The old field officer, or, The military and sporting adventures of Major Worthington

Front matter

Victorian 915.4 St62o 1853

Arrington

Collection of 19th Century Americana

Chapter I

Birth and Parentage — Intended for the Army — Obtains an Indian Cadetship — A Voyage to India, — Gambling and its Consequences — Calcutta in 1803 — A Storm in the Hooghly — Flattering Reception — Fort- William — Cadet Accommodation — The Friend in Need — " Watches were made to go" — Dr. Cheese — The good Samaritan — The Cadet Establishment at Barasett, 9-56

Chapter II

The Inauguration of a Young Soldier— The Sepoys of the Time — The European Officers— Powder and Pigtails — The Ganges and its Banks — A Voyage to Cawnpore — Agra — Incompetent Commanders — Monson's Retreat — Mahommedan Architecture— The Mogul Emperors, • 57-88

The Deccan— Dawk Travelling— Poonab, . . ■ . . . . 295-318

CHAPTER XII. The Sports of the Deccan — Tiger-Hunting— Boar-Hunting— The Nug

gur Hunt — "The Next Grey Boar we see" — Harry CI e — Fatality

Exemplified, 319-347

THE OLD FIELD OFFICER.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

: My late excellent friend, Major Worthington, (I am not permitted to give his real name,) was a very distinguished officer.

T employ the word " distinguished'' in its most extensive signification. It is a very ill-used epithet. Editors of newspapers, general officers who write despatches, and military biographers, press it into their service to extol the qualities of heroes whose highest claim to the title is based upon the circumstance of their having half a dozen bars or clasps attached to their Peninsular medal — as if a man was distinguished above his fellows by standing with his Company to be shot at upon the plains of Salamanca and Vittoria ; or rushing, against his will, up the breaches at Ciudad Kodrigo and Badajos !

The right of the departed Worthington to the honourable adjective rests upon far more extensive grounds than these. He not only saw service, before mud forts in India and the Persian Gulf, in the Netherlands, and in some amateur affairs in Spain ; but he was noted as one of the best sportsmen, the best orientalist, the best "fellow/' the best theoretical commanding officer, the best billiard player, and the best cook in the Karreebhat Kangers. No man was more universally beloved. He overflowed with the milk of human kindness ; kept open house even after his retirement from the service ; put his name to bills for old friends who were afterwards troubled with bad memories ; and became security to local banks for loans which he had a presentiment, invariably verified, the principals would never trouble themselves to liquidate.

The Major's service extended over a period of thirty-five years. He fought under Lake in Hindostan — was present, en amateur, at Waterloo — afterwards went on to the staff at Bombay — served for a time on the staff of the Marquis of Hastings against the Pindarrees — was at the second siege of Bhurtpore under Lord Combermere — and was nearly going into Affghanistan, but accepting a civil appointment in Calcutta, he lived there for several years, until a serious attack of the liver sent him home to die in Craven Street in the Strand.

I first became acquainted with Worthington at the table of Lord William Bentinck, the Governor- General of India. It was a long table — one of the public days. Some of the guests did not come. The Major and I sat vis-a-vis over one of the ends of the table, isolated, or rather segregated from the rest — eight empty chairs between us and the mass of the visitors. As became true Englishmen who had never been introduced, we severally observed a dignified silence, occasionally eyeing each other with due aristocratic severity. But a common necessity thawed the ice of British etiquette. " Wine ?" — " With pleasure." No one else within hail but a helpless aid-de-camp, we repeated the pledge, until, with hearts and stomachs warmed, .we plunged into conversation, and rapidly discovering the latent merits of each other, swore a firm and unalterable friendship ! The Major encouraged me to call — I did. Gradually acquiring Worthington's confidence, I became a frequent visitor at his house, and he often did me the honour to make one of a partie carrfe at my humble domicile — especially in the hot months, for mango fish is then in season ; and without mango fish, " a nice little dinner" is an impossibility in Calcutta. Mr. Walker, the magistrate, wrote a charming book on Aristology. Worthington studied the work with care, and applied Walker's principles (reference being had to local resources) to his own table. " What Walker did and Worthington approved, could not be wrong." I adopted the practice introduced by my iriend, and once a week we dined at our ease. Each of the four sat in his shirt-sleeves (white as snow) beneath a cooling punkah. Mango fish, (a species of smelt, reader, which comes in with the mango fruit, whence its name), mashed potatoes, and oiled butter ; — Remove ; a roast loin of kid, the fat spread on toast and peppered, cotelettes a la sauce piquante, curried chicken ; — Remove ; snipe and ortolans, sweetbread, tart, jellies, stilton, wines, iced champagne first, claret afterwards, Hodgson's pale ale, a discretion. Dessert — mangoes, Cabul grapes, oranges, almonds, and raisins. — The reader will forgive this gastronomical digression. It serves to establish the Major's taste, and offers a hint to the degenerate society of the city of palaces.

One morning, after a gallop round the racecourse, I dropped in to breakfast with the Major. He was in low spirits. I rallied him. "Ah ! been taking a constitutional, eh ?" said he, — " that's all over with me. I have given up enacting the rough rider over ploughed hates (fields) and the open midaun (esplanade.) I had a fierce dun-coloured Kattewar — sold him, and took up with an ambling Arab, and even he is now left to be quietly led around my compound.* A placid and luxurious drive in my baggy is all I dare venture upon." I saw that he had just been consulting his mirror, after a slight bilious attack, and was affected by the assurance that he was waxing old. There certainly was evident a growing corpulency of figure, with sundry ungracious and very unbecoming indications of an abdominal increase, which not even the repressing of vastly ingenious riding belts, or other fitting contrivances, could effectually conceal. His whiskers had long since disappeared, bit by bit, inch by inch, hair by hair,

* The enclosure in which a gentleman's house stands.

f> THE OLD FIELD OFFICER.

as it became necessary to thin them or to curtail their lower limits, as the gray hairs unaccountably and prematurely introduced their frosty sprinkling amid those formerly well-cherished adornments of his bronzed cheek. The cheek itself was sallowed over, and les premiers rides had for some time advanced from their slightly indicated symptoms of attack into downright wrinkles and deeply indented furrows. There was more too than a mere incipient baldness upon his brow. It was in vain that he coaxed up the thin and straggling sidelocks to " do duty" on the crown of his head in the hope of concealing the too evident bareness of that unhappy region. Age, inexorable age, was fast stealing upon him and setting its decaying stamp upon his person ; and this at a period when the mind itself, though sturdy, and leisurely pressing and adapting itself to the change, was not yet quite disposed to admit the reasonableness of so very fast a realization of what is denominated, going down the Mil.

" I am very glad you have come in, my boy/7 said Worthington ; " I am a cup too low, and these attacks are getting too frequent. I may be cut off suddenly at my time of life, and deposited in Padre Burro wes's godown* — so it is as well to be prepared." I put in a word to reassure him, much in the consolatory manner in which Mrs. Quickly tells Falstaff he should not think of Heaven. " Pooh, nonsense !" he rejoined. " It can't be far off. Well, listen. I've made you my literary executor. When all's over, claim the big China trunk with the padlock on it. You will find it full of manuscript — some of which has been published in our local periodicals — some which has never enjoyed that honour. Collate it, weed it, and when you find a publisher disposed to do honour to my memory, give c The Old Field Officers' reminiscences, adventures, lucubrations, and so forth, to an admiring world."

I accepted the trust ; but Worthington lived twelve years after he had confided it to me. Last year he shuffled off this "mortal coil," and his executors handed me his MSS.

Kespect for the memory of my departed friend has induced me to take some pains with the legacy. It was a confused heap — disjointed, often

* Godown — cellar. The popular name for the cemetery at Calcutta, where the Kev. Mr. Burrowes had read the funeral service some hundreds of times.

unfinished, not always legible. Sporting adventures and observations were curiously intermingled with military disquisitions — fact and fiction were blended together with the faculty of adhesiveness which the rernora displays in attaching itself to a ship. But resolute patience has disentangled the mass, and I now offer all the best portions of a somewhat heterogeneous collection, with the assurance, to the reader, that the facts detailed are authentic. His own sagacity will enable him to discover that Major Worthington was a man of no common mind. As an author he imparted a grace to many subjects, and appears to have possessed a strong sense of the just and beautiful, and a relish for the ludicrous and the strange.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.

Chapter I. Birth And Parentage — Intended For The Army — Obtains An

INDIAN CADETSHIP A VOYAGE TO INDIA — GAMBLING AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES — CALCUTTA IN 1803 A STORM IN THE HOOGHLY

FLATTERING RECEPTION FORT- WILLI AM CADET ACCOMMO- DATION THE FRIEND IN NEED " WATCHES WERE MADE TO GO"

DR. CHEESE THE GOOD SAMARITAN THE CADET ESTABLISH- MENT AT BARASETT.

THE MAJOR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

I am a younger son — but that is a matter of very little consequence ; it would have been all one if I had been the eldest, for the broad acres and spacious halls in which my ancestors delighted had passed into other hands long before I could have contemplated them with the eye of one who ever expected to become their proprietor. Malthus had not written his essay : and although Adam Smith explained the division of labour some years previous to my grandfather's decease, yet as he did not say much about the division of property, and as my grandfather looked upon it as a very meritorious act to beget soldiers to recruit His Majesty's forces by sea and land, it somehow or other never occurred to the good old gentleman's mind that this was no very infallible method of recruiting the family estate. Had he been a Scotchman, indeed, this little oversight might have been easily set to rights, for he might have given all his younger sons a Commission, or an outfit of three shirts and a pair of corduroys, and bid them trust to Providence for the rest. But the law of primogeniture never obtained in our family: it took its rise in times when there was little to be had at home, and a great deal to be got abroad ; and on this account the Scotch have adhered to it ever since the days of John Baliol. In our part of the country, gavel-kind was looked upon as the birthright of every family ; and in ours in particular, there runs a tradition, that on one occasion of dividing goods and chattels, an old bullock happening to remain, it was killed and dressed upon the spot, the whole party feasting upon it and carrying away the fragments on their pack-saddles — and all this, too, when a house, paddock, and orchard were allotted to two sisters instead of their share of six brood mares, which

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 11

the young men divided between themselves ; but then such mares ! More of this perhaps, however, by and by.

Well, I hope I have made it quite clear to the erudite reader that by the time my father found himself the richer by some half dozen of strapping boys, to say nothing of girls, he began to feel sorely puzzled what to do with them. Like Esau, he had sold his birthright to his brother, though for something better than a pot of porridge ; he had therefore no landed estate to depend upon. He had, however, so well managed his share of the patrimony, that after sojourning in foreign parts for some years he returned to England, whilst still young enough materially to improve his circumstances by marriage. But habits of indulgence, and, it may be, a little spice of family pride, on both sides, effectually prevented any other augmentation in my honoured parent' s stock of comfort, excepting those which a crowded table affords ; and everybody knows, that when a Christmas pudding is made for fifteen, it must either be a very large one, or those who partake of it must be content with a genteel rather than a substantial slice. Now, this being the case at our board, it is no marvel that my father, who had gone to London, and who was, what is vulgarly styled kicking his heels, one fine morning in the neighbourhood of Leadenhall Street, was a good deal gratified on finding himself accosted by a very old friend and school-fellow, who, he found, was a director in the India House. They had not met for thirty years, and almost the first inquiry which the warm-hearted gentleman made as to my father's situation and prospects led to the offer of a Cadetship for poor me, then a ragamuffin boy, whom neither all the pains which his mother bestowed upon him would ever keep what is called tidy, nor the liberal allowance of cane and birch, showered upon him by his master, awaken to any other contemplation than that of the best mode of scaling fences in search of the sour fruit that lay concealed behind them.

THE MAJOR'S CADETSHIP.

Never shall I forget the sensation created in our little circle when my father posted down with the welcome news, his ever cheerful countenance still more radiant with placid satisfaction than

THE MAJOR'S CADETSHIP. 13 even it was wont to be, and exclaiming as he alighted, " I've been offered a Cadetship for Fred, and may perhaps be able to do something for the others when they are old enough/' My two elder brothers were already considered as disposed of ; one was walking the hospitals in London, and the other studying at Oxford, with the view of succeeding to a living in the gift of one of my maternal uncles, which his consumptive son was expected shortly to resign. They were both absent, but I was within call, and a deputation of my sisters, and one urchin of a brother who was just old enough to comprehend that all this bustle portended something good to me, was sent to conduct me to the presence. My mother, as usual, scanned my appearance from head to foot, and told me to hold my head up as I entered the parlour ; but my father, who had been away some time, greeted me warmly, and good humouredly pinching my ears said, " You little rogue, you, how would you like to be a soldier ?" A soldier ! what a grand sound (as of a trumpet) the word appeared to have as my father articulated it ! He was none of those clippers of the King's English who pronounce it soclger ; but it came from his lips as if he thought it, (and he really did so,) synonymous with citizen, — a citizen too, who was pledged to do good fight whenever his services were called for. There was another reason for this, however, for besides being a very loyal subject, he had been brought up in strict subordination to his elder brethren, and as one of these held a high rank in the service, and shewed, moreover, by his deportment, the deep sense he entertained of that distinction, the " Sir" with which my father had never failed to address him, insensibly came to be considered as due even more to his military pretension than to family precedence.

With these feelings it may easily be imagined that my father was quite delighted, when in reply to his question, I exclaimed, " A soldier ! what ! like my uncle, papa ? Oh ! I should be so glad !" He cherished it as an omen of my future greatness, and told me that he was sure I should not only be like my uncle, but, added he, "as celebrated a man as your grandfather there," pointing to the portrait of an elderly gentleman in a strange nondescript sort of dress, compounded of red, yellow, and blue, and standing in the third position, his left hand resting on

THE MAJOR'S CADETSH1P. 15 the hilt of his sword, his right hand being held akimbo, whilst with a complacent pair of blue eyes, he stole a side-long glance from under a full powdered wig, as if in the act of courting the admiration of all beholders. This, in fact, was the modern great man of the family. He was the son of one of those worthies whom I have mentioned above, as having been so anxious to keep up our breed of horses ; and such had been his wealth in that article, that on the Pretender's expedition into England, he had raised a goodly troop of musketeers, and had made so formidable an appearance in the neighbourhood of Derby, that, in his opinion at least, the retreat of that harebrained adventurer was not entirely attributable to the discords of his Highland chieftains, as it was industriously reported at the time.

But, to return from this digression, the reader, who no doubt already takes considerable interest in my affairs, will be curious to know how it happened that I expressed so much satisfaction at the idea of becoming a soldier, when almost all I knew of that class was that they were generally dressed in red, and walked about the country accompanied by a drum and fife, giving ribbon cockades to everybody who was inclined to accept them, and sometimes to those who were not. The truth, then, is — for it must be told — that in the general arrangements as to the settlement of his children, my father had originally designed me to be a sort of assistant, or co-partner, as the case might be, of my brother the intended doctor. I was to have been apprenticed to a chemist and druggist, or an apothecary, so as to be ready to enter upon my vocation as soon as my brother began to get into practice ; and we were to play into each other's hands, something in the manner of partners at whist, he having all the honours and I the playing cards ; but the cruel taunts and sarcasms of my school-fellows in consequence of my pestle and mortar destination, added to the fearful epithet of half-starved, which they never failed to prefix to the word apothecary, made my existence at school perfectly miserable, and filled my mind with the most gloomy forebodings. It was, therefore, with feelings approaching to rapture, that I heard my father announce the contemplated change, for, besides that change of any kind is always pleasing to young people, I hailed it as a relief from persecution, — a sentiment which I have

THE VOYAGE TO INDIA. 17

lived long enough to know is one of the most delightful of which poor mortals are susceptible.

THE VOYAGE TO INDIA.

One sea voyage is so like another that I cannot venture to hope that mine, were I to relate it, would furnish anything of a very novel or entertaining description. I shall therefore pass it over as quickly as possible, and content myself merely with recording that, like most young men in similar circumstances, I went on board with a very magnanimous resolution to read and study during the whole passage, and like most, I forgot that resolution before I was recovered from the discomforts of the Bay of Biscay. Let it not be imagined, however, that I was domiciled for so long a period as four months with the odd variety of character which is usually to be met with around the cuddy table of a large Indiaman, without deriving from it something in the way both of instruction and improvement. An officer, belonging to a Highland regiment in India, introduced me to Burns and Allan Bamsay ; and at that early period of my reading I recollect that I

B greatly preferred the latter. Pastorals were in a manner quite new to me : Of Theocritus I knew nothing ; and as to those of Virgil, I had read them as lessons, and could repeat some few lines by rote, — but as compositions of the mind, as delineations of life and manners, I had no idea of them whatever. In .Allan Eamsay, on the contrary, everything in his " Gentle Shepherd" seemed to flow so naturally from the situation in which the parties are placed, that when read to me in the accent of my Scotch friend, who was wonderfully patient in explaining to me such words and phrases as I could not at first understand, I could almost imagine it to be the unsophisticated language of pastoral life, recorded by the poet without any other effort than that of writing it down from the mouths of the speakers. Even that occasional coarseness and vulgarity which our northern friends are sometimes apt to consider as wit and humour entirely escaped me ; and if I have since been made more sensible of this point as a distinguishing national characteristic, it is more from my having seen a good deal of Scotch society, both at home and abroad, than from any very extensive study of Scotch literature. But

GAMBLING AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 19

a truce to this criticism. I learnt other things besides reading poetry. The second officer of the ship observing me to be very solicitous about a certain bag of Spanish dollars which was stowed away in my sea-chest, very kindly undertook to teach me how to play at hazard. The consequence may easily be imagined ; the big chest was sent for much more frequently than heretofore ; but there was no difficulty in getting it up from the hold, as my friend, the second officer, always interested himself in my behalf. My dollars, however, decreased rapidly ; for though I was encouraged to hope that every successive visit I paid to the sacred hoard was only to take away just enough to enable me to win back what I had lost, yet it so happened that the event always fell out differently. My bag was already contracted to about half its original span, but such was my ardent turn of mind, that I thought not for a moment of distrusting my fortune, and in all probability I should have continued to send the dollars I still retained in search of those which my friend had eased me of, if I had not, very fortunately, overheard him exulting in anticipation at his having so easily made himself master of my whole store. This brought me to a stand immediately; and the embarrassing doubt occurred to me whether I was a dupe and he a scoundrel, or merely that he was a clever fellow, and I at least an inexperienced one. The point was difficult to decide, for there was a great deal to be said on both sides ; but the doubt saved my remaining dollars ; and the ill humour of the second officer, when he found that I steadily declined his invitations to take a lounge in his cabin, seemed to shew that he had counted with greater certainty upon his success than the turns of a game of chance ought to have authorized him to do. And yet, perhaps, I do him injustice ; he may possibly have derived his success entirely from a patient and long attention to the doctrine of chances. But still, turn the matter how I can, there does appear to me such a combination of meanness and dishonesty in sitting down to play with a man, ostensibly on equal terms, and then putting in practice a concocted store of carefully assorted experience in order literally to rob him of his money, that I have ever since considered a professional gambler as a thief, who, wanting courage to attack you on the highway, resorts to

ARRIVAL AT CALCUTTA. 21

the more secure but dastardly practice of picking your pocket.

CALCUTTA IN 1803,

To a man arriving from England, in the

midst of the rainy season, the first appearance

of few places in the world could impress the

mind with a more fearful mixture of surprise

and gloom than Calcutta at such a period. In

the hot season it is bad enough, to alarm the

new comer, but in the rainy it is wTorse. It is,

at first at least, quite terrific. In these respects —

I mean with regard to the frightful nature of two

out of our three Indian seasons — the city of palaces

reminds us of the commencement of Johnsons

Easselas, where he describes the feelings of the

Prince of Abyssinia in the Happy Valley. When

its gates are, as it were, thrown open at the

beginning of the cold season, all is mirth and

gaiety and happiness, every one brings himself to

imagine that such delight must be perpetual, and

only regrets his inability to remain and pass

his life in so agreeable a retirement. But no

sooner have our visitors departed, than he who yearns after the healthful and exhilarating exercise of body and mind, from which, during the remainder of the year, he is almost entirely debarred in this ungenial clime, begins to find the intermediate seasons tedious and gloomy ; — " he discovers within himself no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, and yet he does not feel himself delighted. He has some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires, distinct from sense, which must be satisfied before he can be happy/'

This first impression, which I have endeavoured to describe, is solely the effect of contrast. Arriving off Madras in the month of July, the weather, to us at least, was delightful, and our onward passage up the Bay of Bengal was particularly smooth and agreeable. A south-westerly breeze, whilst it wafted the ship along at a prodigious rate, kept the air at a refreshing temperature, and scarcely a cloud was to be seen till we had passed the Sand Heads, and penetrated into the bowels of the land, as far as Diamond Harbour. But no sooner was I fairly landed upon the bosom of the river, than everything appeared to change. A sultry, moist, and steamy atmosphere led me

A STORM IN THE HOOGLY. 23

almost to imagine that I was voyaging on the Phlegethon, instead of the Hoogly — and the rain descended in such deluges, accompanied by such vivid flashes of lightning, and awfully loud peals of thunder, as to add to the illusion, and make me believe that if not already in the infernal regions, I was at least on the high road towards them. A storm of this description assailed the boat in which I proceeded from the ship to Calcutta, just as we arrived at the wharf, and it was some hours before we could attempt to land. I had prepared myself to leap on shore, but the weather loured so fearfully that I was constrained to re-seat myself ; and the boatmen, after securing a hold upon the bank, which operation seemed to be one of no small difficulty, came running into my little cabin with such an appearance of dismay, that I thought the crashing of the elements was as strange and unexpected to them as it was to myself. Their almost naked condition, together with their awe-stricken countenances, and shivering, timid deportment, affected me with the liveliest sensations of pity, and I made room for them in my confined apartment with unfeigned commiseration for the combination of wretchedness and ignorance which their whole behaviour so clearly indicated. I regretted nothing more than my inability to speak their language, for I might otherwise have assuaged their fears, by explaining the phenomena of thunder and lightning, and, besides exhorting them to rely upon Providence for their safety, taught them the most prudent method of conducting themselves so as to lessen the chance of their coming in contact with the electric fluid. But this admirable opportunity of philosophizing was quite lost to me, and I had good reason to regret the circumstance ; for in my anxiety to afford the crew of my little boat all possible shelter from the inclemency of the weather, I forgot that my purse was lying upon my sea-chest, which had served me for a table, — and when the rain had ceased, and I prepared to land, it was nowhere to be found ! Doubtless, if I could have spoken their language, and shewn myself willing to instruct those poor boatmen, they, in return, would have requited me by taking care of my property; but as it was, they could not read my thoughts, and believing, no doubt, that I cared nothing about them, they