Part 4

As may be easily understood, much of our time in the Cavalry branch was occupied on picquet or outpost duty. One of these outposts, at a place called, I think, Azadpore, far away on the extreme right rear of our position, was peculiarly liable to attack, as it was pretty well "in the air," and offered a tempting object for a sudden swoop by a large body of the enemy. One afternoon when my commanding officer, Captain Sanford, and myself, being off duty, were mounting to enjoy a quiet ride, we became aware of a great commotion in the Azadpore direction. Clouds of dust rapidly whirling in the air! Camels and grass-cutters' ponies flying wildly to the camp! Evidently something wrong! "Gallop to the lines. Sound the Boot-and-Saddle and the Mount" was the order Captain Sanford gave me, while he tore off into the clouds of dust to reconnoitre. Instantly was the quiet of our camp changed into a scene of the liveliest bustle. Horses being saddled--men tumbling out of their tents--buckling on their belts--jumping on their horses, and "falling in"--all this in frantic haste--when Sanford returned and shouted to me "Bring along as many men as have mounted. Never mind telling off. The Azadpore picquet is being driven in." By this time not more than 20 or 25 men were in their saddles, and away we went after Sanford as hard as we could tear, leaving the rest of the regiment to follow as soon as it could be got together. Through the flying animals and camp followers, many of them wounded, we galloped along, straining our eyes into the distance; and presently we saw the picquet, surrounded by clouds of the rebel horse, being driven slowly back, stubbornly fighting and disputing every inch of ground. 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 our small party straight into the overwhelming mass before us. "It is all up with you this time" was my ejaculation to myself, but "needs must" when--one's commanding officer leads! So I set my teeth and determined to make the best of a bad job. Could I believe my eyes? The dense body that had begun to advance against us slowed down to a walk--halted--wavered--and finally scattered! With a roar we charged into them. 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. As the fierce pursuit rolled on we became aware that the masses of the flying mutineers were thickening in our front, and were gradually concentrating towards one point. 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.

Where the aqueduct crossed the canal it had been partially destroyed, and on the masses of fallen masonry it was just possible for one horseman at a time to pick his way across; but where one escaped many were overthrown and trampled on by the struggling mob. It had been comparatively easy for the enemy, intent on the surprise of the Azadpore picquet, to steal across in single file; but it was quite a different thing for a confused and terrified crowd to force its way across. At this point great slaughter took place, and many, in despair, turned round and charged their pursuers, only to meet a certain and speedy death. One poor wretch, extricating himself from the crowd, jumped his horse on to a detached fragment of the broken aqueduct on the plain before it joined the canal, and there he stood, as on a pedestal six or eight feet high, in vain seeking a short respite from his inevitable fate. Almost simultaneously one of our men sprung his horse alongside of him, and on that precarious platform, with barely footing for their horses, these two engaged in a savage fight for life. Like lightning their swords flashed as they cut at each other without any attempt at parrying. In a second or two our man received a frightful slash on his arm, and it would have gone hard with him if at that moment one of his comrades who was armed with a long spear had not charged straight at the group, and, as he pulled his horse up on its haunches at the base of the masonry, transfixed the Pandy through the body. At the same instant our man, maddened with pain and excitement, drove his horse against his antagonist and thrust him clean off the block of masonry, horses and men all rolling together on the ground below.

The survivors of the adventurous spirits who had attacked the outpost rode back into Delhi that night considerably crestfallen.

The picquet had been furnished by one of the Punjab cavalry regiments, and was commanded by a gentleman of a rather taciturn habit who is still well remembered under his nickname of "Fowls." Never shall I forget the quaint but gallant spectacle which he presented, as with his faithful quizzing glass firmly glued on to one eye he faced his enemies and laid about him with his sword, grimly silent, while being slowly driven back by the _force majeure_ of overwhelming numbers. The story goes that he earned his _petit nom_ as follows:--On some occasion, on the line of march, he had, for days and weeks, ridden solemnly and silently among his comrades. Not a word had ever escaped his lips till, on one memorable morning, as his detachment entered a village, our friend, who must have been gloomily pondering on the scantiness of the supplies in the camp larder of the mess, espied a family of _moorgis_ busily scratching up the dust on the road before him. The welcome sight was too much for him. Then and there he lifted up his voice and cried "Fowls!" and straightway relapsed into pristine dumbness. Seldom if ever has so short a speech been greeted with such loud applause. His delighted comrades, now that the spell was broken, naturally hoped that the sudden ejaculation was but a preliminary to a permanent loosening of the hitherto tied tongue; but they were doomed to disappointment. From that time forth not a word escaped those lips. Neither fowls nor ducks nor geese nor turkeys, nor even sheep availed any more to draw forth the slightest oral token of appreciation--merely would the half sleepy eyes glisten into life at the sight of the welcome "find," and possibly a nod of the head would direct attention to it. Thus came it about that the soubriquet of "Fowls" was by unanimous vote conferred on its possessor.

That evening when we were all assembled at dinner in the mess tent, an unfortunate "Pandy" who had been found skulking under a bush by some of our men was brought before the commanding officer. There was no mistaking him for anything but a sepoy; and there could be no doubt about his fate. Still I could not help thinking his luck was very hard; and doubtless my face betrayed my feelings; for the unfortunate man, with an appealing look at me, declared he was no sepoy, but had been my domestic servant; and he implored me to bear witness to his truth and save his life. What could I do! It was impossible to swear to a falsehood; but I pleaded hard, though, I fear, unsuccessfully, that he might be allowed to escape.

During one of the numerous encounters with the enemy which kept the camp before Delhi lively, an officer serving with the infantry of the Guides Corps was wounded in a manner sufficiently curious to deserve record. During a pause in the operations he was standing with his back to a tree when a bullet struck the ground close to him, and caused a fragment of stone to fly up against his forehead, on which it inflicted a slight flesh wound. As he threw his head back at the sudden shock, it came in contact with a sharp splinter of a broken branch sticking out from the tree. Instinctively he put his right hand up to his forehead. It was covered with blood. Then he felt the back of his head with his left hand. That also was all bloody. "My God!" He exclaimed, "I'm a dead man! Shot right through the head!" and he sought a soft place to lie down on and die, an event which he expected to take place in a second or two. To his surprise, after fully a minute, he was as alive as ever. So, again, he felt the two wounds. There was no mistake about it. They were both bleeding freely. Once more he curled himself up; but as death did not come, he presently began to think that there must be something strange and abnormal about the hole right through his head, and his relief may be imagined, when a brother officer, after a hurried examination of it, explained matters to him. I am afraid he was flippant enough, as he jumped to his feet, to join in the laugh against himself. Wonderful recoveries from apparently mortal wounds were by no means uncommon. I have myself seen an officer hit full in the chest by a bullet which came out at his back. I jumped off my horse and wrung his hand for the last farewell, and rode on (for this occurred during a pursuit), leaving him to the care of the surgeon who at that moment came up. What was my surprise to find, many hours afterwards when we returned to camp, that the wounded officer was not only not dead, but not likely to die. The bullet had glanced off a rib and gone round his chest under the skin, and so out of his back. Another officer had his jaw smashed by a bullet which did not apparently make its exit anywhere. The simple fact was that he swallowed it, along with some of his teeth.

On the Ridge stood a lofty building, the Observatory Tower, from the summit of which, during the early part of the siege, a look-out used to be kept on the operations of the enemy.

This fact becoming known, drew on the tower an altogether undesirable share of attention from the guns on the walls of Delhi; and the upper parts of it soon got considerably knocked about by shot and shell. Long after this look-out post had been withdrawn occasional shells used still to be "loosed off" at the tower, making things rather hot for the small knot of officers off duty which used generally to be found up there enjoying the view when anything more interesting than usual was going on in front. On one occasion two or three other men and myself had found our way to the top of it, when we were joined by a gentleman connected with a mercantile firm, to whose enterprise the camp was indebted for its supplies of "tar bund" beer (a luxury for which we were glad to pay sixteen rupees a dozen), Exshaw's brandy and Harvey's sauce, and many varieties of tinned provisions, besides Holloway's pills and ointment, and such like patent nostrums. While we were all looking at the walls of the city, a puff of white smoke was seen to issue from a point known to us as "the hole in the wall" where dwelt a mortar of large calibre. In a few seconds the big shell vomited out from it burst high in the air, fully a quarter of a mile away from us, but in a very accurate alignment for our position. "Down," shouted one of our number, and we all, with the exception of our civilian friend, crouched behind a heavy mass of solid masonry. He, however, stood his ground, folded his arms across his chest, and for a moment surveyed us with a look of half contemptuous surprise. "Why have these stupid fellows sought shelter?" thought he. "The shell has burst ever so far away. The danger is all over now. The pieces must be falling to the ground." Very speedily was he undeceived. Hurtling and hissing, the broken fragments of the shell came rushing onwards and crashed against the tower, fortunately without hitting him. As we stood up he threw himself down. He then learned a lesson, which I dare say he did not soon forget, concerning the momentum of projectiles, and the general advisability of taking a hint from persons presumably likely to know what they were about.

All this time the siege, if so it could be described, "dragged its slow length along;" but in reality, neither was the City invested by us, nor was our force besieged, as has been so often asserted, by the rebel troops. Both forces lay facing each other. Both were in contact along a comparatively short front. Both were entirely open to their respective rear, with practically unmenaced communications in those directions. Neither could prevent reinforcements or supplies reaching the other. We on our part could not even attempt to intercept the various contingents of mutineers which, during the early part of the siege, poured into Delhi from the south; and were hurled, in almost monotonous succession, against our position, while still fresh and undemoralised by defeat, only to be driven back, time after time, with immense slaughter, by the invincible little phalanx of Britons, Sikhs and Gurkhas, which sturdily clung, bull-dog fashion, to the ground it had taken up. For a time the numbers of the enemy continued to increase, as almost daily fresh bodies by regiments and brigades marched into the already crowded city, their arrival noisily saluted by heavy artillery. Our muster roll, on the other hand, far from augmenting, actually dwindled away; for incessant losses from casualties in action were heavily supplemented by deaths from fever and cholera; and our much-needed reinforcements were long in coming. But we rested secure in the firm assurance that sooner or later they would certainly come. We all knew that John Lawrence and his lieutenants were straining every nerve to secure the safety of the Punjab in our rear, by disarming the disaffected Hindustani regiments in that province, and by raising fresh ones, both of cavalry and infantry, from the staunch fighting men of the Khalsa. We knew that as swiftly as could possibly be compassed by human forethought and human energy, these trustworthy and brave levies, and every British regiment that could be spared, and every heavy gun and mortar in the Ferozepore Arsenal, and, almost better than all, the heroic Nicholson would come to our aid; and that then the real siege would begin in earnest, and the fate of Delhi would be sealed.

Early in August took place the only serious effort on the part of the enemy to cut off our communications. To quote from a letter written by General Wilson to Nicholson and received by the latter on the 3rd of August[3]:--"The enemy have re-established the bridge over the Najufgurh Canal (which we had destroyed) and have established themselves in force there, with the intention of moving on Alipore and our communications with the rear. I therefore earnestly beg you to push forward with the utmost expedition in your power, both to drive these fellows from my rear, and to aid me in holding my position." How promptly and effectually Nicholson carried out these instructions is graphically described in the pages of Sir John Kaye's work. On the 14th of August he led into the Delhi Camp the moveable column which had already done yeoman's service by disarming the mutinous regiments at Phillour and Umritsar, and destroying the Sealkote Brigade of rebels at Trimmoo Ghât. On the 25th of August he marched out again at the head of a small force of all arms; and before nightfall he had swept from Najufgurh the "Neemuch Brigade" which was lying in wait to intercept the siege train on its slow approach from Ferozepore Arsenal.

There are some men whose personal appearance harmonises so perfectly with their intellectual and moral characteristics that any one on seeing them for the first time would be almost certain intuitively to guess their identity. Nicholson was one of these. Tall, dark, and stern, he looked every inch what he was, a fearless, self-reliant, fierce and masterful man, born for stormy times and stirring events. It was impossible to associate him with anything commonplace, or otherwise than heroic or great. On me, as on every one else, he produced a vivid impression, which can never become dim. When I first saw him it was only for a moment. He said something in low tones to an acquaintance, and passed on; but instinctively I felt that I had come into contact with one who stood apart from and overtopped other men. "That is Nicholson," I said, knowing that it could be no one else.

On the 4th of September the huge guns and mortars of the siege train, fitly drawn by still more colossal elephants, slowly and solemnly rolled through the camp on to the Ridge. On the 6th the very last batch of reinforcements, a detachment of the 60th Rifles from Meerut, arrived, marching "in their usual jaunty way" as described by Hervey Greathead in a letter to his wife written on that day. The Royal Engineers had already filled a vast "Engineers' park" with fascines, gabions, sand bags, and every conceivable appliance for the bombardment and storm. Nothing had been overlooked. Nothing remained but to begin the real and final siege and deliver the assault.

That no time was lost is evidenced by the fact that one breaching battery of six heavy guns, within seven hundred yards of the Moree Bastion, was finished and armed on the evening of the 6th, and began its work of destruction on the 7th.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] _Kaye's Sepoy War_, Vol. II, p. 645.

IV. STORMING THE CITY.

From that time till the morning of the 11th, when the last of the four batteries was completed, our gallant Engineers and working parties and Gunners worked as men have never worked before or since. All night long picks and spades and shovels were busily plied, under a heavy fire, in constructing the batteries; on which, so soon as finished, the heavy guns and mortars were mounted; and as successively they were placed in position they joined in swelling the furious storm of shot and shell which never ceased tearing down the masonry of the city defences till the moment of the assault in the grey dawn of the 14th. The last battery was built under the shelter of the ruined walls of the Custom-house, at a distance of 180 yards from the water bastion, under a terrific and incessant fire from the Kashmir and Water bastions and the curtain between them, Let the reader try to realise this; and he will admit that no more desperate or daring enterprise was ever achieved in front of a besieged fortress.

On the 13th it was my hard fate to be on outpost duty at Azadpore, where rumours reached me that the assault was likely to be delivered before dawn on the 14th. My picquet should in ordinary course have been relieved that morning, but no relief came; and as the day wore on, it seemed that I was destined to be left out there kicking my heels, forlorn and forgotten, till all should be over. This was more than could be borne; so I despatched messenger after messenger into camp with imploring letters, begging for the recall of my picquet. My entreaties were successful, and I had the intense, if selfish, gratification of at length seeing in the distance the small column of dust which heralded the approach of the party that had been sent to take my place. Very grumpy and sulky was the officer in command; but, after all, it was his turn for the duty. Every one must take his luck as it comes. Consoling him with this crusted old apothegm, I lost no time in clearing out of the post and taking my detachment back to camp; but even then I was destined to grievous disappointment. The troops intended to form the Cavalry Brigade under Sir Hope Grant had been told off, and my party had to content itself with forming part of the reserve which remained in camp. So I lost the chance of being one of the glorious six hundred, whose heroic endurance that day under a fierce hurricane of grape and musketry "prevented the enemy, who had driven back the 4th Column, from advancing along the open ground between the Ridge and the City, and taking the whole of our left attack in flank."[4] When the attempt of the column under the gallant Colonel Reid to force an entrance into the City by the Lahore Gate failed, partly owing to the want of artillery, and partly to the defeat of the auxiliary Kashmir contingent, the whole brunt of keeping the victorious rebels, many thousands in numbers, from pouring out of Kissengunge and pursuing our retreating infantry, fell on the Cavalry Brigade. Before, however, the enemy could dare to trust themselves on the plain beyond the shelter of their walls, it was necessary to drive the horsemen from it; and fierce was the effort to do so. From the walls of the City, from the suburbs of Kissengunge, a fiery hail of lead unceasingly swept. Saddle after saddle was emptied; horse after horse fell, but not for a moment was there the slightest wavering or unsteadiness. Quietly and without confusion the ranks continued to close together and fill ever-recurring gaps, grimly determined to hold their ground to the last man. Utterly unable to return the fire, or to do anything but remain immoveable as passive living targets, they seemed doomed to eventual annihilation--when Tomb's famous troop of horse artillery galloped to the rescue. Taking up a position at the closest of close quarters, not more than two hundred yards from the enemy, it was not long after our guns came into action that they drove the hitherto triumphant rebels back from the external walls into the labyrinth of houses in their rear, and materially reduced their fire. But from the Lahore Gate an unsilenced 24-pounder still continued to pour grape into the ranks, and to tear many a ghastly gap in them. Not till the rebel fire, drawn off by the success of our attack on the Kashmiri Gate, had dwindled away to harmlessness, and all danger of a sortie was effectually extinguished, was the sorely crippled Cavalry Brigade withdrawn from its post of honour.

Though this deed of the six hundred before the walls of Delhi has not been sung by the Poet Laureate, and is not so world-famous as that of the other six hundred at Balaclava, it fully deserves to be bracketed with it as an example of heroism and self-sacrificing devotion. Each is a brilliant instance of the perfect union of discipline and courage. If the charge of the Light Brigade was a blunder, so much the greater is the glory of the brave men who rode to death without questioning their orders.

Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.

There was no blunder in the order which devoted the six hundred of the Delhi Cavalry to face a _feu d'enfer_ for the salvation of their Infantry comrades. Every soldier who knows what it is to "sit still to be shot at" will appreciate with pride the feat of arms performed on that morning of the 14th September 1857 by the British and Native Cavalry Brigade under the command of the fearless and gentle Sir Hope Grant.