The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan

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As I had expected, the remaining ruffians fled on seeing their
leader's fate. I took home his helmet by way of curiosity, and we
made a single prisoner, who was instantly carried before old
Jowler.

We asked the prisoner the name of the leader of the troop: he said
it was Chowder Loll.

"Chowder Loll!" shrieked Colonel Jowler. "O Fate! thy hand is
here!" He rushed wildly into his tent--the next day applied for
leave of absence. Gutch took the command of the regiment, and I
saw him no more for some time.

* * *

As I had distinguished myself not a little during the war, General
Lake sent me up with despatches to Calcutta, where Lord Wellesley
received me with the greatest distinction. Fancy my surprise, on
going to a ball at Government House, to meet my old friend Jowler;
my trembling, blushing, thrilling delight, when I saw Julia by his
side!

Jowler seemed to blush too when he beheld me. I thought of my
former passages with his daughter. "Gagy my boy," says he, shaking
hands, "glad to see you. Old friend, Julia--come to tiffin--
Hodgson's pale--brave fellow Gagy." Julia did not speak, but she
turned ashy pale, and fixed upon me her awful eyes! I fainted
almost, and uttered some incoherent words. Julia took my hand,
gazed at me still, and said, "Come!" Need I say I went?

I will not go over the pale ale and currie-bhaut again! but this I
know, that in half-an-hour I was as much in love as I ever had
been: and that in three weeks I--yes, I--was the accepted lover of
Julia! I did not pause to ask where were the one hundred and
twenty-four offers? why I, refused before, should be accepted now?
I only felt that I loved her, and was happy!

* * *

One night, one memorable night, I could not sleep, and, with a
lover's pardonable passion, wandered solitary through the City of
Palaces until I came to the house which contained my Julia. I
peeped into the compound--all was still; I looked into the
verandah--all was dark, except a light--yes, one light--and it was
in Julia's chamber! My heart throbbed almost to stifling. I
would--I WOULD advance, if but to gaze upon her for a moment, and
to bless her as she slept. I DID look, I DID advance; and, O
Heaven! I saw a lamp burning, Mrs. Jow. in a night-dress, with a
very dark baby in her arms, and Julia looking tenderly at an ayah,
who was nursing another.

"Oh, Mamma," said Julia, "what would that fool Gahagan say if he
knew all?"

"HE DOES KNOW ALL!" shouted I, springing forward, and tearing down
the tatties from the window. Mrs. Jow. ran shrieking out of the
room, Julia fainted, the cursed black children squalled, and their
d-d nurse fell on her knees, gabbling some infernal jargon of
Hindustanee. Old Jowler at this juncture entered with a candle and
a drawn sword.

"Liar! scoundrel! deceiver!" shouted I. "Turn, ruffian, and defend
yourself!" But old Jowler, when he saw me, only whistled, looked
at his lifeless daughter, and slowly left the room.

Why continue the tale? I need not now account for Jowler's gloom
on receiving his letters from Benares--for his exclamation upon the
death of the Indian chief--for his desire to marry his daughter:
the woman I was wooing was no longer Miss Julia Jowler, she was
Mrs. Chowder Loll!

CHAPTER II: ALLYGHUR AND LASWAREE

I sat down to write gravely and sadly, for (since the appearance of
some of my adventures in a monthly magazine) unprincipled men have
endeavoured to rob me of the only good I possess, to question the
statements that I make, and, themselves without a spark of honour
or good feeling, to steal from me that which is my sole wealth--my
character as a teller of THE TRUTH.

The reader will understand that it is to the illiberal strictures
of a profligate press I now allude; among the London journalists,
none (luckily for themselves) have dared to question the veracity
of my statements: they know me, and they know that I am IN LONDON.
If I can use the pen, I can also wield a more manly and terrible
weapon, and would answer their contradictions with my sword! No
gold or gems adorn the hilt of that war-worn scimitar; but there is
blood upon the blade--the blood of the enemies of my country, and
the maligners of my honest fame. There are others, however--the
disgrace of a disgraceful trade--who, borrowing from distance a
despicable courage, have ventured to assail me. The infamous
editors of the Kelso Champion, the Bungay Beacon, the Tipperary
Argus, and the Stoke Pogis Sentinel, and other dastardly organs of
the provincial press, have, although differing in politics, agreed
upon this one point, and, with a scoundrelly unanimity, vented a
flood of abuse upon the revelations made by me.

They say that I have assailed private characters, and wilfully
perverted history to blacken the reputation of public men. I ask,
was any one of these men in Bengal in the year 1803? Was any
single conductor of any one of these paltry prints ever in
Bundelcund or the Rohilla country? Does this EXQUISITE Tipperary
scribe know the difference between Hurrygurrybang and Burrumtollah?
Not he! and because, forsooth, in those strange and distant lands
strange circumstances have taken place, it is insinuated that the
relater is a liar: nay, that the very places themselves have no
existence but in my imagination. Fools!--but I will not waste my
anger upon them, and proceed to recount some other portions of my
personal history.

It is, I presume, a fact which even THESE scribbling assassins will
not venture to deny, that before the commencement of the campaign
against Scindiah, the English General formed a camp at Kanouge on
the Jumna, where he exercised that brilliant little army which was
speedily to perform such wonders in the Dooab. It will be as well
to give a slight account of the causes of a war which was speedily
to rage through some of the fairest portions of the Indian
continent.

Shah Allum, the son of Shah Lollum, the descendant by the female
line of Nadir Shah (that celebrated Toorkomaun adventurer, who had
well-nigh hurled Bajazet and Selim the Second from the throne of
Bagdad)--Shah Allum, I say, although nominally the Emperor of
Delhi, was in reality the slave of the various warlike chieftains
who lorded it by turns over the country and the sovereign, until
conquered and slain by some more successful rebel. Chowder Loll
Masolgee, Zubberdust Khan, Dowsunt Row Scindiah, and the celebrated
Bobbachy Jung Bahawder, had held for a time complete mastery in
Delhi. The second of these, a ruthless Afghan soldier, had
abruptly entered the capital; nor was he ejected from it until he
had seized upon the principal jewels, and likewise put out the eyes
of the last of the unfortunate family of Afrasiab. Scindiah came
to the rescue of the sightless Shah Allum, and though he destroyed
his oppressor, only increased his slavery; holding him in as
painful a bondage as he had suffered under the tyrannous Afghan.

As long as these heroes were battling among themselves, or as long
rather as it appeared that they had any strength to fight a battle,
the British Government, ever anxious to see its enemies by the
ears, by no means interfered in the contest. But the French
Revolution broke out, and a host of starving sans-culottes appeared
among the various Indian States, seeking for military service, and
inflaming the minds of the various native princes against the
British East India Company. A number of these entered into
Scindiah's ranks: one of them, Perron, was commander of his army;
and though that chief was as yet quite engaged in his hereditary
quarrel with Jeswunt Row Holkar, and never thought of an invasion
of the British territory, the Company all of a sudden discovered
that Shah Allum, his sovereign, was shamefully ill-used, and
determined to re-establish the ancient splendour of his throne.

Of course it was sheer benevolence for poor Shah Allum that
prompted our governors to take these kindly measures in his favour.
I don't know how it happened that, at the end of the war, the poor
Shah was not a whit better off than at the beginning; and that
though Holkar was beaten, and Scindiah annihilated, Shah Allum was
much such a puppet as before. Somehow, in the hurry and confusion
of this struggle, the oyster remained with the British Government,
who had so kindly offered to dress it for the Emperor, while His
Majesty was obliged to be contented with the shell.

The force encamped at Kanouge bore the title of the Grand Army of
the Ganges and the Jumna; it consisted of eleven regiments of
cavalry and twelve battalions of infantry, and was commanded by
General Lake in person.

Well, on the 1st of September we stormed Perron's camp at Allyghur;
on the fourth we took that fortress by assault; and as my name was
mentioned in general orders, I may as well quote the Commander-in-
Chief's words regarding me--they will spare me the trouble of
composing my own eulogium:-

"The Commander-in-Chief is proud thus publicly to declare his high
sense of the gallantry of Lieutenant Gahagan, of the -- Cavalry.
In the storming of the fortress, although unprovided with a single
ladder, and accompanied but by a few brave men, Lieutenant Gahagan
succeeded in escalading the inner and fourteenth wall of the place.
Fourteen ditches lined with sword-blades and poisoned chevaux-de-
frise, fourteen walls bristling with innumerable artillery and as
smooth as looking-glasses, were in turn triumphantly passed by that
enterprising officer. His course was to be traced by the heaps of
slaughtered enemies lying thick upon the platforms; and alas! by
the corpses of most of the gallant men who followed him! When at
length he effected his lodgment, and the dastardly enemy, who dared
not to confront him with arms, let loose upon him the tigers and
lions of Scindiah's menagerie, this meritorious officer destroyed,
with his own hand, four of the largest and most ferocious animals,
and the rest, awed by the indomitable majesty of BRITISH VALOUR,
shrank back to their dens. Thomas Higgory, a private, and Runty
Goss, havildar, were the only two who remained out of the nine
hundred who followed Lieutenant Gahagan. Honour to them! Honour
and tears for the brave men who perished on that awful day!"

* * *

I have copied this, word for word, from the Bengal Hurkaru of
September 24, 1803: and anybody who has the slightest doubt as to
the statement, may refer to the paper itself.

And here I must pause to give thanks to Fortune, which so
marvellously preserved me, Sergeant-Major Higgory, and Runty Goss.
Were I to say that any valour of ours had carried us unhurt through
this tremendous combat, the reader would laugh me to scorn. No:
though my narrative is extraordinary, it is nevertheless authentic:
and never never would I sacrifice truth for the mere sake of
effect. The fact is this:- the citadel of Allyghur is situated
upon a rock, about a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and
is surrounded by fourteen walls, as his Excellency was good enough
to remark in his despatch. A man who would mount these without
scaling-ladders, is an ass; he who would SAY he mounted them
without such assistance, is a liar and a knave. We HAD scaling-
ladders at the commencement of the assault, although it was quite
impossible to carry them beyond the first line of batteries.
Mounted on them, however, as our troops were falling thick about
me, I saw that we must ignominiously retreat, unless some other
help could be found for our brave fellows to escalade the next
wall. It was about seventy feet high. I instantly turned the guns
of wall A on wall B, and peppered the latter so as to make, not a
breach, but a scaling place; the men mounting in the holes made by
the shot. By this simple stratagem, I managed to pass each
successive barrier--for to ascend a wall which the General was
pleased to call "as smooth as glass" is an absurd impossibility: I
seek to achieve none such:-

"I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is neither more nor less."

Of course, had the enemy's guns been commonly well served, not one
of us would ever have been alive out of the three; but whether it
was owing to fright, or to the excessive smoke caused by so many
pieces of artillery, arrive we did. On the platforms, too, our
work was not quite so difficult as might be imagined--killing these
fellows was sheer butchery. As soon as we appeared, they all
turned and fled helter-skelter, and the reader may judge of their
courage by the fact that out of about seven hundred men killed by
us, only forty had wounds in front, the rest being bayoneted as
they ran.

And beyond all other pieces of good fortune was the very letting
out of these tigers; which was the dernier ressort of Bournonville,
the second commandant of the fort. I had observed this man
(conspicuous for a tricoloured scarf which he wore) upon every one
of the walls as we stormed them, and running away the very first
among the fugitives. He had all the keys of the gates; and in his
tremor, as he opened the menagerie portal, left the whole bunch in
the door, which I seized when the animals were overcome. Runty
Goss then opened them one by one, our troops entered, and the
victorious standard of my country floated on the walls of Allyghur!

When the General, accompanied by his staff, entered the last line
of fortifications, the brave old man raised me from the dead
rhinoceros on which I was seated, and pressed me to his breast.
But the excitement which had borne me through the fatigues and
perils of that fearful day failed all of a sudden, and I wept like
a child upon his shoulder.

Promotion, in our army, goes unluckily by seniority; nor is it in
the power of the General-in-Chief to advance a Caesar, if he finds
him in the capacity of a subaltern: MY reward for the above
exploit was, therefore, not very rich. His Excellency had a
favourite horn snuff-box (for, though exalted in station, he was in
his habits most simple): of this, and about a quarter of an ounce
of high-dried Welsh, which he always took, he made me a present,
saying, in front of the line, "Accept this, Mr. Gahagan, as a token
of respect from the first to the bravest officer in the army."

Calculating the snuff to be worth a halfpenny, I should say that
fourpence was about the value of this gift: but it has at least
this good effect--it serves to convince any person who doubts my
story, that the facts of it are really true. I have left it at the
office of my publisher, along with the extract from the Bengal
Hurkaru, and anybody may examine both by applying in the counting-
house of Mr. Cunningham. {3} That once popular expression, or
proverb, "Are you up to snuff?" arose out of the above
circumstance; for the officers of my corps, none of whom, except
myself, had ventured on the storming party, used to twit me about
this modest reward for my labours. Never mind! when they want me
to storm a fort AGAIN, I shall know better.

Well, immediately after the capture of this important fortress,
Perron, who had been the life and soul of Scindiah's army, came in
to us, with his family and treasure, and was passed over to the
French settlements at Chandernagur. Bourquien took his command,
and against him we now moved. The morning of the 11th of September
found us upon the plains of Delhi.

It was a burning hot day, and we were all refreshing ourselves
after the morning's march, when I, who was on the advanced picket
along with O'Gawler of the King's Dragoons, was made aware of the
enemy's neighbourhood in a very singular manner. O'Gawler and I
were seated under a little canopy of horse-cloths, which we had
formed to shelter us from the intolerable heat of the sun, and were
discussing with great delight a few Manilla cheroots, and a stone
jar of the most exquisite, cool, weak, refreshing sangaree. We had
been playing cards the night before, and O'Gawler had lost to me
seven hundred rupees. I emptied the last of the sangaree into the
two pint tumblers out of which we were drinking, and holding mine
up, said, "Here's better luck to you next time, O'Gawler!"

As I spoke the words--whish!--a cannon-ball cut the tumbler clean
out of my hand, and plumped into poor O'Gawler's stomach. It
settled him completely, and of course I never got my seven hundred
rupees. Such are the uncertainties of war!

To strap on my sabre and my accoutrements--to mount my Arab
charger--to drink off what O'Gawler had left of the sangaree--and
to gallop to the General, was the work of a moment. I found him as
comfortably at tiffin as if he were at his own house in London.

"General," said I, as soon as I got into his paijamahs (or tent),
"you must leave your lunch if you want to fight the enemy."

"The enemy--psha! Mr. Gahagan, the enemy is on the other side of
the river."

"I can only tell your Excellency that the enemy's guns will hardly
carry five miles, and that Cornet O'Gawler was this moment shot
dead at my side with a cannon-ball."

"Ha! is it so?" said his Excellency, rising, and laying down the
drumstick of a grilled chicken. "Gentlemen, remember that the eyes
of Europe are upon us, and follow me!"

Each aide-de-camp started from table and seized his cocked hat;
each British heart beat high at the thoughts of the coming melee.
We mounted our horses, and galloped swiftly after the brave old
General; I not the last in the train, upon my famous black charger.

It was perfectly true, the enemy were posted in force within three
miles of our camp, and from a hillock in the advance to which we
galloped, we were enabled with our telescopes to see the whole of
his imposing line. Nothing can better describe it than this:-

___________________ A
/....................
/.
/.

- A is the enemy, and the dots represent the hundred and twenty
pieces of artillery which defended his line. He was moreover,
entrenched; and a wide morass in his front gave him an additional
security.

His Excellency for a moment surveyed the line, and then said,
turning round to one of his aides-de-camp, "Order up Major-General
Tinkler and the cavalry."

"HERE, does your Excellency mean?" said the aide-de-camp,
surprised, for the enemy had perceived us, and the cannon-balls
were flying about as thick as peas.

"HERE, SIR!" said the old General, stamping with his foot in a
passion, and the A.D.C. shrugged his shoulders and galloped away.
In five minutes we heard the trumpets in our camp, and in twenty
more the greater part of the cavalry had joined us.

Up they came, five thousand men, their standards flapping in the
air, their long line of polished jack-boots gleaming in the golden
sunlight. "And now we are here," said Major-General Sir Theophilus
Tinkler, "what next?" "Oh, d- it," said the Commander-in-Chief,
"charge, charge--nothing like charging--galloping--guns--rascally
black scoundrels--charge, charge!" And then turning round to me
(perhaps he was glad to change the conversation), he said,
"Lieutenant Gahagan, you will stay with me."

And well for him I did, for I do not hesitate to say that the
battle WAS GAINED BY ME. I do not mean to insult the reader by
pretending that any personal exertions of mine turned the day,--
that I killed, for instance, a regiment of cavalry or swallowed a
battery of guns,--such absurd tales would disgrace both the hearer
and the teller. I, as is well known, never say a single word which
cannot be proved, and hate more than all other vices the absurd sin
of egotism: I simply mean that my ADVICE to the General, at a
quarter-past two o'clock in the afternoon of that day, won this
great triumph for the British army.

Gleig, Mill, and Thorn have all told the tale of this war, though
somehow they have omitted all mention of the hero of it. General
Lake, for the victory of that day, became Lord Lake of Laswaree.
Laswaree! and who, forsooth, was the real conqueror of Laswaree? I
can lay my hand upon my heart and say that I was. If any proof is
wanting of the fact, let me give it at once, and from the highest
military testimony in the world--I mean that of the Emperor
Napoleon.

In the month of March, 1817, I was passenger on board the "Prince
Regent," Captain Harris, which touched at St. Helena on its passage
from Calcutta to England. In company with the other officers on
board the ship, I paid my respects to the illustrious exile of
Longwood, who received us in his garden, where he was walking
about, in a nankeen dress and a large broad-brimmed straw hat, with
General Montholon, Count Las Casas, and his son Emanuel, then a
little boy; who I dare say does not recollect me, but who
nevertheless played with my sword-knot and the tassels of my
Hessian boots during the whole of our interview with his Imperial
Majesty.

Our names were read out (in a pretty accent, by the way!) by
General Montholon, and the Emperor, as each was pronounced, made a
bow to the owner of it, but did not vouchsafe a word. At last
Montholon came to mine. The Emperor looked me at once in the face,
took his hands out of his pockets, put them behind his back, and
coming up to me smiling, pronounced the following words:-

"Assaye, Delhi, Deeg, Futtyghur?"

I blushed, and, taking off my hat with a bow, said, "Sire, c'est
moi."

"Parbleu! je le savais bien," said the Emperor, holding out his
snuff-box. "En usez-vous, Major?" I took a large pinch (which,
with the honour of speaking to so great a man, brought the tears
into my eyes), and he continued as nearly as possible in the
following words:-

"Sir, you are known; you come of an heroic nation. Your third
brother, the Chef de Bataillon, Count Godfrey Gahagan, was in my
Irish Brigade."

Gahagan. "Sire, it is true. He and my countrymen in your
Majesty's service stood under the green flag in the breach of
Burgos, and beat Wellington back. It was the only time, as your
Majesty knows, that Irishmen and Englishmen were beaten in that
war."

Napoleon (looking as if he would say, "D- your candour, Major
Gahagan"). "Well, well; it was so. Your brother was a Count, and
died a General in my service."

Gahagan. "He was found lying upon the bodies of nine-and-twenty
Cossacks at Borodino. They were all dead, and bore the Gahagan
mark."

Napoleon (to Montholon). "C'est vrai, Montholon: je vous donne ma
parole d'honneur la plus sacree, que c'est vrai. Ils ne sont pas
d'autres, ces terribles Ga'gans. You must know that Monsieur
gained the battle of Delhi as certainly as I did that of
Austerlitz. In this way:- Ce belitre de Lor Lake, after calling up
his cavalry, and placing them in front of Holkar's batteries, qui
balayaient la plaine, was for charging the enemy's batteries with
his horse, who would have been ecrases, mitrailles, foudroyes to a
man but for the cunning of ce grand rogue que vous voyez."

Montholon. "Coquin de Major, va!"

Napoleon. "Montholon! tais-toi. When Lord Lake, with his great
bull-headed English obstinacy, saw the facheuse position into which
he had brought his troops, he was for dying on the spot, and would
infallibly have done so--and the loss of his army would have been
the ruin of the East India Company--and the ruin of the English
East India Company would have established my Empire (bah! it was a
republic then!) in the East--but that the man before us, Lieutenant
Goliah Gahagan, was riding at the side of General Lake."

Montholon (with an accent of despair and fury). "Gredin! cent
mille tonnerres de Dieu!"

Napoleon (benignantly). "Calme-toi, mon fidele ami. What will
you? It was fate. Gahagan, at the critical period of the battle,
or rather slaughter (for the English had not slain a man of the
enemy), advised a retreat."

Montholon. "Le lache! Un Francais meurt, mais il ne recule
jamais."

Napoleon. "Stupide! Don't you see why the retreat was ordered?--
don't you know that it was a feint on the part of Gahagan to draw
Holkar from his impregnable entrenchments? Don't you know that the
ignorant Indian fell into the snare, and issuing from behind the
cover of his guns, came down with his cavalry on the plains in
pursuit of Lake and his dragoons? Then it was that the Englishmen
turned upon him; the hardy children of the North swept down his
feeble horsemen, bore them back to their guns, which were useless,
entered Holkar's entrenchments along with his troops, sabred the
artillerymen at their pieces, and won the battle of Delhi!"

As the Emperor spoke, his pale cheek glowed red, his eye flashed
fire, his deep clear voice rung as of old when he pointed out the
enemy from beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, or rallied his
regiments to the charge upon the death-strewn plain of Wagram. I
have had many a proud moment in my life, but never such a proud one
as this; and I would readily pardon the word "coward," as applied
to me by Montholon, in consideration of the testimony which his
master bore in my favour.

"Major," said the Emperor to me in conclusion, "why had I not such
a man as you in my service? I would have made you a Prince and a
Marshal!" and here he fell into a reverie, of which I knew and
respected the purport. He was thinking, doubtless, that I might
have retrieved his fortunes; and indeed I have very little doubt
that I might.

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