The Cannons of Lucknow (29 page)

“There's a well-entrenched 24-pounder sited directly across the Char Bagh bridge, General,” Fraser Tytler reminded him. “And another five or six covering the approaches from the Lucknow side. Our batteries will have no cover if they're brought up to engage them and there will only be space for two field guns … The road is narrow.”

“They'll have to be taken at bayonet point by the infantry,” Outram agreed. “But Maude can have a crack at them first.” He puffed at his cheroot, dark brows furrowed. “Whatever route we decide on will entail heavy losses, I fear, Tytler … but it's got to be done. Our people have taken Delhi, which was held to be impossible, but I'll warrant
that
wasn't done without loss. I'm in favour of the shorter way. General Havelock's plan simply isn't feasible after all this rain and we cannot afford to delay until the ground dries out. The assault has to be made tomorrow and it has to be completed in daylight. Havelock is in command, of course, until we enter Lucknow. But he must be persuaded that, in conditions like these, no detour round the city, with heavy guns, is possible. You can see that, can't you? Take your horse off the road, for God's sake, and you'll be over his hocks in water.”

“I know that, sir,” Fraser Tytler conceded. “But all those palaces near the Kaiser Bagh will have batteries in them. We shall have to fight every foot of the way.”

“We shall in any case, my dear Colonel—every infernal foot. We can't take the most direct way in—we're all agreed that would be suicidal. The long way round might cost fewer lives, but it would take too long—the guns would be held up, if they made it at all, and the infantry exhausted by wading through swamp. So we haven't much choice, have we?” He sighed and swung his horse round in the direction of the camp. “Come back with me, Tytler, and help me to convince your Chief that his plan is unworkable.”

“Very well, sir.” Tytler exchanged a rueful glance with Barrow and the reconnaissance party returned to the Alam Bagh.

That evening the wounded and sick, together with the baggage and the tents, were moved into the Alam Bagh, with a guard of three hundred men. The two assault brigades were ordered to parade at first light; they were to cook breakfast and to take with them 60 rounds of ammunition per man and 48 hours' rations. Spare ammunition was to be carried by camels and the only camp followers to accompany the force were cooks,
dhoolie
-bearers, and officers'
syces
.

The morning of 25th September dawned clear and fine. Havelock, after inspecting the force, sat down to breakfast with his son Harry at a table set out in the open beneath the Alam Bagh wall, where Outram and his staff joined them, at a little before eight. With a map spread out between them, the two generals were making their final depositions when a 9-pound round-shot from the battery near the Char Bagh bridge, a thousand yards away, struck the ground a few feet from them, bounded over their heads, and killed a gun-bullock, already limbered and standing a short distance away.

Havelock smiled and gestured to the map. “I agree to your route, Sir James, but my heavy guns I must and will have!”

“So be it, my dear Henry.” Outram held out his hand. “You are in command … Permit me to wish you success.”

At eight-thirty Neill's brigade, with all the artillery and accompanied by Outram, moved off. It was to be followed by the second brigade, with Havelock in personal command, the plan being for Neill to force the Char Bagh bridge and then for Hamilton's brigade to pass through it and lead the advance to the Kaiser Bagh. The Volunteer and Irregular cavalry formed the rear guard, covering the ammunition supplies and the baggage.

Firing was soon heard from the Char Bagh. Barrow and Alex, sitting their horses at the rear of the baggage train, as the long column made yet another of its frequently inexplicable halts, listened and wondered, unable to make out much through the smoke. The firing and the crackle of musketry redoubled in volume and became continuous; they looked at each other anxiously and Lousada Barrow said, “It sounds as if they are meeting with even more opposition than we anticipated. Pray heaven they get through!” He cursed as a small body of camp followers attempted to leave the train and sent Mahoney and Cullmane to round them up. “If we fail today, it will be all up with the garrison … and possibly with us as well. Dear God, I wish I knew what was happening!”

It was half an hour before news began to filter through to them, mainly from wounded being carried back to the Alam Bagh in
dhoolies
and tumbrils. The first brigade had met with an inferno of fire and Maude's gunners had been virtually wiped out as he had sought vainly to put the enemy battery defending the Char Bagh bridge out of action.

“It was fearful.” a young Fusilier officer confided, as Alex and Lousada Barrow bent over his
dhoolie
to give him the lighted cheroot he had asked for. “The round-shot and grape literally tore up the road, cutting our brave fellows to pieces, while the bullets fell among us like a shower of hail. How I escaped I do not know.” He looked down at his shattered legs and shuddered. “Maude's guns are being served by volunteers from the infantry—his sergeant-major, a fine fellow named Lamont, had the whole of his stomach carried away by a round-shot, and two of his other men were decapitated. The general—Outram—was wounded in the arm. But he was very cool, just asked someone to bind his arm with a neckerchief, to stop the bleeding, and carried on. He took the 5th to see if he could find a way to enfilade the bridge.”

“Are we across the bridge?” Alex asked.

The injured boy nodded. “I think some of us are. Harry Havelock came up with orders for General Neill to charge and carry the bridge, and Lieutenant Arnold, with about a dozen of our Blue Caps, went at it, led by Colonel Tytler and young Havelock. The enemy 24-pounder opened on them at point-blank range. Poor Arnold lost both legs, Colonel Tytler's horse was killed under him, and all the rest killed or wounded, except Havelock and a corporal of ours called Jakes. Those two stayed on the bridge, Havelock on his horse, with bullets flying round him, waving the rest on with his sword. And they went at it, sir. It was the finest thing I ever saw—our Blue Caps and some of the 84th went over the bridge and took the enemy battery with the bayonet, before they could reload. That was when I was hit, so I don't know any more. But all the guns were taken, the ones in the yellow house too.”

The wounded Fusilier subaltern had scarcely finished his account when an A.D.C. galloped up with orders for the baggage train to advance and cross over the canal.

“The 78th are to form your rear guard, sir. It's imperative that you hurry—ammunition is running short and the men must replenish their pouches as soon as you can get the spare ammunition to them.”

With the Volunteers harrying them, the camelteers and waggon-drivers made reasonably rapid progress. They came under musketry fire from loopholed houses on the Lucknow side of the canal and found the road and the approaches to the bridge littered with bodies, but all the buildings on the Alam Bagh side had been secured and, when the Highlanders of the rear guard had replenished their ammunition pouches, the whole train negotiated the narrow bridge without suffering more than a dozen casualties. When they started to move along the lane which followed the canal to the right, however, they ran into a hail of musket balls, which only ceased when two companies of the 78th carried and occupied the houses from which the fire had been coming, hurling the occupants out through doors and windows on the points of their bayonets.

It had taken almost two hours for the baggage train to cross and enter the lane and, as the last tumbrils were toiling up a steep incline beyond the bridge, a fierce attack was launched on them from the Cawnpore road. A large force of rebels—mutineers and Oudh troops—advanced with drums beating and banners flying. Dividing, as they neared the canal, one section with two brass guns seized a small temple overlooking the lane, from which they subjected the hapless baggage train to a withering fire of grape.

The second and larger section flung themselves with suicidal courage upon the Highlanders, and the Volunteer Cavalry, with no room to charge, could only go to their aid in ones and two, hacking at the fanatical Oudh men with their sabres and losing half a dozen men and a number of horses in the melee. Alex saw young Graham Birch cut down and with Cullmane beside him, went to try and hold off the sepoys who were stabbing at him with their bayonets. He managed to do so for long enough to enable Cullmane to rescue the wounded subaltern and then his good little mare, which had carried him thus far so bravely, died from a musket-ball in the chest. He had no time to mourn her; as he picked himself up, badly shaken, two sepoys came at him and he had to fight his way back to the lane with the Highlanders, hard put to it to preserve his own life when a fresh wave of attackers issued from a nearby building, to drive a wedge between the men he was with and the rest of their company. But the Highlanders were doughty fighters and, as he charged breathlessly after them, the newly arrived rebels turned tail and fled, several of them flinging themselves into the muddy waters of the canal rather than face the menace of the line of levelled bayonet.

Back in the lane once more, Alex saw that the temple had been cleared and he stood watching and struggling to regain his breath as the Highlanders dragged out the two brass cannons and dumped them unceremoniously into the canal, cheering derisively as they did so. Order was restored and the attack finally beaten off, the Highlanders sending a well-aimed volley into the retreating backs of their assailants. Alex sheathed his sabre and, still breathing hard, limped across to rejoin Lousada Barrow, who was organising the collection of wounded. Only then could the baggage train reform and continue on its way, the ammunition tumbrils serving to carry some of the wounded. Preceded by a melancholy line of laden
dhoolies
, the tumbrils rolled slowly down the narrow, rutted lane under the escort of Johnson's faithful Irregulars, many of whom had wounded men on their cruppers or clinging to their stirrup-leathers.

The Volunteers' casualties had been light in comparison with those suffered by the hard-pressed 78th, but six men had been wounded, Barrow said, including Charles Palliser, young Birch and Cullmane—all three of whom had insisted on remaining with the squadron. He added, tight-lipped, that Lieutenants Grant and Brown and a civilian volunteer, John Erskine, had lost their lives. At his suggestion, Alex took over Erskine's horse, a handsome grey Arab, and rode with him to the rear to aid the Highlanders' withdrawal.

From their commander, Captain Hastings, they learnt that Harry Havelock had been wounded in the street fighting beyond the Char Bagh Bridge.

“He took a musket-ball in the arm,” Hastings said, mopping his red, smoke-grimed face with the back of his hand. “Sergeant Young, of ours, picked him up and put him into a
dhoolie
.” He gestured to the baggage train, dimly seen in the smoke of battle as it wound its way along the narrow, circuitous lane of General Outram's chosen route, in the direction of the Dilkusha road and the still-distant Kaiser Bagh. “His orderly went with him but his father should be told, I think—if you can spare a man to take the message, Captain Barrow. I can't, I've few enough as it is with whom to effect our withdrawal. The minute we leave this street, the infernal Pandies will be into it like the bloody jackals they are. If you can help to cover our rear guard, Colonel Stisted will be grateful, I know. He's still down there somewhere.”

Lousada Barrow glanced at Alex. “Will you find the general and tell him?”

Alex nodded and set off after the main column. Its pace was slow, the delay, he thought, almost certainly due to the difficulty of dragging Eyre's heavy guns along the waterlogged sand of the road. But, because the rebels had expected Havelock to follow the direct route to the Residency, his detour to the right along the bank of the canal had taken them by surprise, and opposition—judging by the lack of bodies—had been slight, and most of it had been concentrated on the Highlanders left to hold the street leading from the Char Bagh bridge.

Reaching a more open area, Alex was able to quicken his pace. The Kaiser Bagh was, he knew, about a quarter of a mile to his left, hidden from him by the intervening buildings, but he could see the cupolas of the Begum Koti directly ahead. He followed the road to the Sikander Bagh until it made a sharp turn to the left and, riding toward the city again, glimpsed the magnificent, pearl-shaped dome of the Moti Mahal and the river ahead and to his right. The baggage train held him up as he made for the Moti Munzil Palace and the sound of very heavy cannon fire warned him that the column must be approaching Kaiser Bagh.

“They've run into trouble,” Johnson told him, as he reined in beside the baggage escort. “The Thirty-Second's Mess house seems to be occupied in great strength and they must have a heavy battery in the Kaiser Bagh. I've never heard such fire … listen to it, for God's sake! It's hard to make out what's going on but I think a halt has been called under cover of one of the palaces. I hope to heaven it has … I want to get the wounded to a place of safety as soon as I can. There's only us and a few walking wounded to guard them and it's taking us all our time to stop the
dhoolie
-bearers from running off.”

Alex asked for Harry Havelock but Johnson shook his head regretfully.

“I haven't seen him, sir. He may be in one of the
dhoolies
but, as you can appreciate, there are the devil of a lot of them. I'll make a search as soon as I can and send word if I find him. You're on the way to inform the general I take it?”

Alex nodded. He said, with a wry smile, “It's a pity you and your sowars can't repeat your exploit of the other day and take those guns at the Kaiser Bagh—but I fear they'll be too well entrenched. The Pandies have been preparing to receive us ever since they realised we'd changed direction at the bridge—and they've had plenty of time, alas to dig in and wait for us.”