It was not as if everyone in Fatehgarh met their fate in the boats. Some people were lucky enough to be able to rely on their servants; others were enterprising and headed off before events overwhelmed them. A point in case is the Briant family, who, seeing that Fatehgarh would inevitably fall, made their escape downriver to Cawnpore. They arrived shortly before the siege commenced and, struck by the unwholesome situation in the entrenchment, returned to their boat, only to arrive in Allahabad on the eve of that mutiny. Seeing the situation, there was really no better than Cawnpore, they once again set off, just as the guns started to blaze, on their way to Calcutta. Like the Wagentreibers in Delhi, the Briants were blessed with a second sense.

The Escapees

49-year-old Mrs Madeleine Sturt had altogether another story.
As the occupant of one of the first boats to leave Fatehgarh in June, she appears to have been in two minds about whether Cawnpore really was such a good idea. When Probyn decided to stay with Hardeo Buksh, she sent her daughter with him. Whether it was the separation or a sense of foreboding, she suddenly decided that her place was with her daughter after all. Climbing out of the boat, Mrs. Sturt set off alone across the country after the Probyns. After walking eight miles and crossing a river, she finally caught up with them, striding along as if she had only been out for a stroll. With her daughter, she returned to Fatehgarh.
Why her daughter went to the Fort and Mrs. Sturt didn’t is likely to forever remain a mystery, but again, she followed her own counsel. At the outbreak on the 18th of June, her servants secreted her in a stack of tamarisk grass near her bungalow — and then, during the night, she was carried, stack and all, by some boatmen to the friendly village of Kachwagara. From there, she escaped to Agra with her son. Before leaving, she did contact David Churcher, but the poor man, traumatized as he was, refused to leave his protectors. Madeleine Sturt died in 1859 in Agra, and her story, it appears, has passed out of memory, only mentioned in small snippets, but it was a truly astonishing escape.

The Hines brothers, A. and W., were clerks in the collector’s office. Both managed to escape to Mahrupur village — their unfortunate sister was captured and later murdered on the Parade Ground.

Miss Sarah E. O’Connor was conducted to Agra by her cook, Behari, in October 1857. While still in Agra, she gave him a written reference that he had saved her life in Fatehgarh. Her father, P. O’Connor, was Superintendent of Gavoner’s Indigo Works in 1832.

Miss Harriet Potter was fortunate in her misfortune. While fleeing to the Fort, she was captured by sepoys, which surely should have spelt her death. However, the Zamindar of Kutlapur intervened as he happened to be passing by and, for whatever reason only known to them, saved her life. She was then brought to his village, where she remained for the duration of the uprising.

Mr.Doran, an agent of Maclean, Guise, and Co., neither joined the boats nor hurried himself to the Fort. Instead, he escaped in disguise to Jankhat Taira and eventually made his way to Agra.
Mrs. Phillot, the wife of Major J. of the 10th, escaped to Agra.

Those Left Behind

As is often found in writings of the times, servants are seldom mentioned by name and more often than not completely ignored. In “Fatehgarh and the Mutiny”, the authors at least acknowledge that servants accompanied their employers on the treacherous flight down the river. One Humphreys was shot on the 10th of June, the ayah Hingun who witnessed the slaughter of her young charges, and the nursemaid Nancy Lang who refused to give up the Lowis baby and Mary Long — killed in the Bibighar. Without their servants, the parties would probably not have made it even half as far as they did. I have tried to give everyone their rightful place in history, and sadly, my attempts are fraught with difficulty. Herewith, I will try to give some recognition to those poor servants that history chooses to forget.

Of the “servants and sweepers” who accompanied the first flotilla all the way to Bithur, only Hingun, Nancy Lang and Mary Long are mentioned by name. The rest have been left without anything to identify them. When the second flotilla split, a number of servants and native Christians were unceremoniously left behind with the baggage in the third boat. According to Cosens and Wallace, they are as follows:

• Hanukh, his wife Clara and four children. Hanukh was a Christian convert, & fought in the Fort
• Wafatan — ayah to the Lowis child
• Chunni — Kitmatgar to Mr. Thornhill
• Rajab — another servant of the Lowis’
• Ram Dayal — Jemadar to Colonel Goldie
• Nand Ram — servant to Colonel Goldie
• Shaffi — servant to Colonel Goldie
• Hari Shankar — servant and syce to Mr. Jones
  

“The servants on the abandoned boat were surrounded by a horde of villagers intent on plunder. Ram Dayal and Shaffi, described as the brother of a coachman, threw themselves into the water. Shaffi was drowned. Ram Day, a strong swimmer, reached the shore and escaped. Hanukh, a resolute man, dragging his wife Clara and four children along with him, charged through the crowd and providentially reached a small boat, in which they were able to cross the water and reach shelter in a friendly village. The subsequent adventures of Hanukh would fill a volume in itself; but it is sufficient to say here that he and his family reached Allahabad, where, as Risaldar, he commanded the “Christian Troop” of the new mounted Police of that place…” ( Cosens and Wallace) Unfortunately, no one ever wrote a volume to Hanukh and I have been unable to trace him.
The two ayahs and the other servants did not leave the boat. After three days of imprisonment at Nukhanda village, they were set free.

The ever-faithful manservant, Bhairao, had already shared all the tribulations with the Jones family. He begged the attackers at Manpur to spare the life of the little wounded girl he held in his arms and his late employers’ injured wife. According to Gavin Jones, Bhairao escaped at night when the prisoners were being ferried across the Ganges. “Hearing of my safety, the worthy man determined to find me out, and had my escape to Agra in disguise, collecting a small sum from his fellow servants to provide the necessary outfit. Unhappily, the poor man was seized with a fatal disease (cholera) on the morning of his departure and succumbed to it in a few hours. The sad tidings of his death reached me shortly before our departure for Cawnpore and caused me great sorrow. He had served my lamented brother upwards of twenty years and had nursed me as a child in his arms. His devotion had lately been put to the severest test and had proved unswervingly faithful.” (Jones)

At least the good Bhairao was remembered with more than just a name.