Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India. W. S. R. Hodson
interfered between me and my good intentions of answering all my correspondence by this mail. We have been knocked about for some days so incessantly that there has been no chance of writing anything; and even this scrawl, I fear, will hardly reach you. You will hear publicly of our great victory of the 10th,[2] and of the total and final rout of the Sikh force. But first, I must tell you that the 2d Grenadiers were sent back about a week ago to the villages and posts in our rear, to keep open the communication. Not liking the notion of returning to the rear while an enemy was in front, I applied immediately to do duty with another regiment; my petition was granted; and I joined the 16th Grenadiers on the evening of the 9th inst. About three in the morning we advanced towards the Sikh intrenchments along the river's bank. Our guns and ammunition had all come up a day or two before, and during the night were placed in position to shell their camp. At daybreak, seventeen heavy mortars and howitzers, rockets, and heavy guns commenced a magnificent fire on their position; at half-past eight the infantry advanced—Sir R. Dick's division on the right, and ours (Gilbert's) in front—covered by our fire from the batteries. On we went as usual in the teeth of a dreadful fire of guns and musketry, and after a desperate struggle we got within their triple and quadruple intrenchments; and then their day of reckoning came indeed. Driven from trench to trench, and surrounded on all sides, they retired, fighting most bravely, to the river, into which they were driven pell-mell, a tremendous fire of musketry pouring on them from our bank, and the Horse Artillery finishing their destruction with grape. The river is literally choked with corpses, and their camp full of dead and dying. An intercepted letter of theirs shows that they have lost 20,000 in killed, wounded, and missing; all their guns remaining in our hands. I had the pleasure myself of spiking two guns which were turned on us. Once more I have escaped, I am thankful to say, unhurt, except that a bullet took a fancy to my little finger and cut the skin off the top of it—a mere pin scratch, though it spoiled a buckskin glove. I am perfectly well; we cross in a day or two, but I fancy have done with fighting.
To his Sister.
Lahore, Feb. 27th, 1846.
In honor of your birthday, I suppose, we crossed the Sutlej on the 17th, and are now encamped close to old Runjeet Singh's capital, without a shot having been fired on this side the river! The war is over: sixty days have seen the overthrow of the Sikh army, which, when that period commenced, marched from the spot on which the victors are now encamped, with no fewer than 100,000 fighting men, now
A broken and a routed host,
Their standards gone, their leaders lost.
So ends the tale of the mightiest army, and the best organized, which India has seen.
I hope you will have got a scrap I wrote after the fight at Sobraon in hopes it would reach you before the newspapers, as I have no doubt you were all anxious enough on my account, and indeed you well might be, for I can hardly imagine (humanly speaking) how it was possible to go through that storm of bullets and shot unhurt. I have indeed much to be thankful for, and I hope I shall not forget the lesson. A campaign is a wonderful dispeller of false notions and young imaginations, and seems too stern a hint to be soon forgotten.
About this time Mr. Thomason says, in a letter to my father:—
"I hear of William constantly from friends in camp, and am glad to find that he is a great favorite in his regiment. I had some little fear that his great superiority in age and attainments to those of his own standing in the army might make him the object of envy and disparagement. I felt that he had no easy task before him, and that it would be difficult to conduct himself with discretion and becoming humility in such a position. He was quite aware of the difficulty when we talked the matter over at Agra, and I am much pleased to see the success which has attended his prudent exertions."
Lahore, March 4th, 1846.
The army breaks up now very soon, but I shall be posted before that. I am trying to get into the 1st European regiment, now stationed at Umbâla, who have just been styled Fusileers for their distinguished service. It is the finest regiment in India, with white faces, too, and a very nice set of officers. I have been brigaded with them all along.
It seems an age since the campaign opened. One day of fighting such as we have had fastens itself on the memory more than a year of peaceful life. We must really have a natural taste for fighting highly developed, for I catch myself wishing and "asking for more," and grumbling at the speedy settlement of things, and the prospect of cantonments instead of field service. Is it not marvellous, as if one had not had a surfeit of killing? But the truth is, that is not the motive, but a sort of undefined ambition. … I remember bursting into tears in sheer rage in the midst of the fight at Sobraon at seeing our soldiers lying killed and wounded. Don't let any of my friends forget me yet. I have found a new one, I think, in Major Lawrence,[3] the new President at this Court, thanks to the unwearying kindness of Mr. Thomason.
In a letter of the same date to Hon. J. Thomason, the following sentence occurs:—
I must thank you very much for making me known to Major Lawrence, from whom I have received every sort of attention and kindness. I have been very much struck with his superiority, and freedom from diplomatic solemnity and mystery, which is rather affected by the politicals and officials.
Camp, Nuggur Ghat, on the Sutlej,
March 27th, 1846.
The last returning regiment of the army of the Sutlej crossed that river yesterday morning, and by to-morrow every man will have left its banks, on their way to their stations. It was a most interesting and picturesque sight to see the army filing across the splendid bridge of boats constructed by our engineers at this place. So many of the native corps have been required for the new province and for the Lahore garrison, that we had hardly any but Europeans homeward-bound, which gave an additional and home interest to the passage of the river. Dusty, travel-stained, and tired, but with that cool, firm air of determination which is the most marked characteristic of English soldiers, regiment after regiment passed on, cavalry, artillery, and infantry in succession, their bands playing quicksteps and national tunes, as each stepped upon the bridge. To you the sight would have been only interesting; but to those of us who had seen the same corps three months ago, their reduced numbers and fearfully thinned ranks told a sadder tale. Regiments cut down to a third, individual companies to a fourth or fifth of their former strength, gave a silent but eloquent reply to the boastful strains of martial music, and to the stirring influence of the pageant. As each regiment moved up on this side the river, our fine old chief addressed a few words of congratulation and praise to each; they pushed on to their tents, and a genuine English cheer, caught up and repeated from corps to corps, and a thundering salute from the artillery, proclaimed the final dispersion, and bid an appropriate farewell to the army of the Sutlej.
Thus ends my first campaign! To-morrow I march with the 26th Native Infantry to Umbâla, where I hope to be transferred to the 1st Europeans. I was posted to the 26th a few days ago, but have not joined yet, as I applied at once for an exchange. Marching and living in tents is becoming unpleasantly hot now, and in another fortnight will be very bad. Yesterday we had a regular storm of wind and dust, filling everything with sand, and darkening the air most effectually; one's mouth, eyes, ears, and pockets get filled with dust; you sit down to breakfast, and your plate is ready loaded with sand, your coffee is excellently thickened, and your milk would pass for clotted cream—but for the color. Then you get a sheet of paper, and vainly imagine you're writing, but the sand conceals the last word you write ere the ink can dry, and your pens split of themselves with the dryness of the air. In truth, it is next to impossible to do anything while the storm lasts, for one's eyes smart and cry with the plenitude of grit; and if you talk, you are set coughing with eating small stones! Yet all this is far better than the damp-exhaling heat of Bengal. Here the ground and air are as dry by night as by day, and no exhalation poisons the freshness of any wind that may be stirring.
Umbâla, April 13th, 1846.
Here I am once more. I am writing in a comfortable house, and actually slept in one last night—the first time I have eaten or slept under a roof since the 3d of November; and on the 10th I saw a lady again!
I