Life in an Indian Outpost Part 15

A JUNGLE FORT

I decide on Fort Bower--Felling trees--A big python--Clearing the jungle--Laying out the post--Stockades and _Sungars_--The bastions--_Panjis_ and _abattis_--The huts--Jungle materials--Ingenious craftsmen--The furniture--Sentry-posts--Alarm-signals--The _machicoulis_ gallery--b.o.o.by-traps--The water-lifter--The hospital--Chloroforming a monkey--Jungle dogs--An extraordinary shot--An unlucky deer--A meeting with a panther--The alarm--Sohanpal Singh and the tiger--Turning out to the rescue--The General's arrival--Closed gates--The inspection--The "Bower" and the "'Ump"--Flares and bombs--The General's praise--Night firing--A Christmas camp.

The month of November in Buxa brought the end of the Rains and the beginning of the cold weather. Once more we could descend into the jungles below, for work or sport, without risking the deadly Terai fever. Our open-air military training, which had to be laid aside during the long, weary months of the Monsoon, was resumed.

The warfare which the a.s.sam Brigade would be called upon to wage would generally be against the savage jungle dwellers along the north-east borders. Consequently the training of the troops composing it demanded much practice in forest country; for, in the jungle, wide extensions and thin lines suitable to troops attacking in the open would be replaced by close formations, and the bayonet more often used than the bullet.

Timber barriers would be subst.i.tuted for earthworks, and the axe for the spade. In a jungle campaign, as the fighting column moved forward, stockaded posts would be established on the line of communication, in which convoys of supplies going to the front or of wounded or prisoners sent back to the rear could halt for the night under the protection of the permanent garrisons.

When General Bower announced his intention of coming to hold his annual inspection of our detachment at the end of November, I determined to build such a stockaded post in the forest below Buxa Duar for him to see, and as useful instruction for my men. Consequently, three weeks before his arrival, I moved the double company down into the jungle.

While Captain Balderston and I took up our abode in Forest Lodge, the sepoys bivouacked a few hundred yards away on a high bluff over a broad river-bed now almost dry. Here I proposed building our forest fort.

Our first task consisted in clearing away the undergrowth, now denser than ever after the fires and Rains. With curved _kukris_ and straight _dahs_ the sepoys fell to work on the thick scrub and tangle of th.o.r.n.y bushes. Then came the harder labour of felling the trees for the stockades--and the tools that contractors supply the Government with are not of the best quality. The forest rang to the stroke of axes and the shouts of the sepoys who, delighted at the change from their ordinary routine, vied with each other in bringing the trees cras.h.i.+ng to the ground. As I watched them one day I saw a sudden commotion among a group. The men scattered, then closed in again; and vicious blows at the ground, mingled with cries of "_samp!_", told me that they had disturbed a snake. Then on poles bending under its weight they brought me the body of a beautifully marked python nearly ten and a half feet long. Though not poisonous, such a beast would be a formidable antagonist. With the driving-power of its weight and muscle, its head could strike with the force of a battering ram; and a man's body, crushed in its folds, would soon be a shapeless pulp. I kept its skin as a companion to the king-cobra we had killed in Buxa.

The plan I had decided on for the fort was a square, each side fifty yards long. For instructional purposes I varied the design of the faces.

That on the river-bank was to be a _sungar_--a loopholed wall, seven feet high and three feet thick, of large boulders from the _nullah_ below. The east side opposite it was to be a loopholed stockade of single timbers two feet thick and fourteen feet above the ground. Each of the other two faces was to be a "double stockade" of shorter trees, that is, each two timber walls four feet apart, the s.p.a.ce between them being filled with earth. At opposite corners were bastions, or towers, eighteen feet high, projecting out, and thus each giving a flanking fire along two faces of the fort. They were arranged for three tiers of fire, one row of loopholes three feet from the ground for men kneeling, one four and a half feet for others standing, the third above a gallery running round inside the top. Below the galleries the bastions were roofed in and formed barrack-rooms for the guards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WALLED FACE OF FORT BOWER OVER THE RIVER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STOCKADE AND DITCH AT FORT BOWER.]

In front of the three stockaded sides of the fort a broad, V-shaped ditch was dug, five feet deep. On the fourth face the bank fell sheer thirty or forty feet to the river; and built out over the _nullah_ on tree-trunks laid horizontally, their b.u.t.ts buried in the ground, was a gallery projecting from the stone wall. It was loopholed for men to fire, not only on three sides, but also directly beneath them down into the river-bed. Entrance to it was gained from a small door in the wall.

Close to it, and similarly projecting over the _nullah_, was a device copied from the savage tribes of the frontier. This was a b.o.o.by-trap, a bamboo platform hinged and held up by thick, hawser-like creepers fastened inside the wall. On it were piled rocks. A couple of blows with an axe would cut through the supporting creepers; and the platform, falling, would shower down an avalanche of huge stones on the heads of enemies gathered close under the sheer bank, and safe from the rifles of the defenders above. These traps are largely used by the Nagas, Mishmis, and other wild races along the borders of a.s.sam and Burma. They are placed over steep and narrow mountain paths and discharged with disastrous effect on foes toiling up to the a.s.sault. During the Abor War they were frequently tried on General Bower who was too wary to be caught by them. He always took the precaution of sending parties of Gurkhas to scale the heights to search for and cut the b.o.o.by-traps away before his column pa.s.sed under them.

As the shallow stream ran close to the bank we erected, behind the wall, a dipping-pole and bucket to bring up water without danger from hostile fire to the men fetching it.

Our stockades would have proved very unpleasant obstacles to surmount.

They had a forward rake to increase by the overhang the difficulty of escalading them. And along their tops was fastened a tangle of cut and sharp-pointed branches projecting well outwards, so that it was almost impossible to climb over.

In attacking a stockade the a.s.sailants try to get close up to it, fire in through the loopholes and hack it down with axes. To prevent this, six-foot _panjis_--sharpened bamboo stakes, their pointed ends hardened by fire--stuck thickly out from the face of our stockades. On the near slope of the ditches lines of _panjis_ projected with their points at a downward angle; while on the far side fences of sharpened bamboos were planted. At the bottom of the ditches _chevaux de frise_ of long _panjis_ were fixed.

These _panjis_ inflict ghastly injuries, and are more dangerous than bayonets. An officer of my acquaintance, when leading an a.s.sault on a stockade held by dacoits in Burma, ran against a _panji_ which transfixed his thigh. He was eleven months in hospital before the wound healed; and for many years afterwards he was lame.

For twenty yards beyond the ditches the ground was covered with a five-feet-high entanglement of felled trees. Their b.u.t.ts were lashed to stout pegs driven deep into the earth. Their thinner branches were lopped off, the thicker ones cut and trimmed with sharp points towards the front. In military parlance this is called an _abattis_.

Anyone endeavouring to rush the defences of our fort would have found it a difficult feat, even if no bullets were showered on him from the loopholes. He would first have to force his way through twenty yards of entanglement, then climb a sharp-pointed fence, pa.s.s the _chevaux de frise_ in the ditch, get by the downward-pointing _panjis_, evade the six-foot stakes projecting from the face of the stockade, and climb over the stockade itself through the overhead tangle of branches. And to do it under a hot fire would be almost impossible. To attack such a post successfully guns would be necessary--and a well-built double stockade would withstand light artillery.

For our own use winding paths led through the _abattis_ to drawbridges before the two gates. These latter were of bamboo, hinged at the top and opening outwards and upwards, supported when open by high, forked poles.

In each was a small wicket constructed on the same principle and only wide enough to admit one man at a time. Wickets and gates were stuck thick with projecting _panjis_.

Trees in the interior of the post were left standing to give shade, as were others growing in the line of the defences. And in the latter, forty feet from the ground, were platforms reached by ladders and hidden by the leafy branches. On them the sentries were stationed; and from them, during a night attack, men could fire and hurl bombs down on the a.s.sailants who would find it difficult to locate their position. From these sentry posts stout cords of twisted _udal_ fibre led to kerosene oil tins hung up in the quarters occupied by officers and section commanders. In the tins stones were put, so that a pull on the cords would rattle the tins throughout the post and arouse the defenders without an approaching enemy being aware that the alarm had been given.

So much for the defences. As such a post would be constructed with a view to long occupation the question of housing the garrison comfortably remained. In the interior along each face two huts, each to hold a section of twenty or twenty-five men, with huts for the native officers, were built. The roofs were thickly thatched. The back and side walls were made of two rows of bamboo a foot apart, with rammed earth between them. The front walls were lightly made of bamboo and hinged at the top to open outwards and upwards in an emergency, so that the whole section could come out in line. For ordinary use a small door sufficed. Along the back wall ran a sloping guard-bed, with a broad shelf underneath, on which the sepoys' clothing could be laid. Overhead were pegs for their rifles and accoutrements.

Along the cross-roads through the fort were built the storerooms, hospital, and native followers' quarters. And on them were also the Mess and huts for the British officers. These were quite comfortable little cottages, the walls of split bamboo with the latticed windows and the doors screened by blinds of cane strips. The floors and walls were covered with two-inch mats of jungle gra.s.s.

The sepoys proved themselves wonderfully ingenious craftsmen and made excellent furniture for our quarters. Out of the ever-useful bamboo they constructed beds, chairs, tables, and writing-desks with drawers and pigeon-holes. And like the fort and everything else in it, the jungle provided the materials for all this furniture, in which not a nail was used; for it was held together by las.h.i.+ngs of bamboo bark or _udal_ fibre.

All this was not quickly done. The building of the defences and the huts and the construction of a military bridge across the river took every day of the three weeks before the General's arrival. Our working hours were from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. with an hour's interval at noon for food. But the sepoys revelled in their novel labours and looked on them as a welcome change from the monotony of drill. So interested were they that I often found them at work long after the bugle had sounded the "dismiss" in the evening; and when I told them to knock off, they would reply: "Oh, Sahib, we would like to finish this to-day."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GATE CLOSED, WITH WICKET OPEN AND DRAWBRIDGE LOWERED.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTAIN BALDERSTON INSIDE THE STOCKADE.]

Our comfortable and airy little hospital was rarely tenanted. Almost the only patient our medical officer had was a pet monkey which required a surgical operation. The native sub-a.s.sistant surgeon, who took the proceedings very seriously, was called on to administer the anaesthetic.

Chloroform was poured on a wad of wool in a paper cone which, much to the patient's annoyance, was pressed firmly against its muzzle. It scratched and bit for quite a long time before sinking into unconsciousness. And when, after the surgeon's knife had been swiftly and dexterously plied, it came back to life again it looked a very sick monkey indeed. Wrapped up in a towel with only its tiny puckered face showing, it presented such a woebegone and comical appearance that the onlookers were moved to unseemly mirth. But the little beast was too ill to care, though usually it fiercely resented being laughed at.

We were too busy during these weeks to do any shooting. But a curious bit of _s.h.i.+kar_ fell to my lot one day. While I was superintending the building of the fort a sepoy who had been gathering stones for the wall ran up to tell me that he had seen some curious little animals in the _nullah_. Borrowing an ancient Martini rifle from a native officer, I ran down to the river-bed and found several wild dogs playing on the sand a few hundred yards away in front of a small island covered with thick undergrowth. On seeing me they bolted. I took a hurried shot at one and missed it, the bullet glancing off a rock behind which the dog had disappeared. To my horror a low wailing cry issued from the bushes on the island behind. Alarmed at the thought that I might have wounded one of my sepoys, I ran to the spot. There to my astonishment I found a barking deer standing up with half its face blown away. The unlucky beast had been struck by my chance bullet. Its shrieks were piteous and almost human, until we put it out of its pain.

Another day a sepoy cutting bamboos was disturbed by a herd of wild elephants. He had the sense to remain motionless; and the animals pa.s.sed without seeing him.

One evening another man met a more dangerous beast. He had gone down at dusk to bathe in the river just below the fort and came face to face with a panther drinking. The man was unarmed; but fortunately for him the brute only growled and trotted away.

One Sunday afternoon we had a serious alarm. No work being done on that day two of the native officers, taking a few sepoys with them, had gone out with shot-guns to look for jungle fowl. Splitting up into two parties they separated and beat through the undergrowth a few hundred yards away from the fort. Suddenly one of them came upon a tiger which snarled viciously at them and retreated in a direction which would bring him upon the other party. With this was Subhedar Sohanpal Singh, the st.u.r.dy old Rajput who had been my companion in the long chase after the rogue elephant.

A sepoy came running back to the fort with the news. Seizing a rifle, I turned out a number of men with their arms and ammunition and hurried off to the rescue. Reaching the spot where the tiger had been seen, we searched the jungle for it and for Sohanpal Singh's party until dusk, without result. We shouted the _subhedar's_ name loudly but got no answer. When night fell we returned to the fort. I was in hopes that the missing party had pa.s.sed us in the jungle and got in safely. When I found that it had not come back I began to be seriously alarmed. But I reflected that it contained four men and that the tiger could hardly have killed them all and not left one to bring back the news. The missing men returned at ten o'clock. They had not actually seen the tiger but had heard it growling close to them in the thick undergrowth.

As one of the sepoys had his rifle with him, Sohanpal Singh took it and tried to get a shot at the animal. The beast retreated slowly before him, growling all the time, but keeping in dense jungle where he could not see it. In vain the _subhedar_ tried to get ahead and cut it off. He and his party followed the tiger until night put an end to the tantalising pursuit. Then, when they tried to retrace their steps, they lost their way in the darkness and wandered blindly through the jungle for hours until they struck the river.

On the day of General Bower's arrival I sent two elephants to bring him and his staff officer with their baggage from Buxa Road Station.

Balderston and I awaited him in the fire line about four hundred yards from our fort. When our visitors reached us they dismounted and shook hands with us. After our greetings were over I said to the General:

"You told me last year, sir, to teach my men the art of making themselves and their officers comfortable in the jungle. You have got to test the result of my instruction practically now. You must live in a jungle hut, sleep on a jungle bed, sit at jungle-made tables on jungle-made chairs."

General Bower laughed. "Is the jungle supplying my food too?" he asked.

"Yes, sir; jungle fowl and venison. Captain Balderston wanted to give you wild vegetables from the jungle as well. But I tried them myself once; and as I don't want a bad report of my detachment, I dare not offer them to you."

I led the way along a road which we had cut through the forest. Where it emerged on the clearing around our post I stopped and said:

"There is the fort."

Our visitors looked about them in astonishment. For, at a distance of two hundred yards, the stockades with the living trees in them behind the tangle of _abattis_ could not be distinguished from the surrounding jungle. In warfare this would be a great advantage, because it would come as a surprise on an advancing enemy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRINGING HOME THE GENERAL'S DINNER.]

When we reached the _abattis_, we pa.s.sed down the winding path through it and stopped at the edge of the ditch. For, in order to give the General a good idea of the strength of our defences, I had ordered that the gates should be closed and the drawbridges raised. On a board above the gateway were painted the words "Fort Bower," the name given by the sepoys to the post in honour of our inspecting officer. Having allowed our visitors time to be suitably impressed by the formidable stockade and the grim-looking _panjis_ in the ditch, I called to the sentry hidden forty feet above us in a tree:

"Open the gate!"

The invisible doorkeeper pulled a string to inform the guard in the bastion. Then the heavy drawbridge fell across the ditch, the gate was raised and held up in position by the supporting forked poles.

"That is very ingenious," said the General as he entered the fort.

The men's huts were first inspected; and then we proceeded to the officer's quarters on the main street. We showed the General the cosy little two-roomed cottage he was to occupy, and pointed out the name painted on it, "The Bower."

"Captain Humphreys' quarters are next door," we told him. "They gave us more trouble to find a t.i.tle for. When we thought that the brigade major, Major Hutchinson, was to accompany you, the name suggested itself--we'd have called it 'The Hutch.' But when we heard that Humphreys was coming instead we were puzzled--until the idea occurred to us to name it 'The 'Ump.'"

The General seemed to appreciate the mild joke more than his staff officer did. I pulled up the cane blind on the door of "The Bower" and invited the General to enter and see his jungle abode.