HERO OF OLD TIME

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9600, 5 March 1917, Page 2

HERO OF OLD TIME

GENERAL MOWBRAY THOMSO N OF CAWNPORE OBIT. FEBRUARY 28th, 1917. (Contributed.) There were great men before Agamemnon, as the contemporaries of Agamemnon were fond of pointing out. So it is to-day. And quite right it is that it should bo so, for the memory of the bravo should never fade, nor should posterity permit it to be obscured by its own merit, however striking. The merit of to-day is as striking a thing as anything in the history' of Britain, or, indeed, of the world. Wo remember Henry and men who fought at Agincourt against odds in that very mud of Artois which makes the advance against the armies of the imitator of Attila so difficult, but favoured our side so greatly on St. Crispin’s Day. Do you remember how. the English archery caught the horsemen floundering in the mud of the pastures softened by. long rain? We others have never forgotten Henry and the men “whose limbs were made in England.” Neither have we forgotten Clifford and Lord Lisle, who, in tho next reign, perished in tho bulldog resistance of their kind to the overwhelming onslaughts of France. To-day wo celebrate and venerate,. and cannot over-rate the prowess of the British men who held off the hordes of Attila at Mons; joined their bravo Allies in beating them to tho ground at the Marne; stormed their way over the Aisnc against the shot of men of perjury and bad faith stretched to the diabolical utmost; and with absurdly inferior numbers and poverty of equip-

merit beyond the reach of statistical contrast, gave those Hunniah hosts such forlbiddanco at Ypres that they have never had the heart to renew the disastrous experiment. This for the Expeditionary Force, the finest army ever sent out of England. Wo are admiring their successors of the Kitchener armies, who are giving the. Huns the time of their heathen lives in the valleys of the Somtno and the Ancre, driving the Blonde Boast out of strongholds which ho had planned to hold till the crack of doom. But we should not forget the men but for whom these heroisms of to-day would have been impossible. Such a one was General Mowbray Thomson, of the old Bengal army —the army that mutinying gave British valour some of its finest traditions. His death, announced the other day, conveyed nothing to the mind of a thoughtless generation, which may be excused for being engrossed in the greatest of all recorded conflicts, which, by the way, is named by many the “Anonymous War.” But the old Bengal soldier was a hero of Cawnporo—one of the two heroes who came alive out of that story of woe and treachery, which remained unparalleled in the history of the world until tho barbarous troops of the Unspeakable Kaiser, dishonestly crossing the Belgian frontier, justified the theory of their master’s spiritual kinship with the callous savages who have exterminated the Armenians of Asia Minor.

General Mowbray Thomson, as one of the two survivors of Cawnpore, felt impelled, to writ© the story. He had escaped (fought his way out) with nothing but his memory, but the eternal critic who throughout the British Empire relies on his imagination for his facts, and like all noxious political insects, is hatched out in numbers by the heat of national misfortune, was befouling the memory of the General, who was in command when Cawnpore fell. Mowbray Thomson, having braved tbe enemy, felt it his sacred duty to brave these ghouls and save his old chief’s honour. Therefore he wrote his book, 'The Story of Cawnpore,” which lies before us as we write.

What a great human document it is 1 All unconscious this soldier takes his pen and follows the route of the Empire builders. Does he leap into the flames of Caiwnporo at the outset? Not he. Cawnpore! Of course he was there, and that sort of thing. But there arc things even more interesting. For example, there wag a great fight with a hear on the Neilgherry Hills, in which this Empire builder had a narrow shave and was helped by a comrade and some native shikaris, to whom, of course, he gave all the credit, and after the fashion of Empire builders, some caustic criticism. We smile, but the smile ends with the reflection that these men never do consider their great Imperial exploits worth anything, and always delay by first noticing very much less important matters.

Well —having killed his hear and duly given the credit to somebody else—this Empire builder marches with “my regiment” 1000 miles across country—no railways in those days, nothing but the bard, high, grand trunk road—at fifteen miles a day, moving from the Neilgherries on Cawnpore, and three ■months’ marching.

AVe have a little history, just what we want, and no more, for the builder getting down to business is pruning his exuberance. He just narrates that extraordinary cryptic signalling that preceded the Mutiny. It was the year 1856—the year preceding the year in the May of which the great revolt broke out at Meerut—and the officers noted the quiet of the country they marched through, and were puzzled by the distribution gf “ “chupatties” to civilians and of lotus leaves (the emblem of war) to the soldiery. They were not frightened—your true Empire builder does not know what fear is they just dismissed the subject with the explanation that it was just another of the queer superstitions of the Indian people. The story, as the regiment—sßrd Native Infantry of the old Bengal Army—nears Cawnpore, gives a soldierly sketcli of the regiment. In scarlet, with yellow facings, of an average height of five-foot eight, smartsoldiers and active, swinging along; with never a “drunk” from year’s end to year’s end, keeping up its reputation as a high-class section of the Brahmin aristocracy with great pride, smartness, and self-respect, on seven rupees ji month, out of which three were sufficient to pay for food and an extra summer suit. It is just a passing glimpse of a soldier’s eye. It realises the sort of men they were who belonged to the army that mutinied. It makes one think of that old story of the cartridges for the new rifle. The story does not forget the cartridges, tells us the cartridges were too stinking for words, and the words, being penned in 1859, go no further. Since

then there has been a clearing-up; but that is another story. The soldier describes Cawnpore, gives its history as an outpost hold in tho old Kingdom of Oude—a touchy of the prudence with which the Empire builders went about their work, and with a few touches gives us the strength' of tho outpost—6ooo men of the Bengal Army—the comfort of the place, with its officers’ bungalows in the midst of beautiful gardens, its amusements, and so forth, showing how the builders adapted themselves to their surroundings, and also the simple, manly trust they put in all who had business with them.

.The consequence of the last was that the signs of coming revolt were not read aright. The news of the outbreak at Delhi and Meerut came like a death-knoll. There was a serapingup of provisions, as the native troops fell away; there was hasty digging o» a wretched earthwork, and the Europeans in the place were beleaguered by a great native army, under the command of the notorious Nana Sahib, of Bilthoor. How the desperate defence, dominated, by overwhelming artillery at close range, hold for weeks, throwing hack assaults, sallying into the enemy’s lines, enduring wounds, fever, privations, this book tells with simple eloquence. It is a plain tale of valiant heroism of man and wonderful endurance of woman, unparalleled in the records of the human race. When everything possible had been done, and the last biscuit had disappeared, the capitulation came, with safe conduct down the Ganges for Allahabad, and the enemy complimented all hands on their wonderful resistance.

Then came the final scene, for which we use the narrator’s facts. After the guarantee had been given by Nana Sahib, that the remains of forces in the entrenchment at Cawnpore, and the women and children with them, should be conveyed by boat to Allahabad, under his safe conduct, the entire members were packed into four flat-bottomed river boats, which were deserted by the boatmen who had previously .fired the thatched roofs, and immediately the Sepoys opened fire from the banks- The boats were stranded, and the soldiers tried to push them off, but most of them perished at that time. Only one boat floated, the river being very low. Mowbray Thomson, Delafos.se and Privates Sullivan and Murphy swam after this boat and were taken on board, and other stragglers were picked up till the boat was overcrowded. About noon they got out of range of the big guns, but at sunset a boat with fifty natives fully armed pursued them from Cawnpore, but it also grounded on a sandbank, and instead of waiting for their attack the English charged, killed most, and got their ammunition. But there was no food. A storm of rain came during the night, and set the boat afloat again, but it drifted into a backwater, and as it was soon attacked l.y yelling natives thirteen men were landed to attack them, while the boat was pushed off again. The attaching party cut their way through the Sepoys and lost sight of the boat. They fled down the banks, but meeting more natives they took refuge in a tiny temple, making a cheval-de-frise in the entrance with their bayonets. The mob came on so eagerly that gome of their were impaled on the bayonets, and behind this screen the defenders fought. Many of the attacking party were killed, and then they tried to smoke them out, but the wind drove most of the smoke away from the. doorway. Then gunpowder was brought to throw on the fire, and seeing their hopeless position the four survivors charged over the burning embers of the fire and took to the Ganges once more. The weight of the ammunition in their pouches kept them low in the water til] they were nearly out of range. They gwam for three hours, the current helping their progress. At last the natives gave up the chase a-nd they sat in the water up to their necks to rest. It turned out that they had reached friendly territory, and Dirigbijah Singh of Mooras Mhow resisted all the demands that were later made to him to give them up. For three days they had fought and fled without food and without rest, and the

misery of tlieir condition without arms or clothes, with shoulders flayed by the sun, and feet burned by the embers of the fire, made their endurance a wonderful thing. And as there seemed little hope of any reward, the virtue of tlveir host was also a fine thing to remember and to praise to-day. It is pleasant to recall that this faithful native was duly rewarded. He saved four survivors of that fighting party, and two of these presently died. The fate of the survivors of the main body is told from the evidence of witnesses. The men were all shot, and the women and children, after being . kept in hideous surroundings, were massacred as soon as Havelock’s relieving column came within 20 miles, by the Nana’s order. It is good to realise on this authority that those poor women suffered nothing worse than death, and it is a source of unavailing regret that the Nana and his miscreants were never captured. The story ended long ago. It has passed into the nebulous past with a name that never fails to awaken horror, or to- give inspiration with record of courage and devotion. It is recalled by the death of one of the two survivors, General Mowbray Thomson, whose title shows that his brave service brought him deserved advancement. The book show's us what manner of men were defending the Empire 60 years ago, and w e realise that the same sort of men are doing the same sort of work to-day in the "great war against the Huns'for the same sort of purpose.