UNDER A CLOUD. 163 



conducted in so rambling and loose a manner as to 

 elicit a very sharp rebuke from the Judge Advocate- 

 General, who returned the papers to Colonel Craigie 

 with a request for some definite opinion upon the 

 matters which his court had been directed to con- 

 sider. The court of inquiry thereupon reassembled 

 in July, and after hearing Godby's evidence, pro- 

 ceeded in Hodson's absence to record their opinion 

 that the accounts of the Guides as laid before it 

 by Lieutenant Hodson were most unsatisfactory. 



On this occasion the accused officer had not been 

 heard in his own defence. Being unable to prepare 

 a full written statement within the time allowed 

 him, he had asked leave to attend the court in 

 person and submit his accounts for their inspection. 

 To this request no answer was given, and the result, 

 as Hodson himself declared, was that he had been 

 " the subject of an inquiry at which I was not 

 present, and of proceedings of the nature of which 

 I am ignorant save by report." ^ 



Meanwhile Hodson had pleaded again and again 

 for a more searching inquiry into the accounts of 

 the Guides than that which the court had been 

 misconducting. In the summer of 1855 he sent 

 to the Chief Commissioner his demand for a court- 

 martial. On learning from John Lawrence that his 

 letter had been mislaid he repeated his demand. 



" My dear Lawrence," he writes in October, — " I 

 send herewith the copy of my letter asking for a 

 court-martial which you desired. Since I wrote it 

 Turner has started for Bombay. I trust this will 



^ Letter to Colonel H. Tucker, C.B., Adjutant-General, September 

 14, 1855. 



