On the 9th November Sir Colin Campbell joined the column, accompanied by his Chief of the Staff, Brigadier-General Mansfield.[5]

[Illustration:  LORDS CLYDE AND SANDHURST.  (SIR COLIN CAMPBELL AND SIR WILLIAM MANSFIELD.) From a photograph taken in India.]

The following morning we were surprised to hear that a European from the Lucknow garrison had arrived in camp.  All were keen to see him, and to hear how it was faring with those who had been shut up in the Residency for so long; but the new-comer was the bearer of very important information from Sir James Outram, and to prevent any chance of its getting about, the Commander-in-Chief kept the messenger, Mr. Kavanagh, a close prisoner in his own tent.

Outram, being anxious that the officer in command of the relieving force should not follow the same route taken by himself and Havelock, and wishing to communicate his ideas more at length than was possible in a note conveyed as usual by a spy, Kavanagh, a clerk in an office in Lucknow, pluckily volunteered to carry a letter.  It was an offer which appealed to the heart of the ‘Bayard of the East,’ as Outram has been appropriately called, and just such an errand as he himself, had he been in a less responsible position, would have delighted to undertake.  Outram thoroughly understood the risk of the enterprise, and placed it clearly before the brave volunteer, who, nothing daunted, expressed his readiness to start at once, and his confidence in being able to reach the British camp.

Disguised as a Native, and accompanied by a man of Oudh, on whose courage and loyalty he was convinced he could rely, Kavanagh left the Residency after dark on the 9th and got safely across the Gumti.  He and his guide remained in the suburbs mixing with the people until the streets might be expected to be pretty well empty, when they re-crossed the river and got safely through the city.  They were accosted more than once on their way, but were saved by the readiness of the Native, who it had been arranged should answer all inquiries, though Kavanagh, having been born and bred in the country, could himself speak the language fluently.  On the morning of the 10th they made themselves known to a piquet of Punjab Cavalry on duty near the Alambagh.

Outram, profiting by his own experience, wished the relieving column to be spared having to fight its way through the streets of Lucknow.  This was all the more necessary because the enemy, calculating on our following the same route as before, had destroyed the bridge over the canal and made extensive preparations to oppose our advance in that direction.  Outram explained his views most clearly, and sent with his letter a plan on which the line he proposed we should take was plainly marked.  He recommended that the advance should be made, by the Dilkusha[6] and Martiniere,[7] and that the canal should be crossed by the bridge nearest the Gumti.  Outram showed his military acumen in suggesting this route, as our