On the Irrawaddy: A Story of the First Burmese War

"I dare say you could, Harry; but we don't want to run any risks. Your head is not very strong, at present; and you might turn giddy, or you might stumble. So, at present, you will have just to do as you are told.

"Let us start."

Harry did not find it as easy as he had expected, getting out through the lower opening; and he was by no means sorry to have the support of Stanley and Meinik, as he proceeded along the ledge. They moved very carefully, and slowly; and all were greatly relieved when he sat down, on a blanket laid on the steps.

"Now lie back, Harry. We shall have no difficulty in getting you up here."

Two Burmans took the upper end of the blanket, Stanley and Meinik the lower, and they were soon at the top of the steps.

"You are not very heavy now, Harry; but you are a good deal heavier than you were, when we brought you in below.

"Now, the next is the most difficult part of the work–once we get you through this passage, it will be plain sailing. You see, you will have to be dragged. The place is only two feet high, so that it would be impossible to lift you at all. We have made the floor as smooth as we can, but I am afraid that there are a good many projecting corners, that will try you a good deal."

"It cannot be helped, Stanley. Fire away, as soon as you like."

The rest of the party were now all gathered, on the steps below; and Meinik and Stanley, getting up first into the hole, received Harry as the others lifted him and, with the aid of two of the Burmans, laid him on his blanket in the passage.

"Now," Stanley said, to the two men who took the other end of the blanket, "keep it as tight as you can and, when I say 'lift,' we will all lift together, and move him forward a few inches. Do not hurry over it–we have plenty of time before us."

They were packed so closely that they had each but one arm available. Little by little they moved him along, gaining some six inches, each time; then all had to move, so as to place themselves for the next effort. However, in five or six minutes they had him through, and carried him up into the open air. The rest of the party at once joined them and, with three of the natives on each side of the blanket, they were soon beyond the circle of ruins, and making at a brisk pace through the forest. After going for a quarter of a mile they stopped, cut some poles for the hammock and, in a short time, were on their way again; having placed in it one of the bags of rice, as a pillow for Harry.

They travelled for some hours, and then halted to cook some rice. All had slept a good deal during the day so that, after resting for an hour, they proceeded on their way again. They had no fear, whatever, of pursuit; and the only danger that they could incur was from meeting with a band, similar to that which had carried Harry off. When they rigged up the hammock, they had cut wood for torches, to protect themselves from tigers. These were thrown away, as soon as daylight broke.

At midday they halted again, for another hour; and then, continuing their journey, arrived at the village before nightfall. They were received with great joy, the villagers setting up a shout of welcome–the friends of the men and boys being especially exuberant in their joy, for they had become extremely anxious at their long absence. The two troopers were still there; and these saluted Stanley, with less than the usual stiff formality of the Mohammedan soldier.

He himself laughed.

"I don't look much like a British officer, at present," he said, in their language. "Well, has everything been quiet here?"

"Yes, sahib. A sowar brought us orders, from the general, to remain here; and to send at once, if we heard any news of you. We sent off one of the villagers, when the man came back to fetch the others, and said that you had good hopes of getting Lieutenant Brooke sahib out of the hands of the Burmese."

"I will write a note," Stanley said. "Get your horse saddled, at once. Directly we have made Mr. Brooke comfortable, I will give you the letter."

During the time that Stanley had been absent, the houses had been re-erected, and the village had assumed its general appearance. A hut was at once handed over to them, and Harry laid on a bamboo pallet. He had not slept, most of the way down.

"You see I was quite right, Stanley. I told you that the journey would be nothing."

"Fortunately, it has turned out so. Meinik has already killed a chicken, and will make it into broth for you. It will be a change, for you, after your diet of rice. The cooking was excellent, for the first three or four days; but it fell off sadly. That was one of the reasons why I gave way to your wish to start at once. You have done wonderfully well, but a constant diet of rice is not quite the thing for building up a sick man.

"Now, I am going to write a few lines to the general to say that you have got safely down, but will need at least another week before you are able to sit on a horse. Of course, you can be carried on; but I think that the air here is a great deal more healthy, and bracing, than it is at Prome and, the longer you stay here, the better."

Stanley's note was a short one. It merely said that he had succeeded in getting his cousin, and the trooper who was carried off at the same time, from the hands of the Burmese, but that Harry was still very weak; and that, if he himself could be spared, he would stay with him at the village for another week or ten days, at the end of which time he would ride, by easy stages, to Prome.

Three days later, the trooper returned with a note from the general.

"I congratulate you most heartily on having rescued your cousin," he wrote. "By all means, stay where you are until he is quite strong again. This place is not at all healthy, at present. We shall not be moving forward for another three weeks."

Stanley remained at the village for another fortnight and, at the end of that time, Harry had so far recovered that he was quite capable of making a short day's journey on horseback. Two of the men who had aided in the rescue had gone to Prome, with an order from Stanley on the staff paymaster, for the rewards that had been promised to the villagers and the two Burmese soldiers. They returned with the money, and the men were all highly delighted at the result of the expedition.

Stanley retained the services of the two soldiers, as long as he remained in the village. He had no fear, whatever, of the same band returning that had, before, visited the village; and he learned that no others had been heard of in the neighbourhood but, at the same time, he thought it as well that a man should be on guard, night and day, at each end of the village. The peasants agreed to watch at one end, while the two Burmese soldiers and the troopers took charge of the other end. The bulk of the villagers were engaged in forming a strong stockade round, it to defend themselves in case of further attack; and Stanley promised to send them down twenty muskets, and a supply of ammunition, as soon as he got to Prome.

There was real regret, on the part of the Burmese, when the time came for the party to start. It had been something altogether new to them to have officials among them who paid for everything. These Englishmen had treated them kindly, and were pleased and contented with everything. The money that the five men and two boys had earned had enriched the village, and had enabled them to more than replace their losses by the recent raid and, if Stanley had accepted all the presents of fruit, fowls, and eggs they would have given him, he would have needed a couple of extra horses to convey them. A strong pony had been purchased for Meinik and, after taking a hearty leave of the villagers, the party rode off.

"I wish we had such a good cook as your man is, Stanley," Harry said, as they journeyed along at a walk. "I never tasted better soup than he serves up. I must really get him to teach our mess cook how to make it."

"Do you know what it is, Harry?"

"I have not the least idea; it might be anything. I think that it tasted, to me, more like stewed eels than anything else."

"You are not very far out. It is made of the creatures you turned up your nose at–snakes."

"Nonsense, Stanley!"

"It is, I can assure you. I would not tell you before, because it might have set you against it. That soup you had in the cave was made from snake flesh. The recesses in parts of the caves swarmed with them, and the men laid in quite a store of them, before we were besieged. Unfortunately they would not keep well, even in these cool chambers, so we had to fall back on rice. You liked it so much that, though there was no occasion to have gone on with snake soup, after we got to the village, I continued to give it to you; for it is very nourishing."

"Well, I am glad you did not tell me, at the time; but I must own that it was excellent, and I think that, in future, I shall have no objection to snake in that form."

"They are just as good, in other ways," Stanley replied. "The Burmans are no fools, and I consider that snake and lizards are very much better eating than their mutton; which is tasteless stuff, at the best."

"We shall have to have a big settlement, when we get back, Stanley. Of course, all those men you paid, and the guards you bribed, are entirely my account; to say nothing of my share of the general expenditure."

"The general expenses are practically nothing, Harry. I invited you to come with me and, of course, you were my guest. As to the other matter, that also is my business. I would not say so, if I had not plenty of funds, but what with my pay as interpreter, and the year of back pay that I got when the Gazette came out, I have plenty out of my income to pay for it, without breaking in upon the amount I told you I had got for those rubies."

"I should pay you, Stanley, if you were rolling in money. Not that I should mind taking money from you, if I wanted it, but my expenses since I landed here have not been anything approaching my pay and allowances; and I have besides, as I told you, an income of 500 pounds a year of my own. You have risked your life for me, and I am not going to let you pay the piper, as well."

"All right, if it pleases you, Harry. I am delighted at having been able to save you and, just at present, money does not seem an important matter one way or the other; so if it really would be a satisfaction to you to pay, I will certainly not deprive you of it."

Although they only travelled ten miles the first day, Harry acknowledged that he was as tired as a dog when he dismounted; and was so stiff, the next morning, that he had to be helped on to his horse. However, this gradually wore off and, on the evening of the fourth day, they arrived at Prome. Leaving Harry at his regimental camp, Stanley rode to the headquarters, and there dismounted. Meinik had led the second horse, after Harry dismounted; and now took them both across to the lines, with the air of a man who has only been away a few hours. Stanley at once went up to the general.

"Welcome back, lad!" Sir Archibald said. "You have been longer away than we expected, when you started. I am glad, indeed, that you succeeded in rescuing your cousin; and we are all burning to hear about it. I wrote that note to you in a hurry, for I was on the point of going on a round of inspection of the camp, when your sowar arrived. I intended to question him concerning you, on my return; for I had no idea that, after making such a long journey, he would start back at once, but I found that he had ridden straight off, directly the note was handed to him. You must dine with me, today, and tell me all the story. I see, from the colour of your skin, that you have been in disguise again."

"Yes, sir. There were materials for dyeing the skin in the village, but nothing that availed to take it off. It is gradually going and, as I shall be now able to get some strong alkali, from the doctor, I hope I shall be presentable by tomorrow."

"They are honourable marks," the general said, with a smile. "I don't think any of us would mind being so coloured, for a bit, if we had done such good work as you have; but I won't detain you now, for dinner will be ready in half an hour."

Stanley hurried to his room, took a bath, donned his mess uniform, and was ready by the time the bugle sounded. Three or four of the staff were, as usual, members of the party. After the meal was over, he was requested to narrate his adventures, at full length. The story was necessarily a long one and, when he concluded, all joined the general in hearty commendation for the manner in which he had carried out the adventure.

"Your last story was a stirring one, Mr. Brooke," the general said; "but this is even more so. When I received your first note, I thought it next door to madness for you to try to get your cousin, badly wounded as you knew him to be, from the hands of the Burmese. It is not an easy thing to get any man out of prison but, when the man was unable to help himself, it seemed well-nigh impossible; and I was greatly afraid that, instead of saving his life, you would lose your own. Of course, the fact that you had successfully traversed the country before was strongly in your favour; but then you were unencumbered, and the two things were, therefore, not to be compared with each other. I shall, of course, put you in orders tomorrow as having performed a singularly gallant action, in rescuing Lieutenant Brooke of the 47th and a sowar from their captivity, by the Burmese, in a prison at Toungoo.

"You have arrived just in time for, after endeavouring to fool us for the past three months, by negotiations never meant to come to anything, the enemy are now advancing in great force, and are within a few miles of the town. So we are likely to have hot work of it for from all accounts, they have got nearly as large an army together as Bandoola had. I don't know whether they have learned anything from his misfortunes, but I am bound to say that the court does not seem to have taken the lesson, in the slightest degree, to heart; and their arrogance is just as insufferable as it was before a shot was fired."

Stanley learnt that there had already been one fight. The enemy were advancing in three columns. Their right–consisting of 15,000 men, commanded by Sudda Woon–had crossed the Irrawaddy, and was marching down the other bank; with the apparent object of recrossing, below Prome, and cutting the British line of communication. The centre–from 25,000 to 30,000 strong, commanded by the Kee Wongee–was coming down the left bank of the river, accompanied by a great fleet of war boats. The left division–15,000 strong, led by an old and experienced general, Maha Nemiow–was moving parallel with the others, about ten miles distant from the centre, but separated from it by a thick and impenetrable forest. A reserve of 10,000 men, commanded by the king's half-brother, occupied a strongly fortified post at Melloon. In addition to these, a large force was gathered near Pegu, and threatened an attack upon Rangoon.

On the 10th of November, a fortnight before Stanley's return, two brigades of native infantry–under Colonel M'Dowall–had marched out to dislodge Maha Nemiow; whose division threatened to turn the British right, and to move round to its rear. The force was divided into three columns; one moving directly towards the enemy's position, the others–marching by circuitous routes, so arranged as to arrive at the point of attack at the same time–were to attack in flank and rear, while the main body assailed the enemy in front. The Burmese had, however, obtained information from spies of the intended movement and, advancing boldly, met the British columns half way; skirmishing with them hotly in the woods, and threatening an attack by large bodies of horse.

The centre drove the Burmese before them, and reached their stockaded position. Colonel M'Dowall, while reconnoitring it, was killed by a ball from a musket and, as the two flanking columns did not arrive as expected, the force was compelled to fall back. The retreat was conducted in good order, but the loss was heavy, as the Burmese pressed hotly upon them for several miles.

Since this unfortunate affair, the enemy had steadily advanced. Maha Nemiow had moved directly upon Prome; advancing slowly, and constantly stockading himself. The centre had also advanced; and was now fortifying some heights above the river five miles away, within sight of Prome. Sudda Woon was intrenching himself on the opposite bank. All these divisions were working, day and night; advancing steadily but slowly, and erecting formidable lines of intrenchments as they went; and it seemed to be the intention of the Burmese general to proceed in that manner, until the whole of his troops were gathered within a very short distance of the town, and then to rush upon it from all sides.