Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/254

220 safety of that place. This he did on the 29th; left two guns and his only subaltern to protect Gházípur, took instead twenty-five men of the 78th on to his steamer, and returned that night to Baksar. There he found 154 men of the 5th Fusiliers, who had arrived that afternoon, under the command of Captain L'Estrange. As the information he received conveyed to the mind of Eyre the impression that the rebels had stopped at Árah to besiege our countrymen there, he determined to endeavour to induce L'Estrange to combine with him to march to the relief of that place. He wrote to him to that effect. L'Estrange replied that if Eyre, as senior officer, would send him a written order to that effect, and would take upon himself the entire responsibility, he would obey him. Eyre, who had not graduated in the school of the Calcutta statesmen, issued the order forthwith. He knew, of course, that he was, so to speak, risking his commission, for his orders were to proceed to Allahábád, and the march to Árah would take him nearly fifty miles off his direct road. But to the courageous mind of Eyre the occasion was one in which it was imperative to risk his all — and he risked it.

Eyre's force consisted of forty gunners and three guns, 154 men of the 5th Fusiliers, six officers, including himself, two assistant surgeons, eighteen volunteers, mostly mounted, of whom three were officers, one the Magistrate of Gházípur and one a veterinary surgeon. The twenty-five Highlanders he had borrowed from Gházípur he left at Baksar to take the first opportunity of returning to their station. His total force, it will thus be seen, amounted only to 220 men and three guns. With that he set out, on the 31st of July, to attempt a task which had already, less than forty-eight hours before, though he knew it not, baffled 430 officers and men.