The word was that Lord Lucan, commanding the Cavalry Division, would be at the quayside when they embarked, specifically to ensure that the two officers wives present, Fanny and Mrs Cresswell, did not get on board. The plan was that Fanny would put on old shapeless clothes and cover her distinctive golden hair with a shawl and tattered hat hoping to pass herself as a soldier's wife. Henry and the regimental and brigade headquarters staffs were detailed for the Himalaya, which was immediately ready for boarding, but in the normal way of Service life, the 8th Hussars were ordered unexpectedly to strike camp in a hurry, only to hang about later for hours on the quayside. Fanny was still feverish, and shaking enough to provoke pity from one of the authentic wives who lent her another shawl. After a risky restless night with Henry in their tent, it might well have been her illness that saved her when finally the women embarked the next morning. She passed undetected under Lucan's eye among the last few along with the baggage, probably not needing to act at all as a sick wife on the spare regimental horse which carried her- in full health she would have found it difficult to disguise her too-perfect riding posture. As it was, the sailors rowing her out to the ship chuckled that 'it did not look as if she had done much hard work in the sun.' and craned their necks hoping to glimpse at least her ankles as she struggled up the rope ladder to the gunwale unaided like all the soldiers wives, but where the strong arms of an accomplice,Captain Longmore, were on hand to heave her aboard.
The elation of having thwarted Lucan was quickly tempered by the bad news that lack of shipping space had prompted a decision that officers were to be strictly limited to one horse each - the surplus, including Fanny's 'Bill', had to be offloaded for transfer to a local depot, to follow at some later date. That meant that Fanny would be unable to accompany the regiment when landed, and she would have to follow the course of the campaign by sea. Good news was that she could share a cabin with Henry as Lord Fitzgibbon had nobly ceded his designated berth to her. More bad news was that she would have to stay in it until the Himalaya sailed - this turned out to be four days and nights in intense heat. Worst news of all, there was cholera aboard and it struck indiscriminately and lightning fast. Fanny vividly illustrates the horror and her state of mind. "Poor Captain Longmore, who on Friday helped me up the ship's side, was dead on Sunday morning - death with such inexorable gripe appears in his most appalling shape. He was seized but on Friday with diarrhoea, which turned to cholera on Saturday, and on Sunday the body left in its silent and solemn desolation. During his death struggle the party dined in the saloon, separated from the ghastly wrangle only by a screen. With few exceptions, the dinner was a silent one, but presently the champagne corks flew, and - but I grow sick, I cannot draw so vivid a picture of life and death. God save my dear husband and me from dying in the midst of the din of life!'
