On the fifteenth of June, a welcome message was brought to the Maharaja
from the Meer Nawab, a Mussulman of rank, who sent word that he
was coming up from the eastward with a couple of thousand regular
infantry, and a full complement of artillery. Azimoolah resolved that
his subordinates should not have an opportunity of repeating their
conduct of the previous week. Every mark of respect was to be displayed
towards so august and puissant a chieftain. The bridge contractors were
commissioned to collect barges for the transit of the expected allies,
and the confectioners of the town received instructions to prepare for
their refreshment a ménu, containing all those dishes of sweetened
animal food so nauseous to a European palate. On the morrow the Nawab
arrived at the head of two fine regiments, which had been raised on the
occasion of Lord Dalhousie's annexation, amidst the deep but suppressed
uneasiness of all who gave the native mind credit for the human
qualities of ambition, shame, and patriotism;--of all who believed the
Hindoo capable of any loftier sentiment than the desire to curry favour
with an English magistrate, touch a hundred rupees per mensem from an
English treasury, talk broken Addison, and read the "Deserted Village"
in the original. On the rolls of our army these battalions were styled
the Fourth and Fifth Oude Locals: but sepoys have invariably some
pet title for their own corps, (in most cases a corruption of the
name of its first colonel,) more suited to the Indian tongue than our
complicated military nomenclature. Thus the First, the Fifty-third, and
the Fifty-sixth Bengal Native Infantry, were spoken of familiarly as
"Gillises," "Lamboorn's," and "Garsteen's." The Oude soldiers under
the Meer Nawab were known to themselves and their compatriots as the
men of the Nadiree and the Akhtaree Regiments.
When the new-comers caught sight of the fortress which had hitherto
baffled the ingenuity and courage of their associates, they expressed
no small contempt for the generalship of the Nana, but bade him be at
his ease, for that they would engage to put him in possession of the
intrenchment after they had enjoyed a day's rest and surfeit. And so,
on the eighteenth of June, at the hour when, exactly two and forty
years before, the French tirailleurs were swarming through the woods
of Hougoumont up to the loopholes of the wall which they never passed,
the Oude mutineers charged in a mass across the plain, and over our
rampart; bore down the defenders; overturned a gun; and seemed for a
moment in a fair way of justifying their vaunt. A moment only: for,
without waiting for orders, angry Sahibs came running from all sides
to the rescue. Our people slewed round a nine-pounder; gave them first
some stockingfuls of grape, and then an English rush; and sent them
back to their master fewer and wiser than they came.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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