Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India. W. S. R. Hodson
the fall of Mooltan will put a stop to mischief. If, however, our rulers resort again to half measures, if a mutinous army is retained in existence, the evil day will return again. Absolute supremacy has been, I think, long demonstrated to be our only safety among wild and treacherous races. Moderation, in the modern sense, is the greatest of all weakness.
Sept. 18th, 1848.
You will have seen that our troops have been hard at it in Mooltan, and now I have to tell you that it has all been in vain; Rajah Shere Singh, and the whole of our worthy Sikh allies, have joined the rebel Moolraj, and General Whish has been compelled to raise the siege and retire.
I have just dispatched every available Guide to try and get quietly into the far-famed fort of Govindghur, and hope in a few hours to hear of their success. They have forty friends inside, and only a few score wavering enemies. I have not a moment which I can call my own, and have put off this (which is merely an assurance that I am alive and very well) to the last moment, so as to give you the latest tidings. I am all agog at the prospect of stirring times, and the only single drawback is the fear that you all will be very anxious. I shall not, however, run my head unnecessarily into a scrape, and see no cause for your frightening yourselves.
One comfort is, that the farce of native government has been played out. It was an experiment honestly tried, and as honestly a failure.
A few days later he says:—
My Guides have covered themselves with glory (and dust) by the way in which they got into, and got possession of, the famed fort of Govindghur. A hundred of my men, under a native officer—a fine lad of about twenty, whom I have petted a good deal—went up quietly to the gates, on pretence of escorting four State prisoners, (whom I had put in irons for the occasion,) were allowed to get in, and then threw up their caps, and took possession of the gateway, despite the scowls, and threats, and all but open resistance of the Sikh garrison. A day afterwards a regiment marched from Lahore, and went into garrison there, and so Runjeet Singh's treasure-fort is fairly in our hands.
Nov. 1st, 1848.
I left Lahore—but stay, I must get there first. Well, I wrote from Ramnuggur, on the Chenab, last; whence, after a fruitless séjour of six days, in the vain hope of meeting Mrs. George Lawrence, I returned suddenly to Lahore by an order which reached me the evening of the 5th. I started at sunset, and pushing my way on various borrowed steeds across that dreary region during the night, accompanied by a single camel-rider, I reached Lahore, a distance of seventy miles, by nine the following morning.
On the 8th I was off again at daybreak on a longer journey still, having to cross the country to Brigadier Wheeler's camp in the Jullundur Doâb, to convey orders to him relative to the reduction of two rebellious forts in the Doâb, between the Ravee and Beas. A "grind" of some twenty-six hours on camel-back, with the necessary stoppages, took me to the camp, whence (because I had not had enough) I recrossed the Beas the same night, after examining and reporting on the state of the ferries by which the troops were to follow me. This time I was escorted by a troop of Irregular Horse, and being thereby, according to my estimation of Sikh prowess, rendered tolerably independent, I marched the next morning for the fort of Rungur Nuggul, some fourteen miles from the right bank of the Beas.
On approaching it, and the village which covered one side of it, I was welcomed by a discharge of matchlocks, &c., as a sort of bravado, which served to point out exactly the range of my friends' pieces. I lost no time in getting the horsemen into a secure position (which means, one equally good for fighting or running away), and advanced under shelter of the trees and sugar-canes to within easy distance of the fort. Hence I dispatched a message to the rebels, to say that if they did not come to reason within an hour, they should have no choice but that between cold steel or the gallows. The hour elapsed without result, so mentally consigning the garrison to annihilation, I set to work to reconnoitre the ground round the fort. This accomplished—with no further interruption than a shower of unpleasant bullets when I ventured too near—I sat down, and drew a little pencil plan of the ground and fort, dispatched a trooper with it to the Brigadier, and then retired to a little village about a mile off for the night. Another day and night passed in this precarious fashion, without (as is my usual fate), servants, clothes, or traps, until at length my own men (Guides) arrived from Lahore with my baggage and horses. I could now muster a hundred rifles, and eighty horsemen, so we set to work to invest the place, being the only way to render the escape of the rebels difficult or impossible. The fort, though very small, was immensely strong, and well garrisoned with desperadoes, and we had sharp work of it during the two nights and day which elapsed before the Brigadier[7] appeared with his troops. By keeping my men scattered about in parties, under cover, the superiority of their weapons enabled them to gall the defenders of the fort whenever they showed their heads, day or night; and whenever they made a sally they got driven back with the loss of one or two of their companions. At last the Brigadier appeared, pounded the place with his guns during the day, and let the garrison escape at night. Then came the bore of destroying the empty fort, a work which consumed a week of incessant labor, and forty-one mines loaded with an aggregate of 8,000 pounds of powder. Having destroyed house, fort, stables, and everything, and removed the grain and property, we at length moved on to a second fort, called "Morara," about a mile from the left bank of the Ravee, near this place. I cannot now go into details of the second failure of the Brigadier in attempting to punish the rebels, for they bolted before he fired a shot, nor of my attempts to prevent their escape. I have had loads of work, what with soldiering, providing supplies for the force, and all the multifarious duties which come on the shoulders of a "political" out here. I am quite well, and the weather is lovely, so work is easy comparatively, and an active life like this is, as you know, my particular weakness. I hope to cross the Ravee in a few days with the troops collecting to punish the rebel (or patriot) Sikh army. We want Sir C. Napier sadly. What with the incapacity shown at Mooltan, and the dilatory proceedings at head-quarters, our reputation is suffering cruelly, and every one knows that that is a stain only to be dyed out in blood. Every week's delay adds thousands to our present foes and future victims.
To his Sister.
Deenanuggur, Dec. 4th, 1848.
You must not suppose that because I have written twice from this place that therefore I have been here all the time. On the contrary, I have been incessantly on the move. So much so as to have pretty nearly established a claim to the medal for discovering perpetual motion. I have been moving in an orbit whose gyrations have been confined to a space bounded by the Chenab and the Beas, and a line drawn E. and W. through Umritsur and Lahore. Nearly the whole of this vast "track" of country has been under my sole charge. I have had also to feed an army daily of 3,000 odd fighting men, 2,000 odd horses, and 14,000 to 15,000 camp followers. Also to take care of and work my Guides; to point out the haunts and obtain information of the strength of "the enemy," and give him over to the tender mercies of fire and sword; item, to fight him personally; item, to destroy six forts, and sell by auction the property therein found; item, to be civil to all comers; item, to report all the said doings daily to Government; item, to march ten to twenty miles a day at a slow pace; item, to eat, drink, dress, and sleep, to rest one's self from all these labors. In the above compendious epitome of the work of that much-abused and ill-used class called "politicals" in India, you will, I trust, observe no vacant places or "hiati" in which you would expect to see inscribed, "item, to write to one's friends." No; one is a white slave, and no mistake; day and night, early or late, week-day or Sunday, one is the slave of the public, or rather of the Government, to a degree which cannot be credited until it is experienced. The departure of Brigadier Wheeler across the Beas, and therefore out of my beat, has made a slight break in the work, but there is still more than I can get through in the day. I am grinding my teeth all the time at being kept away from the scene of what must be the grand struggle between the cow-killers and cow-worshippers on the banks of the Chenab.
On the 8th of last month I marched hence to overtake Brigadier Wheeler and his troops, and accompany them across the Ravee. On reaching the river, I represented to the Brigadier "who of course does not know friend from foe until he is told," the urgent necessity of attacking a party of insurgents who were within fourteen miles of us, but could not persuade him to