334 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



dooly — by that time the bearers had got in, and 

 were collecting the wounded who were unable to 

 walk — and I sent him back to where the surgeons 

 were, fully expecting that he would be dead before 

 anything could be done for him." 



"It will thus be seen," he adds, "that the asser- 

 tion that Major Hodson was looting when he was 

 killed is untrue. No looting had been commenced, 

 not even by Jang Bahadur's Gurkhas. That Major 

 Hodson was killed through his own rashness cannot 

 be denied ; but for any one to say that he was 

 looting is a cruel slander on one of the bravest of 

 Englishmen." ^ 



It was already dark when a message from the 

 death - stricken hero was brought to Dr Anderson 

 by the faithful orderly Nihal Singh, who had helped 

 to place his beloved commander in the dooly that 

 bore him to Banks's house. 



" I started off at once," says Dr Anderson in the 

 letter already quoted, " with an escort of sowars 

 and the orderly as guide ; and your husband's ser- 

 vants and light baggage and bedding followed on 

 the mules. From the great distance, and the dark- 

 ness of the night, and the difficulty in passing along 

 an extended line of obstinate Gurkha sentries, I did 

 not reach Banks's house, w^here your husband had 

 been taken, till ten o'clock. 



"I found him there on a dooly, with a doctor 

 attending on him, and an orderly. He was per- 

 fectly sensible, but sleepy. He recognised me at 

 once, and was delighted to see me, and made me 

 sit down beside him and hold his hands. In a few 

 minutes I relieved the doctor who had remained 



1 Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny. 



