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Once beyond Cawnpore, I believe that he would have sufficient influence, speaking, as he does, in the name, not only of his father, but of other powerful landowners, to induce any of these Oude people to let us pass. No, I regard Cawnpore as our one danger, and I believe it to be a very real one.
Young Bloxam was speaking to me last night; he is very hot about it; but as he knows nothing about shooting, and has never fired off a rifle in his life, except at the military target, I told him that it was madness to think of it by himself, and that he had better ride down to the regiment at Cawnpore, and get them to form a party to come up to hunt the beast.
"I suppose you recall the events of the Mutiny well enough to understand the situation here in 1857," said Lord Tremlyn the next morning when the company had gathered in the parlor of the hotel. "But there was no massacre here, as in Cawnpore, to impress the facts upon your memory, though many brave men lost their lives in the defence of the place.
He remained at Cawnpore till the 4th of February, when the first portion of his army crossed the Ganges, on their road to Lucknow. While marching on Lucknow, Brigadier Franks, on the 19th, successively defeated two bodies of the enemy at Chanda and Amerapore; and, on the 23rd, gained a still more important victory over their united forces near Sultanpore.
Never daring to expose themselves unnecessarily during the day, yet ever on the alert to repel an attack; labouring at night at the defences, with their numbers daily dwindling, and the prospect of an assault becoming more and more imminent, the work of the little garrison was terrible; and it is to the defences of Lucknow and Cawnpore, a hundred years later, that we must look to find a parallel, in English warfare, for their endurance and bravery.
Then, leaving Neill with three hundred men in Cawnpore, he prepared to cross the Ganges, now terribly swollen by the late rains, into the kingdom of Oude, of which Lucknow is the capital. Not for a moment did Havelock make light of the difficulties that lay before him.
For the next month Cawnpore suffered a little from the reaction after the gayety of the races, but there was no lack of topics of conversation, for the rumors of disaffection among the troops gained in strength, and although nothing positive was known, and everyone scoffed at the notion of any serious trouble, the subject was so important a one that little else was talked of whenever parties of the ladies got together.
He has but a thousand bayonets fit for service. He must hold Cawnpore, and the force available for an advance would be hopelessly insufficient to fight his way through Oude and force a road through the city. The instant he receives reinforcements he will advance, and will in the meantime continue to make feints, so as to keep a large force of the enemy on the alert.
Martyn supplied books, and these were translations of Scripture history, of the Parables, and the like, through which he hoped to lay a foundation for distinctive teaching. Here is Mrs. Sherwood's description of the Cawnpore school, then in a long shed by the side of the cavalry lines:
In the first days, as a measure of precaution, European women and children had been hurriedly collected into places of refuge lest the horrible excesses perpetrated by the Indian mob at Amritsar might prove the prelude to a repetition of Cawnpore.
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