An Old Cantonment.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5, 4 August 1906, Page 40

An Old Cantonment.

By

G. F. MacMunn.

In many a native state ten miles from the mail-route track India stands to-day as it stood a thousand years ago. There the levelling Saxon spirit has not penetrated, and there wealth and poverty, tyranny and largesse, intrigue and sudden death, go side by side as in the days of Sevaji, of Akhbar, and of Aurungzebe. probably to the far greater satisfaction of the bulk of the people than ever they would realise from the blessings of British rule and upright administratration. In the village they marry as they

married before Timur Lang came down the Gomal; in the palace au etiquette is that of the early kings, save, and save only, that the descendant of blueblooded ancestors, the grandsons of soldier adventurers who hacked their way to power, now eat their hearts out, sinee war and rapine is forbidden them, and other occupation they have none, and the British supremacy has found none for them. It is ill to take their occupation from a race for whom might has been right since history began.

So to the native states we must go for a glimpse of the India that Marco 8010 saw, and to the old cantonments for a vision of the days of Clive. It was in just such an old cantonmeat, not far from native state territory, that fate and army orders took me last year 1 o command a battery with an up-to-date equipment in stir, roundings redolent of the palmy days of the company. 'Die barracks low and tiled, with the cupolaed hospital, and the domed magazine that dated from the days of the Marquis Hastings and earlier, had been occupied by q company of European artillery, company’s or Queen’s, since before the Mutiny. Old gnarled trees lined the mall, which led past old yellow stuccoed guardrooms, deserted, and the only remnants of the old lines of the regiments that rose against the masters in the days of the Great Terror. Only remnants save the line of circular bells-of-arms behind them, built to a now forgotten pattern, to which the

•epuy had surged one June evening close en a century ago. In line with, the bell-of-arms stood •Mie old main-guard, whence the brigadier, returning from his evening ride with hre daughter that same day in June, had met with volleys instead of the usual salute, and had galloped as fast as his aged nerves would let him to turn out the European artillery and send the ladies to the fort. The same guardroom where Rang Khan, Ressal-dar-Major of the cavalry regiment, had established his headquarters that very next morning, assuming the title of general in the army of the Padishah of Delhi, and had opened with round shot from the station time-gun, that had once battered at the bastions of Bhurtpnr. on the brigadier and his seventy artillerymen in the old Bundela fort That overhung and overawed the seething city beyond the cantonment. The old fort had been ours since the day when Sir John Malcolm and Sir Thomas Hislop had swept up from the Deccan and hunted the last of the Peishwas to earth in Asseerghar, and broken the power of reviving Pindari barons and Mahratta free captains for all time. Secure in the old bastions and spiked gates, the small garrison of artillerymen and homeless officers, with their charges of helpless woman and children, had "kept their end up” for nine long months, till someone found time to relieve them, though the old brigadier from his quarter in the latticed balcony overhanging the lake had wept at his impotence to inflict punishment, and perhaps at his age, that had hindered him from circumventing the mutineers, as younger men had done at other garrisons.

The old fort still remains as the brigadier left it, save that a police guard now turns out, where for forty years after the Mutiny a British guard had mounted at the gate under the big tower —the tower, forbye, from which the brigadier had the satisfaction of seeing the said Ressaldar-Major Rang Khan, late of the —th Eight Cavalry, and some time general of Gorchevas (irregular horse) in the forces of the Emperor of Delhi, hung as high as Haman for all the world to see. And to this day that Centra] Indian city talks of the prestige of those that held the fort, and how Rang Khan hung for his pains, so that there is more courtesy and reverence in the Bundela peasant’s greeting to the ruling race than there is to be met with in this twentieth century in the length and breadth of Hindustan. Bis dat qui cito dat, and he hangs twice who hangs promptly. In the evening twilight and the early morn the scene of those days will print out for those who care to read it, by the side of the station timegun, that went back to its old place on the artillery parade ground from its rebel earthwork by the main guard, and stands to this day, with the inscription, “Cossipore, 1803,” and the company’s arms on its breach. In the old cemetery, on the fringe of the cantonment, lies half the history of India, tall tombs, in a long-past fashion, chronicling in two or three languages the services of the occupant, plaster and marble inset dropping from the crumbling brick. Here lies a general who, after the good old fashion of the Honourable Company’ that so paralysed their army in its later wars, died in harness, at the age of eighty, in command of the “Nerbudda Division of the Army of Bengal”; by his side a commissioner of a province, light of Haileybury and a “Howe boy”; beyond a major who died of wounds received at the battle of Mehidpoor. To bear testimony to the lawless habits when English ladies graced not the outskirts of an empire, stands one with the following inscription: In loving memory of CAPTAIN of the Regt, of Native Infantry. This Tomb is Erected by his Native Woman CARMTNA. Again, on another and less pretentious erection—

In loving memory of SERGT. W. BROWN Of the Madras Artillery Died May 12th, 1826, ‘ And GUNNER J. MALONEY. Of the same Companv Died Sept. 27th, 1828.' This Tomb was erected by- their Sorrowing Widow. This last relic of the days when the soldier’s widow must starve did she not straightway marry a survivor—a state of things, by the way, that a grateful country has altered but little. In the cantonment the solid old bungalows, with their high cool rooms, their thick walls, high porticos, and low tiled or thatched roofs, tell of the day when the hills avere out of reach of the many, and the hot weather had to be faced as best it could. Sitting one day in my own coo! house, after return from stables and orderly room by the same mall as the brigadier when he was fired on, and past the same main guard, long deserted, I heard a voice in the verandah, and my orderly brought me in a soiled card with ‘‘Mr Patrick Doyle” written on it in a straggly’ hand. It was evidently the trail of the out-at-elbows white or Eurasian that occasionally tramps the country round—tramps who usually have a marvellous tale, increasing in wonder inversely with the age and experience, of the person they visit. “One of General Wheeler’s force, sir,” was a favourite statement with Eurasians of a military appearance, but that has died out now. However, a white Visitor is a white visitor in the East till you know his business; so I ealled out, “Will you came in, Mr Doyle?” and straightway a voice replied, “Oi will so, sorr!” and in stepped, not the shambling loafer that the dirty card had indicated, nor the bibulous tramp, but a real old soldier of a fast disappearing type, a spare, erect old man, with an iron-grey’ moustache and a .weatherbeaten face that made him any age from 50 upward, but the wrinkles on his face showed more.

On the breast of his coat were many medal ribbons—Persia and the Mutiny, the Afghan ribbon, and that of the rainbow star. Mr Doyle saluted, “Oi beg your pardon, sorr, but Oi’m an old soldier (he would be), and on my way to Doolali (Deolali. the trooping depot). Mr Kitchener sent me down, sorr, him that’s brother to the commander-in chief. Oi’m on me way- to the old soldiers’ house at Doblin —mayhap you know it, sorr? Mr Roberts now will get me a bunk there, for he’s the ould soldiers’ friend.” Here the old man wiped the perspiration from his brow, and I called for a drink for him, while I puzzled my’ mind for the memories the voice aroused. I turned to Chelsea Hospital, where the old old soldier of the old school suns himself on the southerly benches, and many of the old English soldiery are Irish, very Irish. “Here’s your health, sorr!” went on the musical drawl. “Oi’m not the man Oi was, sorr; Oi was ill at Umbala last Christmas, bad luck to it! The judges lady’ came to see me, sorr; Oi disremimber her name, but she talked wid me and gave me twinty rupees. ‘For you've been in India longer than me. ould man,’ says she, ‘and that’s a mighty long toime, God knows,’ said she, for she’d children at home.” And then I knew the voice. It was Mulvaney’ himself, as Kipling had drawn him, the veritable soft accent and the quaint charm of expression; Mulvaney himself, with all the charm of Mr Kipling’s rendering; possibly the original, but an elder soldier than Mulvaney, for he liad only been to the Kabul ways, while this old man had been in Persia with Outram. The accent I know well; it was that of the old Dish, soldier that you may hear any day in that old Soldiers’ House at Chelsea, in the piazza by the chapel, or in the Long Hall where the Duke of Wellington lay in state. It is the accent of a race of men that are fast dying out. Hark to old “Mie,” for other name he had not, who had been in the old Eighty-seventh, and who says “Me eyes is that bad to-day. Misther Garge, that 1 ean't play Spanish Pole at all, ami there's big Joe there laughing at me for it. Ye'll mind big Joe, Misther (large? —him that stuck the foiye Rooshans at

Inkerman: your father will remimber that, sorr,” and there would be the same soft Irish accent, and the voice and lan guage of Mulvaney . Mr Doyle began again: "Whin Oi last lay’ here, sorr, it was where your polo ground now is. Oi was with Gineral Whitlock’s column, in the Eagle Throop o’ the Bombay Horse Artillery. You’ll mind the Eage Throop, sorr? —- Jim Turnbull commanded it. sorr. and he was nearly killed at Janzi. Oi volunteered to the Loight Dragoons after that, sorr. Oi was a young man then, and now Oi’m an ould one on me way to Kilmainhaiu House. ’Twas a foine throop. sorr. the Eagle Throop, when the Mutiny began; we wore a shiny black helment loike a tireman's wid toiger skin round. “When they thransferred ns to the Royal Artillery, sorr, without niver so much as axing ‘by your lave,’ they gave use hroad red stroipes to our trow sies, but the captain he cut them off and made two. the same as we had before. When Gineral Mansfield eame to see the throop at Kirkee that had done the same, he ordereu the captain to pay’ for new ones; but when our captain hearrd that the gineral was coming—we were laying at Mhow thin. sorr. after tho Mutiny was suppreshed he filled up the einter of the two stroipes wid red braid, and the gineral was that shortsighted he niver saw it at all. He was a foine man. sorr, was Jim 'Turnbull and Oi was his trough ridhr, though you would not think it now. sorr. We inarched in ('enthrall India in June, wid the high red collars on our dhress jackets; but the captain he cut Hum oft' at the neck, and nearly had to pay for that tu, sorr. But the gineral got snnsthroke and threw away’ his regulation stock, and said to the captain, ‘You may go to hell. Captain Turnbull, and take your collars wid you,’ an’ we did, sorr, whin we bate the Raimi at Janzi, six guns in loine and captain hell-for-leather in front till he was wounded, but Oi disremimber where. “When the Boer ware was on, sorr, and the Quane ealled for ould soldiers to come to the colours, Oi wint to the officer commanding the Garrison Battery at Allahabad. ‘What do you want, ould man?’ sezs he. ‘Oi’ve come to rejoin the colours, sorr,’ sez Oi, ‘seeing that the Quane wants her ould soldiers,’ and the major, sorr, he burst out laughing, and said, ‘Take him away-, sergsant-major,’ sez he, ‘and give him a hundred rupees from the canteen fund.’ sez he, ‘for he’s seen more foighting than iver you or Oi’ll see, sergeant-major.’ He remoinded me o’ Jim Turnbull, sorr, did the major o’ that battery. “Was Oi in Persia, sorr? Oi was so; but Oi was a recruitie then, and dhrove in the gun, sorr, for one av tlie black droivers was sick, and the captain said, ‘He eared not for black or white, but that recruit Doyle should droive, and be damned to him;’ and Oi dhrove Number Tu gun whin the right division and the Third Bombay Cavalry charged the Shah’s squares, and the wheeldroiver, sorr, was a shouting Ram Sammy’ for all he was- worth. But now Oi’m on me way’ to Kihmainham, sorr, wid niver a penny to me name, me that was Jim Turnbull's rough rider, and God rest his sowl! ’Tisn’t money’ Oi want, sorr, at all, at all, but a suit of clothes, for Oi lost me duds and a ticket for Doolali, where Mr Kitchener promised Oi’d have orders for a passage. Oi wint home at the Jubilee; sorr —Mr Roberts sent me: but Oi’d money thin, and niver thought Oi’d know the want of it. “Were you in Africa, sorr? Were you, now? and Air Roberts tu, he did well, sorr —did lie not? and why’wouldn’t he, sorr? Till me that, now, for he was wan o’ John Company’s artillerymen, like Jim Turnbull and meself, sorr. Oi moind Air Roberts tu, whin he was a liftinaiit, or maybe ’twas a captain—Oi disremimber: they said he’d been the divil and all at Dilbi, sorr.” And here my old soldier gave me an opening, so 1 said, “Will you stay tonight in my barracks, Mr Doyle?—the sergeant-major will make vou comfortable.” “That will Oi, sorr, and the bhoys will be good to the ould man,” said he. So I wrote a note to my good ser-geant-major telling him to look after the old gunner and not let him get drunk and be laughed at in tne canteen. The hard old man then trudged off to the lines, refusing a lift in a trap or even a glass of whisky. It was with some anxiety that I went down to the lines next morning, fearing to hear that Air Doyle might have

exceeded ill the wine of the country. However, 1 was soon reassured, for my, sergeant major told me that they had made him very comfortable- that he had sat in the canteen till it closed, and then had I*olllo over to the sergeant's mesa, where he had stayer] till midnight. “But ’ee never drunk nothing at all. sir, and the men took to ’im wonderful; lie slept in No. 2 barrack, sir.” And I could see that Sergeant-Major Jones approved of my action; it is always mure satisfactory when one's battery sergeant major approves one's actions. I hail hardly got to the orderly room when Mr. Doyle himself appeared, shaven and in my blue suit, and the salute he gave me was in tlie best early \ ietorian style. “Goil bless you, sorr,” said he, “tor taking care of an ould man. It’s not often that Oi come across a battery, sorr, that remoinds me of the Eagle Throop, but, b* the powers, sorr. yours does. Oi moind whin we lay here, sorr, along o’ Gineral Whitlock, that we had two teams o’ roan horses, loike as it might lie to yours, sorr. Whin we arrived by the Damoh road there, we found ivery mother’s son in the ould fort, and the rimnant o’ a company o’ Curry hhat Artillery -—that's what we called the Madras boys, sorr —that eame on with us to Janzi, and manned the guns we tuk from the Ranni.” The old man was fairly off his havers —some dull, some interesting, and many amusing: and my men, as the sergeantmajor said, had taken a. fancy to him. He stayed with us three days, came out io a drill order, ami was pleased to say Use drivers drove as well as Jim Turnhull’s. They made a subscription for him and handed the most of it to me to send to the commandant at Deolali, to be given him on board ship, since they knew their own ways. We paid for his ticket, gave him some pocket money, ami half the battery went to see him oft’. The man’s charm of manner, liis quaint anecdotes, his soldierly appearance, and his abstemious habits had won every heart. When he came to say good-bye to inc I was in the gun-park, and the guns ate traeted him. “Oi misdoubt, sorr, but t’iese’ll be better nor those we had in the Eagle Throop. God bless you. sorr, fop your kindness to an ould artilleryman, sorr; and praise the Virgin that Oi sthruek this cantonment in me wanderings on me way to Kilmainhaiu. T’is yourself, sorr, that remoinds me of Jim Turnbull entoirely: and Oi was his rough rider —remimber that, sorr.” And off he went to his train. The command; ant wrote to us later that he had turned up there, but that friends had offered him a home or some employment up country, and that he had proceeded to join them, resigning the passage which, as he told us, “Air. Kitchener” had arranged for him. I daresay he will turn up again in the East with more talcs of the "Eagle Throop,” and of his subsequent life in the Light Dragoons, or as a railway, driver, if not, his counterpart is to bq seen any day at Kilmainham, or the old house at Chelsea that is the best claim of Charles 11. to the memory of posterity. There the Mutiny and the Crimea veterans still drowse on the southerly benches, where veterans of Waterloo and the Peninsula and of the earlier wars have drowsed out their years before them. The old cantonment likewise wilj drowse on, left high and dry by the tide that tends to the frontier; and ere long Kitchener helmet, khaki jumper, and quick-firing gun will leave John Company's linese to the decaying bells-ol-arms, the mouldering stucco tombs, the jackal, and the serpent. Sic transit gloria mundi. — From “ Black wood’p Magazine.” i