Maude commanded its tiny battery; Hamilton led the Highlanders; Stirling the 64th; the gallant, ill-fated Renaud, the Fusileers. Stuart Beatson was Havelock’s assistant adjutant-general; Fraser Tytler was his assistant quartermaster—general. Of the Highlanders—the Ross-shire Buff’s—Forbes says, “It was a remarkable regiment; Scottish to the backbone; Highland to the core of its heart. Its ranks were filled with Mackenzies, Macdonalds, Tullochs, Macnabs, Rosses, Gunns, and Mackays. The Christian name of half the Grenadier company was Donald. It could glow with the Highland fervour; it could be sullen with the Highland dourness; and it may be added, it could charge with the stern and irresistible valour of the North.”
When the little force began its march for Cawnpore, the soil was swampy with the first furious showers of the rainy season, and in the intervals of the rain, the skies were white with the glare of an Indian sun in July. “For the first three days,” says Maude, “they waded in a sea of slush, knee-deep now, and now breast-high, while the flood of tropical rain beat down from overhead. As far to right and left as eye could pierce extended one vast morass.” After these three days’ toil through rain and mud, the rains vanished; the sky above them became like white flame, and, till they reached Cawnpore, Havelock’s troops had to march and fight under a sun that was well-nigh as deadly as the enemy’s bullets.
On July 11 Havelock marched fifteen miles under the intolerable heat to Arrapore. Camping for a few hours, he started again at midnight, picked up Renaud’s men while the stars were yet glittering in the heaven, pushed steadily on, and at seven o’clock, after a march of sixteen miles, camped at Belinda, four miles out of Futtehpore. The men had outmarched the tents and baggage, and were almost exhausted. They had fallen out, and were scattered under the trees, “some rubbing melted fat on their blistered feet, others cooling their chafes in the pools; many more too dead-beaten to do anything but lie still.” It was Sunday morning.
Suddenly there broke above the groups of tired soldiery the roar of cannon. Grape-shot swept over the camp. Over the crest and down the opposite slopes rode, with shouts and brandished tulwars, a huge mass of rebel cavalry. It was a genuine surprise! But the bugles rang out shrilly over the scattered clusters of Havelock’s men. They fell instantly into formation; skirmishers ran to the front, and the enemy’s cavalry came to an abrupt halt. It was a surprise for them, too. They had expected to see only Renaud’s composite force—a mere handful; what they beheld instead, was Havelock’s steady and workmanlike front.