A. R. D. Mackenzie

“ Our sabres flashed into light, gleaming in the rays of the rising [130] sun. "Forward at a walk;" "March;" "Trot;" "Gallop;" "Charge." Down the slope we thundered. Like the sands on a dry plain struck by a sudden squall the dense mob before us with a wild cry of despair, broke into fragments and fled—in vain! Our impetus carried us into the midst of them. For miles we pursued them, and heavy was the loss we inflicted on those who bore arms.
Theoretically, cavalry should at all times be kept well in hand and under perfect control. ”

“ The squadron of the 9th Lancers followed my example—a troop of horse artillery thundered up from the rear—more cavalry galloped out to the left of the guns—and, like magic, a line was formed to the front, the guns in the centre, with cavalry on both flanks. A trumpet sounded the "advance," and the "gallop," and away we swept over the plain, straight for the enemy's position, under a furious fire, too furious and rapid, fortunately, to do us much mischief. One round shot smote a man of the 9th Lancers full in the face. ”

“ Evidently some obstruction prevented their escape to the flanks. At last a huge living wedge of frantic, struggling, panic-stricken men and horses was crowded together, hemmed in between a deep canal and a masonry aqueduct which crossed it at right angles. Into this solid mass it was impossible to penetrate, but the outer fringe of it was mowed down by the tulwars of our men. No quarter was ever given or taken before Delhi. If the mutineers had been cruel as the most savage of wild beasts, fearful was the revenge which many and many a time was wreaked on them by our maddened troops. ”

“ The prompt punishment which even such a small body could have inflicted would have been of the utmost value as a lesson both to the rebels and to the faint-hearted among ourselves; but the opportunity was wilfully thrown away; and the magnificent brigade of British troops of all arms, which afterwards covered itself with glory at the Hindun Nuddee, at Delhi, at Lucknow, and wherever its members met the enemy, was marched back to Meerut, and condemned for a period to the humiliating rôle of passive inaction. ”

“ While I was making my report to the bewildered General, Brigadier Archdale Wilson pushed up to us, buckling on his sword-belt, and ordered me to mount at once and follow the Sappers and keep them in sight till he could come up with some of the Carabineers and guns. By this time the Sappers, who, I firmly believe, had at first no intention whatever of mutinying, but had been seized by sudden panic through groundless fear of an attack by the European troops, were swarming in flight over the plain, some in uniform, some in native clothes, but all armed with their muskets. ”

“ A few minutes afterwards another adventure of a "touch and go" nature befell me. In a mêlée a brother officer had singled out a rebel foot soldier, and was hotly striving to cut him down, but his antagonist with bayonet fixed kept him at bay, and had just brought his musket to his shoulder to fire, when most luckily in the very nick of time I saw what was going on, and charged the Pandy, who, disconcerted by the sudden attack, hurriedly attempted to shift his aim on to me, but ineffectually. ”

“ Before utterly and unreservedly condemning this undoubtedly savage action, I would beg the reader to remember that in this Mutiny war no quarter was given on either side. We looked, and rightly looked, upon the mutineers, not as honest enemies, but as foul and cruel murderers for whom to die by the sword was too good a fate, and whose only fit end was on the gallows. If they had confined themselves to a revolt against the Government, and in attempting it had slaughtered their officers and all men who tried to suppress it, they would not have placed themselves outside the pale of mercy ”

“ Nothing very exciting occurred during the long, dusty march to Cawnpore. For a considerable part of the way we had to escort an immense train of empty bullock carts, destined for the use of Sir Colin's army; and our duties were monotonous in the extreme. Heartily would we have welcomed an attack on our convoy; but none was ever made.
At Cawnpore I was left in command of a detachment of fifty sabres, while the head-quarters of the regiment went on to Alumbagh, near Lucknow. This was a grievous disappointment to me; but as things turned out, nothing more lucky could have happened. ”

“ Our pace was so great that it was impossible for them to put on the steam in time to escape our onslaught. The picquet joined in—our own reinforcements caught us up—and then was seen on that plain as pretty a bout of sword play as ever rejoiced the heart of a horseman. No attempt at keeping order was possible. As the "Pandies" scattered, so did we, each man singling out his victim. The slaughter of the enemy was considerable, the losses on our side extremely trifling. ”

“ It is now the 11th Prince of Wales's Own Bengal Lancers, and still maintains its high reputation among the many splendid regiments which compose the Bengal and Punjab Cavalry; a force of horsemen which, it is safe to say, is not excelled, as regards all the best qualities of light cavalry, by any troops in the world.
If the smart 11th Bengal Lancers could see themselves as they appeared when, as the 1st Sikh Irregulars, they marched down the grand trunk road from Delhi in the winter of 1857, they would be not a little amused and astonished. ”

“ The General, Sir Archdale Wilson, worn out with illness and want of rest, and with the strain of long-continued anxiety, seemed to those around him to be losing heart and to be half inclined to abandon our dearly-earned footing within the walls, and to withdraw the troops once more to the old position outside. Worse than all, great stores of brandy and wine which had been cunningly left by the rebels exposed to the sight of our soldiers, fell into their hands, and the inevitable result followed. Numbers of our men eagerly swallowed the fiery poison ”

“ With our tired horses escape from so strong a body of cavalry was hopeless. Nothing was left but to charge the bridge and trust to luck and the rapidity of our attack to disconcert the enemy, and enable some at least of us to get through with whole skins. These were the days of drilling by "threes;" but as I judged that there would be room for four men [60] abreast on the bridge, I formed my party as quickly as possible into what would now be called a column of sections of fours, and moved down the slope on to the plain at a gallop, increasing our pace as we approached the bridge. ”

“ At this juncture we were cheered by the arrival of Lieutenant Craigie, who, after I left him, had gone back to the parade-ground where the uproar was still at its height, the heroic efforts of the British officers to bring the men to reason being quite futile. At length, [21] seeing the hopelessness of further endeavour, and finding the men getting more and more uncontrollable, they were compelled to retire and make for the European lines, carrying away with them the now for-ever disgraced standards of the regiment. ”

“ In campaigns like those of the Mutiny in which our irregular [184] cavalry was so freely used and played so important a part, hand-to-hand conflict was much more frequent than in ordinary wars. In fact, every officer of that branch had numberless opportunities of testing his skill at arms; for skirmishes were often of almost daily occurrence; and in each skirmish he carried his life literally at the point of his sword. ”

“ During the day our troops entered into full possession of the City. All the strong points, the Palace, Selimgurh, the Jumma Musjid, the bastions and the gates were occupied by them; and the latest, and, let us trust, the last, siege of Delhi came to an end.
All is well that ends well. It is always easy and not always unprofitable after an event to speculate as to what might have been the result if a different course of action had been adopted with the view of bringing it about. ”

“ A gentle slope stretched away from us, ending in a wide plain which was covered with a huge crowd moving towards us in a disorderly mob. Fighting men on horse-back and on foot—on camels—on a stray elephant or two—in bullock carts and "ekkas"—without any show of discipline or regular formation, mingled with hundreds of non-combatants all pressing tumultuously onwards. ”

“ We rode all day, expecting every moment our men to turn on us and bolt to Delhi. The temptation must have been very sore to them; for they had witnessed the extreme demoralisation which the Mutiny had caused in Meerut; but providentially they remained staunch. Only once did we meet with a show of opposition at a large village, but most fortunately we thought it probable that the inhabitants were alarmed at our French-grey uniforms, and took us for a party of mutineers on the prowl. ”

“ It is impossible to understand the swift torrents of feeling that flood the hearts of Orientals in periods of intense excitement. Like madmen they threw themselves off their horses and prostrated themselves before the ladies, seizing their feet and placing them on their heads, as they vowed with tears and sobs to protect their lives with their own. ”

“ It may be well imagined that I took very good care afterwards to keep a watchful eye on that Non-Commissioned Officer, and to let him see by a touch of my hand on the hilt of my sword that I was quite ready for any suspicious movement on his part. Soon afterwards he and a few others rode out of the gate, and we saw them no more. They had not long gone when a servant of Craigie's, a Hindu bearer, came up to us in great excitement with the news that a crowd of budmashes was coming in at the gate. He implored us to give him one of the guns, and let him go and fire at them. ”

“ It is an imperishable tribute to the glory of our arms, and no one who reads its narrative of the brave deeds done by Englishmen, civilians as well as soldiers, aided by Sikhs and Gurkhas and the few other loyal races of India during that time of supreme stress and trial, can help feeling his heart fill with honest and patriotic pride, and with confident hope that if ever again so fierce a struggle should be forced on ourselves or our descendants, the old spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race will prove true to itself. ”

“ Looking round, the unfortunate recruit's panic was nothing to what mine became, when I saw the stern face of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Colin Campbell. Caught in the act of trying to kill one of my own men, visions of a court-martial—of the loss of my commission—swam before me, as with one despairing effort I wrenched the blade out of the buckler, and, dropping its point to the Chief, stammered out my defence. ”

“ It is certainly possible that if the intended assault had been delivered on the 12th of June it would have been successful. For my own part I have very little doubt on the subject. The battles of the Hindun Nuddee and of Badle-ka-Serai had severely shaken the morale of the enemy; and the very audacity of so daring and so prompt an attack by the united forces from Umballa and Meerut, each of which had, unsupported by the other, won so signal a victory, would have struck terror into the rebels and probably insured their defeat. ”

“ Every minute they despaired of surviving to the next. All round them flames of burning houses and mobs of yelling demons! Not knowing whether the Husband and Brother were alive or dead—deserted apparently by God and man—hopeless of help,—they yet never despaired, nor lost their courage or presence of mind. Their first thought had been to find Craigie's weapons and place them where they would be ready to hand if he or I did ever come. Nothing had they overlooked. Three double-barrelled guns stood against the wall, with powder-flask and bullets and caps. ”

“ Not far from us, another lady, while attempting to escape, disguised as an ayah, was recognised as a European, and murdered. Two veterinary-surgeons, attached to the regiment, had been killed—one of them with his wife—under circumstances of ghastly horror. They were both sick in bed with small-pox when the uproar of the mob startled them; and they came, in their night clothes, into the verandah, he carrying a gun loaded with shot, which he discharged at the crowd, only further enraging it. He was instantly shot dead. ”

“ But they had started some little time previously, and we hoped that they had already reached their destination, and were in safety among the British troops. Military discipline sometimes tries a soldier to the utmost; and now we felt that Wife and Sister must be left in the hands of God, and that our place was among the mutineers on the parade-ground. Thither we went as fast as our horses could carry us, and found ourselves in a scene of the utmost uproar. ”

“ No sooner had we turned our horses' heads than the full horror of what was taking place burst upon us. The whole cantonments seemed one mass of flames. If before we rode fast, now we flew; for the most urgent fears for the safety of [16] those dear to us tortured us almost to madness. As we tore along Craigie allowed me to leave him and go in search of his Wife and my Sister, and to take any of the men who would go with me. I lifted my sword and shouted for volunteers to come to save my Sister, and some dozen of them galloped after me. As hard as our horses could gallop we tore along. ”

“ As we hove into sight the enemy more or less disengaged itself from the picquet, and attempted to throw itself into formation to meet our attack. There must have been several hundred of them. The whole ground in front seemed thick with them; and I must confess my heart sank within me when the gallant Sanford, instead of waiting for the reinforcements which must have been close behind us, simply increased the pace, and evidently meant to hurl [70] our small party straight into the overwhelming mass before us. ”