CHAPTER II

Summary

May 9th.—My amanuensis comes in, an honest, stiff-fingered corporal of H.M.'s 42nd Regt. He did not write this notice of himself, but for days he continued to come to my bedside, and write for me to the paper, to friends at home, who would, I feared, be alarmed by false reports of my accident and escape, and did so well till we marched and left him behind us, when his place was taken by another soldier. The kindness of these good fellows, their anxiety to please me, their desire to give me no pain by forcing me to raise my voice or alter my position, were touching; and when I paid one of them he refused for a long time to take a farthing. “No! Mr. Russell, there's not a man in the regiment who was out in the Crimea would take a penny from you, sir. Sure, we ought to do more than that for your honour, for you were the true soldiers' friend.” Well, I hope I may be pardoned for the vanity of recording this little piece of flattery. It was my best reward for trying to do my duty, and it was a full one.

Metcalfe came in and reminded me that this day is the anniversary of the outbreak at Delhi. Assuredly, never was the strength and courage of any race tried more severely in any one year since the world began than was the mettle of the British in India in 1857.