Camps, Quarters, and Casual PlacesForbes, Archibald
History
Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Forbes, Archibald
Military camps; Military history, Modern
Chinhut, where Lawrence received so terrible a reverse at the beginning
of the siege. Due north is the Kookrail viaduct which Outram cleared
with the Rifles and the 79th, and in whose vicinity Jung Bahadour, the
crafty and bloodthirsty generalissimo of Nepaul, "co-operated" by a
demonstration which never became anything more. And to the west there
lie stretched out before me the domes, minarets, and spires of Lucknow,
rising above the foliage in which their bases are hidden, and the
routes of Clyde in the relief and capture. The rays of the afternoon
sun are stirring into colour the dusky gray of the Secunderbagh and of
the Nuddun Rusool, or "Grave of the Prophet," used as a powder magazine
by the rebels. Below me, on the lawn of the Martinière, is the big
gun--one of Claude Martine's casting--which did the rebels so much
service at the other angle of the Martinière and which was spiked at
last by two men of Peel's naval brigade, who swam the Goomtee for the
purpose. That little enclosure slightly to the left surrounds "all that
can die" of that strange mixture of high spirit, cool daring, and weak
principle, the famous chief of Hodson's Horse. By Hodson's side lies
Captain da Costa of the 56th N.I., attached to Brazier's Sikhs. Of this
officer is told that, having lost many relatives in the butchery of
Cawnpore, he joined the regiment likeliest to be in the front of the
Lucknow fighting, and fell by one of the first shots fired in the
assault on the Kaiser-bagh.
Descending from the Martinière tower I traverse the park to the
westward passing the grave of Captain Otway Mayne, cross the dry canal
along which are still visible the heaps of earth which mark the
stupendous first line of the rebels' defences, and bending to the left
reach the Secunderbagh. This famous place was a pleasure garden
surrounded with a lofty wall with turrets at the angles and a
castellated gateway. The interior garden is now waste and forlorn, the
rank grass growing breast-high in the corners where the slaughter was
heaviest. Here in this little enclosure, not half the size of the
garden of Bedford Square, 2000 Sepoys died the death at the hands of
the 93rd, the 53rd, and the 4th Punjaubees. Their common grave is under
the low mound on the other side of the road. The loopholes stand as
they were left by the mutineers when our fellows came bursting in
through the ragged breach made in the reverse side from the main
entrance by Peel's guns. Farther on--that is, nearer to the
Residency--I come to the Shah Nujeef, with its strong exterior wall
enclosing the domed temple in its centre. It is still easy to trace the
marks of the breach made in the angle in the wall by Peel's battering
guns, and the tree is still standing up which Salmon, Southwell, and
Harrison climbed in response to his proffer of the Victoria Cross.
Opposite the Shah Nujeef white girls are playing on the lawn of that
castellated building, for the Koorsheyd Munzil, on the top of which
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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