Chapter 10 Chapter 10 A Sad Journey
The Kingdom of Ud used to be one of the most important territories on the peninsula, and it is still a very wealthy region in India, but the successive lords of Ud were strong and weak.On February 6, 1857, the weak Wazad Aliza ceded the Kingdom of Ud to Britain.We see this happening almost in the months before the outbreak of the uprising, and it is this very place that was savagely slaughtered by the insurgents and then subjected to the most severe repression.
From this time, two cities became the most sad places, and they were Lucknow and Kanpur.
Lucknow was the capital of the Udd kingdom, and Kanpur was one of the major cities of the kingdom.
It was Kanpur that Colonel Moreau wanted to go to.We reached the city on the morning of the twenty-ninth of May, following the right bank of the Ganges and crossing a large plain infested with magnolias.In the past two days, the giant steel beast arrived at Kanpur after driving 250 kilometers from Allahabad at an average speed of three miles per hour.
At this time, we were almost a thousand kilometers away from Calcutta, our starting point.
Kanpur has a population of about 60,000 and occupies a five-mile strip on the right bank of the Ganges.There is also a barracks area in the city, where seven thousand soldiers are stationed.
Although Kanpur is a city with a long history, even dating back to AD 6, tourists will find nothing worth seeing here.We came to Kanpur, though not out of curiosity, but entirely to satisfy the wishes of Mr. Edward Morrow.
On the morning of May 30th, we left the campsite.Bonkers, Captain Ord, and I followed the Colonel and Sergeant Mark Real on the road to misery as Mr. Edward Morrow wanted to say his last goodbyes to Kemper.
The following are the words that Bonkers told me, and I think it is necessary for everyone to know.
"When the Kingdom of Ud surrendered to the British, there were still a large number of royal garrisons in Kanpur, but at the beginning of the riot, there were only 250 royal soldiers left, while the other party had 3,000 infantry regiments, namely the 1st and 50th infantry regiments. The 3rd and 56th Regiments, plus two cavalry regiments and a Bengal artillery regiment, and Kanpur was populated by a considerable number of Europeans, clerks, officers, wholesalers, and members of the 39th Royal Regiment of Lucknow. Eight hundred and fifty women and children."
"Colonel Moreau had been living in Kanpur a few years ago. It was there that he met the young girl who would become his wife."
"Miss Laurence Hornley was a young and pretty Englishman, intelligent, good-natured, and of a noble heart, brave and strong of nature, a woman worthy of the love of a man like the Colonel, who loved and adored her She. She lived with her mother in the one-story house on the outskirts of the town, where Edward Morrow married Miss Hunley in 1855."
"After two years of marriage, that is, in 1856, Millard's Indian soldiers rioted. Colonel Moreau must return to his unit without delay. He was obliged to leave his wife and mother-in-law. In Kanpur, they were also told to prepare to go to Calcutta immediately. Colonel Morrow knew that Kanpur was not a safe place, but it was okay! What happened later coincided with his premonition.
"But Mrs. Hunley and Mrs. Moreau started too late, with disastrous consequences, and unexpected events prevented these two unfortunate women from leaving Kanpur.
"The British army was commanded by General Huff Willey, an upstanding and loyal soldier who later fell prey to Nana Saib's trickery.
"At that time, the big man lived in Bilur Fort, ten miles away from Kanpur, and he had for a long time pretended to be extremely friendly to the Europeans.
"My dear Mokray, you know that the riots first started at Mehrad and Delhi. News of the riots did not reach Kanpur until May 14th. On the same day, the First Indian Regiment immediately responded.
"At this time, Nana Saib offered to help the British government to quell the riots, and General Viller was foolishly convinced by this cunning liar. Nana's army quickly occupied Tre Soleli fortress.
"On this very day, an irregular Indian regiment marched into Kanpur and killed all the European officers at the gates.
"The latent crisis was revealed at last, and the situation was extremely dangerous. General Willey then ordered all Europeans to take refuge in the camp where the women and children of the XXXII Corps in Lucknow lived--which is located in the The closest to the road to Allahabad and the only place where assistance is available.
"Mrs. Moreau and her mother were also kept there. During those prisoner days, the young woman gave her all selflessly for her hapless companions. She cared for them herself and paid to help them , encouraged them by her words and deeds, she had a noble soul and, as I have just told you, a brave and strong woman.
"But Nana Saib's forces quickly captured the arsenal.
"This traitor finally raised the flag of the insurrectionary army. On June 7, Indian soldiers attacked the British barracks under his command, but there were only 300 defending soldiers here.
"But these brave soldiers still stubbornly resisted the attackers' artillery fire. All around them were the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled. They were hungry and thirsty, but they had nothing to eat, because the food supply was seriously insufficient, and they had nothing to drink, because All wells have dried up.
"The resistance continued until June 27th."
"At this time, Nana Saib asked the British army to surrender. Although Mrs. Moreau repeatedly asked General Vilay to command the defenders to continue fighting, he still made an unforgivable mistake, that is, he accepted the conditions of surrender. .
"After the surrender of the British army, the remaining approximately five hundred men, women, and children were loaded into the ship--Mrs. to Allahabad.
"But as soon as the boat they were on left the shore, it was shot by Indian soldiers. There was a hail of bullets! Some boats sank in the river, and others were burned. But one of them was lucky to escape. The catastrophe drove a few miles further south along the river.
"Mrs. Moreau and her mother were in this boat. For a moment they thought they were saved. But the Indian soldiers in Nana pursued them, and finally captured the people in the boat and brought them back to the barracks.
"There the prisoners were treated differently. All the men were shot immediately. The women and children were kept with other women and children who were not killed on June 27th.
"These two hundred innocent victims were temporarily saved and locked up in a bungalow called Bibi Garr, which has since become a well-known tragedy site."
"Where did you get all these horrible details?" I asked Bonkers.
"It was told to me by a sergeant who had served in the Thirty-Second Regiment of the Royal Army," replied the engineer. A province of the Kingdom of Germany, who took him and several other deserters with the utmost humanity."
"And what has become of Mrs. Moreau and her mother?"
"My dear fellow," replied Bonkers, "we have no solid evidence of what happened after that. But we can quite imagine it. The Indian soldiers became masters at Kanpur, and continued until the tenth of July." Five days, these short nineteen days are as long as nineteen centuries! Those poor prisoners are looking forward to the long-awaited rescue every moment."
"As a matter of fact, General Havelock had already left Calcutta and rushed to Kanpur to rescue him. He only had a few encounters with the rebels on the way, and he did not reach Kanpur until July 17."
"But two days ago, when Nana Saib learned that the British Royal Army had crossed the Pandu Nadi River, he decided to end the doom of his reign with the most brutal massacre. To the invaders of India, He can do whatever he wants!"
"Some of the prisoners who had been held in Bibi Garr were brought before him, and fell under the sword."
"The women and children are still alive, including Mrs. Moreau and her mother. But a detachment of the 6th Indian Regiment was ordered to shoot all the prisoners through Bibi Garh's window. Killed. The order was carried out immediately, but Nana Saib, who had to retreat from Kanpur as soon as possible, was not satisfied with the speed of execution of the order. This bloodthirsty tyrant went so far as to recruit some Islamic butchers and mix them in his Among the soldiers... it's a massacre!"
"The next day, all the women and children, dead or alive, were thrown into a nearby well. When the British troops under General Havelock arrived on the scene, they found that the bodies piled up to the well were still there. Still smoking!"
Immediately afterwards, the British army began a brutal revenge for the riots.Some rebels who had been Nana Saib's accomplices fell into the hands of General Havelock.The next day the general issued a series of dreadful orders, I don't think I'll ever forget every word of it:
"The well filled with the remains of the poor women and children killed by the orders of the irreligious Nana Saib will be carefully filled and covered in a grave. Tonight an officer will Lead a European army in this sacred mission. Do not let the fellow-citizens of the victims clean the houses and rooms of the massacres. I will let every drop of innocent blood be taken by those condemned to death before execution, according to Sweep or lick clean by their caste and what each of them did in the massacre. Immediately after the death sentence is read out to any prisoner, he is taken to the house where the massacre took place and he is forced to sweep part of the floor We will do everything possible to make the criminals feel extremely insulted, disgusted and indignant. If necessary, they can be whipped. After they have cleaned the blood on the floor, Immediately send them to the gallows next to the house."
"This was the order that was given that day," continued Bunkers, absorbed in his statement, "that the order was immediately carried out with the utmost strictness. But the victims are still gone forever. They have been massacred." , dismembered, and scattered to pieces! When Colonel Moreau came two days later to retrieve a little of Mrs. Moreau and her mother from the pile of corpses, he found nothing... nothing!"
These are some of the things Bonkers told me before we arrived in Kanpur.Now, Colonel Moreau was going to the place where the brutal massacre had occurred.
But first of all he wanted to go to the bungalow where Mrs. Moreau had lived, where she had spent her youth.It was also where the Colonel saw her for the last time, on the threshold of the house, where he was embraced by her for the last time.
The house is located on the outskirts of Kanpur, not far from the barracks of the garrison.Now the whole building is in ruins, with only the walls blackened by smoke and a few dead trees lying on the ground.The colonel insisted on keeping it as it was, so six years later, the bungalow looked exactly like it did when it was set ablaze.
We spent a full hour in this desolate place.Mr. Edward Morrow walked among the ruins without saying a word. How many past events had been buried there, and now these past events came to him one by one.He thought back to the happy times he had had but now were gone forever.In the house where Mrs. Moreau was born, he saw again the young girl, the happy girl, whom he had met here.Sometimes the colonel closed his eyes, as if to see her better!
But suddenly, he turned around and walked back, dragging us outside the house, and it seemed that he was also trying to restrain himself.
Bonkers had hoped that the Colonel might be able to force himself not to come to the bungalow again...but no!Mr. Edward Moreau has resolutely resolved to taste all the bitterness and bitterness that this sad city has left him!Leaving Mrs. Moreau's house, the colonel wished to see the barracks where countless victims of the riots had been held, and who had suffered so much during the siege of Kanpur by the British army. These innocent compatriots selflessly gave their all.
The barracks are located on a plain outside the city. , the victims of Kanpur should have taken refuge here.The road to the barracks was paved with gravel and lined with beautiful trees.
It is here that the appalling tragedy unfolds.Here Madame Moreau and her mother lived, tortured, and awaited final death, until the British Army surrendered and delivered their innocent victims into the hands of Nana Saib.The traitor did not keep his promise to bring them safely to Allahabad, and from the very beginning he had resolved to kill them all with brutality.
From the unfinished project, we can still see some incomplete brick walls, which are the remnants of the fortifications ordered by General Velay.
Colonel Moreau stood among the ruins for a long time, motionless and silent.Quietly recalling the tragic scenes that happened here.From Mrs. Moreau's house to this barracks, one is the place where she lived happily, but the other has made her suffer countless unimaginable pains and tortures!
We're left with Bibby Garr.Nana Saib converted the bungalow into a prison for prisoners.Back then, many poor victims were thrown alive into the well dug next to the house.
When Bonkers saw the Colonel walking in the direction of Bibby Garr, he immediately grabbed his arm, not wanting him to go.
Mr. Edward Morrow, looking him in the face, said in a voice of terrible calm:
"Let's go!"
"Moreau! I beg you! . . . "
"Then I'll go alone."
Bonkers made no further objections.
So we then went to Bibi Gall, which is in front of a well-planned garden with shady trees.
On the site of the well stood an octagonal Gothic building, the mouth of which had been paved with stone slabs and formed the base of a white marble statue.It was the "Angel of Mercy" among the last works of the sculptor Marok under the knife.
During the 1857 Indian riots, Mr. Gan Ning, the governor of India, ordered the construction of this temple in order to seek God's atonement. Its designer was the genius Colonel Yule. At that time, he even wanted to invest in the completion of the construction project himself.
At that time, after the mother and daughter were stabbed by the butcher under Nana Saib, they might have been thrown into this well alive. Mr. Edward Morrow stood by the well and couldn't help crying.He finally knelt down on the stone steps at the angel's feet.
Sergeant Mark Rael had been weeping silently beside him.
Our hearts are also broken along with them. I don't know what to say to comfort this inconsolable pain. I only hope that Mr. Edward Morrow can shed his last tear here!
what!If he had been among the first royal troops that marched into Kanpur, and had come to this well after the brutal massacre, he might have died of agony!
Let us hear the statement of a British officer--Mr. Rusley has transcribed it in his own work:
"As soon as we entered Kanpur, we immediately started looking for those poor women and children. We knew that they were in the hands of the murderous Nana, but soon we learned of the massacre. Among these innocent people who were killed Facing the hardships suffered by our compatriots, we painfully vowed to repay the debt of blood. At the same time, we also thought of some strange and barbaric ideas. Burning with hatred for Nana in our hearts, we ran frantically to the place where the martyrs were martyred. In the small room where they were imprisoned, the floor was stained with blood, and all kinds of debris covered our insteps. Soft and smooth long braids, torn skirts, children's shoes and toys were piled up soaked in blood. The ground. The walls were also covered with solidified blood, as if we saw their painful struggles before they died. I picked up a scripture book from the ground, and on the first page I made some heart-wrenching record of:
"June 27th, off the ship...July 7th was Nana's prisoner...unfortunate day.' But this was far from the only tragic scene awaiting us. Even more striking than that was the A deep and narrow well filled with the carcasses of these helpless victims! . . . "
Fortunately, Mr. Edward Morrow did not enter Kanpur with General Havelock's troops, and rushed to the well at the first time!He arrived only two days after the brutal massacre!And now, in this nightmarish place, he could only see the mausoleums built for the two hundred unnamed innocent victims who died at the hands of Nana Saib!
This time, with the help of the sergeant, Bonkers forcibly dragged Colonel Morrow away.
Mr. Edward Morrow will never forget the words that one of General Havelock's soldiers carved on the side of the well with his own bayonet:
"Remember Kanpur!"
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