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قراءة كتاب Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India Being Extracts from the Letters of the Late Major W. S. R. Hodson, B. A.
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Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India Being Extracts from the Letters of the Late Major W. S. R. Hodson, B. A.
well for poor men; better still for fools, for they must rise equally with wise men; but for maintaining the discipline and efficiency of the army in time of peace, and hurling it on the enemy in war, there never was a system which carried so many evils on its front and face."
His fast friend, Sir Henry Lawrence, again intervenes, and he is appointed an Assistant Commissioner, leaving the Guides for a time. In this capacity, in April, 1850, he comes across the new Commander-in-Chief:—
"I have just spent three days in Sir Charles Napier's camp, it being my duty to accompany him through such parts of the civil district as he may have occasion to visit. He was most kind and cordial; vastly amusing and interesting, and gave me even a higher opinion of him than before. To be sure, his language and mode of expressing himself savor more of the last than of this century—of the camp than of the court; but barring these eccentricities, he is a wonderful man; his heart is as thoroughly in his work, and he takes as high a tone in all that concerns it, as Arnold did in his; that is to say, the highest the subject is capable of. I only trust he will remain with us as long as his health lasts, and endeavor to rouse the army from the state of slack discipline into which it has fallen. On my parting with him he said, 'Now, remember, Hodson, if there is any way in which I can be of use to you, pray don't scruple to write to me.'"
After working in the Civil Service, chiefly in the Cis-Sutlej Provinces, for nearly two years, under Mr. Edmonstone, he is promoted to the command of the Guides on Lumsden's return to England. The wild frontier district of Euzofzai is handed over to him, where
"I am military as well as civil chief; and the natural taste of the Euzofzai Pathans for broken heads, murder, and violence, as well as their litigiousness about their lands, keeps me very hard at work from day to day."
Here he settles with his newly married wife, "the most fortunate man in the service; and have I not a right to call myself the happiest also, with such a wife and such a home?"
For nearly three years he rules this province, building a large fort for his regiment, fighting all marauders from the hills, training his men in all ways, even to practising their own sports with them.
"William is very clever" his wife writes "at this," cutting an orange, placed on a bamboo, in two, at full speed, "rarely failing. He is grievously overworked; still his health is wonderfully good, and his spirits as wild as if he were a boy again. He is never so well pleased as when he has the baby in his arms."
Yes, the baby,—for now comes in a little episode of home and family, a gentle and bright gem in the rough setting of the soldier's life; and the tender and loving father and husband stands before us as vividly as the daring border-leader.
"You would so delight in her baby tricks," he writes to his father. "The young lady already begins to show a singularity of taste—refusing to go to the arms of any native women, and decidedly preferring the male population, some of whom are distinguished by her special favor. Her own orderly, save the mark, never tires of looking at her 'beautiful white fingers,' nor she of twisting them into his black beard,—an insult to an Oriental, which he bears with an equanimity equal to his fondness for her. The cunning fellows have begun to make use of her too, and when they want anything, ask the favor in the name of Lilli Bâbâ (they cannot manage 'Olivia' at all). They know the spell is potent."
But for the particulars of life in the wilderness, we must refer our readers to Mrs. Hodson's letters (pp. 197-200). This happiness was not destined to last. In July, 1854, the child dies.
"The deep agony of this bereavement I have no words to describe," the father writes. "She had wound her little being round our hearts to an extent which we neither of us knew until we awoke from the brief dream of beauty, and found ourselves childless."
Another trial too is at hand. In the autumn of 1854, Sir H. Lawrence is removed from the Punjaub, and in October, charges are trumped up (there is no other word for it, looking to the result) against Hodson, in both his civil and military capacity. A court of inquiry is appointed; and before that court has reported, he is suspended from all civil and military duty.
Into the details of the charges against him we will not enter, lest we should be tempted into the use of hard words, which his brother has nobly refrained from. All that need be stated is, that the sting lay in the alleged confusion of his regimental accounts. The Court of Inquiry appointed Major Taylor to examine these, and report on them. This was in January, 1855; in February, 1856, Taylor presented an elaborate report, wholly exculpating Hodson. Mr. Montgomery, (then Commissioner for the Punjaub, now Chief Commissioner in Oude,) to whom it was submitted, calls it the most satisfactory report he ever read, and most triumphant. This report, however, though made public on the spot, had not, even in May, 1857, been communicated to the Government of India; whether suppressed on purpose, or not, there is no evidence. But when at last fairly brought to their notice by a remonstrance from the accused, the satisfactory nature of the document may be gathered from the fact that the answer is, "his remonstrance will be placed on record for preservation, not for justification, which it is fully admitted was not required,—no higher testimonials were ever produced."
It is with the man himself that we are concerned. We have seen him in action, and in prosperity; how will he face disgrace and disaster?—
"I must endeavor to face the wrong, the grievous, foul wrong, with a constant and unshaken heart, and to endure humiliation and disgrace with as much equanimity as I may; and with the same soldierlike fortitude with which I ought to face danger, suffering, and death in the path of duty.... Our darling babe was taken from us on the day my public misfortunes began, and death has robbed us of our father before their end. The brain-pressure was almost too much for me.... I strive to look the worst boldly in the face as I would an enemy in the field, and to do my appointed work resolutely and to the best of my ability, satisfied that there is a reason for all; and that even irksome duties well done bring their own reward, and that if not, still they are duties....
"It is pleasant to find that not a man who knows me has any belief that there has been anything wrong.... Not one of them all (and, indeed, I believe I might include my worst foes and accusers in the category) believes that I have committed any more than errors of judgment."
Thus he writes to brother and sister; and, for the rest, goes back resolutely to his old regiment, and begins again the common routine of a subaltern's duties, congratulating himself that the colonel wishes to give him the adjutancy, in which post
"I shall have the opportunity of learning a good deal of work which will be useful to me, and of doing, I hope, a good deal of good amongst the men. It will be the first step up the ladder again, after tumbling to the bottom."
The colonel gets him to take the office of quartermaster, however, not the adjutancy, the former office "having fallen into great disorder;" and in