THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN(加哈甘少校历险记)

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THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

THE TREMENDOUS

ADVENTURES OF

MAJOR GAHAGAN

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

CHAPTER I

"Truth is strange, Stranger than fiction."

I think it but right that in making my appearance before the public I

should at once acquaint them with my titles and name. My card, as I

leave it at the houses of the nobility, my friends, is as follows:-

MAJOR GOLIAH O'GRADY GAHAGAN, H.E.I.C.S.,

Commanding Battalion of Irregular Horse, AHMEDNUGGAR.

Seeing, I say, this simple visiting ticket, the world will avoid any of

those awkward mistakes as to my person, which have been so frequent of

late. There has been no end to the blunders regarding this humble title of

mine, and the confusion thereby created. When I published my volume

of poems, for instance, the Morning Post newspaper remarked "that the

Lyrics of the Heart, by Miss Gahagan, may be ranked among the sweetest

flowrets of the present spring season." The Quarterly Review,

commenting upon my "Observations on the Pons Asinorum" (4to, London,

1836), called me "Doctor Gahagan," and so on. It was time to put an end

to these mistakes, and I have taken the above simple remedy.

I was urged to it by a very exalted personage. Dining in August last

at the palace of the T-l-r-es at Paris, the lovely young Duch- ss of Orl-ns

(who, though she does not speak English, understands it as well as I do),

said to me in the softest Teutonic, "Lieber Herr Major, haben sie den

Ahmednuggarischen-jager-battalion gelassen?" "Warum denn?" said I,

quite astonished at her R-l H- ss's question. The P-cess then spoke of

some trifle from my pen, which was simply signed Goliah Gahagan.

There was, unluckily, a dead silence as H.R.H. put this question.

"Comment donc?" said H.M. Lo-is Ph-l-ppe, looking gravely at Count

Mole; "le cher Major a quitte l'armee! Nicolas donc sera maitre de

l'Inde!" H. M- and the Pr. M-n-ster pursued their conversation in a low

tone, and left me, as may be imagined, in a dreadful state of confusion. I

blushed and stuttered, and murmured out a few incoherent words to

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

explain--but it would not do--I could not recover my equanimity during

the course of the dinner; and while endeavouring to help an English duke,

my neighbour, to poulet a l'Austerlitz, fairly sent seven mushrooms and

three large greasy croutes over his whiskers and shirt-frill. Another laugh

at my expense. "Ah! M. le Major," said the Q- of the B-lg-ns, archly,

"vous n'aurez jamais votre brevet de Colonel." Her M-y's joke will be

better understood when I state that his Grace is the brother of a Minister.

I am not at liberty to violate the sanctity of private life, by mentioning

the names of the parties concerned in this little anecdote. I only wish to

have it understood that I am a gentleman, and live at least in DECENT

society. Verbum sat.

But to be serious. I am obliged always to write the name of Goliah in

full, to distinguish me from my brother, Gregory Gahagan, who was also a

Major (in the King's service), and whom I killed in a duel, as the public

most likely knows. Poor Greg! a very trivial dispute was the cause of our

quarrel, which never would have originated but for the similarity of our

names. The circumstance was this: I had been lucky enough to render

the Nawaub of Lucknow some trifling service (in the notorious affair of

Choprasjee Muckjee), and his Highness sent down a gold toothpick-case

directed to Captain G. Gahagan, which I of course thought was for me:

my brother madly claimed it; we fought, and the consequence was, that in

about three minutes he received a slash in the right side (cut 6), which

effectually did his business:- he was a good swordsman enough--I was

THE BEST in the universe. The most ridiculous part of the affair is, that

the toothpick-case was his, after all--he had left it on the Nawaub's table at

tiffin. I can't conceive what madness prompted him to fight about such a

paltry bauble; he had much better have yielded it at once, when he saw I

was determined to have it. From this slight specimen of my adventures,

the reader will perceive that my life has been one of no ordinary interest;

and, in fact, I may say that I have led a more remarkable life than any man

in the service--I have been at more pitched battles, led more forlorn hopes,

had more success among the fair sex, drunk harder, read more, been a

handsomer man than any officer now serving Her Majesty.

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

When I first went to India in 1802, I was a raw cornet of seventeen,

with blazing red hair, six feet four in height, athletic at all kinds of

exercises, owing money to my tailor and everybody else who would trust

me, possessing an Irish brogue, and my full pay of 120l. a year. I need

not say that with all these advantages I did that which a number of clever

fellows have done before me--I fell in love, and proposed to marry

immediately.

But how to overcome the difficulty?--It is true that I loved Julia

Jowler--loved her to madness; but her father intended her for a Member of

Council at least, and not for a beggarly Irish ensign. It was, however, my

fate to make the passage to India (on board of the "Samuel Snob" East

Indiaman, Captain Duffy) with this lovely creature, and my misfortune

instantaneously to fall in love with her. We were not out of the Channel

before I adored her, worshipped the deck which she trod upon, kissed a

thousand times the cuddy-chair on which she used to sit. The same

madness fell on every man in the ship. The two mates fought about her

at the Cape; the surgeon, a sober pious Scotchman, from disappointed

affection, took so dreadfully to drinking as to threaten spontaneous

combustion; and old Colonel Lilywhite, carrying his wife and seven

daughters to Bengal, swore that he would have a divorce from Mrs. L.,

and made an attempt at suicide; the captain himself told me, with tears in

his eyes, that he hated his hitherto-adored Mrs. Duffy, although he had had

nineteen children by her.

We used to call her the witch--there was magic in her beauty and in her

voice. I was spell-bound when I looked at her, and stark staring mad

when she looked at me! O lustrous black eyes!--O glossy night-black

ringlets!--O lips!--O dainty frocks of white muslin!--O tiny kid slippers!--

though old and gouty, Gahagan sees you still! I recollect, off Ascension,

she looked at me in her particular way one day at dinner, just as I

happened to be blowing on a piece of scalding hot green fat. I was

stupefied at once--I thrust the entire morsel (about half a pound) into my

mouth. I made no attempt to swallow, or to masticate it, but left it there

for many minutes, burning, burning! I had no skin to my palate for seven

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

weeks after, and lived on rice-water during the rest of the voyage. The

anecdote is trivial, but it shows the power of Julia Jowler over me.

The writers of marine novels have so exhausted the subject of storms,

shipwrecks, mutinies, engagements, sea-sickness, and so forth, that

(although I have experienced each of these in many varieties) I think it

quite unnecessary to recount such trifling adventures; suffice it to say, that

during our five months' trajet, my mad passion for Julia daily increased; so

did the captain's and the surgeon's; so did Colonel Lilywhite's; so did the

doctor's, the mate's--that of most part of the passengers, and a considerable

number of the crew. For myself, I swore--ensign as I was--I would win

her for my wife; I vowed that I would make her glorious with my sword--

that as soon as I had made a favourable impression on my commanding

officer (which I did not doubt to create), I would lay open to him the state

of my affections, and demand his daughter's hand. With such sentimental

outpourings did our voyage continue and conclude.

We landed at the Sunderbunds on a grilling hot day in December 1802,

and then for the moment Julia and I separated. She was carried off to her

papa's arms in a palankeen, surrounded by at least forty hookahbadars;

whilst the poor cornet, attended but by two dandies and a solitary beasty

(by which unnatural name these blackamoors are called), made his way

humbly to join the regiment at headquarters.

The -'th Regiment of Bengal Cavalry, then under the command of

Lieut.-Colonel Julius Jowler, C.B., was known throughout Asia and

Europe by the proud title of the Bundelcund Invincibles--so great was its

character for bravery, so remarkable were its services in that delightful

district of India. Major Sir George Gutch was next in command, and

Tom Thrupp, as kind a fellow as ever ran a Mahratta through the body,

was second Major. We were on the eve of that remarkable war which

was speedily to spread throughout the whole of India, to call forth the

valour of a Wellesley, and the indomitable gallantry of a Gahagan; which

was illustrated by our victories at Ahmednuggar (where I was the first over

the barricade at the storming of the Pettah); at Argaum, where I slew with

my own sword twenty-three matchlock-men, and cut a dromedary in two;

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

and by that terrible day of Assaye, where Wellesley would have been

beaten but for me--me alone: I headed nineteen charges of cavalry, took

(aided by only four men of my own troop) seventeen field-pieces, killing

the scoundrelly French artillerymen; on that day I had eleven elephants

shot under me, and carried away Scindiah's nose- ring with a pistol-ball.

Wellesley is a Duke and a Marshal, I but a simple Major of Irregulars.

Such is fortune and war! But my feelings carry me away from my

narrative, which had better proceed with more order.

On arriving, I say, at our barracks at Dum Dum, I for the first time put

on the beautiful uniform of the Invincibles: a light blue swallow-tailed

jacket with silver lace and wings, ornamented with about 3,000 sugar-loaf

buttons, rhubarb-coloured leather inexpressibles (tights), and red morocco

boots with silver spurs and tassels, set off to admiration the handsome

persons of the officers of our corps. We wore powder in those days; and

a regulation pigtail of seventeen inches, a brass helmet surrounded by

leopard skin, with a bearskin top and a horsetail feather, gave the head a

fierce and chivalrous appearance, which is far more easily imagined than

described.

Attired in this magnificent costume, I first presented myself before

Colonel Jowler. He was habited in a manner precisely similar, but not

being more than five feet in height, and weighing at least fifteen stone, the

dress he wore did not become him quite so much as slimmer and taller

men. Flanked by his tall Majors, Thrupp and Gutch, he looked like a

stumpy skittle-ball between two attenuated skittles. The plump little

Colonel received me with vast cordiality, and I speedily became a prime

favourite with himself and the other officers of the corps. Jowler was the

most hospitable of men; and gratifying my appetite and my love together, I

continually partook of his dinners, and feasted on the sweet presence of

Julia.

I can see now, what I would not and could not perceive in those early

days, that this Miss Jowler--on whom I had lavished my first and warmest

love, whom I had endowed with all perfection and purity--was no better

than a little impudent flirt, who played with my feelings, because during

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

the monotony of a sea voyage she had no other toy to play with; and who

deserted others for me, and me for others, just as her whim or her interest

might guide her. She had not been three weeks at headquarters when half

the regiment was in love with her. Each and all of the candidates had

some favour to boast of, or some encouraging hopes on which to build.

It was the scene of the "Samuel Snob" over again, only heightened in

interest by a number of duels. The following list will give the reader a

notion of some of them:-

1. Cornet Gahagan . . . Ensign Hicks, of the Sappers and Miners.

Hicks received a ball in his jaw, and was half choked by a quantity of

carroty whisker forced down his throat with the ball.

2. Captain Macgillicuddy, B.N.I. Cornet Gahagan. I was run

through the body, but the sword passed between the ribs, and injured me

very slightly.

3. Captain Macgillicuddy, B.N.I. Mr. Mulligatawny, B.C.S., Deputy-

Assistant Vice Sub-Controller of the Boggleywollah Indigo grounds,

Ramgolly branch.

Macgillicuddy should have stuck to sword's play, and he might have

come off in his second duel as well as in his first; as it was, the civilian

placed a ball and a part of Mac's gold repeater in his stomach. A

remarkable circumstance attended this shot, an account of which I sent

home to the "Philosophical Transactions:" the surgeon had extracted the

ball, and was going off, thinking that all was well, when the gold repeater

struck thirteen in poor Macgillicuddy's abdomen. I suppose that the

works must have been disarranged in some way by the bullet, for the

repeater was one of Barraud's, never known to fail before, and the

circumstance occurred at seven o'clock. {1}

I could continue, almost ad infinitum, an account of the wars which

this Helen occasioned, but the above three specimens will, I should think,

satisfy the peaceful reader. I delight not in scenes of blood, Heaven

knows, but I was compelled in the course of a few weeks, and for the sake

of this one woman, to fight nine duels myself, and I know that four times

as many more took place concerning her.

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

I forgot to say that Jowler's wife was a half-caste woman, who had

been born and bred entirely in India, and whom the Colonel had married

from the house of her mother, a native. There were some singular

rumours abroad regarding this latter lady's history: it was reported that

she was the daughter of a native Rajah, and had been carried off by a poor

English subaltern in Lord Clive's time. The young man was killed very

soon after, and left his child with its mother. The black Prince forgave

his daughter and bequeathed to her a handsome sum of money. I suppose

that it was on this account that Jowler married Mrs. J., a creature who had

not, I do believe, a Christian name, or a single Christian quality: she was

a hideous, bloated, yellow creature, with a beard, black teeth, and red eyes:

she was fat, lying, ugly, and stingy--she hated and was hated by all the

world, and by her jolly husband as devoutly as by any other. She did not

pass a month in the year with him, but spent most of her time with her

native friends. I wonder how she could have given birth to so lovely a

creature as her daughter. This woman was of course with the Colonel

when Julia arrived, and the spice of the devil in her daughter's composition

was most carefully nourished and fed by her. If Julia had been a flirt

before, she was a downright jilt now; she set the whole cantonment by the

ears; she made wives jealous and husbands miserable; she caused all those

duels of which I have discoursed already, and yet such was the fascination

of THE WITCH that I still thought her an angel. I made court to the

nasty mother in order to be near the daughter; and I listened untiringly to

Jowler's interminable dull stories, because I was occupied all the time in

watching the graceful movements of Miss Julia.

But the trumpet of war was soon ringing in our ears; and on the battle-

field Gahagan is a man! The Bundelcund Invincibles received orders to

march, and Jowler, Hector-like, donned his helmet and prepared to part

from his Andromache. And now arose his perplexity: what must be

done with his daughter, his Julia? He knew his wife's peculiarities of

living, and did not much care to trust his daughter to her keeping; but in

vain he tried to find her an asylum among the respectable ladies of his

regiment. Lady Gutch offered to receive her, but would have nothing to

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

do with Mrs. Jowler; the surgeon's wife, Mrs. Sawbone, would have

neither mother nor daughter: there was no help for it, Julia and her

mother must have a house together, and Jowler knew that his wife would

fill it with her odious blackamoor friends.

I could not, however, go forth satisfied to the campaign until I learned

from Julia my fate. I watched twenty opportunities to see her alone, and

wandered about the Colonel's bungalow as an informer does about a

public-house, marking the incomings and the outgoings of the family, and

longing to seize the moment when Miss Jowler, unbiassed by her mother

or her papa, might listen, perhaps, to my eloquence, and melt at the tale of

my love.

But it would not do--old Jowler seemed to have taken all of a sudden

to such a fit of domesticity, that there was no finding him out of doors, and

his rhubarb-coloured wife (I believe that her skin gave the first idea of our

regimental breeches), who before had been gadding ceaselessly abroad,

and poking her broad nose into every menage in the cantonment, stopped

faithfully at home with her spouse. My only chance was to beard the old

couple in their den, and ask them at once for their cub.

So I called one day at tiffin:- old Jowler was always happy to have my

company at this meal; it amused him, he said, to see me drink Hodgson's

pale ale (I drank two hundred and thirty-four dozen the first year I was in

Bengal)--and it was no small piece of fun, certainly, to see old Mrs. Jowler

attack the currie-bhaut;--she was exactly the colour of it, as I have had

already the honour to remark, and she swallowed the mixture with a gusto

which was never equalled, except by my poor friend Dando a propos

d'huitres. She consumed the first three platefuls with a fork and spoon,

like a Christian; but as she warmed to her work, the old hag would throw

away her silver implements, and dragging the dishes towards her, go to

work with her hands, flip the rice into her mouth with her fingers, and

stow away a quantity of eatables sufficient for a sepoy company. But

why do I diverge from the main point of my story?

Julia, then, Jowler, and Mrs. J., were at luncheon; the dear girl was in

the act to sabler a glass of Hodgson as I entered. "How do you do, Mr.

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN

Gagin?" said the old hag, leeringly. "Eat a bit o' currie-bhaut,"--and she

thrust the dish towards me, securing a heap as it passed. "What! Gagy

my boy, how do, how do?" said the fat Colonel. "What! run through the

body?--got well again--have some Hodgson--run through your body too!"-

-and at this, I may say, coarse joke (alluding to the fact that in these hot

climates the ale oozes out as it were from the pores of the skin) old Jowler

laughed: a host of swarthy chobdars, kitmatgars, sices, consomahs, and

bobbychies laughed too, as they provided me, unasked, with the grateful

fluid. Swallowing six tumblers of it, I paused nervously for a moment,

and then said -

"Bobbachy, consomah, ballybaloo hoga."

The black ruffians took the hint, and retired.

"Colonel and Mrs. Jowler," said I solemnly, "we are alone; and you,

Miss Jowler, you are alone too; that is--I mean--I take this opportunity to--

(another glass of ale, if you please)--to express, once for all, before

departing on a dangerous campaign"--(Julia turned pale)--"before entering,

I say, upon a war which may stretch in the dust my high-raised hopes and

me, to express my hopes while life still remains to me, and to declare in

the face of heaven, earth, and Colonel Jowler, that I love you, Julia!"

The Colonel, astonished, let fall a steel fork, which stuck quivering for

some minutes in the calf of my leg; but I heeded not the paltry interruption.

"Yes, by yon bright heaven," continued I, "I love you, Julia! I respect my

commander, I esteem your excellent and beauteous mother: tell me,

before I leave you, if I may hope for a return of my affection. Say that

you love me, and I will do such deeds in this coming war, as shall make

you proud of the name of your Gahagan."

The old woman, as I delivered these touching words, stared, snapped,

and ground her teeth, like an enraged monkey. Julia was now red, now

white; the Colonel stretched forward, took the fork out of the calf of my

leg, wiped it, and then seized a bundle of letters which I had remarked by

his side.

"A cornet!" said he, in a voice choking with emotion; "a pitiful

beggarly Irish cornet aspire to the hand of Julia Jowler! Gag-- Gahagan,

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THETREMENDOUSADVENTURESOFMAJORGAHAGAN1THETREMENDOUSADVENTURESOFMAJORGAHAGANTHETREMENDOUSADVENTURESOFMAJORGAHAGAN2CHAPTERI"Truthisstrange,Strangerthanfiction."IthinkitbutrightthatinmakingmyappearancebeforethepublicIshouldatonceacquaintthemwithmytitlesandname.Mycard,asIleaveitatthehousesofthenobility,...

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