BRAVE DEEDS OF WOMEN IN WAR-TIME

MARY SEACOLE, THE SOLDIERS’ FRIEND

Florence Nightingales’s noble work among the sick and wounded in the Crimean War is known to everyone; but very few people are aware that there was another woman, working apart from Miss Nightingale, who performed deeds of bravery and humanity in the same campaign which entitle her to a high place in any list of brave and good women. Sir William Russell, the famous war correspondent of the Times, wrote, in 1858, of Mary Seacole: ’I have witnessed her devotion and her courage; I have already borne testimony to her services to all who needed them. She is the first who has redeemed the name of ‘sutler’ from the suspicion of worthlessness, mercenary business and plunder; and I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some other illustrious dead.’ England seems to have forgotten her, but it is hoped that this account of her life may help to remove the reproach.

Mary Seacole was born at Kingston, Jamaica, her father being a Scotchman and her mother a native. The latter kept a boarding-house which was patronised chiefly by naval and military officers stationed at Kingston, but she was also widely known in the West Indies as a “doctoress.” Officers, their wives and children were her chief patients, and she is reputed to have healed many troublesome complaints with medicines made from the plants which she herself gathered. Mary inherited her mother’s tastes, and when quite a child decided to become a “doctoress.” She bandaged her dolls in the way she had seen her mother bandage patients, and on growing older she doctored any stray dogs and cats who could be prevailed upon to swallow the medicine she had made. After a time she became anxious to try her skill upon human beings, but as no one would consent to take her medicine, she drank it herself, happily without any serious effects.

When Mary Seacole (as she afterwards became) was about twelve years of age her mother began to allow her to assist in waiting upon the invalid officers staying at the boarding-house, and whilst thus engaged she was able to obtain a knowledge of nursing which was of the greatest value in after years. While still a girl she paid a visit to England, and remained there, with some relatives, for some months. She visited England again a few years later, and saw that there was a good opening in London for West Indian commodities. Therefore, on her return, she exported guava jelly, pickles and various preserves, and being anxious to add to the variety of her wares, she visited the Bahamas, Hayti and Cuba, to inspect the productions of those places.

On returning from her travels among the islands she settled down again to nurse her mother’s invalid boarders, and before long married one of them, a Mr. Seacole. Her married life was, however, short for Mr. Seacole died a few months after the wedding. A little later her mother passed away, and Mary Seacole was left without relatives in Jamaica. She continued to manage the boarding-house; but her generosity to the poor was so unlimited that when she had a bad season she was without money to support herself. However, she struggled on until her boarding-house was once more filled with well-paying invalids. But in 1843 she had a very serious loss; her house was burnt in a fire which destroyed a large portion of Kingston. The boarding-house was, however, rebuilt, and prosperity returned. Many a white man asked her to become his wife, but she refused every offer, and devoted all her spare time to the task of adding to her store of medical knowledge. Several naval and military surgeons, surprised to find that her knowledge of medical matters was, for a woman, great, assisted her with her studies.

In 1850 cholera broke out in Jamaica, and raged for a greater portion of the year, and a doctor who was living at Mary Seacole’s house gave her many valuable hints concerning the treatment of cholera cases. Before long the knowledge thus obtained proved to be the means of saving many lives.

Shortly after the cholera had ceased to rage in Jamaica Mary Seacole proceeded on a visit to her brother, who owned a large, prosperous store at Cruces in California. On arriving there, she found the place crowded with a mixed mob of gold-diggers and speculators, some proceeding to the gold-fields, others returning. The men returning were drinking, gambling and “treating” those who were bound for the gold-fields. It was a degrading sight, and Mary Seacole wished that she had not left Jamaica. There was nowhere for her to sleep, wash or change her travel-stained clothes, for every room in her brother’s house was engaged by the homeward-bound gold-diggers. Until they departed she had to manage to exist without a bed.

These parties of miners arrived at Cruces weekly, and the scenes of dissipation were the same on each occasion.

Quarrels which ended in the death of one of the combatants were frequent and little noticed, but the very sudden death of a Spaniard who resided at Cruces caused great excitement. He had dined with Mary Seacole’s brother, and on returning home was taken ill and suddenly died. Suspicion fell upon Mary Seacole’s brother, and it was said openly that he had poisoned the man. Mary Seacole, indignant at the accusation brought against her brother, went to see the body, and knew at once that the man had died from cholera. No one believed her, but the following morning a friend of the dead man was taken ill with the same disorder, and the people who had scoffed at her became terror-stricken.

There was no doctor at Cruces, and Mary Seacole set herself to battle single-handed with the plague. Fortunately, she never travelled without her medicine-chest, and taking from it the remedies which had been used in Jamaica with great success she hurried to the sick man’s bedside, and by her promptitude was able, under God, to save his life. Two more men were stricken down and successfully treated, and Mary Seacole was beginning to hope that the plague would not spread, when a score of cases broke out in one day. The people were now helpless from terror, and Mary Seacole was the only person who did not lose her presence of mind. Day and night she was attending patients, and for days she never had more than a hour’s rest at a time. Whenever a person was stricken, the demand was for ’the yellow woman from Jamaica,’ and it was never made in vain.

When the cholera had been raging for some days, Mary Seacole despatched a messenger to bring a medical man to the place; but the Spaniard who arrived in response to the summons was horror-stricken at the terrible scenes, and incapable of rendering any assistance. Mary Seacole was compelled, therefore, to continue her noble work unaided.

One evening she had just settled down to a brief rest when a mule-owner came and implored her to come at once to his kraal, as several of his men had been attacked with cholera. Now Mary Seacole had been visiting patients throughout the day and the previous night, but without the slightest hesitation she went out into the rain and made her way to the sick muleteers, whom she found in a veritable plague-spot. Men and mules were all in one room, and the stench was so great that a feeling of sickness came over her as she stood at the door. But with an effort she overcame the feeling, and entering flung open the windows, doors and shutters. Then, as the much-needed fresh air poured in, she looked around.

Two men she saw at once were dying, but there were others whom she thought there was a possibility of saving, and these she attended to at once. For many hours she remained in this strangely crowded room, and when she did quit it she only went away for an hour’s sleep. On her return to the plague-spot she found fresh patients awaiting her, one, a little baby, who in spite of her efforts died. Everything was against Mary Seacole in this pestilential stable, but nevertheless she was the means of saving some lives.

At length, when the plague was dying out, the brave woman who had so nobly fought the disease was herself stricken with it, but happily for the British army she recovered.

Throughout the plague Mary Seacole had treated rich and poor alike. The centless man and the down-trodden muleteer received as much attention from her as the wealthy diggers returning home with their bags of gold dust. The latter paid her liberally for having tended them, but the majority of her patients had nothing but thanks to give her. Possibly she appreciated the latter most, for some of her rich patients seemed to think that having rewarded her they had wiped out the debt of gratitude.

On June 4 some of her wealthy patients gave a dinner party, and invited Mary Seacole to be present. One speaker proposed her health, and after referring to her having saved their lives continued in the following strain: ’Well, gentlemen, I expect there are only two things we are vexed for. The first is that she ain’t one of us a citizen of the great United States; and the other thing is, gentlemen, that Providence made her a yellow woman. I calculate, gentlemen, that you’re all as vexed as I am that she’s not wholly white, but I do reckon on your rejoicing with me that she’s so many shades removed from being entirely black; and I guess if we could bleach her by any means we would, and thus make her as acceptable in any company as she deserves to be. Gentlemen, I give you Aunty Seacole.’

Mary Seacole’s reply to this ill-mannered speech was as follows: ’Gentlemen, I return you my best thanks for your kindness in drinking my health. As for what I have done in Cruces, Providence evidently made me to be useful, and I can’t help it. But I must say that I don’t appreciate your friend’s kind wishes with respect to my complexion. If it had been as dark as any nigger’s, I should have been just as happy and as useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value; and as to the offer of bleaching me, I should, even if it were practicable, decline it without any thanks. As to the society which the process might gain me admission into, all I can say is, that, judging from the specimens I have met here and elsewhere, I don’t think that I shall lose much by being excluded from it. So, gentlemen, I drink to you, and the general reformation of American manners.’

In 1853 Mary Seacole returned to Jamaica, and before she had been there many weeks yellow fever broke out. It was the worst outbreak that had occurred for many years, and soon Mary Seacole’s boarding-house was full of patients, chiefly officers, their wives and children. In nursing her boarders, and procuring proper food for them, Mary Seacole had more work than most women would care to undertake; but when the military authorities asked her to organise a start of nurses to attend to the men in Up-Park Camp, Kingston, she set to work on this additional task, and, carrying it out with her customary thoroughness, rendered a great service to the army.

After the yellow fever had subsided Mary Seacole sold her boarding-house, and opened a store in New Granada, where she speedily obtained popularity because of her medical skill. On war being declared against Russia, she determined to go to the Crimea to nurse the sick and wounded, and started for London as quickly as possible, arriving there soon after the news of the battle of Alma had been received. She had anticipated no difficulty in getting sent to the front, as there were many officers who could testify to her nursing abilities; but she found on arriving in London that every regiment to whom she was known had been sent to the Crimea. However, as the news of the sufferings of our men at the front had reached London, and the necessity of nurses being sent out was recognised, she imagined that her services would be promptly accepted.

Soon she found, greatly to her sorrow, that the colour of her skin was considered, in official circles, a barrier to her employment. She applied in turn at the War Office, the Quartermaster General’s Department, the Medical Department, and the Crimea Fund, but at each place some polite excuse was made for declining her services. It was indeed a foolish act on the part of the officials. Nurses were sorely needed, and here was Mary Seacole, who had far greater experience of nursing British soldiers than any woman living, refused employment. She declared in her little book of adventures, published soon after the war ended, that at her last rebuff she cried as she walked along the street.

But Mary Seacole’s determination to proceed to the Crimea was not shaken by her inability to prevail upon the authorities to accept her services, and after consideration she decided to go to the front at her own expense. She had sufficient money to pay her passage to Balaclava, and to support her for some months after her arrival, but not enough to enable her also to supply herself with the medical outfit necessary for work at the seat of war. The only way in which she could hope to be in a position to help the sick and wounded was by earning money in the Crimea, and therefore she decided to start an hotel at Balaclava for invalid officers. By the next mail she sent out to the officers who had known her at Jamaica a notice that she would shortly arrive at Balaclava, and establish an hotel with comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers.

While Mary Seacole was making preparations for her departure she met a shipper named Day, who, hearing of her plans, offered to enter into partnership with her in the proposed hotel. This offer she accepted, as with a partner she would be able to devote more time to the wounded.

At Malta Mary Seacole found herself once more among people who knew and appreciated her. Some medical officers who had been stationed at Kingston were among those who welcomed her, and believing that Florence Nightingale would be glad of her help, gave her a letter of introduction to that noble Englishwoman. Having made arrangements for her work in the Crimea, Mary Seacole had now no desire to become attached to any nursing staff, but she accepted the letter of introduction, as she was anxious to make the acquaintance of Florence Nightingale, who was then at the barracks at Scutari, a suburb of Constantinople, which were being used as a hospital for British troops.

When Mary Seacole arrived at Scutari, Florence Nightingale was too busy to grant her an interview immediately, so she spent the period of waiting in inspecting the wards. As she passed along, many of the invalid soldiers recognised her and called to her. Some of them she had nursed in Jamaica, and the sight of her kindly brown face filled them with recollections of happy days in the West Indies. To every man who recognised her she said a few cheering words, and in several cases rearranged bandages which had slipped. While thus engaged, an officer entered the ward, and was about to reprimand her, when he saw, much to his surprise, that she was as skilful as any doctor or nurse in the hospital. When she had finished her self-imposed task, he thanked her for her thoughtful kindness.

At last Mary Seacole saw Florence Nightingale, whom she describes in these words: ’A slight figure, in the nurse’s dress, with a pale, gentle, and withal firm face, resting lightly on the palm of one white hand, while the other supports the elbow a position which gives to her countenance a keen, enquiring expression which is very marked. Standing thus in repose, and yet keenly observant, was Florence Nightingale that Englishwoman whose name shall never die, but sound like music on the lips of British men until the hour of doom.’

Naturally Florence Nightingale was interested in the woman who came to her warmly recommended by British medical officers, and made many enquiries concerning her intentions. On the following morning Mary Seacole resumed her journey, but these two good women met several times before the war was ended.

On arriving at Balaclava Mary Seacole received hearty welcome from the troops. Men who had been stationed in Jamaica told their comrades of her bravery and kindness, and everyone hailed her as a great friend. Many officers, including a general and that gallant Christian, Captain Hedley Vicars, met her as she landed, and expressed their thanks to her for coming to the Crimea.

Mary Seacole was soon at work among the wounded, assisting the doctors to transfer them from the ambulances to the transports. While engaged in this work, on the day after her arrival, she noticed a wounded man who was evidently in great pain, and saw at once that his bandages were stiff, and hurting him. Having rearranged them she gave the poor fellow some tea, and as she placed it to his lips his hand touched hers. ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, too weak even to open his eyes, ’this is surely a woman’s hand. God bless you, woman, whoever you are! God bless you!’

A few days later, as she was busy at her usual work of attending to the sick and wounded, the Admiral of the Port placed his hand on her shoulder, and said earnestly, ’I am glad to see you here among these poor fellows.’ A day or two before when she had made some enquiries concerning the landing of her stores this admiral had declared brusquely that they did not want a parcel of women in the place. When at last Mary Seacole’s stores were put ashore, she started business in a rough little hut, made of tarpaulin, on which was displayed the name of the firm Seacole and Day. The soldiers, however, considered that as Mary Seacole’s skin was dark, a better name for the firm was Day and Martin, and as such it was generally known.

Towards the end of the summer, Seacole and Day’s British Hotel was opened at Spring Hill. It had cost L800 to build, and was an excellent place for sick officers to rest. Adjoining the hotel, and belonging to the same proprietors, was a store at which could be purchased creature comforts and useful articles. At first the store was opened every day of the week. Mary Seacole had a strong dislike to opening it on Sunday, but the requirements of the soldiers made it almost a necessity. After a time, when the most pressing needs of the men had been met, she gave notice that the store would be closed on Sundays, and this rule she refused to alter, in spite of being constantly urged to do so.

Many officers, instead of going into hospital when ill, became boarders at Mary Seacole’s, and among these was a naval lieutenant who was a cousin of Queen Victoria. These officers she doctored and nursed with her customary skill, and for every vacancy in her hotel there were half-a-dozen applicants.

One day it became known in camp, that among the things which Mary Seacole had received from a recently arrived ship was a young pig, which she intended to fatten and kill. Immediately she was overwhelmed with orders for a leg of pork, and if the pig had possessed a hundred legs she could have sold every one of them. An officer to whom she did eventually promise a leg of pork was so anxious that there should be no mistake about the matter, that he made the following memorandum of the transaction: ’That Mrs. Seacole did this day, in the presence of Major A and Lieutenant W , promise Captain H , a leg of the pig.’

Every portion of the pig was sold long before the animal was fit to be killed, and then the purchasers began to fear that it would be stolen. Everybody took an interest in tins pig, and it was considered the correct thing for every soldier who passed the sty to assure himself that the animal was still there. One day two officers, coming off duty, galloped up to the hotel and shouted excitedly, ’Mrs. Seacole! Quick, quick, the pig’s gone!’ It was not a false alarm; the pig had been stolen. As, however, the nest in the sty was warm, it was evident that the pig had only recently been taken, and a party of officers started in pursuit of the thieves, shouting laughingly as they rode off, ‘Stole away! Hark away!’ The thieves, two Greeks, were quickly overtaken, and the precious pig was brought back in triumph to Mary Seacole.

It must not be thought that Mary Seacole devoted herself entirely to the officers, for her best work was done among the privates on the battlefield. Sir William Russell bore testimony to her courage and humanity. ‘I have seen her,’ he wrote, ’go down under fire, with her little store of creature comforts for our wounded men; and a more tender or skilful hand about a wound or broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons. I saw her at the assault on the Redan, at the Tchernaya, at the fall of Sebastopol, laden, not with plunder, good old soul! but with wine, bandages, and food for the wounded or the prisoners.’

The Inspector-General of Hospitals praised her work, and the Adjutant-General of the British Army wrote on July 1, 1856: ’Mrs. Seacole was with the British Army in the Crimea from February, 1855, to this time. This excellent woman has frequently exerted herself in the most praiseworthy manner in attending wounded men, even in positions of great danger, and in assisting sick soldiers by all means in her power.’

From officers who could afford to pay for her medicine or wine she accepted payment, but a man’s need, and not his ability to pay, was her first thought. On the battle-field she gave strengthening food to wounded privates which she could easily have sold, at a large profit, to the officers.

Regardless of the danger she was running she had many narrow escapes from shot and shell she bandaged the wounded, administered restoratives to the unconscious, and prayed with the dying. Scores of dying men gave her messages for their loved ones at home, and these she despatched as speedily as possible. She saw many an old friend laid to his last rest, and among these was Hedley Vicars, with whom she had been associated in much good work in Jamaica.

Mary Seacole was known to have a very poor opinion of our French ally, but a wounded Frenchman received as much attention from her as an Englishman. The enemy, too, had good cause to bless her, for many a wounded Russian would have died on the battle-field but for her skilful and prompt aid. One Russian officer, whose wounds she bandaged and whom she helped to lift into the ambulance, was greatly distressed at being unable to express his thanks in a language which she understood. Taking a valuable ring from his finger, he placed it in her hand, kissing her hand as he did so, and smiled his thanks.

Mary Seacole continued her noble work until the war ended. But her generosity to the sick and wounded had been a great strain upon her finances, as the whole of her share of the profits in the firm of Seacole and Day, and much of her capital, had been spent on her charitable work. And, to make matters worse, when the British troops had departed from the Crimea, the firm had to dispose of its stock at one-tenth of the cost price. Proceeding to England, Seacole and Day started business at Aldershot, but after a few months the partnership was dissolved, and Mary Seacole found herself almost penniless. But as soon as her unfortunate position became known, friends hastened to assist her. Punch recorded some of her good deeds in verse, and made a humorous appeal on her behalf.

The red-coats did, at Punch’s invitation, ‘lend a willing hand;’ for, although all ranks were sorry to hear of Mary Seacole’s misfortune, they were glad to have an opportunity to prove to her that they had not forgotten her noble work in the Crimea. Subscriptions to the fund that was started for her benefit poured in, and a sufficient sum was received to enable her to spend the regaining years of her life in comfort.

LAURA SECORD, A CANADIAN HEROINE

Many years ago, when His Majesty King Edward VII. was in Canada, he paid a visit to Mrs. Laura Secord, a very old and revered Canadian lady. The news of the visit of the Prince of Wales (for such, of course, His Majesty then was), and the present which he afterwards bestowed upon her, was heard with pleasure throughout Canada, for Laura Secord is a heroine of whom the Canadians are justly very proud.

The brave deed for which she is famed is here told:

On June 18, 1812, the United States of America declared war against Great Britain. The conquest of Canada was the object President Madison had in view, and he was confident that he would achieve it with little difficulty. Truly he had good reasons for his confidence. In the whole of Canada there were less than 4500 regular troops, and it was known that Napoleon’s activity in Europe would prevent the British Government from sending out reinforcements.

Naturally, the news that America had declared war filled the Canadians with dismay; but this feeling was quickly succeeded by a determination to repel the invaders, or die in the attempt. The call to arms was sounded throughout the country, and an army composed of farmers, fur-traders, clerks, artisans, French Canadians, Red Indians, and negro slaves was soon formed.

Among the white men who volunteered was James Secord, who had married Laura Ingersoll, the daughter of a sturdy loyalist who quitted the United States, after the War of Independence, to live under the British flag in Canada. Mr. and Mrs. Secord were living at Queenston, on the banks of the Niagara River, when the war broke out, and it was at Queenston that a fierce battle was fought, four months later.

About two o’clock in the morning of October 13 the British discovered that the Americans had crossed the river under cover of darkness, and that some were already scaling the cliffs at various points. A fierce fire was opened upon the invaders on the beach, who concealed themselves behind the rocks and fired whenever they saw an opportunity. The American losses were great, and it appeared as if they would either have to surrender or be annihilated, when suddenly a volley was poured into the rear of the British.

Unseen by the defenders, a body of Americans had scaled the cliffs, and taken up a strong position above the British, who were now between two fires. The British general Brock was mortally wounded, and for a few moments his men stood aghast. Then the cry, ‘Avenge Brock!’ was raised, and with a cheer the British force advanced to drive out the invaders.

A terrible hand-to-hand fight ensued, and slowly but surely the Americans were driven to the edge of the cliff. Several hundred surrendered, and many more might have been taken prisoners but for the fact that the Indians had got beyond control, and refused to give quarters to their hated foe. Seizing men who were willing to surrender, they hurled them from the cliff into the water below. Scores of Americans, fearing the vengeance of the Indians, jumped from the cliff and were drowned, and many others fought stubbornly until they reached the brink and fell backwards. A terribly sanguinary fight had resulted in a victory for the British; but it had been dearly bought. The British general was dead, and the battle-field was strewn with the bodies of brave volunteers who had died in defence of their homes and liberty.

Before the last of the invaders had surrendered or been killed, Laura Secord was on the battlefield searching for her husband. She found Captain Secord’s men, but he was not with them, and not one of them knew where he was. In the hand-to-hand fight they had lost sight of their captain, but they pointed out to the distressed lady the spot where they had fought.

Hither Laura Secord hurried, and where the dead and dying lay thick she found her husband terribly wounded. Falling on her knees beside him, she called him by name, but he gave no sign that he heard her. Believing him to be dead, she cried bitterly, and taking him up in her arms carried him to their house. Then as she laid him down she found to her great joy that he still breathed.

By her tender nursing she saved his life, although his recovery was very slow. Winter and spring passed, and summer came, and Captain Secord was still an invalid and unable to walk. It was a great trial to him to be kept to the house, fur another American force had landed at Queenston, and occupied the town and neighbourhood. It had been impossible to remove Captain Secord when the other Canadians retired, and thus he and his wife were left in the midst of the Americans. But, as it turned out, it was a happy thing for the British that he was too ill to be removed.

One day, towards the end of June, some American officers entered the Secords’ house, and commanded Laura to give them food. She did so, and while waiting on them listened to all they said. Of course she did not let them see that she was taking an interest in their conversation, and succeeded in making them believe that she was a very simple and unintelligent person. Imagining that she would not understand what they were saying, they began to discuss their general’s plans, and unwittingly revealed to her the fact that a surprise attack was to be made on the British force. When the officers, having eaten a hearty meal, departed, Laura Secord repeated to her husband all that they had said.

Captain Secord was at a loss what to do. The British would have to be warned of the attack, but who could he get to pass the American pickets and carry a message through twenty miles of bush? Never before had he felt so keenly his helpless condition.

But his despair was short-lived, for his wife declared that she would carry the news to the British general. Quickly she told him her plans, and although it seemed to him that there was little prospect of her being able to carry them out, he did not attempt to dissuade her from the undertaking.

At daybreak the following morning Laura Secord, disguised as a farm-maid, quitted the house bare-footed and bare-legged, and walked straight to the cow to milk her. But she had scarcely begun her task when the cow kicked over the milking pail and ran forward towards the bush. The American soldiers laughed heartily at the mishap, but ignoring them Laura Secord picked up her stool and pail and ran after the cow. Her second attempt to milk her ended in the same way the cow kicked over the pail and frisked a few yards nearer to the bush. To the delight of the soldiers this performance was repeated several times, and chasing the cow Laura Secord passed the pickets and entered the bush. The Americans saw her make another and equally unsuccessful attempt at milking. Soon cow and milk-maid were lost to sight. Again Laura Secord approached the cow and began to milk her, and this time the animal stood quietly.

The pinch which Laura Secord had given the cow on the previous occasions was not repeated, and the milking could soon have been finished, had the brave woman time to spare. Sitting on her stool, she peered in the direction whence she came and listened. Convinced that the soldiers had not had their suspicions aroused, she sprang up and leaving cow, pail and stool, started on her long journey.

Hour after hour she pressed forward, fearful that at any moment she might come face to face with the enemy’s scouts. Nor was this the only danger she had to fear. The bush was infested with venomous snakes, and on several occasions she found one lying in her path. Sometimes she succeeded in frightening away the reptile, but frequently she was compelled to make a detour to avoid it. Her feet and legs were torn and bleeding, but still she plodded on, across hill and dale, through swamp and stream.

When night came she was still wearily trudging along, but uncertain whether she was proceeding in the right direction. Again and again she fell to the ground, and would have lain there, but for the knowledge that the lives of hundreds of her countrymen would be lost if she did not reach the British lines quickly. This thought spurred her on.

Exhausted, bleeding and hungry, she continued her journey, praying to God to give her strength to reach her destination.

Hours passed, and at length she became so exhausted that her hope of reaching the British grew faint. She felt that if she fell again she would not have the strength to rise. Then suddenly the air was filled with the war-whoop of the Red Indians, and a score of the dreaded savages sprang from their hiding-places and surrounded her.

Indians were fighting for the Americans as well as for the British, and the atrocities which they perpetrated made the war of 1812 one of the most bitter, most unchivalrous, that had been waged between civilized nations for many years. Believing her captors to be allies of the Americans, Laura Secord felt that her last hour had come, but imagine her joy when, a few moments later she discovered that they were scouts of the British force.

Quickly she was carried to the British lines, and at her own request was taken at once to the officer in command, whom she told of the impending attack. After praising Laura Secord for her bravery, and ordering that her wants should be attended to immediately, the officer proceeded to make use of the information she had brought him; and so well did he lay his plans, and so quickly were they carried out, that the Americans, instead of surprising the British, were themselves surprised, and every man in the force captured.

LADY BANKES AND THE SIEGE OF CORFE CASTLE.

During the Great Rebellion many brave deeds were performed by women. Royalists and Parliamentarians each had their heroines, and we can honour them all, irrespective of party, for their devotion to the cause which they had espoused, and rejoice in the fact that they were British women.

Lady Bankes was a woman whom Roundheads as well as Cavaliers admitted to be a noble specimen of an English lady. She was the wife of the Right Honourable Sir John Bankes, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and a member of His Majesty’s Privy Council.

When it began to appear that the differences between King Charles and his Parliament would be settled by arms, Lady Bankes retired with her children to Corfe Castle, in Dorsetshire. Sir John was on circuit at the time, but it was soon discovered that he had supplied the king with money to carry on war against his Parliament, and for this reason he became a marked man. He was not, however, a Royalist who hoped to keep his appointment by concealing his opinions from the Roundheads. At the Salisbury assizes he made his charge to the grand jury an opportunity for denouncing as guilty of high treason several peers who had taken up arms against the king. For this Parliament denounced him as a traitor, and declared his property forfeited.

No attempt was, however, made to seize Corfe Castle until May 1643, when all the other castles in the neighbourhood having been captured, it was the only one held by a Royalist. The Parliamentary army was well aware that Sir John Bankes was not at the castle, and that Lady Bankes had a very small force of servants to protect her, and consequently it was, for some time, not considered necessary to capture it. It was believed that Lady Bankes, shut up in her own castle, was powerless to harm Cromwell’s army. But, eventually, it was decided that it was unwise not to interfere with a place that was notoriously a Royalist possession, and it was decided to capture it.

The day fixed for the event was the first of May. On that day it was the custom of the gentlemen of Corfe Castle to hunt a stag on the island, and any one who liked to do so might participate in the sport. The Roundheads decided to attend the hunt, seize the men from the castle, and then capture the castle itself. But the arrival of an exceptionally large number of people to attend the hunt aroused the suspicions of the few Royalists, who quickly withdrew to the castle and gave instructions that the gates were to be kept shut against anyone seeking admission.

Having failed to capture the Royalists in the hunting-field, the rebels came to the castle, and pretending that they were peaceable country folk, craved permission to be allowed to see the interior. The permission was refused, and some of the soldiers, angry at the failure of the plot, forgot the part they were playing, and threatened to return and gain admission by force. The officers, anxious not to arouse Lady Bankes’s suspicions, loudly reprimanded their men for making foolish threats, and assured her ladyship that they had no intention of doing as their men had vowed.

Lady Bankes did not, however, believe the rebel officers, and, convinced that an attack would shortly be made on the castle, she prepared to defend it. She had no Royalist troops whatever in the castle, and her first step, therefore, was to call in a number of men whom she could rely upon. But no sooner were the men instructed in their duties than the rebels demanded that the four small guns which were mounted on the wall should be given up.

Lady Bankes refused to surrender them, and some days later forty seamen came and demanded them. Now at that hour Lady Bankes had only five men in the castle, but pretending that she had a large garrison, she refused the seamen’s demand, and caused one of the guns to be fired over their heads. The report of this gun, which only carried a three-pound ball, so alarmed the seamen that they fled in dismay. They must have been very different from the men who sailed under Blake, and made the Commonwealth’s navy world-famed.

No sooner had the timorous seamen fled than Lady Bankes summoned to the castle all her tenants and friendly neighbours, to assist her to hold the place until her husband should return. They came in quickly, many bringing arms, and vowed to fight for her and King Charles; but the Roundheads, discovering who had entered the castle, went to the homes of these men, and told their wives that unless their husbands returned home their houses would be burned to the ground. The frightened wives thereupon made their way to the castle and implored their husbands to return. Some of the men did as their wives desired, but others would not break the promise they had made to the mistress of Corfe Castle.

The enemy now decided to starve out Lady Bankes, and threatened to kill anyone caught conveying food to the castle. This measure was effective, for Lady Bankes, being without sufficient food and ammunition to withstand a siege, agreed to deliver up the guns, on the condition that she should remain in possession of the castle unmolested.

Lady Bankes had, however, little confidence in the honour of the attacking party, and felt assured that they would before long, in spite of their promise, endeavour to take possession of the castle. This was made evident by the behaviour of the soldiers, who, although they did not enter the castle, did not hesitate to boast that it belonged to them, and that they would take possession of it whenever it was required. But Lady Bankes was determined that it should not, if she could possibly prevent it, fall into the hands of the enemy. Therefore she gave instructions that the men appointed to watch the castle should be supplied liberally with food and drink, with the result that they neglected to do their duty, and allowed Lady Bankes to smuggle in sufficient provisions and ammunition to withstand a long siege. Moreover, Lady Bankes despatched a messenger to Prince Maurice, asking him to send a force to help her hold the castle against the enemy, and in reply to her appeal Captain Lawrence and some eighty men arrived upon the scene.

The Parliamentarians had now become aware of the fact that Lady Bankes was taking steps to render the castle capable of withstanding a siege, and they decided to occupy it at once.

On June 23, 1643, Sir Walter Earle arrived before the castle with a force of about 600 men, and called upon Lady Bankes to surrender, which she firmly but courteously declined to do. Her refusal greatly incensed the besiegers, who thereupon took an oath that ’if they found the defendants obstinate not to yield, they would maintain the siege to victory, and then deny quarter unto all, killing without mercy men, women and children.’

The Parliamentarians, possessing several pieces of ordnance, opened fire on the castle from all quarters, but did comparatively little damage, and their attempts to carry it by assault were equally unsuccessful.

When some days had passed, and the attacking forces were no nearer capturing the castle than when they first arrived, the Earl of Warwick sent to their assistance 150 sailors, a large supply of ammunition and numerous scaling-ladders. Possessing these ladders, the Roundheads anticipated that the castle would soon be in their hands. They divided their force into two parties, one assaulting the middle ward, which was defended by Captain Lawrence, and the other, the upper ward, where Lady Bankes, her daughters, women-servants and five soldiers were the sole defenders.

As the Parliamentarians fixed their ladders against the castle wall Lady Bankes and her brave assistants showered down upon them red-hot stones and flaming wood. The soldiers too, delighted at the bravery of the mistress of the castle, fought desperately, and not one of the enemy succeeded in gaining entrance to the castle.

Sir Walter Earle, seeing that he could not carry the castle by assault, withdrew with a loss of one hundred killed and wounded. He would in all probability have made another attack, but during the evening the news reached him that the king’s forces were approaching, and overcome by fear he ordered a retreat, leaving behind muskets, ammunition and guns, all of which fell into the hands of Lady Bankes and her gallant garrison.

After this siege, which had lasted for six weeks, Lady Bankes was allowed to remain for two years in undisturbed possession of the castle; but she lived in the knowledge that at any time another attempt to capture it might be made, as it was the only place of any importance between Exeter and London that remained loyal to the royal cause. Threats were constantly reaching her from certain members of the Parliamentary party, and to add to her trials her husband, whom she had not seen for two years, died at Oxford on December 28, 1644.

In October, 1645, the Parliamentary army decided to make another and more determined effort to capture Corfe Castle, and a large force was sent to besiege it. Lady Bankes and her handful of men had now pitted against them some of the best regiments in the victorious Parliamentarian army, but they scorned to surrender to them.

It was in January of the following year that a young officer Colonel Cromwell determined to make an effort to rescue Lady Bankes, and riding with a specially picked troop from Oxford he passed through the enemy without its being discovered that he was a Royalist until he arrived at Wareham, the governor of which fired upon the troop. A fight ensued, but the daring troopers speedily captured the governor and other leading men, and rode off to Corfe Castle, only, however, to find that between them and the besieged lay a strong force of the enemy. They did not hesitate, but prepared instantly for the fight, and the besieged, cheering them loudly, made ready to sally forth and assist them.

Afraid of being caught between the two Royalist parties, the besiegers retired, and Colonel Cromwell rode up in triumph to the castle walls, and handed over to Lady Bankes, for safe custody, the Governor of Wareham and other prisoners whom he had taken.

Greatly to Colonel Cromwell’s surprise, Lady Bankes declined to avail herself of the opportunity for escape which he had contrived, declaring that she would defend the castle as long as she possessed ammunition. Thinking that he could render the king greater service in the open than in a besieged castle, Colonel Cromwell rode off with his troop, but losing his way he and many of his men were captured by the enemy. Those who evaded capture made their way back to Corfe Castle, and assisted in its defence.

Days passed without the enemy improving his position in the slightest degree, and Lady Bankes would have kept the royal flag flying for many months more, had there not been traitors in the castle. Colonel Lawrence, who had gallantly assisted in the first defence of Corfe Castle, was persuaded by the Governor of Wareham to help him to escape, and to accompany him on his flight. The treachery of Lawrence was a heavy blow for Lady Bankes, but she did not despair, believing it impossible that any other of her friends would turn traitor. Unfortunately she was mistaken. An officer, who had hitherto been loyal and energetic as Colonel Lawrence, secretly sent word to the officer commanding the besieging force that if protection were given him he would deliver up the castle. The proposal was welcomed, and after much secret correspondence it was settled that fifty men of the Parliamentarian army should disguise themselves as Royalists, and be admitted into the castle by the traitor.

This plan succeeded. The men were admitted without arousing any suspicion, and not until the following morning did the garrison discover that they had been betrayed. A brief fight ensued, but resistance was useless, and with a sad heart Lady Bankes surrendered the castle which she had so nobly defended for nearly three years.

The Parliamentarian officer who accepted the surrender was a humane man, and took care that his troops should not fulfil their vow to put to death every man, woman and child found in the castle. After the place had been plundered, an attempt was made to destroy it, but the walls were so massive that its destruction was impossible, and to-day much of it is still standing.

Lady Bankes was not kept prisoner for long, and Oliver Cromwell ordained that she should not be made to suffer for her loyalty and bravery. Throughout the Commonwealth the heroine of Corfe Castle lived peacefully, and did not die until Charles II. had been upon the throne nearly a year. She died on April 11, 1661, and in Ruislip Church, Middlesex, there is a monument, erected to her memory by her son, Sir Ralph Bankes, on which is inscribed a record of her brave defence.

LADY HARRIET ACLAND.

A HEROINE OF THE AMERICAN WAR.

It was at the beginning of the year 1776 that Major Acland was ordered to proceed with his regiment to America, to take part in the attempt to quell the rising of the colonists. His wife, to whom he had been married six years, at once asked to be allowed to accompany him, but he hesitated to give his consent, being doubtful whether she would be able to bear the hardships of a campaign.

Hitherto her life had been one of comfort. She was the third daughter of the first Earl of Ilchester, and her training had not been such as would qualify her for roughing it. Major Acland did not, however, offer any objections when his wife, fearing that he thought the life would be too hard for her, declared that she had made up her mind to accompany him.

Arriving in Canada, she soon found that campaigning was more arduous than she had imagined. Her husband’s regiment was continually on the march, and she suffered greatly from cold, fatigue and want of proper food.

When they had been in Canada about a year, Major Acland became dangerously ill, and his wife, herself in ill-health, was his only nurse. Although the twenty-seven years of her life had been without any experience of nursing, she soon became efficient, and before long had the pleasure of knowing that by her care and attention she had saved her husband’s life. But before Major Acland had fully regained his strength he was ordered to rejoin his regiment, to take part in the attack upon Ticonderoga.

So far Lady Harriet had followed her husband from place to place, and she prepared to accompany him to Ticonderoga; but, knowing that the fight would be a severe one, he insisted upon her remaining behind. She obeyed him, but was miserable during his absence, and would have preferred the greatest hardships to sitting idle, waiting to hear the result of the battle. It was a hard-fought one, but Ticonderoga was captured by the British, and the news filled Lady Harriet with joy, for her husband, who sent her the message, told her that he was unhurt. The joy was short-lived, however. Two days later Lady Harriet was informed that on the day following the capture of Ticonderoga her husband had been dangerously wounded. Reproaching herself for having been away from him in time of danger, she started off at once to where he lay, and by careful nursing she again saved his life.

Lady Harriet had decided, during her husband’s last illness, to follow him everywhere, no matter how great the danger; and when she was once more on the march some of the artillerymen, anxious to make her self-imposed task lighter, constructed for her a small two-wheeled carriage.

Major Acland commanded the grenadiers, whose duty it was to be at the most advanced post of the army, and consequently Lady Harriet was always in danger of being killed or captured. She, like the officers, lay down in her clothes, so that she might be ready at any moment to advance. One night the tent in which she and her husband were sleeping caught fire, and had it not been for the prompt and gallant conduct of an orderly-sergeant, who at great personal risk dragged them out, they would have been suffocated or burnt to death. As it was, Major Acland was severely burnt, and all their personal belongings were lost.

Instead of being disheartened by the hardships and mishaps which fell to her lot, Lady Harriet became more cheerful as time went on; but another severe trial was in store for her. Major Acland informed her that as they would in all probability engage the enemy in a day or two, she would have to remain in the care of the baggage guard, which was unlikely to be exposed to danger. Lady Harriet protested, being anxious to accompany her husband into battle, but she was compelled to do as the major desired. Here among the baggage she had for companions two other ladies, wives of officers.

When the action began Lady Harriet was seated in a small hut which she had found unoccupied, and here she remained listening to the artillery and musketry fire, and praying that her husband might come out of the fight uninjured. Soon, however, she had to vacate the hut, for the surgeons told her that they required it, as the fight was fierce, and the men were falling fast. Unwittingly the surgeons had alarmed her. If men were falling fast there was little chance of her husband, whose place was in the front line of attack, escaping injury.

For four hours the battle raged fiercely, but Lady Harriet could obtain no news other husband. He was not among the wounded or dead who had been brought to the rear, but she feared that at any moment she might see him lying white and still on a stretcher. The two ladies who waited with her were equally anxious for news from the front, and for them it came soon, and cruelly. The husband of one was brought back mortally wounded, and a little later the other was told that her husband had been shot dead.

The battle ceased, and the last of the wounded was brought to the surgeons, but still Lady Harriet was without news of Major Acland, and it was not until many hours later that she heard he was still alive. Her joy was tempered by the knowledge that the fighting would be renewed before many days had elapsed.

At last, on October 7, 1777, the second battle of Saratoga was fought. Lady Harriet was once again doomed to listen to the sound of cannon and musketry, and to see a sad procession of wounded moving to the rear. As time passed without any news of her husband reaching her, she began to hope that he would pass through the battle uninjured; but this was not to be. Soon the news came that the British, under General Burgoyne, had been defeated, and that Major Acland, seriously wounded, had been taken prisoner.

For a time Lady Harriet was overcome with grief, but growing calmer she determined to make an attempt to join her husband in the American camp and nurse him there. ’When the army was upon the point of moving after the halt described,’ General Burgoyne wrote in his account of the campaign, ’I received a message from Lady Harriet, submitting to my decision a proposal (and expressing an earnest solicitude to execute it, if not interfering with my designs) of passing to the camp of the enemy, and requesting General Gates’s permission to attend her husband. Though I was ready to believe (for I had experienced) that patience and fortitude in a supreme degree were to be found, as well as every other virtue, under the most tender forms, I was astonished at this proposal. After so long an agitation of the spirits, exhausted not only for want of rest, but absolutely want of food, drenched in rains for twelve hours together, that a woman should be capable such an undertaking as delivering herself to the enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain of what hands she might first fall into, appeared an effort above human nature. The assistance I was enabled to give was small indeed; I had not even a cup of wine to offer her; but I was told she had found, from some kind and fortunate hand, a little rum and dirty water. All I could furnish to her was an open boat and a few lines, written upon dirty and wet paper, to General Gates, recommending her to his protection.’

Accompanied by an army chaplain and two servants, Lady Harriet proceeded up the Hudson River in an open boat to the enemy’s outposts; but the American sentry, fearing treachery, refused to allow her to land, and ignoring the white handkerchief which she held aloft, threatened to shoot anyone in the boat who ventured to move. For eight hours, unprotected from the night air, Lady Harriet sat shivering in the boat, but at daybreak she prevailed upon the sentry to have her letter delivered to General Gates. The American general readily gave permission for her to join her husband, who, she found, had been shot through both legs, in addition to having received several minor wounds. His condition was serious, but Lady Harriet succeeded in nursing him into comparatively good health.

When Major Acland was sufficiently recovered to be able to travel he returned with his wife to England, where the story of Lady Harriet’s bravery and devotion was already well-known. A portrait of her, in which she is depicted standing in the boat holding aloft a white handkerchief, was exhibited in the Royal Academy and engraved. Sir Joshua Reynolds also painted a portrait of her.

Lady Harriet, ‘the heroine of the American War,’ lived, admired and respected, for thirty-seven years after her husband’s death, dying deeply mourned at Tatton, Somersetshire, on July 21, 1815.

’Let such as are affected by these circumstances of alarm, hardship and danger, recollect,’ General Burgoyne wrote, ’that the subject of them was a woman, of the most tender and delicate frame, of the gentlest manners, habituated to all the soft elegances and refined enjoyments that attend high birth and fortune. Her mind alone was formed for such trials.’ But in very many cases heroines have been women from whom few would have expected heroism. The blustering braggart does not often prove to be a hero in time of danger, and the gentle, unassuming woman is the type of which heroines are frequently made. The aristocracy the middle and the lower classes, have each given us many heroines of this type.

AIMEE LADOINSKI AND THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW.

Napoleon was entering Moscow in triumph. It was night, and the streets of the Russian capital were deserted, but at a window of one house past which the victorious troops were marching sat a French lady, eagerly scanning the faces of the officers. Her husband, Captain Ladoinski, of the Polish Lancers, was somewhere among the troops, but she failed to recognise him as he rode by. Soon, however, he was at her house, and great was the joy of meeting after long separation.

After the first greeting, Aimee Ladoinski noticed that her husband was wounded, and although he spoke lightly of his wound, it was not a slight one. Moreover, it had been aggravated by want of attention, for Napoleon’s surgeons did not at this time possess the proper appliances for dressing wounds. Captain Ladoinski’s wound had been dressed with moss and bandaged with parchment! In a few minutes after making this discovery Madame Ladoinski had bandaged her husband’s wound with lint and linen. It was a great relief to the warrior, and settling down in a comfortable chair he proceeded to question his wife as to how she had fared during his absence, and then to relate his own adventures.

Suddenly, as they sat talking, a fierce red light shone into the room, which had until then been in darkness, except for the feeble glimmer from a shaded lamp in the corner. Rising quickly, Madame Ladoinski went to the window, closely followed by her husband, who uttered an exclamation of surprise when he saw that a fire was raging in the newly captured city.

Taking up his lance Captain Ladoinski hurried out, to order his men to assist in subduing the fire, but at the doorway he was met by a messenger who made known to him Napoleon’s command, that the troops billeted in that portion of the town were not to leave their quarters. Surprised at this order, Captain Ladoinski returned to his wife, and together they watched from their window the rapidly extending fire. The burning part of the city was at a considerable distance from where they stood, but it seemed to them that unless prompt measures were taken it would be impossible to save the city from utter destruction. Hundreds of soldiers were resting near them who might have been busily employed in checking the progress of the flames. The truth dawned on both of them. Napoleon did not see his way to save Moscow from this new calamity.

Now Aimee Ladoinski had resided for some time in Moscow, and its streets and palaces were familiar to her, and the thought of their ruthless destruction to thwart the designs of one man filled her with shame shame that he who had caused this act of vandalism was a Frenchman.

Madame Ladoinski did not admire Napoleon, for she was at heart a Bourbon, and regarded him as an usurper. The reckless sacrifice of thousands of his fellow countrymen for his own aggrandisement filled her with loathing for the man, and she did not conceal her feelings from her husband, who made no attempt to defend the emperor. It was not for love of him that Captain Ladoinski had fought under ’the Little Corporal.’ He was a Pole, and it was because Napoleon was fighting the oppressor of the Polish race Russia that he fought for the French. The Russians had been humbled, and he, a Pole, had marched as one of a victorious army into their capital. But secretly he wondered if the condition of much-persecuted Poland would be better under Napoleon than it was under Russia. His wife candidly declared that it would not be. Napoleon had promised he would free Poland from the Russian yoke, but she felt convinced that it would simply be to place the country under French rule.

‘And, wherefore,’ she said to her husband, as we read in Watson’s Heroic Women of History, ’should Poland find such solitary grace in the eyes of Europe’s conquerors? Shall all the nations lie prostrate at his feet, and Poland alone be permitted to stand by his side as an equal? Be wise, my dear Ladoinski. You confess that the conqueror lent but a lifeless ear to the war-cry of your country. Be timely wise; open your eyes, and see that this cold-hearted victor wrapped in his own dark and selfish aims uses the sword of the patriot Pole only, like that of the prostrate Prussian, to hew the way to his own throne of universal dominion.... Believe it, this proud man did not enslave all Europe to become the liberator of Poland. Ah! trust me, that is but poor freedom which consists only In a change of masters. O Ladoinski! Ladoinski! give up this mad emprise; return to the bosom of your family; and when your compatriots arise to assert their rights at the call of their country, and not at the heartless beck of a stranger despot, I will buckle the helmet on your brow.’

Captain Ladoinski was inclined to believe that his wife had spoken the truth when she said that Napoleon would forget the Poles, now that Russia was crushed. Posing as a disinterested man eager to deliver the Poles from the hands of their oppressor, Napoleon had gathered round him a band of brave men, who fought with the determination of men fighting for their homes and liberty. They had served his purpose, and he would reward them, not with the freedom he had promised, but with the intimation that they were now his subjects. It was a terrible disappointment, but Captain Ladoinski consoled himself with the belief that French rule would not be so hard to bear as the Russian had been.

The fire spread apace. It was a grand yet terrible scene, the like of which, it is to be hoped, will never again be witnessed. Soon the heat became unbearable in the quarter of the city where the Ladoinskis stood and watched, and sparks and big flaring brands fell in showers. Unless they departed quickly they would be burned to death.

Captain Ladoinski could not seek safety in flight, for he had been commanded to remain in his quarters, and the order had not been cancelled. Assuring his wife that he would soon be at liberty to leave his post, he urged her to depart with their child and wait for him outside the city. This she refused to do, declaring that as long as he remained where he was she would stay with him. And this determination he could not alter, although he used every persuasion possible to that end.

On came the flames, crackling, hissing and roaring, and soon the houses facing the Ladoinskis would be engulfed in them. The captain would not quit his post without orders, and his wife would not leave him. Death seemed certain, and they were preparing to meet it, when suddenly an order came from head-quarters ordering the troops to evacuate the city with all despatch. Instantly the retreat began, but many men fell in the scorching, suffocating streets never to rise again. Captain Ladoinski and his wife and child had many narrow escapes from the fiery brands which fell hissing into the roads as they hurried on towards the suburbs, but fortunately they received no injury.

Arriving on high ground, and safe from the fire’s onslaught, the Ladoinskis stood, with thousands of Napoleon’s army, gazing at the destruction of Moscow. The captain, remembering the havoc which the Russians had wrought by fire and sword in Warsaw, rejoiced to see their capital in flames; but his wife checked his rejoicing by warning him that the destruction of Moscow would not bring freedom to Poland.

And now began Napoleon’s retreat. Terrible were the sufferings of the men, but it is only with Madame Ladoinski’s trials that we are concerned. Knowing that after the burning of Moscow it would be dangerous for any French person to remain in Russia, she, with many other people of her nationality, accompanied the French army on its disastrous retreat. She travelled in a baggage-wagon, which at any rate afforded her and her child some protection from the frost and snow. To her the journey was not so terrible an undertaking as to some of her compatriots, for she had the pleasure of being daily with her husband, after some years of separation. But her pleasure soon received a rude shock. The Cossacks hung on with tenacity to the remains of the great French army, swooping down at unexpected times upon some dispirited, disorganised section, cutting it to pieces, and recapturing some of the spoil with which the troops were loaded.

Captain Ladoinski was present when one of these attacks was made, and, while assisting to repel the attackers, received a dangerous wound. A place was found for him in the baggage-wagon, and there he lay for days, tenderly nursed by his wife. The road was blocked in many places with abandoned guns, dead horses, and broken-down wagons, and travelling was difficult. Some of the wagons had not broken down accidentally or through hard wear, but had been tampered with by the drivers. Many a terrible act was perpetrated in baggage-wagons during the retreat from Moscow. In these wagons, among the spoil taken from the capital, were placed the wounded, frequently unattended and without protection. Many of the drivers, anxious to possess some of the spoil with which their wagons were loaded, weakened the axle, so that it should collapse. The bedraggled soldiers would march on, and when the drivers were well in rear of the force they murdered their wounded passengers and looted the wagons.

One night Madame Ladoinski was awakened by the stoppage of their wagon. She had heard stories of the murdering of the wounded by wagon-drivers, but she had not believed them, and after peeping out at the snow-covered country, and seeing that soldiers and other wagons were near, she lay down again, and in a few minutes was sleeping soundly a sleep from which in all probability she would not have awakened, so intense was the cold, had not the wagon arrived at Smolensk, a depot of the French army, an hour later. Her life was saved by the prompt attention of a young officer, who glanced into the wagon, and was surprised to find her lying insensible with her child beside her. Calling to some brother officers, he jumped into the wagon and poured a little brandy into Madame Ladoinski’s mouth. Then, when she began to show signs of returning consciousness, he and his companions lifted her from the wagon to carry her and her boy to a house where they would be properly warmed, fed and nursed.

On the way some of the officers recognised her as Captain Ladoinski’s wife, and they were naturally surprised to find her in such a sad condition. ‘Where is Ladoinski?’ they asked each other; and one replied that on the previous day he had seen him, wounded, in the wagon with his wife and child. Some expressed the belief that he had died of his wounds, but others declared that he must have been murdered by the wagon-drivers, who, scoundrels though they were, had possessed sufficient humanity to spare the woman and child.

As in a dream, Madame Ladoinski had heard the conversation of the officers, and suddenly she grasped the meaning of what they had said.

‘My husband! my husband!’ she cried, wildly. ‘Where is he?’

The officers, distressed at her grief, told her that when the wagon arrived at Smolensk, she and her boy were the only people in it. Of her husband they had seen or heard nothing, and the wagon-drivers had disappeared soon after reaching the city. They endeavoured to cheer her, however, by assuring her that he was, no doubt, not far away, and would soon return to her. But she, remembering what they had said when they believed her to be unconscious, was not calmed by their well-intentioned words.

Two days passed, and nothing was seen or heard of Captain Ladoinski, although the officers who had taken an interest in his wife made every effort to obtain news of him. They were in their own minds convinced that he was dead, but in order that a searching enquiry might be made, they obtained for her an interview with two of the most powerful of Napoleon’s officers the King of Naples and Prince Eugene Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. These officers listened quietly to the story of her husband’s disappearance, and having expressed their sympathy with her, an aide-de-camp was summoned and ordered to make immediate enquiries among the wagon-drivers as to the fate of Captain Ladoinski. The aide-de-camp answered respectfully that he and several of his brother officers had already closely questioned every wagon-driver they could find, and that the men had sworn that Captain Ladoinski had died during the night of cold and of his wounds, and that his body had been thrown out into the snow. Madame Ladoinski, they declared, was insensible from cold when her husband died.

Clasping her boy, Madame Ladoinski burst into tears. For a few minutes she sat sobbing bitterly, but then, in the midst of her grief, she remembered that she was encroaching on the time of the officers before her. Controlling her tears as well as she was able, she asked for a safe-conduct for herself and child. As a Frenchwoman and the widow of a Polish rebel she would receive, she reminded her hearers, no mercy if she fell into the hands of the Russians. Her husband had fought for the French, and she claimed French protection. Instantly the two marshals declared that she should have the protection she asked, and Prince Eugene offered her a seat in a wagon that would accompany his division when it started in the course of a few days.

Madame Ladoinski accepted the offer with gratitude, whereupon the aide-de-camp was informed that she was to be placed in a baggage-wagon, and that the drivers were to be told that if their passengers did not reach the end of the journey in safety they would answer for it with their lives. On the other hand, if she arrived safely in Poland, and declared that she and her boy had been well-treated on the way, each driver would receive five hundred francs.

In a few days Madame Ladoinski was once again in a baggage-wagon; but Napoleon’s ‘Grand Army’ was now in a terrible condition. Ragged, starving, dispirited by the constant harassing from the enemy, and the continuous marching through snow, it made but slow progress. The gloomy forests through which the miserable army tramped on its way to attempt the passage of the Beresina were blocked with snow, and so difficult was it to move the guns that Napoleon ordered that one half of the baggage-wagons were to be destroyed, so that the horses and oxen might be utilised for dragging forward the artillery. The wagon in which Madame Ladoinski rode was one of the number condemned to destruction, but the men who had been ordered to protect her speedily found room for her in another vehicle.

A day or two later, when the bedraggled army was nearing the Polish frontier, Madame Ladoinski was startled from her dejection by hearing loud joyful shouts, and on enquiring of the driver the reason of the noise she was told that a reinforcement under Marshal Victor had unexpectedly arrived.

Soon the reinforcements were passing the wagon, but Madame Ladoinski possessed neither the energy nor the curiosity to glance out at them. She could think of nothing but her dead husband and her little orphaned boy. But suddenly as she sat brooding over her great loss she heard, ‘Forward, lancers!’ uttered in Polish. Believing that it was her husband’s voice she had heard, she sprang up and looked out at the troop trotting ahead. But she could not recognise her husband among the lancers, and she turned to sit down, believing that she was the victim of a delusion. To her surprise she saw her little son standing, with a finger uplifted to urge silence, listening eagerly.

‘What is it, darling?’ she asked.

‘Father!’ he replied.

Again Madame Ladoinski’s spirits rose, but they fell quickly when she remembered that the Polish Lancers had quitted Smolensk before she and her boy arrived there. It was madness, therefore, to imagine that her wounded husband could be with Marshal Victor’s army, and she dismissed the hope from her mind.

Days of terrible suffering for Napoleon’s army followed, but eventually Studzianka, on the left bank of the Beresina, was reached, and the soldiers hoped that once in Poland their trials would diminish. Madame Ladoinski, her spirits reviving at the prospect of soon being in her husband’s native land, lay listening to the noise of the men busily engaged in building the bridges over which the French army was to pass. Suddenly there was a tremendous uproar; shouts of joy, cries of triumph. Looking out Madame Ladoinski saw at once the cause of the excitement the enemy who had been encamped on the opposite bank of the river was in full retreat. The fierce battle which she had dreaded, in case her boy might be injured, would not be fought. Falling on her knees in the wagon, she thanked God for averting the danger she feared.

Now that the Russians were gone, the cavalry swam their horses across the river, and took up a position that would protect the crossing of the foot soldiers. The bridges were completed at last, and quickly the ragged regiments hurried over them. The baggage-wagons were to be left until the last, and for hours Madame Ladoinski sat watching regiment after regiment hurry across. Napoleon, stern and silent, passed close to her, and a mighty shout of ‘Vive L’Empereur’ burst from his trusting, long-suffering troops, when he gained the opposite bank.

Soon after Napoleon had crossed, Prince Eugene came along, and seeing Madame Ladoinski he rode over to her, and told her cheerfully that she would soon be among her husband’s friends, and that her trials would then be at an end. Then, turning to the drivers, he commanded them not to forget the order he had given concerning their behaviour and care of the lady entrusted to them.

When at last more than half the troops had crossed, the news arrived that the Russians had suddenly turned about and were marching back to the position they had vacated, while another strong body of the enemy was advancing to attack in the rear the troops which had not yet crossed. Instantly there was a panic, and the wagon-drivers, anxious for their own safety, turned Madame Ladoinski and her companions out of the wagon, so that their weight might not impede their progress. Madame Ladoinski reminded them of Prince Eugene’s instructions, but they took no notice. Neither fear of punishment nor hope of reward had any influence over them now; they were anxious only for their own safety.

For a minute or two Madame Ladoinski knew not what to do. To attempt to cross either of the bridges on foot would, she soon saw, result in her and her child being crushed to death. Others, men and women, had come to the same conclusion, and were wandering, shivering with cold, along the bank of the river. These Madame Ladoinski hastened to, believing, as did they, that before long the bridges would be less crowded, and they would be able to cross in safety.

But soon the sound of the Russian guns was heard in the rear of Madame Ladoinski and her fellow-sufferers, and a little later the cheers of the advancing enemy could be heard distinctly. Marshal Victor’s force, which lay between these unfortunate people and the Russians, fought gallantly at first, but at last they began to give way, and Madame Ladoinski feared that all was lost. Nearer and nearer came the enemy, and many of their musket balls reached the despairing creatures by the riverside. Approaching nearer to one of the bridges, Madame Ladoinski decided to join the crowd of terrified fugitives that was struggling across it. But before she reached it there was a terrible rush for it, and she stood aghast looking at the awful scene. Every one in the living mass was terrified, and each was fighting for his own life. Those who fell were quickly trampled to death by the hurrying mob, or crushed beneath the wheels of baggage-wagons and artillery. Now and again some terrified man, possessed of more than average strength, would be seen making his way along the crowded bridge by seizing and pitching into the river any who barred his way. And to add to the horror of the scene a terrible storm burst.

Madame Ladoinski, horrified by what she saw, decided to make no attempt to cross, but to remain where she was. Musket balls were now falling rapidly around her, and, to save her boy from the chance of being wounded, she laid him down on the ground, and placed herself in such a position that no ball could touch him unless it passed through her. Thick and fast the balls were flying, and Madame Ladoinski expected to receive at any minute a fatal wound, but, although men and women fell close around her, she remained unhurt.

Slowly but surely Victor’s men were driven back on the crowd that was still struggling to cross the bridge, and whose condition was made still more awful by the Russian infantry firing on it.

At last some of the regiments fled in disorder before the advancing enemy, and a troop of horse dashed back within a few yards of Madame Ladoinski.

‘Stand, lancers, stand!’ the officer was shouting to his men, and his voice sent a thrill of joy through Madame Ladoinski, for it was her husband’s.

She was confident of it this time, and almost immediately a strong gust of wind blew aside the smoke, which hung heavily over the battlefield, and there, not many yards away, was he whom she had believed to be dead. In stirring tones he called upon his men to charge once again into the ranks of the enemy.

‘My love, my husband!’ Madame Ladoinski called, still sheltering her boy with her body. ‘It is I, it is Aimee.’ But the din of warfare and the roaring of the wind drowned her voice. Again she called, but still he did not hear.

‘Lancers! forward,’ he shouted. ’For God and Poland! ’For God and Poland!’ his men answered, and spurring their horses they dashed forward once more to meet the enemy. Ladoinski had not seen his wife, and perhaps he would never see her again! Madame Ladoinski wept quietly; but as night began to draw nigh she determined to cross the bridge, thinking that she and her boy might as well risk being crushed on the bridge as being shot by the enemy. But when she saw the crowd of human beings turned by terror into demons, she decided to remain where she was.

A few minutes later, as she lay protecting her boy and gazing at the struggling mob, she saw the largest bridge sway, and almost instantly it collapsed and fell, with its struggling mass of human beings, into the icy river. For a few minutes the terrified shrieks of the drowning men and women were heard even amidst the noise of battle and the roaring of the wind; then they ceased.

It seemed to Madame Ladoinski that there was to be no end to the terrors of that day. She felt that she was going out of her mind, and prayed that she and her boy might die quickly.

Throughout the night Madame Ladoinski lay beside her boy in the snow. But she did not sleep a minute. The thunder of the enemy’s artillery, the sound of the musketry, and the noise of the disordered mob of soldiers who fought like demons to get safely across the one remaining bridge, would have prevented almost anyone from sleeping.

When daylight came the Russians were so near that it was clear to Madame Ladoinski that unless she crossed the bridge immediately she would soon be a prisoner. Lifting her boy, and sheltering him as much as possible, she hurried towards the bridge, but two or three times, when the enemy’s fire increased in severity, she took cover for a few minutes. At last she reached the bridge. The crowd was not now great, and it would have been possible for her to cross without any fear of her boy being crushed, but no sooner had they put their feet on the bridge when shouts of ’Go back, go back! Give yourselves up to the Russians,’ burst from their comrades who had already crossed the river. Stupefied, the people fell back, and almost at the same moment the last bridge burst into flames. To prevent the Russians from pursuing them, the French had burnt the bridge and left hundreds of their fellow countrymen to fall into the hands of the enemy.

The Cossacks, who were first of the Russian army to reach the river, were more eager for plunder than slaughter, and Madame Ladoinski fled along the river bank with her child pressed to her bosom. She had no idea of what to do, and for a time she escaped molestation. Then she decided to make an attempt to struggle through the river. She knew that there was very little probability of her being able to reach the other side, but it would be better for her and her little son to die than to fall into the hands of the semi-savage Cossacks. Tying her boy to her, so that the fate of one might be the other’s, she approached the water; but on the brink she was seized by a Russian. Terrified, she screamed for help, and it was fortunate that she did so, for the remnants of the Polish Lancers last to cease fighting the Russians were entering the river not many yards away, and Captain Ladoinski heard her cries. Calling to his men to come back, he urged his horse up the bank, and galloped along the riverside until he came to his wife and child. The Russian fled at the approach of the Polish Lancers, and Captain Ladoinski lifted his wife and child on to his horse without recognising them. Then quickly he put his horse to the river, and soon they were plunging through it with the water sometimes more than half over them, and musket balls lashing the river around them.

Madame Ladoinski had recognised her husband the instant he placed her before him on his horse, and, overcome with joy, she had swooned before she could utter a word. He remained quite unconscious of whom he had rescued until, in mid-stream, the shawl which had been over his wife’s head and shoulders slipped and disclosed her face. Joy did not cause the Polish captain to lose his wits, but made him more careful of his precious burden. He had been in a reckless mood, courting death in fact, during the last quarter of an hour of the fight, but now he was anxious to live. It would indeed be sad, he thought, if now, when safety was almost reached, a shot should lay him, or still worse, his wife, low. But on through danger the brave horse struggled with his heavy load, and soon Captain Ladoinski was able to place his wife and son on dry land, and to give them the warmth and food which they sadly needed.

Then when Madame Ladoinski had recovered from the excitement of again meeting her husband, he told her that he had long since been assured that both she and their boy were dead. He, as the wagon-drivers had sworn, had been thrown out of the wagon for dead, but some of his men came along soon after, and seeing him lying in the snow dismounted to see if he were alive. Finding that his heart was beating, they set to work and restored him to consciousness, and then took him on to Smolensk, whence he sent back to enquire after his wife and child. The message that was brought to him was that his wife and child had been murdered on the road. Believing this to be true, he went on with his regiment before they arrived at Smolensk with henceforth only one aim in life to avenge Poland’s wrongs.

The story of Captain Ladoinski’s extraordinary rescue of his own wife and child created some excitement among Napoleon’s soldiers, dispirited though they were by the terrible march they had undergone, and numerous and hearty were the congratulations which husband and wife received. Prince Eugene was one of the first to congratulate them, and Captain Ladoinski seized the opportunity to express his deep gratitude to the prince for the kindness he had shown to his wife in her sorrow, a kindness that was all the more creditable because Prince Eugene knew that Madame Ladoinski was a member of a Royalist family and an enemy of the Napoleonic dynasty. For some considerable time after the terrible retreat from Moscow, Captain Ladoinski fought in Prince Eugene’s army, but when, at last, the Prince’s military career came to an end he retired into private life. He had long since come to the conclusion that his wife was right when she said that Napoleon never had any intention of setting Poland free, but had obtained the services of the brave Poles under false pretences.

Madame Ladoinski deserved years of happy domestic life after her fearful experiences with the French army, and it is pleasant to be able to say that she had them. Until death parted them, many years later, she and her husband enjoyed the happiness of a quiet life unclouded by domestic or political troubles.

LADY SALE AND AN AFGHAN CAPTIVITY

‘Fighting Bob’ was the nickname affectionately bestowed upon Sir Robert Sale by his comrades-in-arms. Truly the name was well deserved, for wherever the fight was thickest there Sale was to be found, and the histories of his life abound with stories of his bravery and disregard of danger.

When twenty-seven years of age he married Florentia Wynch, a girl of nineteen, who proved before long to be almost as brave as he. Throughout his life she was his companion in danger, and many times nursed him back to health when seriously wounded. Adventures such as are rarely encountered by women were continually falling to her lot, but the greatest hardships which she was compelled to undergo were those attending the British retreat from Kabul in January, 1842.

Discontent with British rule had led to rebellion in Afghanistan, and Sir Robert Sale was sent with a brigade to clear the passes to Jelalabad. Lady Sale remained at Kabul, where the signs of discontent became daily more evident. The British native troops were disheartened, and eventually it was decided to retreat from the city.

At half-past nine in the morning of January 6, 1842, the British force, consisting of about 4500 soldiers, mostly native, and 12,000 followers, quitted Kabul. The snow lay a foot deep on the ground, and the thermometer registered several degrees below freezing-point. The bullocks had great difficulty in dragging the guns, and it took two hours and a half to cover the first mile. This slow rate of progress was not, however, entirely due to the state of the weather, as some of the delay was caused by a bridge of boats having to be made across the Kabul river, which lay about half a mile from the city. The camp followers refused to cross by any means but a bridge, but Lady Sale and her daughter, Mrs. Sturt, rode through with the horsemen. Immediately they reached the opposite bank their clothes froze stiff, and they could not change them for others, for as the rear-guard quitted the city the Afghans fired upon them and captured, without meeting any resistance, nearly the whole of the baggage, commissariat and ammunition. That night the British force, cold, hungry and dispirited, slept in the snow. There were no tents, but an officer erected a small pall over the hole in the snow where Lady Sale and her daughter lay.

At half-past seven on the following morning the march was resumed, but the force had not proceeded far when a party of Afghans sallied out from a small fort and carried off three guns. The British fought bravely, but the sepoys made scarcely any resistance, and hundreds of them fled for their lives.

As the British force advanced they saw the Afghans gathering in strength on either side, and before they had gone five miles they were compelled to spike and abandon two six-pounders, the horses not having sufficient strength to drag them. They were now in possession of only two guns and very little ammunition.

Men, hungry and numbed with cold, dropped out of the ranks, to be left to die from starvation, or to be massacred by the enemy. Another night was spent in the open, and when daylight came there were many frozen corpses lying on the ground. The troops were now utterly disorganised, and the Afghans continued to harass them, both while bivouacing and on the march. It was a terrible time, but Lady Sale was calm, and endeavoured to instil with courage other women of the party. Soon the British arrived at a spot where, some time previously, Sir Robert Sale had been wounded, and there a fierce attack was made upon them. A ball entered Lady Sales’ arm, her clothes were riddled with bullets, and her escape seemed impossible, so fierce was the fire of the enemy, who were in a strong position about fifty yards distant. Nevertheless she did escape, but only to find that her daughter’s husband, Lieutenant Sturt, had been mortally wounded. Five hundred soldiers and two thousand five hundred camp followers were killed, and many women and children were carried off by the Afghans. Others lay dying in the fast-falling snow.

Lady Sale and her daughter were in great distress at the death of Lieutenant Sturt, and took little interest in the proposal that all the women should be placed under the protection of Mahommed Akbar Khan, who had suggested this step. However, with the other women, they accepted the proffered protection, and were taken to a fort in the Khurd Kabul, and eventually they heard that the force with which they had quitted Kabul had been annihilated.

On January 17, Lady Sale and her companions, among whom were now several British officers whom Mahommed Akbar Khan had captured, arrived at Badiabad, where, in a small mud fort the party, consisting of 9 women, 20 men and 14 children, were kept prisoners. However, they were not molested, and as food of a kind was supplied to them, they did not complain. Their uncomfortable surroundings were, however, made more unpleasant by a series of earthquakes.

On February 19, Lady Sale was spreading some clothes out to dry on the flat roof of the fort, when a terrible shock occurred, causing the place to collapse. Lady Sale fell with the building, but rose from the ruins unhurt. Even the wounds received by her on the day Lieutenant Sturt was killed were not aggravated by the accident. Before dark that day there were twenty-five distinct shocks, and about fifteen more during the night. For some weeks after this they were constantly occurring. At one spot, not far away, 120 Afghans and 20 Hindus were buried in the ruins of buildings shaken to the ground.

During her captivity Lady Sale had been able to write letters to her husband, who was shut up with his garrison in Jelalabad, and her great desire was that he should be able to hold the place until relief arrived. On March 15 a rumour reached her that it had been captured by the Afghans, but to her great delight she heard later that the rumour was false. She was exceedingly proud of her husband, and gloried in his successes. A successful defence of the city would, she knew, add considerably to his reputation. During the following five months Lady Sale and her daughter were continually being moved from one place to another, and before long it became clear to them that the Afghan rebellion was being rapidly quelled. Rumours of British victories reached them, and the man who was in charge of them, while moving from place to place, made it understood that for R,000 and R a month for life he would effect their escape.

But soon, on September 15, the good news was received that the British were coming to their rescue, and, guided by the bribed Afghan, Lady Sale and her companions moved off secretly to meet them. Two days later they arrived at the foot of the Kalu Pass, where they met Sir Richmond Shakespeare, with 600 native horsemen, coming to their rescue.

Lady Sale was naturally anxious to hear of her husband’s doings, and Sir Richmond Shakespeare was able to make her happy by telling her of how gallantly he had defended Jelalabad. Soon, however, she heard from his own lips the story of his defence. On September 19, a horseman arrived with a message from Sir Robert Sale, saying that he was advancing with a brigade. Lady Sale had been feeling weak for several days, but the news of her husband’s approach gave her fresh strength.

‘It is impossible to express our feelings on Sale’s approach,’ she wrote in her diary. ’To my daughter and myself happiness so long delayed as to be almost unexpected was actually painful, and accompanied by a choking sensation which could not obtain the relief of tears.’

The men loudly cheered Lady Sale and her daughter, and pressed forward to express their hearty congratulations at their escape. ‘And then,’ Lady Sale continued in her diary, ’my highly-wrought feelings found the desired relief; and I could scarcely speak to thank the soldiers for their sympathy, whilst the long withheld tears now found their course. On arriving at the camp, Captain Backhouse fired a royal salute from his mountain train guns; and not only our old friends, but all the officers in the party, came to offer congratulations and welcome our return from captivity.’

After a visit to England, Sir Robert and Lady Sale returned to India in March, 1844. Towards the end of the following year the Sikh War broke out, and at the battle of Mudki, fought on December 18, Sir Robert’s left thigh was shattered by a grape shot, and he died three days later.

Lady Sale continued to reside in India after her husband’s death, her comfort secured by a pension of L500 a year, granted to her by Queen Victoria, as a mark of approbation of her own and Sir Robert’s conduct. She died at Cape Town, which she was visiting for the benefit of her health, on July 6, 1853, aged sixty-three.

ETHEL ST. CLAIR GRIMWOOD,

AND THE ESCAPE FROM MANIPUR

Until late in the last century it was a common thing for the ruler of a native Eastern state to celebrate his accession to the throne by slaughtering his brothers and uncles. This drastic measure reduced the possibilities of the new ruler being deposed, and was considered by the majority of the natives a wise precaution. The Maharajah of Manipur was more humane than many rulers, and although he had seven brothers, he refrained from killing any of them.

For several years the brothers lived on friendly terms with each other, but eventually quarrels arose through two of them wanting to marry the same woman. The eight brothers divided into two parties, and quarrelled so incessantly, that the maharajah deemed it wise to abdicate and leave the country. Mr. Grimwood the British Political Agent, did his utmost to dissuade the maharajah from abdicating, but without success. He departed, and one of his brothers became ruler.

Mr. Grimwood and his wife had lived for three years in Manipur when the maharajah abdicated, and during that time the natives had always been friendly towards them. Even the royal brothers, while quarrelling among themselves, maintained their usual friendly relations with them.

Manipur is an out-of-the-way place, lying in the heart of the mountainous region, which is bordered on the north by the Assam Valley, on the east and south by Burma, and on the west by the Cachar district. During the greater portion of their stay in Manipur Mr. and Mrs. Grimwood were the only white people in the place, and consequently the news that the Chief Commissioner was on his way to hold a durbar at the Residency afforded them much pleasure. But the information that his excellency was accompanied by 400 men of the 42nd and 44th Ghurkhas, made it clear that some political event of considerable importance was about to take place. The Chief Commissioner had, in fact, decided to arrest the jubraj, the maharajah’s brother, at the durbar which was fixed for eight o’clock in the morning of March 23, 1891.

But the jubraj had his suspicions aroused by the military force which accompanied the Chief Commissioner. He did not attend the durbar, but sent a message to say that he was too unwell to be present. Four hours later, Mr. Grimwood was sent to the palace to inform the jubraj that he was to be arrested and banished, and to persuade him to surrender peacefully. This the jubraj refused to do, and consequently it was decided to storm the palace and capture him.

Fighting began on the following day, shortly before daybreak. The palace walls, some sixty yards from the Residency, and separated from it by an unfordable moat, were loop-holed, and soon a fierce fire was opened on the attackers. Mrs. Grimwood sought shelter in the little telegraph office, but bullets were soon crashing through it, and her position was one of extreme danger, but after the first fright she settled down to help the doctor attend to the wounded.

The British attack on the palace was not, however, successful, and the Manipuris crept round to the back of the Residency, and made an attack upon it. They were beaten off, but the British force was soon in a critical position; for, shortly after 4 o’clock, some big guns opened fire on the Residency, where the whole of the force was now concentrated. Mrs. Grimwood states in her book, My Three Years in Manipur, that the first shell fired at the Residency made her speechless with fear; but others who were present state that a few minutes later she was hard at work attending to the wounded under fire. The cellars under the Residency were used as a hospital, and terrible were the sights which the brave woman witnessed. Every hour the position of the British became more desperate. Men were falling quickly, and the ammunition was running out.

At last a message was sent to the jubraj asking on what conditions he would cease firing on the Residency. His reply was to the effect that the British must surrender unconditionally. Finding that the British would not agree to this, he sent word that if the Chief Commissioner would come to the palace gates he would discuss terms with him. His excellency and Mr. Grimwood went forward, but as they reached the gates they were pushed inside the palace enclosure, and the gates closed behind them. Then the Manipuris shouted that the white men were prisoners, and again opened fire on the Residency. The British troops replied, but their position was now critical. Very little ammunition remained, and shells were bursting over the Residency. One burst near to Mrs. Grimwood’s feet, but fortunately she only received a slight wound in the arm.

At midnight the British officers decided to evacuate the Residency and retreat to Cachar.

Mrs. Grimwood being the only person who knew the way to the Cachar road, acted as guide, and led the retreating force through hedges, over mud walls, and across a river. Looking back when they had gone four miles, Mrs. Grimwood saw that the Residency, her home for three happy years, was in flames. Her husband a prisoner, and her home destroyed, it would not have been surprising if Mrs. Grimwood had been too grief-stricken to continue the journey on foot. But she plodded on bravely in her thin house-shoes, and with her clothes heavy with water. Sometimes the hills were so steep that she had to climb them on hands and knees, but she never complained, and did not hamper the progress of the force. Not until twenty miles had been covered did she have a rest, and then, thoroughly exhausted, she wrapped herself in the overcoats which the officers lent her, and lay down and slept.

A few hours later the retreating force, hungry, tired and somewhat dispirited, resumed its march. Mrs. Grimwood’s feet were cut and sore, but she tramped on bravely in the military boots which had been given her to replace her thin worn-out shoes. They had now travelled beyond the country with which Mrs. Grimwood was familiar, and no one knew the way. They pushed on in the direction which they believed to be the right one, but without being able to obtain anything to eat. When, however, they had been two days without food, they came suddenly upon some Manipuri soldiers cooking rice. The Manipuris, taken by surprise, fled quickly, leaving their rice to fall into the hands of the starving British force.

Refreshed by the meal which they had so unexpectedly obtained, the British resumed their journey, but they had not gone far when they found a stockade barring their way. The defenders opened fire on them at once, and as the British had no ammunition they rushed the stockade, causing the Manipuris to run for their lives.

The British officers now decided to remain for a time in the captured stockade, but soon a large body of men was seen advancing towards it. Were they Ghurkhas or Manipuris? No one could tell, and reliance could not be placed on a bugle call, as both Ghurkhas and Manipuris had the same one. It was believed by the majority that the advancing men were Manipuris, and one of the officers told Mrs. Grimwood that he had two cartridges left, one for her and one for himself, if the men proved to be the enemy.

But they were not the enemy. A sharp-eyed man discovered a white officer among the advancing soldiers, and this was ample proof that they were Ghurkhas. A cheer from the stockade was answered by one from the approaching men, who were proceeding to Manipur, but had only heard a few hours before of the retreat of their comrades-in-arms. They had plenty of provisions with them, and quickly gave the tired, hungry men a good meal.

The remainder of the journey to the frontier was made in comparative comfort, but Mrs. Grimwood’s trials were not yet ended. Soon the sad news of her husband’s death was broken to her. He and his fellow prisoner had been executed with horrible brutality by order of the jubraj.

The story of Mrs. Grimwood’s heroism in attending to the wounded under fire, and her bravery during the long and trying retreat, aroused admiration throughout the civilized world. In consideration of her exceptional services, the Secretary of State for India in Council awarded her a pension of L140 a year, and a special grant of L1000. The Princess of Wales our present Queen was exceedingly kind to her, and Queen Victoria invited her to Windsor Castle, and decorated her with the well-deserved Red Cross.

THREE SOLDIERS’ WIVES IN SOUTH AFRICA

In December, 1880, a detachment of the 2nd Connaught Rangers was escorting a wagon-train, nearly a mile in length, from Leydenberg to Pretoria. Until more than half the journey had been travelled the Boers, whom the British met on the way, had shown no disposition to be unfriendly, but, one morning, as the convoy slowly wended its way up a hill, studded with clumps of trees, a strong force of Boers jumped out from their places of concealment and called upon the British to surrender. They sent forward, under a flag of truce, a written demand to that effect, but, seeing that the British officer in command had no intention to order his men to lay down their arms, they treacherously disregarded the white flag that was flying, and opened fire upon the convoy.

The British were caught in an ambush, and the Boers, who greatly outnumbered them, wrought terrible havoc. The Boers were concealed behind trees and stones, but the British could obtain scarcely any cover. Their colonel was mortally wounded early in the fight, and soon there was only one officer unhurt.

When the attack on the convoy began there were three women in one of the wagons. Mrs. Marion Smith, widow of the late bandmaster, was travelling down country, with her two children, to sail on a troopship for England. The other two women were Mrs. Fox, wife of the sergeant-major, and Mrs. Maistre, wife of the orderly-room clerk. Scarcely had the massacre begun when Mrs. Fox received a bullet wound as she sat in the wagon, and fell backwards, badly hurt.

Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Maistre were naturally alarmed at finding themselves suddenly in a position of such great danger. But they were soldiers’ wives, and soon all fear vanished, and having made Mrs. Smith’s children comparatively safe in a corner of the wagon they stepped out to render aid to the wounded. It was a terrible sight for them. The ground was strewn with dead and dying, and nearly every face was familiar to them. Regardless of the bullets that whizzed past them one grazed Mrs. Smith’s ear they tore up sheets to make bandages, and passing from one wounded man to another, stanched the flow of blood and bound the wounds.

At last, when it became clear to the mortally wounded colonel that the annihilation of his force would be the result of a continuation of the fight, the ‘Cease fire’ was sounded, and the outnumbered British delivered up their arms.

The soldiers’ work was finished; Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Maistre had still much to do. On the battle-field the wounded lay thick, and for hours the two brave women worked at their self-appointed task. Many a dying lad had his last minutes made happy by their kindly words and actions.

From December 20 until March 31, 1881, the three women remained prisoners in the hands of the Boers. They might, had they cared to do so, have led lives of idleness during their imprisonment, but, instead, they were busy from morning until night nursing the wounded. Mrs. Fox’s courage was indeed wonderful, for the wound she had received in the attack was very serious, and the doctors had told her that she could not expect to live long. Her husband, too, had been severely wounded early in the fight, but nevertheless she was as indefatigable as Mrs. Maistre and Mrs. Smith in doing good. The three women were adored by the wounded soldiers, for whom they wrote letters home, prepared dainty food, and read.

When peace was declared the three brave women returned to England, and Mrs. Smith was decorated with the medal of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. She was reported, in the application that was made on her behalf, to have been ’unremitting in her attention to the wounded and dying soldiers during the action, and that her conduct while living under canvas was beyond all praise. She did the utmost to relieve the sufferings of the men in hospital, and soothed the last moments of many a poor soldier, while sharing their privations to the full.’

After a time Mrs. Smith’s whereabouts became unknown to the authorities; they did not in fact know whether she were alive, and consequently she was not recommended for the Red Cross. Mrs. Fox and Mrs. Maistre received the coveted decoration, but the former did not long survive the honour. She died in January, 1888, at Cambridge Barracks, Portsmouth, and in making her death known to the regiment the colonel said: ’Mrs. Fox died a soldier’s death, as her fatal illness was the result of a wound received in action, and aggravated in consequence of her noble self-devotion afterwards.’

The Commander-in-Chief H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge ordered that military honours should be paid to the dead woman. It was a very unusual thing, but the honour was well-merited, and crowds lined the streets to see the coffin borne past on a gun carriage. Over the coffin was laid a Union Jack, and on this was placed the brave woman’s Red Cross. The men who bore her from the gun carriage to her grave in Southsea Cemetery were six non-commissioned officers who had been wounded in the fight of December 20, 1880, and whom she had nursed.