Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1895-08-17
THE ADJUTANTS GRAVE.
1t was at the taking of Rangoon.


From the Irrawaddi the crashing
batteries of dozen steam frigates had
Reveled the stockades on the river side.
Black masses of naked, smolse-stained
Burmese, exposed al their guns or in
shallow trenches when the teak walls
fell or we're burned, we're moved down
like grass by a hailstorm of grape.
Our artillery was landing. The
Eighteenth Royal Irish were already
In the breaches and at the water gate.
The Burmese dropped their cumbrous
shields and lances and dhars and fled,
yelling, back toward the great pagoda.
Those wild Irish, possessed of the same
devil that dashed and slashed and
stabbed and hacked and hurrahed in
the Ennskillcners at Waterloo, went
off in hot chase. Only one regiment
for they would not wait for the slow
boats that were bringing the guns,
and the Eightieth and the Sepoy
Rifles, but broke away in pursuit, in
spite OF the almost frantic officers,
who weak and hoarse with Intellectual
efforts to check their mad command,
were forced to follow at last, all chas-
ing the bubble reputation together
one regiment, at the heels of ten thou
sand panic-stricken savagesl
One of the glorious fellows of the
crack Eighteenth in this tempestuous
hurley-burley was Fallon, the adjutant.
He was the equipped model of gen.
tleman and soldier, according to the
standard of his proud regiment;
jovial boon companion, generous COM
rade, fast friend, frank and fearless
enemy; in sport child, in taste n
scholar, impetuous in fight, pitiful in
victory.
AS his disordered party charged,
shouting, up the broad Dagon road, be-
tween the long lines of the inner stock
ade, over bamboo bridges thrown across
trenches, and past grim, gigantic idols
and ponghee houses Enthusiastically
carved, the adjutant who had fingered
behind the rest, striving to the last, in
his habitual devotion to discipline, to
restrain the men, happened to be in
the rear of all.
"How now?" jestingly cried Clark,
an English ensign of the adjutant's
mess, who was running just before
him, ''our plucky Fallon at the back
of us ALL This is bad enough for me,
old fellow, who have my medals to
win; but it will never do for you, with
those red ribbons to answer for"
81 am doing my best, Clark, my
boy" Fallon replied, land shall be up
with that crazy sergeant presently.
You know am good for a short brush
of foot race; fast running is one of my
accomplishments-th to my bog
trotting education and the practice
Lord Cough gave us"
Hardly were the words done ringing
in his comrades ears whesl the gallant
Fallon, the pride of his corps, received
in his generous breast dozen musl1et
balls, as he sprang up the broad stair
case of the Golden Dragon pagoda-
first of them all, and quite alone. He
fell on his face, stone dead, on the
stairs. sword in hand, and smiling.
When all was over, and his regiment
held the post of honor on the very
throne of the Boodh, they gave him a
soldiers most distinguished obsequies,
burying him in grove of talipot trees,
behind ponghee house of the most
most grotesque architecture, and just
outside of what were afterward the
Sepoy lines of the Eightieth. His faith
full orderly planted a rude cross at his
graves head and set an English white
rose there. An American missionary
gave it to him.
In Calcutta Norah Fallon-beautiful,
accomplished, witty, altogether ra-
diant with rare charms of mind and
person-waited with her young child
for news from her soldier husband, who
h,I l. -, l..
the stockades of Rangoop. When they
told her he was dead, she fell, utteIing
only sharp cry, and lay as one dead
for many days. But when she awoke
to the consciousness of her pro-
found bereavement and her eternal
widowhood, she shed not a tear nor
spoke a word, bat took her boy and
went aboard troopship that sailed
on the morrow for Rangoon.
On the voyage still she spoke not,
er ever wept; the silence of her sor-
row had something sacred, almost aw-
full, about it, that commanded a del
icacy of consideration, which was a
sort of worship, from the rudest about
her.
Arrived at Rangoon, no sooner had
VIC ohiP oioPICu oil Cnc King 3
wharf than Norah sent her chaprassey,
her Hindoo errand goer, with a note to
Gen. Goodwin, commanding the COM
pany's forces in Burmah: THE wife of
Maurice Fallon, adjutant in the Eight
eenth of her majesty's Royal Irish,
would be permitted to see her hus-
bands grave; she awaits the express
sion of the generals wishes on board
the Mahanuddy."
She waited long. At last the answer
came:
1T was with unfeigned sorrow that
Lieut. Gen. Goodwin found himself
constrained, by the exigencies If his
position, to refuse the widow of one of
his best officers, whose loss was felt by
the whole Anglo-Indian army, the sad
privilege ofvisiting the spot where his
comrades consigned him to brave sol