Guns to the Far East

Cover:
British Naval Boat,
from a drawing by J. W. Carmichael,

engraved by E. Brandard. Courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library

Stuart, V. A.

[Shannon's Brigade]

Guns to the Far East / by V.A. Stuart.

    p. cm. — (The Phillip Hazard novels ; 7)

Originally published: Shannon's Brigade. London : Hale, 1975.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-59013-063-4 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Hazard, Phillip Horatio (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. India—History—British occupation, 1765-1947—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 4. Great Britain. Royal Navy—Officers—Fiction. 5. British—India—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6063.A38S53 2005

823'.92—dc22

 

 

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Epilogue

Books Consulted

Glossary of Indian Terms

A
t seven-thirty
on the morning of Friday, 26th June,1857, heralded by the stirring martial music of their bands, the troops chosen to represent those which had served in the Crimea began to converge on London's Hyde Park. It was a bright, sunny morning, with a promise of heat to come, and a light breeze stirred the leaves of the trees and rippled the surface of the Serpentine as thousands of spectators made their way to the Park. They came on foot and in carriages or hansom cabs, the women in crinolines, the men in tall hats or wearing uniform, all eager to witness the first presentation of the Victoria Cross by Her Majesty the Queen to sixty-two Crimean heroes.

Under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Colin Campbell, G. C. B., the General whose “thin red line” of 93rd Highlanders had saved Balaclava Harbour from capture by the Russians, the columns of cavalry, artillery, and infantry wheeled into their allotted positions facing Park Lane. The cavalry, led by two regiments of the Household Cavalry—which had not taken part in the campaign—were followed by two regiments which had greatly distinguished themselves at the Battle of Balaclava—the 11th Hussars and the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons.

Resplendent in the striking uniform of the 11th Hussars and mounted on the chestnut horse that had carried him in the now famous Charge of the Light Brigade, Major-General the Earl of Cardigan, K.C.B., rode at their head. The crowd cheered him excitedly although a few isolated catcalls greeted his appearance. Accustomed to the mixed emotions his name and reputation aroused, the Earl ignored both cheers and catcalls, but he bowed gallantly as he caught the eye of a smiling young lady in the gallery to the rear of the saluting base, which had been erected for the accommodation of peers, members of the Court, and the foreign military attachés.

The Commander of the Royal Horse Artillery troop and the two field batteries, Major-General Sir William Williams— no less distinguished, as the saviour of Kars—was less well known than Lord Cardigan and the crowd's applause was merely polite. It was enthusiastic, however, when Major-General Lord Rokeby rode into the Park at the head of three scarlet-coated battalions of Foot Guards. The 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, the 1st Coldstream, and the Scots Fusilier Guards were heroes of the Alma and Inkerman and of the siege of Sebastopol—honours freshly embroidered on the Colours they bore proudly on to the parade ground—and the cheers were prolonged as they formed up smartly in the required quarter-distance columns and were stood at ease. They were followed by the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, immaculate in their dark green uniforms, marching at their regulation 140 paces to the minute, and preceding them, brave in scarlet and swinging tartan, the 79th Highlanders.

From the opposite end of the Park, a detachment of two hundred seamen of the Fleet and a battalion of Royal Marines took their places to the right of a company of Engineers, Sappers, and Miners and detachments of ambulance, Army Works, and the Land Transport Corps. Last to fall in were boys from the Royal Naval and the Duke of York's Military Schools and the be-medalled veterans from Chelsea Hospital, who formed up in two lines to the right of the Royal pavilion and immediately in front of the public stand.

The officers who were to be decorated assembled opposite Grosvenor Gate at nine o'clock, to be joined by the other ranks, who had marched from Portman Barracks. The majority were in military or naval uniform, but a few of the officers were in mufti; one corporal wore the tricorne hat and scarlet coat of an enrolled pensioner, a tall, bearded fellow was dressed in the green livery of a Royal Park keeper, and a burly ex-sergeant of the 49th marched up in the tall hat and blue uniform of a Peeler, to earn friendly but faintly derisive applause from the crowd by the gate. Each man had a loop of cord—blue for the Navy, red for the Army—attached to the left breast of his coat, to facilitate the pinning on of his medal.

Just before ten o'clock, a 21-gun salute boomed out across the Park and a squadron of the Blues, with waving plumes and brightly burnished steel cuirasses, could be seen approaching Hyde Park Corner. Behind them, all mounted, came the Royal party. Her Majesty the Queen rode between her consort Prince Albert, and Prince Frederick William of Prussia and, in honour of the occasion, she had adopted a military style of dress. Above a dark blue riding skirt, she wore a scarlet tunic with a gold embroidered sash draped over the left shoulder, and a round hat with a gold band, a red and white plume attached to the right side. The Queen's appearance, thus attired, was greeted with loud and prolonged cheering and when it was observed that the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred, mounted on ponies, were with their parents, the cheers were redoubled.

A cavalcade of brilliantly uniformed staff officers and equerries, headed by the Commander-in-Chief, HRH the Duke of Cambridge—himself a veteran of the Alma and Inkerman— passed in front of the reserved stands, followed by the Royal party on horseback and the carriage procession. Reaching the pavilion which had been prepared for her reception, the Queen drew rein but did not—as had been expected—dismount. Instead, sitting her magnificent roan charger, she faced the line of officers and men awaiting decoration, who were drawn up opposite the pavilion, the Prince Consort on her left and the Duke of Cambridge—a burly, bearded figure in his General Officer's uniform and plumed hat—and the Secretary of State for War, Lord Panmure, in close attendance. Between them stood a table, covered with a scarlet cloth, on which lay the Crosses, fashioned, at the Queen's own command, by a Bruton Street jeweller from captured cannon supplied for the purpose by the Arsenal at Woolwich.

When all was in readiness for the presentation, a whispered order was given and the waiting line moved forward, to approach Her Majesty one by one. Lord Panmure read out the names and, as each man saluted and came to attention, the Secretary of State handed a Cross to the Queen who, stooping from her saddle, fixed the small bronze symbol of valour to the cord suspended from his tunic.

As representatives of the Senior Service, the twelve naval heroes were the first to receive their medals, pride of place going to Commander Henry Raby of the Naval Brigade, whose award had been won during the terrible carnage which had followed the first full-scale British attack on the Russian Redan on 18th June, 1855. Her Majesty addressed a few gracious words to him, Prince Albert raised a scarlet-clad arm to the brim of his plumed General Officer's cocked hat in grave salute, Raby replaced his own and then a second youthful Commander, John Bythesed, took his place. The Queen, it was observed by those fortunate few who were in a position to see, paid marked attention to an even younger Lieutenant, William Hewett—fifth in line—who when acting-mate of HMS
Beagle,
had halted a threatened Russian breakthrough with his single Lancaster gun on the Heights of Inkerman, a few days before the battle.

As each man received his medal and returned to the line, he was enthusiastically clapped but—due to the Queen's failure to mount the raised dais—she was hidden from the occupants of the various stands and galleries by the mounted officers who surrounded her and by the ranks of Chelsea Pensioners drawn up to her right, in front of the main stand. There were audible murmurs of chagrin, particularly from this stand, in which—crowded to the point of acute discomfort and without seats—relatives of the sixty-two Victoria Cross winners, off-duty and retired officers of distinction and their families, and certain privileged members of the gentry were accommodated.

Leaning heavily on the arm of his handsome wife, the septuagenarian Admiral Sir George Hazard—Vice-Admiral on the retired list—peered with short-sighted blue eyes from his cramped vantage point at the back of the stand and said wrathfully, “That damned fellow Benjamin Hall and his department of works—I can't see a thing, damme, except the stern-ends of those infernal horses! Just as well Phillip isn't here to receive his Cross … we shouldn't have seen any more of the presentation than we'll see when it's made by Michael Seymour in China. Are those bluejackets who are being decorated now, Augusta?”