Chapter IX: Part 9

Among these Englishmen in Delhi none acted with greater heroism than Lieutenant Willoughby--a “shy, refined, boyish-looking subaltern,” scarce capable of saying “Bo!” to a goose in piping times of peace, though his friends well knew what his spirit could be in the hour of danger. On this terrible day Willoughby chanced to be in charge of the magazine, containing vast stores of ammunition which he knew would be coveted by the mutineers. At once taking in the situation, he sent for help to Brigadier Graves, who was in command of the native garrison outside the city in its cantonments; but no help came, and for the simple reason that at this very time the English officers of this garrison were being massacred by their mutinous men. Willoughby could not trust his own native troops, but he had eight of his own countrymen, whom he knew to be as staunch as steel--Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor, Conductors (_i.e._ warrant-officers of the Ordnance Department) Buckley, Shaw, and Scully; Sub-Conductor Crow; and Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. Barricading the outer gates of the magazine, Willoughby placed guns there, double-charged with grape, which made the mutineers pause: but not for long.

Encouraged by the reports of their scouts, who had been sent out to see whether there was yet any prospect of English succour arriving from Meerut, they at last sent to demand the surrender of the magazine, “in the name of the King of Delhi,” who had meanwhile assumed the title of Sovereign of all Hindostan. To this insulting request only one answer was possible--none at all. Then the red-handed hordes of murderers came on against the magazine with ladders to scale the walls, and were mown down by the grape-shot of Willoughby’s guns. But the gaps made in their ranks were swiftly filled by fresh men swarming up the ladders, and within fifty yards they poured upon the “noble nine” Englishmen below a deadly shower of bullets. Two of them fell mortally wounded, but Forrest and Buckley, heedless of the leaden hail, continued to work their guns with a coolness as if on parade. At last they were struck--one in the hand and another in the head, and the guns could now be worked no longer. A loud shout of triumph rose from the mutineers, but this was shouting before they were out of the wood.

Willoughby saw that his case was now indeed desperate. He had kept the rebels at bay for about three hours, during which time he had repeatedly run to the bastion to strain his eyes and see whether he could discern the coming of any English help from Meerut. But neither from Meerut nor from the cantonments outside the city walls did any help make its appearance; and now the rebels were bursting in upon him in a roaring, bloodthirsty crowd. His countrymen at Meerut had not been true to him; but he would be true to himself. Foreseeing the possibility of his defences being forced, he had taken other measures of precaution. A train had been laid from the powder store to a tree standing in the magazine yard, and by this tree stood Conductor Scully, who had heroically volunteered to fire the train at a given signal from his chief. For this signal the time had come when the guns of Willoughby could no longer be worked. Then he quietly gave the order to Buckley, who raised his hat to Scully, who in turn fired the train; and in a moment more the city of Delhi was shaken to its foundations as with the shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a terrific roar of thunder and the flames and smoke of a volcano.

Scully fell an immortal martyr to the cause of his country, but with himself he blew into the air more than a thousand rebels, and, above all things, baulked the mutineers of their inestimable prey--the magazine. Four of the “noble nine,” wounded, shattered, and bruised, made good their retreat from the ruins; but the heroic Willoughby only survived to be murdered on his way to Meerut. Never has the Victoria Cross been given for a more heroic deed than the defence and blowing up of the Delhi magazine; and it was well said that the 300 Spartans, who in the summer morning sat “combing their long hair for death” in the passes of Thermopylæ, have not earned a loftier estimate for themselves than these nine modern Englishmen.

While the fight for the magazine had been going on, a tragedy of equal horror was taking place at the Cashmere Gate, and in the cantonments beyond the city walls. At both these places the sepoys had shot down or bayoneted their English officers, and when the magazine blew up, the natives of the 38th Regiment, throwing off the mask, suddenly fired a volley at their officers, three of whom fell dead. “Two of the survivors,” writes an historian of that awful time, “rushed up to the bastion of the main guard and jumped down thirty feet into the ditch below. The rest were following, when, hearing the shrieks of the women in the guard-room, they ran back under a storm of bullets to rescue them. The women were shuddering as they looked down the steep bank, and asking each other whether it would be possible to descend, when a round shot whizzing over their heads warned them not to hesitate. Fastening their belts and handkerchiefs together, the officers let themselves down, and then, having helped the women to follow, carried them with desperate struggles, up the opposite side,” whence the fugitives could reach the jungle. At the cantonments the fate of the English--women, children, and a few surviving officers--was something similar, and then began that piteous flight, with all its frightful sufferings, which hardened the hearts of the British to inflict a terrible revenge.

Meanwhile, in the city of Delhi itself rebellion was triumphant and merciless. All the Europeans that could be found were massacred and tortured in the most barbarous manner. Some fifty of them at the first sound of alarm had barricaded themselves--men and women--in one of the strongest houses of the English quarter. But they were ill-armed and without supplies, and what could they do against the furious rabble or ruffians who besieged them? They were dragged to the palace and lodged in a dungeon without windows, and with only one door. After five days these were all taken out into a courtyard and butchered in cold blood, their mangled bodies being piled on carts and thrown into the Jumna. That was on the 16th May--five days after the arrival of the mutineers from Meerut; and now Delhi had been cleansed of its last Christian. Murder and rapine, arson and outrages which cannot even be named, had done their fell work, and the English _Raj_, or rule, had been trampled underfoot no less at Delhi than at Cawnpore, Lucknow, and other centres of revolt. The climax of the rebellion had now been reached, but there still had to come the inevitable anti-climax. The blood of hundreds of English men, and women, and children, wantonly slaughtered, was crying aloud for vengeance, and a terrible vengeance it would be.

The mill-wheels of God, it has been said, grind slowly if surely; but rarely had they turned round so slowly as they now seemed to be doing after the terrible news from Delhi reached Meerut and the chief places in the Punjab. The mutiny had broken out so suddenly that the authorities were at first quite unable to cope with it, and precious time had to elapse before the army of retribution could be got to take the road. But meanwhile a cheerful and plucky spirit prevailed both amongst officers and men, notwithstanding all their fatigues, privation, and sickness; and if there was one man more than another, as his brother afterwards wrote of him, who helped to inspire and keep up this spirit--if there was one more than another who merited that which a Roman would have considered the highest praise, that he never despaired of his country--it was Lieutenant Hodson, of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, formerly of the Guides. “I can but rejoice,” he wrote, “that I am employed again; certain, too, as I am, that the star of Old England will shine brighter in the end, and we shall hold a prouder position than ever. The crisis is an awful one, but with God and our Saxon arms to aid us, I have firm faith in the result.”

“Hodson is at Umballa, I know,” wrote an officer at Meerut; “and I’ll bet he will force his way through, and open up communication between the Commander-in-Chief and ourselves. At about 3 o’clock that night I heard my advanced sentries firing. I rode off to see what was the matter, and they told me that a part of the enemy’s cavalry was approaching their post. When day broke in galloped Hodson! He had left Kurnal (seventy-five miles off) at 9 o’clock the night before, with one led horse and an escort of Sikh cavalry, and, as I anticipated, here he was with despatches for Wilson! How I quizzed him for approaching an armed post at night without knowing the parole! Hodson rode straight to Wilson, had his interview, a bath, breakfast, and two hours’ sleep, and then rode back the seventy-five miles, having to fight his way for about thirty miles of the distance.” It was no wonder that another officer, writing to his wife at this time, said: “Hodson’s gallant deeds more resemble a chapter from the life of Bayard or Amadis de Gaul than the doings of a subaltern of the nineteenth century. The only feeling mixed with admiration for him is envy.” “The pace pleased him” (the Commander-in-Chief, General Anson), wrote Hodson himself, “for he ordered me to raise a Corps of Irregular Horse, and appointed me its commandant.”

At last, after a delay which nearly fretted to death the hearts of men like Hodson, the bulk of the army of vengeance started from Umballa under General Anson, who was presently, however, stricken down with cholera and carried off. He was succeeded by General Sir Henry Barnard in the chief command of the Delhi field force, consisting of only three Brigades, totalling about 3,000 Europeans, 1,000 native troops, and twenty-two guns--a poor enough army, surely, to be sent to recapture Delhi, with its hordes of highly-disciplined and well-armed sepoys behind its cannon-bristling walls. The plan of operations was that the two Umballa Brigades should advance to Baghput, where they would be joined by the Meerut Brigade, under Archdale Wilson, and then sweep on to the work of vengeance at Delhi. As it was the hottest season of the year, with its burning suns and blistering airs, the men rested in their tents during the day, and marched by night. “The nights were delicious,” wrote one who took part in the campaign; “the stars bright in the deep dark sky, the fireflies flashing from bush to bush, and the air, which in Europe would have been called warm and close, was cool and refreshing to cheeks that had felt the hot wind during the day. Along the road came the heavy roll of the guns, mixed with the jingling of bits, and the clanking of the steel scabbards of the cavalry. The infantry marched on behind with a dull, deep tread; long lines of baggage-camels and bullock-carts, with the innumerable sutlers and camp-servants, toiled along for miles in the rear, while the gigantic elephants stalked over bush and stone by the side of the road.”

[_Photo.: Frith, Reigate._

JUMMA MUSJID, DELHI.]

The Meerut Brigade, being much nearer Delhi, set out on its march some days later than the Umballa force, and it had to fight its desperate way to the point of junction. After three nights’ marching the Meerut column, at dawn on May 30th, reached the village of Ghazi-ud-din-Nagar, near the river Hindun, about ten miles from Delhi; and here the bugler had barely time to call to arms when the rebels opened fire with heavy guns placed on a ridge. “The first few rounds from the insurgent guns,” wrote an eye-witness, “were admirably aimed, plunging through our camp; but they were ably replied to by our two eighteen-pounders in position, under Lieutenant Light, and Major Tombs’ troop, most admirably led by Lieutenant-Colonel Murray-Mackenzie, who, raking them in flank with his six-pounders, first made their fire unsteady, and in a short time silenced the heavy guns.” At the same time the 60th Rifles went for the rebels in a most spirited manner, and captured several of their heavy guns. But in doing so Captain Andrews and four of his men were blown up by the explosion of an ammunition waggon fired by one of the mutineers. The 6th Dragoon Guards, or Carabineers, then charged and completed the rout of the rebels, who left in the hands of their victors all their ordnance, ammunition, and stores. That night the officers drank in solemn silence to the memory of their brave departed comrades, who were buried at dawn beside a babool tree.

Next day, which was Whit-Sunday, the rebels again returned to the attack, for they had been taunted with cowardice on presenting themselves at Delhi, and reinforced in order that they might redeem their reputation by hurling back the advancing force of Feringhees, or hated Franks--the name by which the English were known in India. But again the hurling back was all on the side of the sepoys, and once again they were sent scampering home to Delhi, though the English, at death’s door almost with the scorching heat and their parching thirst, were unable to follow up this second victory of theirs by pursuit. Twenty-three of the enemy lay together in one ditch, and for three miles the road to Delhi was strewn with dead bodies. The English had to mourn the loss of four officers and fifty men--among the former being Napier, an ensign of the Rifles, so active, so full of life, so brave, that he won the love and admiration of all. A bullet struck his leg, and the moment he was brought into camp it had to be amputated. During the operation never a sigh betrayed any sensation of pain. “I shall never lead the Rifles again,” he plaintively murmured; “I shall never lead the Rifles again.” A few weeks later the brave and generous lad was laid in his grave.

Next day the Meerut Brigade, which had done all the fighting hitherto, was reinforced by a battalion of Goorkhas, who were so overjoyed at the prospect of another fight that they threw somersaults and cut capers like so many mountebanks. But, much to their disappointment, the enemy did not return. Six days later the whole Meerut force crossed the Jumna and joined General Barnard’s Umballa Brigade at Alipur, being loudly cheered as they marched into headquarters camp with the captured guns and other trophies of their victories.

A day or two previously the intrepid Hodson had again been on the war-path. It was impossible for Barnard to move forward on Delhi without knowing something of the positions of the rebels in front of the city, and who but Hodson should volunteer to ride on and discover all that his commander wished to know! Taking with him a few troopers, he rode, as he wrote, “right up to the Delhi parade-ground, and the few Sowars (or native horsemen) whom I met galloped away like mad at the sight of one white face. Had I had a hundred Guides with me I would have gone up to the very walls.” A day or two later (8th July) he wrote:--“Here we are, safe and sound, after having driven the enemy out of their position in the cantonments up to and into the walls of Delhi. I write a line in pencil on the top of a drum to say that I am mercifully untouched, and none the worse for a very hard morning’s work. Our loss has been considerable, the rebels having been driven from their guns at the point of the bayonet.”

This was a reference to the battle of Badli-Ki-Serai, where the 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment and the 60th Rifles again carried the day by a magnificent bayonet charge, though at a cost of 53 killed and 130 wounded, while the rebel loss amounted to about 1,000. The British loss had been severe; but the victory was worth the price, for the enemy had now been forced to surrender to their conqueror a commanding position, from which he could attack them with the greatest advantage, and the rebels had been driven ignominiously by a force far inferior to their own to take refuge within the walls of the city from which they had but lately expelled every Christian whom they had not slaughtered.

So here then, at last, on the 8th of June, our tiny British force had established itself in front of walled and embattled Delhi. Had anything so audacious, not to say impudent, ever been heard of before in the annals of warfare? Troy, surely, was mere child’s play to this, and Sebastopol a game of battledore. But weakness of numbers can sometimes be made up for by strength of inspiration; and every British soldier felt his heart swell to the size of that of twenty men when he looked around the cantonments before Delhi and beheld the still extant traces of the late massacre of his countrymen--the marks of blood, the broken furniture, the blackened walls, the shreds of ladies’ dresses, and even the locks of their hair, and, more maddening than all, the tiny boots of English babies who had been barbarously slaughtered and tossed up on the bayonets of the rebels. What the British soldiers, heroically strong in their numerical weakness, now longed with a fierce and overmastering desire to do was to cross bayonets with those incarnate fiends whom they had already swept back behind the walls of Delhi.

These walls, with a circumference of about seven miles, were made of large blocks of grey freestone, crowned by a good loopholed parapet. At intervals along the circumference they were provided with bastions, each armed with ten, twelve, or fourteen guns, a hundred and fourteen in all, in addition to sixty field-guns. The city had ten gates, strong, and aptly named after the cities or provinces towards which they opened--Cashmere, Cabul, Lahore, etc. The walls were about twenty-four feet in height, while in front ran a dry ditch, twenty-five feet wide and about twenty feet deep. The counter-scarp--_i.e._ the outer side of the ditch--and the glacis, or smooth open slope leading away from the edge of the ditch, were such as to move the admiration of the English engineers. One side of the city, the eastern, was washed by the broad and deep Jumna, and could not be thought of. On the other hand, with his tiny force, it was equally impossible for Barnard to invest the whole place. So he selected the northern front of the city as the object of his attack when he should be in possession of heavy enough siege-artillery to breach the wall and let in the avenging flood.

Meanwhile his position was the famous “Ridge”--a rocky elevation of about sixty feet above the general level of the city, extending along a line, obliquely to the front of attack, of a little over two miles, its left resting upon the Jumna some three miles above Delhi, and its right approaching the Cabul gate at a distance of about a thousand yards. Prominent points on this “Ridge” were the Flagstaff Tower, a ruined mosque, an ancient observatory, Hindoo Rao’s House, and Swami House, which, in the mouth of Tommy Atkins, speedily became “Sammy” House. These were all good points in favour of the British. But, on the other hand, the rebels, sallying out of the city, could profit by the cover afforded them by the suburban villages (Subzee Mundee, or “vegetable market,” the chief of them), gardens, groves, house-clusters, and walled enclosures, to indulge in a perpetual series of attacks on the British position. For though the English had come to besiege, the fewness of their numbers and the temporary want of heavy guns reduced them at first to the position of besieged; and for a long time--more than three months, in fact--their energies were consumed in fending off the ferocious sorties of the Delhi garrison. These sorties they began on the very day after the sitting down of the British on the “Ridge,” but were sent packing back again with serious loss. The repulse of their first sally was mainly due to the bravery of the famous Corps of Guides, composed of stalwart frontier men of all races, arrayed in their own loose, dusky shirts, and sun-proof, sword-proof turbans, who had marched into camp with a swinging stride that very morning, after moving for twenty-seven miles a day for three weeks, at the hottest time of the year--one of the greatest feats of the war. Three hours after their arrival they were launched against the rebels, whom they pursued up to the city walls, but at the cost of their dearly-loved commander, Lieutenant Quintin Battye. “Now I have a chance of seeing service,” he had joyfully exclaimed on setting out with his regiment, for he was a keen soldier, a good swordsman, and a splendid rider. But he fell in his very first fight, saying gaily to a comrade as he breathed his last: “Well, old fellow, _dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori_; you see it’s my case.”

A few days after this General Barnard, believing with Macbeth that “’twere well it were done quickly,” had yielded to a scheme for storming the city offright--a scheme in which the bold and fiery Hodson had a prominent share. Under cover of the darkness, two columns were to steal up to as many gates, blow these in with gunpowder, and then rush into the city. But owing to a misunderstanding on the part of one of the commanders, the plan had finally to be abandoned--much to the disgust of the younger members of Barnard’s staff, who were simply dying for the performance of such a feat. Another council of war debated the chances of its success; but cautious--call it not timorous--counsels meanwhile prevailed, for the news of a repulse, following upon an ill-advised assault, would have added fresh fuel to the fire of the mutiny, which was now blazing up more furiously than ever, beyond the extinguishing power of rivers of blood, over the length and breadth of Hindostan.

From every part of the country the mutineers continued to stream in to Delhi, and ever, as fresh contingents arrived, they were sent out to try their prowess on the holders of the “Ridge”; and hold it they did with a tenacity which neither wounds, nor death, nor disease, nor pestilence could in the least degree relax. In the men’s tents they made merry, and, like the Greeks before Troy, had their sports just as if they had been far away at home on the village-greens of Old England. Stricken to death, the soldier told his officer he would soon be up again and ready for another brush with the mutineers. In the space at our disposal we cannot detail, we can scarcely enumerate, the actions that were fought in front of Delhi--more than thirty of them in twelve weeks, and all to the glory of the British name. Let one or two instances of conspicuous personal valour before the foe serve to illustrate the spirit which animated all our little besieging army.

“I must tell you,” wrote an officer, “of a noble action of Lieutenant Hills of the Artillery (a young man who only four years ago had been a pupil at the Edinburgh Academy). He was on picket, with his two horse-artillery guns, when the alarm was sounded and an order sent him to advance, given under the impression that the enemy were at some distance. He was supported by a body of Carabineers--eighty, I believe, in number. He advanced about 100 yards, while his guns were being limbered up to follow, and suddenly came on about 120 of the enemy’s cavalry close upon them.

Disgraceful to say, the Carabineers turned and bolted. His guns being limbered up, he could do nothing, but, rather than fly, he charged them by himself. He fired four barrels of his revolver and killed two men, hurling the empty pistol in the face of another and knocking him off his horse. Two horsemen then charged full tilt at him, and rolled him and his horse over. He got up with no weapons, and, seeing a man on foot coming at him to cut him down, rushed at him, got inside his sword, and hit him full in the face with his fist. At that moment he was cut down from behind, and a second blow would have done for him had not Tombs, his captain, the finest fellow in the service, who had been in his tent when the row began, arrived at the critical moment and shot his assailant--by a splendid shot, fired at thirty paces. Hills was able to walk home, though his wound was severe; and on the road Tombs saved his life once more by sticking another man who attacked him. If they don’t both get the Victoria Cross, it won’t be worth having.” But they both did.

Another personal exploit of a similar kind was thus recorded by an officer:--“We took Khurkonda by surprise, and Hodson immediately placed men over the gates and we went in. Shot one scoundrel _instanter_, cut down another, and took a ressaldar (native officer) and some sowars prisoners, and came to a house occupied by some more, who would not let us in at all. At last we rushed in, and found the rascals had taken to the upper storey, still keeping us at bay. There was only one door and a kirkee (window). I shoved in my head through the door, with a pistol in my hand, and got a clip over my turban for my pains. My pistol missed fire at the man’s breast, so I got out of that as fast as I could, and then tried the kirkee with the other barrel, and very nearly got another cut. We tried every means to get in, but could not, so we fired the house, and out they rushed--running amuck among us. The first fellow went at Hugh (the writer’s brother), and somehow or other he slipped and fell on his back. I saw him fall, and, thinking he was hurt, rushed to the rescue. A Guide got a chop at the fellow, and I gave him such a swinging back-hander that he fell dead. I then went at another fellow rushing by my left, and sent my sword through him like butter, and bagged him. I then looked round and saw a sword come crash on the shoulders of a poor little boy--oh, such a cut! and up went the sword again, and the next moment the boy would have been in eternity; but I ran forward and covered him with my sword and saved him.”

“What a sight our camp would be,” wrote another officer, “even to those who visited Sebastopol! The long lines of tents, the thatched hovels of the native servants, the rows of horses, the parks of artillery, the British soldier in his grey linen coat and trousers, the dark Sikhs with their red and blue turbans, the Afghans with the same, their wild air and coloured saddle-cloths, and the little Goorkhas, dressed up like demons of ugliness in their black worsted Kilmarnock bonnets and woollen coats. In the rear are the booths of the native bazaars, and further out, on the plain, thousands of camels, bullocks, and horses that carry our baggage. The soldiers are loitering through the lines or in the bazaars. Suddenly an alarm is sounded, and everyone rushes to his tent. The infantry soldier seizes his musket and slings on his pouch; the artilleryman gets his gun horsed; the Afghan rides out to explore; and in a few minutes everyone is in his place.”

Such was the state of the camp in repose. And now for a picture, from another hand, of the same camp when roused into action. “I was out this night,” wrote an officer, “in one of our principal batteries with a party of my Guides, placed there to protect the guns; and I shall never forget the scene at two o’clock in the morning. The sight was a most magnificent one--all our batteries and all the city ones were playing as hard as they could, the shells bursting, round shot tearing with a _whooshing_ sound through our embrasures, the carcasses (or large balls of fire) flying over our heads, the musketry rolling and flashing, made the place as light as day. The noise was terrific, though the roar of the cannon was frequently drowned in the roar of human voices, for, when the whole city turned out, there could not have been less than 20,000 voices all screaming at once. The mutineers’ yell of ‘Allah! Allah! Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!’ was answered by our jolly English hurrahs, and the din was most frightful. I never remember seeing such a beautiful sight or hearing such a noise. The mutineers, though they tried very hard to take our batteries, could not succeed, though some of them got up near enough to throw hand-grenades into them. The grand attack lasted about two hours, when the enemy gave in a little, though they didn’t retire. The fighting went on all the rest of the night, and up to two o’clock next day, when both sides retired. We were all glad of a little rest, as most of us had been fighting for upwards of thirty hours.”

It was only after the 23rd of June that the prospects of the besiegers had begun to brighten. This was the hundredth anniversary of the day on which Clive, at Plassey, had founded British rule in India; and there had been a superstitious belief among the natives that on this centenary the English Raj would also come to an end. Accordingly, the Delhi mutineers, hounded on by their priests and astrologers, as well as encouraged by copious draughts of bhang (the native intoxicant), made an unusually vigorous push for the British position with intent to turn it and assail it in the rear; but they were finally repulsed with great slaughter, carrying back with them the bitter conviction that, far from being exterminated, the British Raj was now again in a fair way of being restored to its previous supremacy.

But perhaps the most brilliant action fought in front of Delhi--or, rather, several miles to the west of it--was that of Nujuf-gurh. The mutineers had got to know that our heavy siege-train, with but a slender escort, was at last approaching, and they determined to make a dash for it. But this was a game at which two could play, and Brigadier Nicholson, one of the greatest heroes of the war, who had by this time come down from the Punjab to take part in, and indeed conduct, the siege, was despatched with the Movable Column to do diamond cut diamond against the rebels. He found them in a very strong position, and greatly superior to him in numbers and guns. But what did that matter? Turning to his infantry, whom he ordered to lie down to avoid the showers of grape, Nicholson thus addressed them: “Now, 61st, I have but a few words to say. You all know what Sir Colin Campbell said to you at Chillianwallah, and you must also have heard that he used a similar expression (to his Highlanders) at the Alma: that is, ‘Hold your fire till within twenty or thirty yards of the battery, and then, my boys, we will make short work of it.’”

Let one of Nicholson’s officers now take up the tale:--“Our guns went away to the flank. We got ‘Fix bayonets; quick--march!’ On we went, in a beautiful line, at a steady pace. On we went, and we got within some fifty yards of them, when the men gave a howl, and on we dashed, and were slap into them before they had time to depress the guns. It was bayonet to bayonet in a few moments, but we cut them up and spiked the guns. We had very few men killed in the charge, as we got in before they fired the grape. Lieutenant G., 61st, was bayoneted by a sepoy after cutting down two. N. shot the man that did it. He had his horse shot under him, and I saw him hand-to-hand with a sepoy, whom he polished off with his sword.... On we went after the brutes, and cut up a heap at the serai and behind it. We then drew up in line, rallied, and went at the camp, took it, sent a party to take the village, and then we went and took the guns at the bridge, over which the enemy was bolting in thousands. Here we took six guns more. Up came our guns, and blazed away at the enemy, and off they went, leaving a host of stores, etc., all along the road.... I was so tired that I lay down on a hide and fell asleep. Next morning the work of destruction was finished, and off we marched with a lot of treasure, etc., and thirteen guns, and brought all safe into camp, after a hard march, arriving at the camp-bridge just in the cool of the evening, when the camp turned out to meet us, and gave us ‘three times three,’ and played us in with some lively airs, with a final ‘Hip--hip--hurrah!’ for the gallant 61st, who had reserved their fire, as the Highlanders of the ‘thin, red line’ had done at Balaclava, until they had almost seen the whites of their enemy’s eyes, and then ‘given them beans’ with bullet and bayonet.”

On the 4th of September the siege train, each gun drawn by twenty pairs of bullocks, at last arrived, and the hearts of all the British beat high at the thought that the assault must now soon be delivered on the doomed city. Two days later also considerable reinforcements came in, bringing up our little siege army to 6,500 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, and 600 artillery--of which only 3,317 were British troops, and the European corps were now mere skeletons of their former selves. In order to stimulate the spirits of this miscellaneous host, Wilson issued a general order, in which he expressed his assurance that “British pluck and determination will carry everything before them, and that the bloodthirsty and murderous mutineers whom we are fighting will be driven headlong out of their stronghold and exterminated”; but, to enable them to do this, he warned the troops of the absolute necessity of their keeping together, and not straggling from their columns. By this only could success be secured. “Major-General Wilson,” he continued, “need hardly remind the troops of the cruel murders of their officers and comrades, their wives and children, to move them to the deadly struggle. No quarter should be given to the mutineers! At the same time, for the sake of humanity and the honour of the country they belong to, he calls upon them to spare all women and children that may come in their way.”

Meanwhile the Engineers, directed by Baird-Smith, another of the giants of this Trojan-Delhi fray, set to work in the darkness and silently traced out the siege-batteries. A long string of camels brought in fascines and sandbags, and hundreds of men exerted themselves to the utmost in raising them, as the work had to be completed before dawn. Showers of grape-shot were rained on them from the battlements, but our devoted men worked on with a will, and by morning Battery No. 1 was in working order and belching forth its eighteen-pound shot at such a rate that the Moree Bastion soon became a heap of ruins. This battery was commanded by Major Brind, of whom it was said that “he never slept,” and would say to his men as he shouldered a musket--“Now, you lie and rest; your commandant will defend the battery.” “We talk about Victoria Crosses,” said someone; “Brind should be covered with them from head to foot!” Battery No. 2, of eighteen guns, was constructed in two portions on the left about 500 yards from the Cashmere Gate, its task being to knock away the parapet right and left that gave cover to the defenders, and to open the main breach by which the city was to be stormed. Conspicuous for his cool bravery in this battery was a young lieutenant--Roberts--who had some very narrow shaves during the siege, but luckily escaped death in all its various forms to become one of the most distinguished fighters ever produced by India, that cradle of great soldiers, and to gain for himself an immortal name as the hero of the famous march from Cabul to Candahar.

Two other batteries, Nos. 3 and 4, were also raised, one of them mounting six eighteen-pounders; and at eight o’clock on the morning of the 11th of September a terrific roar announced that our biggest breaching-guns had opened fire. A loud cheer, sending the smoke whirling away in eddies, burst from the throats of our artillerymen as they saw how well their fire had taken effect, and beheld huge blocks of stone tottering and tumbling down from the parapets of the walls. Cheer after cheer went up at this most gratifying sight, and in about ten minutes the enemy’s counter-fire from the bastions had been completely silenced. Yet they did not at once give up the artillery duel. For what they could not do from the walls they tried to compass in the open, and ran out several guns, with which they did great damage by enfilading our batteries. They also sent out rockets from their Martello towers, and kept up a storm of musketry from their advanced trench as well as from the walls, causing us severe loss. But who cared for loss when Delhi was there to be won? Night and day, day and night, did our siege-batteries belch forth their thunderbolts against the city walls; and by the 13th of September it was concluded that the long-wished-for time had at last arrived. Yet it behoved the besiegers to proceed with caution, and so four Engineer officers were selected to steal forward to the Cashmere and Water Bastions and find out whether the breaches there were now big enough to allow of the assault.

There was no moon, but the sky was bright with stars, and with the lurid light of flashing rockets and fire-balls. Suddenly, as the clock struck ten, the thunder of the guns ceased, and then the explorers, drawing their swords and feeling for their revolvers, began to creep towards the ditch. Medley and Lang, Home and Greathed were the officers who had volunteered for this perilous service. The two former got down into the ditch undiscovered; but then, to quote the words of Medley himself, “a number of figures appeared on the top of the breach, their forms clearly discernible against the bright sky, and not twenty yards distant. We, however, were in the deep shade, and they could not apparently see us. They conversed in a low tone, and presently we heard the ring of their steel ramrods as they loaded. We waited quietly, hoping they would go away, when another attempt might be made. Meanwhile, we could see that the breach was a good one, the slope easy of ascent, and that there were no guns on the flank. We knew by experience, too, that the ditch was easy of descent. It was, however, desirable to get to the top, but the sentries would not move.” Medley then gave the signal, and the party started to return to the camp. But the sound of their departing feet betrayed them. “Directly we were discovered a volley was sent after us; the balls came whizzing about our ears, but no one was touched.” A favourable report being also received from Home and Greathed, orders were given for the assault at dawn.

[_Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

THE CHANDNEE CHOUK, DELHI.]

The infantry of the storming force was divided into five columns, the duty of the first, under Brigadier Nicholson, being to storm the breach near the Cashmere Bastion. The second, under Brigadier Jones, had likewise to storm the Water Bastion. To the third, commanded by Colonel Campbell, fell the task of storming through the Cashmere Gate after it had been blown in; while the fourth column, under Major Reid, was told off to assault the suburb of Kissengunge and support the main attack by effecting an entrance at the Cabul Gate after it should be taken; and the fifth, under Brigadier Longfield, was to follow the first and act according to circumstances.

By three o’clock the whole camp was astir. Many of the officers and men had taken the Holy Communion the night before, and in some tents the Old Testament lesson for the day had been read--the chapter being that in which the doom of Nineveh was foretold. Some 6,000 men, of whom only about 1,200 were British soldiers, were going to take a walled city defended by 30,000 desperate and disciplined rebels. The news of the foul and treacherous massacre at Cawnpore by the Nana Sahib had by this time reached the soldiers, and inflamed their hearts anew with the desire to take fearful vengeance on such barbarous foes. They had suffered more than tongue could tell; but the hour of their retribution and their great reward was now at hand.

Suddenly the roar of the guns ceased, and the columns started to their feet as the Rifles, with a loud cheer, dashed to the front in skirmishing array. In a stern silence the storming columns tramped away towards the ditch; but it was now bright day, for, owing to some hitch, they had not been able to move with the dawn. The consequence was that before they had reached the crest of the glacis, with the Engineers and laddermen in front, numbers of them had fallen under the truly infernal shower of bullets that was rained upon them from the walls. For several minutes the first column found it impossible to lower the ladders and descend into the ditch while the fiendish-looking rebels cursed and yelled at them from the other side, daring them to come on. Presently the ladders were thrown into the ditch, and the men, leaping down after them, planted them against the scarp and swarmed up. Nicholson himself, the “Lion of the Punjab,” as he was well called, was the first to mount the breach, waving with his sword for his men to follow. In a similar manner Lieutenant Fitzgerald led the escalade of the adjoining bastion and fell mortally wounded. With a rousing cheer the stormers dashed over the _débris_ of the breach like an irresistible wave bursting in a breakwater wall. For a few minutes there was a wild chaos of cheers, groans, yells, blazing of musketry, and clash of crossing bayonets, and then the rebels turned and fled like a pack of wolves, leaving this portion of their ramparts in possession of the victorious Nicholson.

Meanwhile, the second column on the extreme left had carried the Water Bastion by an equally successful, but an equally sacrificial, rush. For of the thirty-nine laddermen preceding the column, twenty-nine were struck down in a few minutes; but their comrades seized the ladders and reared them up against the scarp, while others rushed up the breach, and bayoneting all before them, drove the rebels from the walls. Then, turning to the right, the stormers swept along the ramparts towards the Cashmere Bastion, where they were joined by some of Nicholson’s men, and, rushing ever along the walls, reached the Moree Bastion, where they slew the gunners and leapt on to the parapets, sending up a cheer and waving their caps to their comrades on the Ridge as a signal of victory.

All this work had been short and sharp, and done with a splendid courage. But perhaps the scene of the finest acts of individual heroism was the Cashmere Gate, where the third column, under Colonel Campbell, had meanwhile also forced an entrance in the following manner: Covered by the fire of the 60th Rifles, a party of sappers and miners advanced at the double toward the Cashmere Gate. Lieutenant Home, with Sergeants Smith and Carmichael, and Havildar Mahoo leading and carrying the powder-bags, followed by Lieutenant Salkeld, Corporal Burgess, and some others. They reached the gateway unhurt, and found that part of the drawbridge had been destroyed; but passing by the precarious footing supplied by the remaining beams, they proceeded to lodge their powder against the gate. The wicket was open, and through it the enemy kept up a heavy fire upon them. Sergeant Carmichael was killed while laying his powder, but when this was at last laid, the advanced party slipped down into the ditch to allow the firing party, under Lieutenant Salkeld, to do its duty. While endeavouring to fire the charge, Lieutenant Salkeld was shot through the leg and arm, and handed over the match to Corporal Burgess, who fell mortally wounded just as he had successfully done his duty. Then a terrific thunder-roar and explosion, scattering large masses of masonry, and mangled human forms in all directions, announced that these acts of heroism had been crowned with success. Lieutenant Home now ordered Bugler Hawthorne to sound the regimental call of the 52nd Regiment as the signal for the advance of the column; and this was thrice repeated, lest, amid the noise and tumult of the assault, the tones of the trumpet should not be heard. Then, after having thus coolly blown his bugle, the brave Hawthorne turned to Lieutenant Salkeld and bound up his wounds under a heavy musketry fire, thus ensuring for himself the Victoria Cross, which was also conferred on the few survivors of this “glorious deed--the noblest on record in military history,” as Baird-Smith justly called it when bringing it to the notice of his chief. “Salkeld mortally wounded,” said another writer, “handing over the portfire and bidding his comrade light the train, is one of those incidents which will remain till the end of time conspicuous on the page of history.”

With a way thus opened up for it, Colonel Campbell’s storming column now burst into the city, slaughtering all it met; and was only stopped in its career of conquest when it reached the Chandnee Chouk, or Piccadilly of Delhi, running right through the city from the Lahore Gate to the Palace.

In the meantime Major Reid’s fourth column, whose task was to advance against the Cabul Gate, had been less successful--had, in fact, come to grief. For having to fight his way through some suburbs affording splendid cover to the rebels, his men were very much cut up, and, on the fall of their leader, had to retire. At one time it was gravely feared that the enemy, elated with their success at this point, would issue in overwhelming numbers and seek to turn the flank of the British outside position and thus threaten the camp. But at the critical moment Hope Grant brought up the Cavalry Brigade, which had been covering the assaulting columns, and made the rebels pause. For two hours the troopers, drawn up in battle array, sat like statues, while the ranks were every minute rent by musket ball and grape. Not a man flinched from his post, though under this galling fire for two hours. Of Tombs’ troop alone twenty-five men out of fifty, and seventeen horses were hit. The 9th Lancers had thirty-eight men wounded, sixty-one horses killed, wounded and missing, and the officers lost ten horses. Nothing daunted by these casualties, these gallant soldiers held their ground with a patient endurance, and on their commander praising them for their good behaviour they declared their readiness to stand the fire as long as ever he chose. Against such firmness the foe could make no headway, and outside the city their counter-attack was at last foiled.

It would take a volume to describe the course and incidents of the conquering career of the various storming columns which had forced their way into the heart of the city; but let the following description of the doings of Nicholson’s first column serve as a sample of the fighting which had still to be done. The writer, Mr. Forrest, drew up his narrative after visiting the spot in the company of Lord Roberts.

“On reaching the head of the street at the Cabul Gate, the enemy again made a resolute stand, but were speedily driven forward. A portion of the first column was halted here, and proceeded to occupy the houses round the Cabul Gate, while the remainder continued the pursuit. As the troops advanced up the Rampart Road, the enemy opened a heavy and destructive fire from the guns on the road and a field-piece planted on the wall. The English soldiers, raising a shout, rushed and took the first gun on the road, but were brought to a check within ten yards of the second by the grape and musketry with which the enemy plied them, and by the stones and iron shot which they rolled on them. Seeking all the scanty shelter they could find, the men retired, leaving behind the gun they had captured. After a short pause they were re-formed, and the order given to advance. Once again the Fusiliers, scathed with fire from both sides, rushed forward and seized and secured the gun. They plunged forward, and had gone but a few yards when their gallant leader, Major Jacob, fell mortally wounded. As he lay writhing in agony on the ground, two or three of his men wished to carry him to the rear; but he refused their aid, and urged them to press forward against the foe. The officers bounding far ahead of their men, were swiftly struck down, and the soldiers, seeing their leaders fail, began to waver. At this moment the heroic Nicholson arrived, and, springing forward, called with a stentorian voice upon the soldiers to follow him, and instantly he was shot through the chest. Near the spot grows a tall, graceful tree, and Nicholson ordered himself to be laid beneath its shade, saying he would wait there till Delhi was taken. But for once he was disobeyed and removed to his tent on the Ridge.”

Had Nicholson been allowed to lie under the tree, he would have had to wait several days yet before the capture of the city was completed. So far the besiegers had done little more than effect a foothold within its walls, and at a cost of 66 officers and 1,100 men in killed and wounded--or about two men in nine. The bullets of the rebels had worked sad havoc among the stormers, and what these bullets had spared drink and debauchery threatened to destroy. For, knowing the weakness of the British soldier for strong drink, the rebels had cunningly strewn the deserted shops and pavements with bottles of beer, wine, and spirits; and now there ensued scenes of revelry and abandoned indulgence in liquor which recalled to mind the assault and capture of Badajoz. But the demon of destruction filled the breast of the British soldier as well as the demon of drink, and though, true to the injunction of his commander, he spared, and was even kind to, women and children, he slaughtered without mercy all the males who crossed his avenging path. But if provocation be any excuse for massacre, or blood be the just equivalent of blood, then certainly the British soldier in Delhi must have had many apologists.

The task of carrying the rest of the town was carried out day by day with skill and caution. From the first a continuous fire from our guns was kept up on all the remaining strongholds of the rebels--the Palace, Jumma Musjid, etc.; and at dawn on the 16th the magazine was stormed and taken with but slight loss. The same day the rebels evacuated the suburb Kissengunge. On the evening of the 19th the Burn Bastion was surprised and captured by a party from the Cabul Gate, and early next morning the Lahore Gate, to which the Engineers had sapped their way through the adjacent houses, was taken, as well as the Garsten Bastion; finally, on the same afternoon, the gates of the Palace, which had witnessed the cruel murder of English officers, women, and children, were blown in, and our troops raised a final shout of victory before the throne of Bahadoor Shah. That shadow of a monarch had fled and taken refuge in the tomb of the Emperor Humayoon, outside the city; but here he was sought and found by Lieutenant Hodson, who, escorted by only a few sowars, undertook the exceedingly dangerous task of capturing the king.