Note 20 — Chapter I

Letter from an Officer.

"When the mutiny broke out, our communications were completely cut off. One night, on outlying picket at Meerut, this subject being discussed, I said, 'Hodson is at Umbâla, I know; and I'll bet he will force his way through, and open communications with the Commander-in-Chief and ourselves.' At about three that night I heard my advanced sentries firing. I rode off to see what was the matter, and they told me that a party of enemy's cavalry had approached their post. When day broke, in galloped Hodson. He had left Kurnâl (seventy-six miles off) at nine the night before, with one led horse and an escort of Sikh cavalry, and, as I had anticipated, here he was with despatches for Wilson! How I quizzed him for approaching an armed post at night without knowing the parole. Hodson rode straight to Wilson, had his interview, a bath, breakfast, and two hours' sleep, and then rode back the seventy-six miles, and had to fight his way for about thirty miles of the distance."

Another officer, writing to his wife at this time, says:—

"Hodson's gallant deeds more resemble a chapter from the life of Bayard or Amadis de Gaul, than the doings of a subaltern of the nineteenth century. The only feeling mixed with my admiration for him is envy."