CHAPTER IX THE SEPOY IN THE OPEN The losses of the beleaguered English during the siege of the Residency were, of course, great. When the siege began the garrison consisted of 927 Europeans—not three out of four being soldiers—and 765 natives. Up to the date of the relief by Havelock—87 days—350 Europeans, more than one out of every three of the whole European force, were killed or died of disease! It is curious to note how all the swiftly-changing events and passions of the Mutiny are reflected in such of the diaries and journals of the period as have been published; and frequently a view of the actors in the great drama and of their actions is obtained from this source, such as grave historians, much to the loss of their readers, never give us. One of the best diaries of the kind is that of Lady Canning, as published in “The Story of Two Noble Lives,” by Augustus J. C. Hare. This journal gives us dainty little vignettes of the principal figures in the Mutiny, with pictures of all the alternating moods of fear and hope, of triumph and despair, as, moment by moment, they were experienced by the little circle of Government House in Calcutta. Here, for example, is a quaint picture of Havelock, which Lady Canning draws when the news reached Calcutta of his death:— _Nov. 27._—We had a grievous piece of news from Alumbagh. Havelock died two days ago. He died of dysentery, worn out in mind and body.... It is curious now to remember how his appointment was abused here, when he was called “an old fossil dug up and only fit to be turned into pipe-clay.” I knew him better than almost any one, and used to try and keep him in good-humour when he seemed a little inclined to be affronted. He was very small, and upright, and stiff, very white and grey, and really like an iron ramrod. He always dined in his sword, and made his son do the same. He wore more medals than ever I saw on any one, and it was a joke that he looked as if he carried all his money round his neck. He certainly must have had eleven or twelve of those great round half-crown pieces. Lady Canning goes on to picture Campbell’s march back to Cawnpore, with his great convoy of wounded men and women and children, and her woman’s imagination fastens naturally on this long procession of helpless human beings. “Sir Colin,” she writes, “has sent off four miles long of women and wounded!” Later on she reports the procession as fourteen miles long! And no doubt the business of transporting such a host of helpless creatures out of a city which contained 60,000 hostile troops, and across nearly fifty miles of an enemy’s country, was a feat calculated to impress the human imagination.