by Ellen Wood
“Will you take a note for me on board the ‘ Hastings?’”
“Two if you like; notes not being weighty to carry. If they was, I don’t know as I could. I might be afraid of melting, perhaps.”
“When are you going down?”
“Straight on ahead now.”
“Will you reach me my clothes, and get out my pencil? There’s a piece of paper, too, somewhere.”
“Sharp’s the word, and quick’s the motion,” cried the good-natured sailor, as he sought and found the articles required.
William strove to use them; but the paper clattered in his emaciated hands, and the pencil fell. “I am too weak,” he sighed. “You must deliver a message instead.”
“With all my heart. What is it?”
“Ask to see Mr Vane. He is one of the lieutenants. Tell him that — that I — tell him that a sailor is lying here, and craves to see him.”
“Who shall I say? Any name?”
“Say—” But William would not utter his name, that it should be spoken out aloud on board the “Hastings.” Harry Vane might have talked of his old companion to his brother officers. “I think I can write just a word,” he said.
By the help of the sailor, who propped him up, he contrived to scrawl the words, “William Allair, Whittermead.”
“Give him that,” he said, folding the paper. “And tell him to come in mercy, for that I am dying.”
“Avast there!” said the man, with a hearty cheer, which was cut short in the bud by remembering where he was. “Never you give way about ‘ dying,’ or take up any such notions! It’s this gloomy place you be in — giving you sick folks the mollygrubs, and all sorts of blues. You’ll be well enough in a week or two, comrade. Cheer up! I say.”
The man departed, and went on board the “Lord Hastings,” as he had promised. Lieutenant Vane was not there; he had gone ashore. So he could but leave the paper and a message. “That the young man what was writ in there was a-dying up at the hospital. Leastways, he thought he was a-dying, and wanted Mr Vane to go up quick and see him.”
When Harry Vane reached the hospital, it was past the hour for visitors; but he procured admittance. William was lying then in an uneasy slumber: but, as if conscious of who was bending over him, scarcely had Harry Vane scanned his countenance, when he started up awake.
With his burning, trembling, eager hands, he seized those that were extended to him. The emotion was too much; and, reduced and wretched as he was, he burst into tears, and sobbed like a child.
Harry Vane leaned over him. He pressed his wasted hands in his, he spoke soothing words of calmness, he held a cup of water to his lips. A little while, and William lay quiet, but exhausted. It was the Harry Vane of other days; affectionate, cordial, impetuous; ready to make as much of William — the friendless, beaten-down, poor apprentice sailor — as though he had been a royal middy.
A few whispered explanations passed between them: it was not the time or place for lengthened ones. William’s state was too weak to admit of it, and Harry Vane had to hurry back to the brig. She was on the point of sailing; and he was left in command of her down to Diamond Harbour. He had not been to England, he said, since he first left it; but the “Hercules” was ordered home now.
“Have you ever heard anything of me? Did any of them speak of me in their letters?”
“Often. Caroline especially. ‘ I heard all about your going off, and have lived in hopes of dropping across you at some lucky port or other.”
“I was not like you,” said William, with a bitterness he could not disguise. “You went with the approbation of your parents, and things have prospered with you: I left them in rebellious defiance, and — am the wreck you see. You used to say to Gruff Jones that an expedition entered into in disobedience would never prosper.”
“I often said it. I hold the same opinion still. Talking of Gruff, did he not soon have enough of it?”
“I don’t know. I have heard nothing since I left. Did he?”
Harry Vane laughed. “I thought he -would. He was not cut out for the sea. He is a gentleman now, lording it as the squire’s heir: and rides to cover.” William sighed. “You get news, I suppose, of your brother Fred? How is he?”
Harry Vane’s face became somewhat clouded. “I don’t hear much of any of them, and I have not heard recently,” he answered. “The ‘ Hercules’ has gone from place to place, and we miss our letters. Fred has been in trouble, I fear.”
“What sort of trouble?” questioned William.
“He has been spending too much. A fellow with nothing to do with his time, hands and brain alike idle, must get into some mischief: it’s almost a thing of necessity. Fred should have embraced some profession, if only to keep him straight. But I have not heard for some time, and I hope things are right again.”
“What parts of the world have you been in?” resumed William.
“In several. But if—” he looked at William’s wasted countenance, and somewhat altered the words he was about to speak—” when we meet again, I’ll give you details. There’s no time now.”
“Are you still fond of the sea?” and the question was uttered more like an exclamation.
“I am. Not but that it’s a sharp sort of life. I think I could scarcely live on land. You know,” he added, with a smile, “they used to tell me I was not fit to live there.”
“They were right. You were constituted for a sea life: I, not — as they used to tell me. I would not listen to them; I thought I knew better than they did; I was bent on following out my own obstinate self-will. Heaven knows I have paid for it.”
“But there has been a wide contrast in the service we have seen,” rejoined Harry. “You have experienced the darkest shades of a sea life; I, the bright ones. Passionately fond as I was of the sea, I should not have relished a Cape Horn voyage after hides, in a Yankee trader.”
“You are about returning to England now?”
“Immediately; and I hope we shall not be long making it. The ‘ Hercules’ is a fast sailer.”
“And to Whittermead?”
“You may be sure I shall go there the instant I can get leave, after we touch land. Satisfied as I am with the sea, it has not taken from me the longing to see home and its ties. Do you remember my careering through the place, with the blue ribbons round my hat, when my appointment arrived? What a young donkey I was!”
“Will you bear a message for me to my home?”
“Why ask the question, William? Would I could bear you with it! I wish you could be removed on board!” he continued, impulsively. “But your malady — fever — bars it.”
“I sent for you to-day, that you might take a word of love home for me. The thought that I was left here to die, neglected and friendless as any poor stray dog might be, was helping to kill me. When I knew you were at Calcutta, and could convey news of me home, it eased death of half its load. Otherwise I would not have troubled or pained you by making myself known.”
“William!”
“A few days ago, before this illness came on, I was on board the ‘ Lord Hastings,’ and recognised you. I was nearly as close to you as I am now.”
Harry Vane stared. “Why in the world did you not let me know it?”
“In the impulse of the moment, in the joy at meeting you, I was starting forward with extended hands; but I recalled my senses before committing myself. I had forgotten how changed were our positions since we last met; how I had dropped in the scale of society.”
“And I should have flown with open arms to meet you, there or elsewhere,” cried Harry Vane, in excitement. “Change of position, indeed! Is that a reason for shunning an old friend? Never, in my creed. It never was, and it never will be. You ought not to have gone off the brig, leaving me in ignorance that you had been there.”
“I had the wretchedest old pea-jacket on, and patched trousers!”
“Old pea-jacket! patched trousers!” reiterated Harry Vane. “What on earth has that to do with it? If a fellow I
cared for came to me without either, painted down blue instead, he’d be all the more welcome. You would have been my dear past friend, William, introduced to my brother officers as such, just as heartily as if you had been clothed in purple and gold. We shan’t look askance at old pea-jackets in heaven. The world never could beat any of that sort of pride into me when I was a youngster, you know, and I have not learnt it yet. I say, old fellow, bear up; you are growing exhausted.”
“See them at home — my father, my sisters,” whispered William, who felt his strength sinking. “Tell them how severe has been my punishment; that I had not been a day at sea before I began to repent, to suspect how full of hardship and misery was the life I had embraced. Tell them that from that moment to this I have never had an hours enjoyment, an hour’s rest from toil. I have had no peace of mind. My time has been passed in the vain yearning for home, in futile endeavours to repress the stings of repentance.”
“I don’t think you ought to excite yourself like this.”
“And see my mother, Harry. My dear, dear mother! See her alone. Tell her, that in all the trouble I have borne since I left her, and which has gone well-nigh to madden me, I have never ceased to think of her. Tell her that the remembrance of my ungrateful conduct, in leaving her as I did, has been to me as the very core of my anguish. Tell her that until I left home I did not know how dear she was to me; and that the misery I have endured, the illness that is upon me, the death which may overtake me, I feel that I have no right to murmur at, for they are but the result of my conduct to her — a child’s ingratitude working out its retribution.”
“Now, I won’t stop to listen to this despondency,” cried Harry Vane. “I’ll deliver your messages, but I shall just say the state you were in. When a fellow’s sick, it’s all gloom, gloom, gloom! You will get home yet, and be the happiest of the happy there, from the very contrast those days will present to these.”
“Oh that it were so! that it could be so! Do you know,” William continued, while the flush of fever and excitement lighted up his cheek, “there were times when I dreamt that it would? And it is this hope — if you can call any feeling so faint and vague a hope — which has sustained me, and helped me to battle with my untoward fate.”
“And let it enable you still to battle with it!” rejoined Harry Vane, fervently.
“Tell my mother, that if I do live to reach home, it will have been the remembrance of her that has borne me on my way; otherwise, I must have sunk. And tell her that if I should not live to see her, and hear her whisper my forgiveness, her name and a prayer for her happiness will be one of the last upon my lips in dying.”
“I will tell her all. But bear manfully up, William, and you will one day tell her yourself. What fun we’ll have, you and I, when we get once more together at Whittermead! Won’t it be a joyous time! Won’t we set the bells to ring! Cheer up, old boy!”
Lieutenant Vane departed, and sailed down the river the next morning in command of his brig. He was but the third lieutenant; the second, who had come up in charge of her, had fallen ill; hence it devolved upon him.
And William was left in the hospital.
CHAPTER XVII.
HOT WORK.
WILLIAM ALLAIR slowly recovered. In the hospital, a few beds removed from his own, a sick soldier had been lying. This man, who grew convalescent before William, used to come to William’s bed, sit on it, and talk to him. His name was Alfred Langly, an Englishman, of liberal education. An intimacy ensued between them. Both were strangers in the strange land, both were sick in the strange hospital, both had been reared to occupy a better position in life. For the first time since he left Whittermead, William confided who he was to this young man, the trials he had undergone, and his earnest desire to reach home, though without knowing now how he should get there. To go as a working sailor could not be thought of in his present reduced state. No captain would ship him.
“Join the Queen’s troops in India first,” cried Alfred Langly. We are on the eve of some decisive battles with the Sikhs, there’s no doubt of it, and loads of prize money will be obtained. You might try it just for a campaign, line your purse, and then get sent home as an invalided soldier.”
Now William was weak and ill in mind and body, or he never would have listened to so unwise a proposal. Langly was always urging it; not that he had any sinister motive; he believed he was advising for the best. A person, by dint of long-continued argument, all on one side, may be persuaded into believing that “black’s white and in an evil hour William consented to the scheme, to try it “just for a campaign.” The vision presented to his eyes — that of going home with money in his pockets and good broad-cloth on his back — was undoubtedly fascinating. The having to arrive at Whittermead in the “wretchedest old pea-jacket and patched trousers,” had long been a sore upon his mind.
A detachment of one of her Majesty’s regiments, the one to which Langly belonged, had been sent down to Calcutta; and William Allair enlisted in it. It was departing to join the main army, then on the eve of encountering the Sikhs at Moultan.
You have heard of the Sikhs and our furious battles with them. They were a peaceable race of men once — not unlike the people we in England call Quakers; but certain religious persecutions from the Mohameds and Hindoos drove them to rebellion. They inhabited the Punjaub, or land of five waters, on the western side of the Sutlej, its capital Lahore. Their king, Runjeet Singh, had the good sense to conciliate the favour of the British Government in India; although he cast his longing eyes to the kingdom of the Sikhs on the eastern side of the Sutlej, thinking how much he should like to unite it with his own. But it was not to be attempted, for those Sikhs were under the special protection of the British.
There was peace so long as Runjeet Singh lived, but not for long after that. In December 1845, the Sikhs, whose monarch was then a puny boy, named Dhuleep Singh, crossed the Sutlej, and formed themselves, into camp at Ferozeshah, intending to attack our troops. A desperate battle was fought at Moodkee, the British forces being commanded by Sir Hugh Gough, seconded by Sir John Littler. We won, of course; but it was a well-contested battle. The next engagement was fought at Ferozepore. The Governor-General of India, Sir Henry Hardinge, joined himself to the army; and, laying aside his honours as Governor-General, fought under Sir Hugh Gough. The Sikhs were thoroughly defeated, and it was supposed they had had enough of fighting — as Gruff Jones had of the sea.
In 1848 they again ventured to give us some trouble. And in December began the siege of the city of Moultan, their stronghold. They made a desperate resistance, and the fight lasted many days. It was at last taken by storm. There ensued some disastrous skirmishes at a place called Ramnugger, and then came the dreadful battle of Chillianwallah. You must all have heard of that William Allair arrived at Moultan during its siege. He had discovered that he was quite as unfitted for a soldier’s life as he had been for a sailor’s. Forced marches in the dreadful heat, no water, no refreshment until the end of the march — when, perhaps, they would have to wait hours before their rations, tents, and baggage could arrive — told upon him. An enormous number of camels was required to carry the baggage of the army: it was in the proportion of one camel to two men. Each animal was fastened by the nostril to the tail of the one preceding him; and this unwieldy train, with its native attendants, actually extended over more than fifteen miles, its progress being about a mile and a half an hour. You need not wonder that they got in a day too late for the fair, or that the exhausted men grew ill, waiting for the sustenance they so much needed. The poor patient animals were often shamefully overladen — it was the last feather, thought William, that broke the camel’s back. When one of them toppled over, his load was distributed among the rest; and they, being already laden to the very extreme ounce that they could bear, would often, with the additional weight, fall also, thereby producing no end of confusion.
On the morning of the 12th January 1849, under the command of General Lord Gough, formerly Sir Hugh, the w
hole army moved from Lusooree to Dinghee. On the 13 th, at half-past seven, they again marched on, the field hospital stores being in the rear of the heavy guns. The field hospital stores! In the course of a few hours, hundreds of those men, marching in health and strength, required their aid, whilst others were beyond that, and all other aid, for ever. Towards mid-day they came upon the encampment of the Sikhs. It was on the left bank of the Jhelum, on rising ground behind the jungle, the name of the place Chillianwallah, and said to be the very spot on which occurred the battle between Porus and Alexander the Great, two thousand years before.
Unwisely, our men, fatigued with their march, were hurried into battle: far better that they had been allowed to wait until the following day. It might have been so; for we were the attackers — not the Sikhs. Weary, travel-worn, hungry, thirsty, unrefreshed, the British troops were forced into action, without plan, without order.
And an awful butchery of human life it was, that same battle of Chillianwallah! It lasted from two o’clock until dark, a hand-to-hand fight, sword meeting sword, bayonet meeting bayonet. About four o’clock the British were hemmed in on all sides, and their artillery was firing to the front, to the rear, and to the flanks. Guns were taken and re-taken, colours captured and lost. Roar, and din, and confusion reigned around. The roll of the musketry deepened; the thunder of the cannonading grew louder; the bullets of the enemy whizzed about like hailstones; while, mingling with the shouts and noise of the combatants, came the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying. Ever and anon, above the roar of the tempest, the hoarse voice of some commander would be heard —
“Men of the —— Europeans, prepare to charge.
Charge!”
“How do you like it, Allair?” exclaimed Langly, who fought by William’s side. “It’s the hottest work I ever was in. Those Sikhs fight like demons.”