Athelstane Ford Part 21

After we had gone on in this fas.h.i.+on for some time, not receiving much interruption from the enemy, but greatly troubled by the increasing obscurity, which rendered it difficult to see so much as a yard in front, there suddenly arose a murmur from amongst the Sepoys at the head of the column. Colonel Clive sent to demand the meaning of this, and the messenger returned with the intelligence that the men had stumbled upon a causeway, crossing our line of march, and leading to the Morattoe ditch on our right. He at once gave the order that the troops should mount upon this causeway and march towards the ditch.

Unfortunately, however, no notice of this change in the direction was given to the artillerymen in the rear, who continued to fire, as they supposed, to the side of the column. A cannon ball came among the Sepoys on the causeway, killing several of them. Thereupon the rest sought shelter by leaping down on the other side of the causeway, and the whole forward part of the troops was huddled together in confusion.

The darkness made it difficult to ascertain at first what had happened, but as soon as Mr. Clive understood he gave the order to cease firing, and brought the whole force across the causeway, where he strove to restore their formation. It was his intention to have advanced along the causeway, driven away the Moors stationed to defend it, and forced his way through to the English side of the ditch. But while he was engaged in restoring order among the troops, the enemy, no doubt overhearing our movements, commenced a discharge on us from some cannon loaded with langrain, which they seemed to have brought up within a few hundred yards of us. The shot striking the troops while still bundled together, did us the most damage we received that day; indeed it was a very terrifying thing to suddenly hear the roar of artillery so close at hand, and see men falling right and left from shots fired by an invisible foe.

Under these circ.u.mstances it was wonderful to see the coolness of Colonel Clive, who continued to give his orders without appearing the least dismayed, and deployed the men into line again as steadily as though we were in our own camp, and not in the midst of the Moors.

Abandoning all thoughts of the causeway, he ordered the column to resume its course to the southward, so as to reach the main road into Calcutta, by which we might cross the ditch and return in safety. This necessitated our leaving the wounded, about twenty in number, who broke into grievous cries at the prospect of being deserted to the cruelty of the Moors.

Among the voices raised in complaint I heard one which I believed I knew. I hastened to look among the figures on the ground, and presently made out the form of old Muzzy himself, who lay with his right leg doubled up under him.

"Is that you?" I exclaimed, bending over him. "Where have you been hurt? Is it serious?"

"Athelstane!" He looked up, turning his eyes on me with an appeal which went to my heart. "They've riddled my leg with their cursed heathenish small shot, curse them! If it had been a Christian bullet, now, I shouldn't ha' minded so much. Give me a hand, my boy, and I'll see if I can stand up."

I put my arms round him and lifted him partly from the ground, while he clutched at me with both hands. The next instant a groan broke from his clenched teeth.

"It's no good, lad, I can't do it. Go, and save yourself if you can; and leave old Muzzy to take his rating below decks at last!"

CHAPTER XVII

_A MISSION OF DANGER_

I got up and called to some sailors who were falling into the rear of the now departing column.

"Here, my men, here's a comrade wounded and unable to walk. Will you leave him to be butchered by the Indians?"

They stopped, and cast hesitating looks at the old boatswain, where he lay groaning.

"There's a-many of 'em about," observed one man. "We can't save them all, sir."

"But this is an old friend of mine, who has saved my life before now,"

I pleaded. And seeing them undecided, I went on, "What do you say; I will give you a hundred rupees--two hundred--apiece if you carry him safe into Calcutta?"

They brisked up when they heard this offer. A small tree with dark green leaves stood close by, from which they tore some branches, and quickly made out a rude litter. On to this they lifted my poor old friend, and so carried him off, renewing his groans at every step.

I marched alongside till we caught up with the rear of the column.

Luckily we were not molested, for which I blessed the fog, though it was now showing signs of lifting away. Our progress was here extremely slow, the ground being broken up into a number of small rice-fields, separated by mud walls or mounds of earth, over which the field-pieces had to be lifted with infinite trouble, and in fact two of them were abandoned altogether, the sailors being too exhausted to draw them further. During this time I forbore to rejoin Colonel Clive, but used my freedom as a volunteer to remain with the sailors bearing old Muzzy, where I found my presence and encouragement very necessary to induce them to persevere in their task. As it was I was obliged to raise my offer to three hundred rupees before we had got to the high road.

The fog gradually clearing, we beheld parties of the enemy's horse from time to time, threatening us, but they were easily dispersed by a few discharges of musketry, and gave us far less annoyance than the impediments of the ground. At the end of another hour of this toilsome work we at length arrived at the road, where we found a considerable body of horse and foot posted in front of the bridge across the Morattoe ditch into the Company's territories, to prevent our pa.s.sing.

At the same time the fog finally broke, and disclosed another numerous squadron coming down against our rear. The sailors at once faced about to defend the artillery, and I took my place among them, bidding the men with the litter press on towards the centre of the column. The Moors rode up with great determination, notwithstanding our fire, and one of them got near enough to me to aim a cut at my helmet, which I only avoided by bending my head to one side. At the same time I thrust my bayonet into his groin, and had the satisfaction of seeing him reel and fall from his horse as it turned and galloped off.

This charge being repulsed, we turned about again and rejoined our comrades, who had quickly dislodged the force opposed to them in front. The whole column then crossed the ditch, in broad daylight, and marched without further mishap into the town, where we arrived about midday, having been on the march for more than six hours, through the midst of a great army.

Such was this extraordinary exploit, to which, as I am a.s.sured, a parallel is scarcely to be found in the history of any age or nation.

Nevertheless, at the moment its effect was to cast a gloom over the spirits of the troops. The officers, who could never forgive Colonel Clive for not having been, like themselves, regularly bred to the military profession, grumbled at and criticised his action, which they described as that of a mere braggadocio, who knew nothing of war. The fact was that the rules of war contained no prescription for the conquest of an army of forty thousand men by one of barely two thousand; and though the hero who led us was ever ready to attempt impossibilities, he could not always perform them.

As soon as I had seen old Muzzy safely bestowed in the hospital, where the surgeons declared that it would be necessary to amputate his leg, I hastened to report myself to my commander. He received me with kindness and no little surprise, having fully believed that I was killed. Indeed he told me that a soldier of Adlercron's regiment had a.s.sured him he had seen me fall. However, he fully approved of what I had done in rescuing my old comrade, only regretting it had not been in his power to save the rest of the wounded.

I found him much dispirited with the result of the morning's work.

"I have done nothing, Ford," he declared, "nothing. I have marched into the Nabob's camp, and marched out again, like the King of France in the nursery rhyme. And here are these gentlemen of the committee clamouring for peace, that they may get their revenues back again, and their dustucks, and I know not what else, with the Nabob and his army at their gates. You see what it is to be a commander--would to G.o.d I were back in England, enjoying my rest!"

The next day put a different complexion on our affairs. Secret messages arrived from Omichund to say that the Nabob had been terrified out of his wits, that he no longer considered himself safe even in the midst of his troops, and that we might depend on a peace being speedily concluded. Shortly afterwards a letter arrived, written by Surajah Dowlah's instructions to Colonel Clive, in which he referred to the treaty on foot between them, and complained bitterly of the attack upon his camp.

"Now, Ford," said the Colonel to me, when he had shown me this letter, "I feel a different man to what I did yesterday. Sit down and write my answer to this insolent Moor."

I took the pen, and he dictated the following letter, of which I have the draft still in my possession:--

"_To his Highness Surajah Dowlah, Nabob of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa._

"SIR,--I have received your letter, and am unable to understand what it is that you complain of. I merely marched with a few of my troops through your camp to show you of what Englishmen are capable, but I had no hostile intentions, and was careful to refrain from hurting any of your soldiers, except such as imprudently opposed me. I have been, and still am, perfectly willing to make peace with you upon proper conditions.--I have the honour to remain your Highness's obedient servant,

"ROBERT CLIVE."

This bitter jest completed the effect produced by the previous day's work. That very evening we heard that the Nabob had broken up his quarters, and withdrawn to a distance of several miles from the Company's territories; and a few days later he signed a treaty granting full rest.i.tution to the Company of all that they had lost by the sack of Calcutta. This was just six weeks from the time we had started from Fulta.

During the period that followed I spent much of my time in the hospital, sitting by old Muzzy's bedside. He had borne the removal of his leg with great courage, but now that he began to mend I found him much depressed in his spirits.

"My day is over, boy," he would say, "I shall never sail salt water more. Old Muzzy is a dismasted hulk, only fit to be hauled up on the mud, and broken up for tinder. Drown me if I don't a'most wish the dogs had put a ball through my hull while they were about it, so that I could ha' gone down in deep water, with colours flying and all hands on deck, and heard the broadsides roaring over me to the last! That's the death for a British tar, my fine fellow, in action gallantly, and not to lie on the mud and rot away by inches like I'm fair to do."

I tried to cheer him up as best I could, though indeed I felt sorry enough myself to see that strong man laid helpless as a child. I thought it my duty to try and rouse him to some interest in better things, and brought a Bible to read to him.

In this I succeeded after a fas.h.i.+on. He listened very readily to the history of the Israelites, and expressed a huge admiration for Joshua and some of the Judges. But when I tried to pa.s.s on to the New Testament I must confess I met with more difficulties.

"No, no, don't read me that; it's too good for an old rakeh.e.l.ly tar like me," he persisted in saying. "Them apostles was fishermen, d'ye see, and the fishermen and longsh.o.r.e folk always was more peaceable and quieter-like than us deep-sea bilboes. You read me about that there fellow as slaughtered the Camelites; I understands him better.

By Gosh, he gave 'em a warm time of it, on my swow, didn't he! Not much use them Camelites showing their heads when Joshua was in the offing! He swept their decks for 'em, clean, every time."

He meant the Amalekites. I could not quite approve of the spirit in which he took the sacred history, but still I felt that to get him to listen to the Scriptures at all was something, and the good seed might come up later on.

I pleased myself with these efforts to reform my poor old friend, and yet perhaps I should have been better employed in seeking to amend my own life. For though I can truly say that I lived honestly and soberly, yet all this time my heart was given up to thoughts of ambition and revenge, and the desire of riches; and the good impressions wrought upon me by my sufferings in the Black Hole had almost faded clean out of my mind.

I was not present at the taking of Chander Nugger, which was the next great event in the East Indies, and therefore forbear from describing it. But this affair served to display yet further the duplicity and s.h.i.+fting policy of Surajah Dowlah, whose conduct evidently changed from day to day as the pa.s.sion of hatred of the English, or fear of Colonel Clive, obtained the mastery in his bosom. On one day he sent permission for us to attack the French, on the next he wrote strictly forbidding it. Colonel Clive would have gone against them without waiting for the Nabob's leave, but Admiral Watson was more scrupulous, considering that to do so would be a violation of our recent treaty.

Yet he did not shrink from upbraiding the Nabob in round terms, and sent him one letter in which he threatened, with the bluntness of a seaman, to kindle such a fire in his country as all the water in the Ganges should not be able to extinguish.

Finally the Nabob gave way, induced partly by his fears of the Pitans, a savage predatory tribe on the borders of Afghanistan, who from time to time broke into the Great Mogul's dominions, and were now threatening to march as far as Behar. Accordingly a joint expedition was made, and Chander Nugger taken after a brilliant action, in which, as Colonel Clive fully acknowledged, the Admiral signalised himself by conspicuous courage and seamans.h.i.+p.

All this time I lay ill in Calcutta of a low fever, which I had contracted in the hospital while attending on old Muzzy. It was now his turn to nurse me, which he did most a.s.siduously, being now recovered, and able to get about well enough by means of a wooden leg.

As I lay there sick day after day I began once more to see things in a truer light. I longed most painfully to be at home among the scenes and friends of my youth, and I resolved, once I had risen from my sick bed, to let no motives of ambition or interest detain me any further in Indostan.

I communicated these sensible resolutions to old Muzzy, who thoroughly approved of them.

"And I tell you what, Athelstane, lad, we'll make our pa.s.sage home in company," he said. "I've got a tidy bit o' prize-money left somewhere, enough to take me back to England, and mayhap a bit over, to keep me out of the workhouse when I gets there."

He put his hands into his hairy bosom and drew out a small canvas bag, which he shook out upon the coverlid of the bed. The contents made a small heap of gold and silver, amounting, as near as I could judge, to about 100 or 150 in English money, though the coins were of all countries--rupees, French crowns, moidores, and many others.