Читать книгу Lord William Beresford, V.C., Some Memories of a Famous Sportsman, Soldier and Wit онлайн

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This chance game, a thing born of a few spare hours in the midst of the pomp and glitter of Eastern rejoicing, was destined to prove the blackest sorrow of Lord William’s life. Captain Clayton had become to Lord William, what is perhaps the most irreplaceable thing in the world, his best friend, and during this game their ponies cannoned into one another. Captain Clayton’s fell; its rider was picked up unconscious, and died the same night.

THE DELHI DURBAR, 1877

Poor Lord William was wild with grief, and Captain De la Garde Grissell, an old friend and brother officer of his, who was in the camp with the 11th Hussars, was sent for to the Viceroy’s camp to stay with Lord William during the night. Captain Eustace Vesey and Captain Charles Muir sat up with Captain Clayton until he died at midnight. Captain Grissell tells me that they were so anxious that none should do anything for their dear friend but those who had known and cared for him, that he and Captain Vesey made all the arrangements—in India everything has to be carried out so swiftly. There was no undertaker, so a soldier made the coffin and Captain Grissell himself screwed down the lid, both he and Captain Vesey being greatly overcome. The funeral was next day, and a most impressive sight, all the troops at the Durbar taking part. A military funeral is at all times impressive, indeed harrowing, to those who mourn the loss of one who has shared their lives, but it becomes doubly so when the circumstances have been so tragic. He was buried in the graveyard behind the ridge held so long by us during the Mutiny, and he lies with the 9th Lancers who fell at that time and are buried close by.