LAST SCENE OF ALL. 327 



a telegram somehow. I do hope Hugh Gough will 

 soon be well ; I do ill without such a dashing fine 

 fellow. . . . 



" The Martiniere was taken to-day without loss, 

 except Captain Peel, who, I grieve to say, is 

 wounded." 



That evening he dined at the headquarters mess. 

 Among those present was Mr (now Sir William) 

 Eussell, the famous war correspondent of the 

 ' Times.' " Our camp dinner," he writes, " was 

 very animated. . . . Hodson dined with us at 

 mess. A very remarkable fine fellow — a heau 

 sabreur, and a man of great ability. His views, 

 expressed in strong nervous language, delivered 

 with fire and ease, are very decided ; but he takes 

 a military rather than a political view of the state 

 of our relations with India. I should like to see 

 Hodson at the head of his Horse try a bout with 

 the best Cossacks of the Don or Black Sea ; not that 

 I would willingly have the fight, but that if it 

 must be, I should be sorry to miss the sight of it." ^ 



On the morning of March 6 had begun the 

 turning movement which the commander-in-chief 

 had rightly entrusted to Sir James Outram, the stub- 

 born defender of the Alambao;h. While Sir Colin 

 himself prepared to crash his way forward through 

 a triple line of works, held by some 70,000 sepoys 

 and armed retainers of the great landed chiefs and 

 the titular Queen of Oudh, his trusty lieutenant was 

 to press onward up the left bank of the Gumti, 

 carrying or turning the enemy's defences and 

 blocking their way of escape from that side of 

 the great city. 



1 My Diary in India. Eoutledge, 1860. 



