W. H. Fitchett

“ Sometimes, indeed, the men dug holes in the earth, into which their wives and children might creep and be sheltered by a few planks from the intolerable glare of the sun, and the incessant flight of hostile bullets. Quite as commonly, however, a British officer or civilian, as he crouched behind the poor wall of earth, loaded musket in hand, saw the white faces of his children as they slept or moaned, in the ditch by his side, while the wasted figure of his wife bent over them. ”

“ It was a corps d’élite; a garrison of officers!
Indian life, it may be added, develops all that is proudest and most manly in the British character. The Englishman there feels that he is a member of an imperial and conquering race. To rule men is his daily business. To hunt the fiercest game in the world is his amusement. The men who knelt behind Wheeler’s mud walls, had faced tigers in the jungle, had speared the wild boar in the plains, had heard the scream of a charging elephant. They were steady of nerve, quick of eye, deadly of aim, proud of their blood and race. ”

“ A thrill ran through the waiting columns, as each man, like a hound on the leash, braced himself up for the desperate rush. Nicholson had been standing, silent and alone, in front of his column; and now with a gesture of his hand he gave the signal. A shout, sudden, and stern, and fierce, broke through the air. It came from the 60th Rifles, who with a vehement cheer ran out to the front in skirmishing order, and in a moment the four columns were in swift and orderly movement. Then the enemy’s guns from every point broke into flame! ”

“ General Sir Hugh Wheeler, who was in command at Cawnpore, was a gallant soldier, who had marched and fought for fifty years. But he had the fatal defect of being over seventy-five years of age. A little man, slender of build, with quick eye and erect figure, he carried his seventy-five years with respectable energy. But a man, no matter how brave, in whose veins ran the chill and thin blood of old age, was tragically handicapped in a crisis so fierce. ”

“ To lead a forlorn [90] hope up the broken slope of a breach, or to stand in an infantry square while, with thunder of galloping hoofs, a dozen squadrons of cavalry charge fiercely down, needs courage. But it was a finer strain of courage still which made a British officer leave his wife and children to sleep behind the guns, standing loaded with grape, to protect them from a rush of mutineers, while he himself walked calmly down to sleep—or, at least, to feign sleep—within the very lines of the mutineers themselves! ”

“ The Highlanders, pressing on from the centre, found themselves shoulder to shoulder with the 64th, advancing from the left. Maude’s guns, with the teams utterly exhausted, were a mile to the rear. Men were dropping fast in the British ranks, worn out with marching and charging under heat so cruel. In the smoke-blackened lines men were stumbling from very fatigue as they advanced on the quick red flashes and eddying smoke of the battery which covered the village. But Havelock, riding with the leading files, knew the soldier’s nature “from the crown of his shako down to his ammunition boots.” ”

“ Above the Residency flew, in haughty challenge to the whole world, the flag of England. That flag provoked in a quite curious degree the wrath of the mutineers. Every gun that could be brought to bear on it pelted it with shot, and again and again the staff was carried away. But the damage was instantly repaired, and through the whole of that desperate siege, while the tumult of the fight raged on every face of the entrenchments—
“Ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew!” ”

“ The man, in fact, is in that condition of mingled bhang and “nerves” which makes a Malay run amok; and every shout from his lips runs like a wave of sudden flame through the brains and along the nerves of the listening crowd of fellow-Sepoys. And as the Sepoys off duty come running up from every side, the crowd grows ever bigger, the excitement more intense, the tumult of chattering voices more passionate. A human powder magazine, in a word, is about to explode. ”

“ At this moment General Hearsey, the brigadier in charge, rides on to the parade-ground: a red-faced, wrathful, hard-fighting, iron-nerved veteran, with two sons, of blood as warlike as their father’s, riding behind him as aides. Hearsey, with quick military glance, takes in the whole scene—the mob of excited Sepoys, the sullen quarter-guard, the two red-coats lying in the road, and the victorious Mungul Pandy, musket in hand. ”

“ Had the Lord Roberts of Candahar, however, been in command himself at Meerut, it may be shrewdly suspected the mutineers would not have gone unpursued, nor Delhi unwarned! Amateur judgments are not, of course, to be trusted in military affairs; but to the impatient civilian judgment, it seems as if the massacres in Delhi, the long and bitter siege, the whole tragical tale of the Mutiny, might have been avoided if Hewitt had possessed one thrill of the fierce energy of Nicholson, or one breath of the proud courage of Havelock. ”

“ But nature sometimes conceals an heroic spirit within a very unheroic-looking body. If in outward look there was something sheep-like in Montgomery’s appearance, there was a lion-like strain in his courage. He had only a hint of the coming storm. A couple of scanty telegrams brought in the news of the mutiny at Meerut and the seizure of Delhi. With quick vision Montgomery read the temper of the native troops at Meanmeer, and, with swifter decision than even that of Corbett, he advised that they should be instantly disarmed. ”

“ Sir Colin Campbell himself stood by the guns, watching the balls tearing away flakes from the stubborn bricks which formed the immense thickness of the wall. Every now and then he repressed the eagerness of the Highlanders or Sikhs, waiting to make their rush. “Lie down, 93rd!” he said. “Lie down! Every man of you is worth his weight in gold to England to-day.” For nearly three-quarters of an hour that strange scene lasted, the British guns battering the tough brick wall, while from hundreds of loopholes a tempest of bullets scourged the toiling gunners. ”

“ And the hero of the siege of Delhi is not Barnard, or Wilson, or Baird-Smith, or Neville Chamberlain, or Nicholson—but a man who never fired a shot or struck a sword-stroke in the actual siege itself—John Lawrence. Lawrence, and not Havelock, nor Outram, nor Canning, was the true saviour of the British raj in India in the wild days of the Mutiny. ”

“ Some twenty-seven—eleven of them being children and eight women—took refuge in a house near the great mosque. They held the house for three days, but, having no water, suffered all the agonies of thirst. The Sepoys set vessels of water in front of the house, and bade the poor besieged give up their arms and they should drink. They yielded, gave up the two miserable guns with which they had defended themselves, and were led out. No water was given them. Death alone was to cool those fever-blackened lips. They were set in a row, the eleven children and sixteen men and women, and shot. ”

“ British lives hung on those few critical moments. It was the haughty, ice-cold courage of that heroic group on the Residency steps which, for the moment, averted a great disaster.
Sir Henry Lawrence is the hero of the earlier stages of the siege of Lucknow, and it is difficult to imagine a loftier or more gallant character. He came of that sturdy, strong-brained North of Ireland stock, which has given to the British Empire so many gallant soldiers and famous administrators, so many great engineers and captains of labour. ”

“ They shrank into mere wizen-faced old men—tiny skeletons with tightened, parchment-like skin, instead of round, cherub-like faces. Scurvy tainted the blood of the unfortunate garrison. Sleeplessness and the ever-present atmosphere of danger shook their nerves. Men stole out day after day, at the risk of their lives, to gather the leaves of a cruciferous plant, whose green leaves, unscorched by the flame of powder, could be seen amongst the ruins. A rank and dreadful stench of decaying bodies hung over the shot-tormented Residency, and poisoned the very air. ”

“ They are about to witness a duel between revolt and discipline, between a mutineer and an adjutant!
Mungul Pandy has at least one quality of a good soldier. He can face peril coolly. He steadies himself, [3] and grows suddenly silent. He stands in the track of the galloping horse, musket at shoulder, the man himself moveless as a bronze image. And steadily the Englishman rides down upon him! The Sepoy’s musket suddenly flashes; the galloping horse swerves and stumbles; horse and man roll in the white dust of the road. ”

“ From the summit of the walls a deadly fire is concentrated on the handful of gallant British. One after another drops. In another moment will come the rush of the bayonets. Willoughby looks round and sees Scully stooping with lighted port-fire over the fuse, and watching for the agreed signal. He lifts his hand. Coolly and swiftly Scully touches the fuse with his port-fire. The red spark runs along its centre; there is [44] an earth-shaking crash, as of thunder, a sky-piercing leap of flame. The walls of the magazine are torn asunder; bodies of men and fragments of splintered arms fly aloft. ”

“ What other nation can show in its record such a cycle of heroism as that which lies in the history of the British in India between May 10, 1857—the date of the Meerut outbreak, and the true beginning of the Mutiny—and November 1, 1858, when the Queen’s proclamation officially marked its close? But the heroes in that great episode—the men of Lucknow, and Delhi, and Arrah, the men who marched and fought under Havelock, who held the Ridge at Delhi under Wilson, who stormed the Alumbagh under Clyde—though they could make history, could not write it. ”

“ Courage, when high-strung, sometimes evolves an almost uncanny cheerfulness. The Sepoys brought a mortar into action that dropped shell after shell on one particular house. “We got the ladies up out of the Tyekhana,” records Fayrer, and they amused themselves by trying to be cheerful and singing part-songs in the portico, to the rushing of shells and the whistling of musket-balls. When before were such songs attempted to such an accompaniment? But the women of the Residency showed throughout a courage quite as high as that of the men. ”

“ There is a flash of red pistol-flame, a puff of white smoke, a gleam of whirling sword-blade. But a man who has just scrambled up, half-stunned, from a fallen horse, can scarcely be expected to shine as a marksman. Baugh has missed his man, and in another moment is himself cut down by Mungul Pandy’s tulwar. At this sight a Mohammedan Sepoy—Mungul Pandy was a Brahmin—runs out and catches the uplifted wrist of the victorious Mungul. Here is one Sepoy, at least, who cannot look on and see his English officer slain—least of all by a cow-worshipping Hindu! ”

“ Wheeler, with a soldier’s pride, was unwilling to give up the patch of ground he held for the Queen. The younger men, with the flame of battle in their blood, were eager to fight to the bitter end. To trust to the faith of mutineers, or to the humanity of a Hindu of Nana Sahib’s tiger-like nature, they argued, was a sadly desperate venture. Yet that way there might lie a chance of life for the women and children. Death was certain if the siege lasted. ”

“ The clamour of voices takes a new shrillness. Two sahibs are down before their eyes, under the victorious arm of one of their comrades! The men who form the quarter-guard of the 34th, at the orders of their native officer, run forward a few paces at the double, but they do not attempt to seize the mutineer. Their sympathies are with him. They halt; they sway to and fro. The nearest smite with the butt-end of their muskets at the two wounded Englishmen.
A cluster of British officers by this time is on the scene; the colonel of the 34th himself has come up, and naturally takes command. ”

“ The very virtues of the British rule, thus proved its peril. Its cool justice, its steadfast enforcement of order, its tireless warfare against crime, made it hated of all the lawless and predatory classes. Every native who lived by vice, chafed under a justice which might be slow and passionless, but which could not be bribed, and in the long-run could not be escaped.
Some, at least, of the dispossessed princes, diligently fanned these wild dreams and wilder suspicions which haunted the Sepoy mind, till it kindled into a flame. The Sepoys were told they had conquered India for the English ”

“ He disarmed with iron resolution and swift decision all the Sepoy regiments whose loyalty was doubtful, and put all the forts, arsenals, treasuries, and strategic points in the Punjaub under the guard of British bayonets. Then he organised a movable column of European troops—scanty in dimensions, but of the finest fighting quality—under the command, first, of Neville Chamberlain, and next of Nicholson; and this force stood ready to strike at any point where mutiny threatened to lift its head. ”

“ The Sikhs and the 10th followed vehemently and closely, while some of the men of the 90th, led by young Havelock, carried a palace close to the Kaisarbagh, from which they commanded three of its bastions. They opened on them a fire so deadly that the Sepoys fled from their guns. The engineers wished to stay any further attack; the programme for the day was exhausted, and, in Colin Campbell’s leisurely tactics, nothing further was meant to be done that day.
But the stormers were eager; Sikhs and Highlanders alike had the fire of victory in their blood. ”

“ Whether the terror of Havelock’s advance on Cawnpore actually caused the massacre of the English captives there may be doubted; it certainly hastened it. Nana Sahib, to whom murder was a luxury, would no more have spared the women and the children than a tiger would spare a lamb lying under its paw. But even a tiger has its lazy moods, and, say, immediately after a full meal, is temporarily careless about fresh slaughter. Nana Sahib had supped full of cruelty, and was disposed, for a brief period at all events, to allow his captives to live. ”

“ In each cantonment during the days preceding the revolt, the British officers on the spot were—to return to our figure—like men shut up in a powder-magazine with the train fired. There might be a dozen or twenty British officers with their families at a station held by a battery of native artillery, a couple of squadrons of native horse, and a regiment of native infantry—all plotting revolt and murder! ”

“ Sinking from fatigue and hunger, scorched by the flame-like heat of the sun, wading rivers, toiling through jungles, hunted by villagers, they struggled on, seeking some place of refuge. Some reached Meerut, others Umballa, but many died. Of that much-enduring company of fugitives, it is recorded that the women often showed the highest degree of fortitude and patience. Yet more than one mother had to lay her child, killed by mere exposure or heat, in a nameless jungle grave; more than one wife [45] had to see her husband die, of bullet or sword-stroke, at her feet. ”