquitoes, flies, mice, rats, and fleas.

Six weeks after the beginning of the siege more than one-half of the original force of white soldiers was dead, and close upon three-fifths of the original native force.

But the fighting went on just the same. The enemy mined, the English counter-mined, and, turn about, they blew up each other's posts. The Residency grounds were honey-combed with the enemy's tunnels. Deadly courtesies were constantly exchangedsorties by the English in the night; rushes by the enemy in the nightrushes whose purpose was to breach the walls or scale them; rushes which cost heavily, and always failed.

The ladies got used to all the horrors of warthe shrieks of mutilated men, the sight of blood and death. Lady Inglis makes this mention in her diary:

"Mrs. Bruere's nurse was carried past our door to-day, wounded in
the eye. To extract the bullet it was found necessary to take out
the eyea fearful operation. Her mistress held her while it was
performed."

The first relieving force failed to relieve. It was under Havelock and Outram; and arrived when the siege had been going on for three months. It fought its desperate way to Lucknow, then fought its way through the city against odds of a hundred to one, and entered the Residency; but there was not enough left of it, then, to do any good. It lost more men in its last fight than it found in the Residency when it got in. It became captive itself.

The fighting and starving and dying by bullets and disease went steadily on. Both sides fought with energy and industry. Captain Birch puts this striking incident in evidence. He is speaking of the third month of the siege:

"As an instance of the heavy firing brought to bear on our position
this month may be mentioned the cutting down of the upper story of a
brick building simply by musketry firring. This building was in a
most exposed position. All the shots which just missed the top of
the rampart cut into the dead wall pretty much in a straight line,
and at length cut right through and brought the upper story tumbling
down. The upper structure on the top of the brigade-mess also fell
in. The Residency house was a wreck. Captain Anderson's post had
long ago been knocked down, and Innes' post also fell in. These two
were riddled with round shot. As many as 200 were picked up by
Colonel Masters."

The exhausted garrison fought doggedly on all through the next month October. Then, November 2d, news came Sir Colin Campbell's relieving force would soon be on its way from Cawnpore.

On the 12th the boom of his guns was heard.

On the 13th the sounds came nearerhe was slowly, but steadily, cutting his way through, storming one stronghold after another.

On the 14th he captured the Martiniere College, and ran up the British flag there. It was seen from the Residency.

Next he took the Dilkoosha.

On the 17th he took the former mess-house of the 32d regimenta fortified building, and very strong. "A most exciting, anxious day," writes Lady Inglis in her diary. "About 4 P.M., two strange officers walked through our yard, leading their horses"and by that sign she knew that communication was established between the forces, that the relief was real, this time, and that the long siege of Lucknow was ended.

The last eight or ten miles of Sir Colin Campbell's march was through seas of, blood. The weapon mainly used was the bayonet, the fighting was desperate. The way was mile-stoned with detached strong buildings of stone, fortified, and heavily garrisoned, and these had to be taken by assault. Neither side asked for quarter, and neither gave it. At the Secundrabagh, where nearly two thousand of the enemy occupied a great stone house in a garden, the work of slaughter was continued until every man was killed. That is a sample of the character of that devastating march.

There were but few trees in the plain at that time, and from the Residency the progress of the march, step by step, victory by victory, could be noted; the ascending clouds of battle-smoke marked the way to the eye, and the thunder of the guns marked it to the ear.

Sir Colin Campbell had not come to Lucknow to hold it, but to save the occupants of the Residency, and bring them away. Four or five days after his arrival the secret evacuation by the troops took place, in the middle of a dark night, by the principal gate, (the Bailie Guard). The two hundred women and two hundred and fifty children had been previously removed. Captain Birch says:

"And now commenced a movement of the most perfect arrangement and
successful generalshipthe withdrawal of the whole of the various
forces, a combined movement requiring the greatest care and skill.
First, the garrison in immediate contact with the enemy at the
furthest extremity of the Residency position was marched out. Every
other garrison in turn fell in behind it, and so passed out through
the Bailie Guard gate, till the whole of our position was evacuated.
Then Havelock's force was similarly withdrawn, post by post,
marching in rear of our garrison. After them in turn came the
forces of the Commander-in-Chief, which joined on in the rear of
Havelock's force. Regiment by regiment was withdrawn withthe
utmost order and regularity. The whole operation resembled the
movement of a telescope. Stern silence was kept, and the enemy took
no alarm."

Lady Inglis, referring to her husband and to General Sir James Outram, sets down the closing detail of this impressive midnight retreat, in darkness and by stealth, of this shadowy host through the gate which it had defended so long and so well:

"At twelve precisely they marched out, John and Sir James Outram
remaining till all had passed, and then they took off their hats to
the Bailie Guard, the scene of as noble a defense as I think history
will ever have to relate."


CHAPTER LIX.

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

We were driven over Sir Colin Campbell's route by a British officer, and when I arrived at the Residency I was so familiar with the road that I could have led a retreat over it myself; but the compass in my head has been out of order from my birth, and so, as soon as I was within the battered Bailie Guard and turned about to review the march and imagine the relieving forces storming their way along it, everything was upside down and wrong end first in a moment, and I was never able to get straightened out again. And now, when I look at the battle-plan, the confusion remains. In me the east was born west, the battle-plans which have the east on the right-hand side are of no use to me.

The Residency ruins are draped with flowering vines, and are impressive and beautiful. They and the grounds are sacred now, and will suffer no neglect nor be profaned by any sordid or commercial use while the British remain masters of India. Within the grounds are buried the dead who gave up their lives there in the long siege.

After a fashion, I was able to imagine the fiery storm that raged night and day over the place during so many months, and after a fashion I could imagine the men moving through it, but I could not satisfactorily place the 200 women, and I could do nothing at all with the 250 children. I knew by Lady Inglis' diary that the children carried on their small affairs very much as if blood and carnage and the crash