ASSAULT ON THE BEGUM'S KOTHEE--DEATH OF CAPTAIN M'DONALD--MAJOR HODSON WOUNDED--HIS DEATH
We had barely finished our meal when we noticed a stir among the staff-officers, and a consultation taking place between General Sir Edward Lugard, Brigadier Adrian Hope, and Colonel Napier. Suddenly the order was given to the Ninety-Third to fall in. This was quietly done, the officers taking their places, the men tightening their belts and pressing their bonnets firmly on their heads, loosening the ammunition in their pouches, and seeing that the springs of their bayonets held tight. Thus we stood for a few seconds, when Brigadier Hope passed the signal for the assault on the Begum's Kothee. Just before the signal was given two men from the Fifty-Third rushed up to us with a soda-water bottle full of grog. One of them was Lance-Corporal Robert Clary, who is at present, I believe, police-sergeant in the Municipal Market, Calcutta; the other was the friend of Andrew M'Onvill, who had supplied us with the steaks for our "cannibal feast." I may mention that Lance-Corporal Clary was the same man who led the party of the Fifty-Third to capture the guns at the Kâlee Nuddee bridge, and who called out: "Three cheers for the Commander-in-Chief, boys," when Sir Colin Campbell was threatening to send the regiment to the rear for breach of orders. Clary was a County Limerick boy of the right sort, such as filled the ranks of our Irish regiments of the old days. No Fenian nor Home Ruler; but ever ready to uphold the honour of the British Army by land or by sea, and to share the contents of his haversack or his glass of grog with a comrade; one of those whom Scott immortalises in _The Vision of Don Roderick_.
Hark! from yon stately ranks what laughter rings, Mingling wild mirth with war's stern minstrelsy, His jest while each blithe comrade round him flings, And moves to death with military glee! Boast, Erin, boast them! tameless, frank, and free, In kindness warm, and fierce in danger known, Rough Nature's children, humorous as she.
When Captain M'Donald, whose company we had joined, saw the two Fifty-Third boys, he told them that they had better rejoin their own regiment. Clary replied, "Sure, Captain, you don't mean it;" and seeing Dr. Munro, our surgeon, busy giving directions to his assistants and arranging bandages, etc., in a _dooly_, Clary went on:--"We have been sent by Lieutenant Munro of our company to take care of his namesake your doctor, who never thinks of himself, but is sure to be in the thick of the fight, looking out for wounded men. You of the Ninety-Third don't appreciate his worth. There's not another doctor in the army to equal him or to replace him should he get knocked over in this scrimmage, and we of the Fifty-Third have come to take care of him." "If that is the case," said Captain M'Donald, "I'll allow you to remain; but you must take care that no harm befalls our doctor, for he is a great friend of mine." And with that Captain M'Donald stepped aside and plucked a rose from a bush close by, (we were then formed up in what had been a beautiful garden), and going up to Munro he gave him the flower saying, "Good-bye, old friend, keep this for my sake." I have often recalled this incident and wondered if poor Captain M'Donald had any presentiment that he would be killed! Although he had been a captain for some years, he was still almost a boy. He was a son of General Sir John M'Donald, K.C.B., of Dalchosnie, Perthshire, and was wounded in his right arm early in the day by a splinter from a shell, but he refused to go to the rear, and remained at the head of his company, led it through the breach, and was shot down just inside, two bullets striking him almost at once, one right in his throat just over the breast-bone, as he was waving his claymore and cheering on his company. After the fight was over I made my way to where the dead were collected and cut off a lock of his hair and sent it to a young lady, Miss M. E. Ainsworth, of Inverighty House, Forfar, who, I knew, was acquainted with Captain M'Donald's family. I intended the lock of hair for his mother, and I did not know if his brother officers would think of sending any memento of him. I don't know if ever the lock of hair reached his mother or not. When I went to do this I found Captain M'Donald's soldier-servant crying beside the lifeless body of his late master, wringing his hands and saying, "Oh! but it was a shame to kill him." And so it was! I never saw a more girlish-looking face than his was in death; his features were so regular, and looked strangely like those of a wax doll, which was, I think, partly the effect of the wound in the throat. But to return to the assault.