THE SECOND SIKH WAR.
The capture of Attock effected, there still remained much to be done in
the immediate neighbourhood. Chuttur Singh's Hazara forces were moving
about with the intention of joining the main army under another Sikh
leader, Shere Singh. With his newly raised troop of 700 levies
Nicholson dashed hither and thither, striking heavy blows at the
scattered portions of the enemy whom he encountered and damping the
ardour of other tribesmen who had thoughts of swelling the numbers of
the rebels.
Hasan Abdal received one of these sudden and unexpected visits. Here a
body of Sikh horse had mutinied and expelled their commander from the
fort. Nicholson promptly paraded the garrison, placing the ringleaders
under arrest, as he had done at Attock. In this instance, however, he
thought it better policy to show some leniency. When the Sikhs begged
hard for forgiveness he granted it, wishing to show that he was "not
entirely without confidence in them."
Almost immediately after this incident he learned that a Sikh regiment
of some strength, with two guns, was at Rawal Pindi on its way to meet
Chuttur Singh's army. By a quick march he intercepted the rebels at a
place called Jani-ka-sang, near the Margalla Pass. The mutineers had
taken up a strong position within the walls of a cemetery, and if it
came to a fight in the open the advantage lay entirely on their side.
Nicholson made up his mind quickly as to his course of action.
Concealing his men in a piece of jungle, he called out the colonel of
the disaffected regiment and gave him half an hour in which to decide
whether he would surrender or be attacked. What Nicholson would have
actually done had the Sikh commander remained obdurate is a question;
possibly he would have risked a dash across the open ground in front of
the cemetery walls and taken the chance of his men facing the rebels'
fire or turning tail. But he was spared such a crucial test. Before
the half-hour was up the Sikh colonel reappeared to announce that he
and his men regretted their disobedience, and were ready to place
themselves at his service.
Once more Nicholson's reputation for fearlessness had won him a
bloodless victory. Having read them a severe lecture, he dismissed the
mutineers with no further punishment, and sent them off to Rawal Pindi.
From now on Nicholson was busy scouring the country round Hasan Abdal,
reducing Chuttur Singh's chances of increasing his army as far as was
possible. Wherever mutiny reared its head, there was the young
lieutenant with his troop of irregulars ready to crush it at once with
a stern hand. There was no temporising with him. He held much the
same views at this time as some years later when, in reply to a lengthy
despatch from Sir Henry Lawrence calling upon him for a report of the
courts-martial he was holding and punishments he was inflicting, he
wrote on the other side of the document in large letters: "The
punishment of mutiny is death."
By September 1848 Chuttur Singh, with several regular regiments and
nearly a score of field-pieces, was making a determined forward
movement. There was also another but smaller force in the field led by
a son of the Sikh chief. When Nicholson learned that the latter body
was endeavouring to join the main army he made a bold attempt to cut it
off, and started off post-haste for the Margalla Pass. At this spot,
through which he knew the rebel troops would be compelled to march, was
a formidable tower situated high up on the hillside. To gain entrance
to this it was necessary to clamber up to an opening in the outer wall
some ten feet from the ground, but Nicholson was not daunted by this.
It was most essential that the tower should be carried by storm and its
position held by his men.
Accordingly he led his troops to the assault in a mad rush that carried
the Pathans to the base of the tower before they could realise what a
foolhardy undertaking they were engaged upon. The rest of his men very
cowardly lagged behind. Then, no ladder being procurable, he set to
work to break down the wall, while from above the defenders rained down
a storm of stones upon them. One of these missiles hit Nicholson in
the face and knocked him over, but the wound was luckily not a severe
one.
In the end he was forced to fall back with his handful of men, the
tower being practically impregnable and a large body of Sikhs having
been observed marching to the relief of the garrison. But the vigour
of his attack had its moral effect. The Sikh soldiers, fearing that
the assault would be renewed next day, and that Nicholson would take
some terrible revenge upon them for their resistance, quietly stole
away under cover of the darkness, leaving him master of the situation!
It was somewhere about this time that the famous sect of Sikhs arose
which honoured Nicholson by elevating him to the rank of a deity. A
certain Hindu devotee in Hazara gave out that he had discovered in
"Nikalseyn" the incarnation of the Brahman god, and he soon gathered
about him a little company of enthusiastic fellow-worshippers. To
their hero's annoyance, the "Nikalseyns," as they styled themselves,
indulged in open adoration, even prostrating themselves at his feet.
In vain did he threaten them with condign punishment, and at last
actually resort to flogging. The devotees admired him all the more for
his severity, and sang his praises still louder.
"After the last whipping," says Sir Herbert Edwardes in a character
sketch of the hero, "Nicholson released them, on the condition that
they would transfer their adoration to John Becher (Abbott's successor
at Hazara), but, arrived at their monastery, they once more resumed the
worship of the relentless Nikalseyn."
In his reminiscences of India[1] Mr. R. G. Wilberforce states that the
Sikhs declared they would raise a Taj to Nicholson, beside which the
famous Golden Taj at Umritsur should be as nought, did he but openly
profess their religion.
"During the time that Nicholson was with the column," he continues,
writing of the days before the march to Delhi, "it was a common sight
of an evening to see the Sikhs come into camp in order that they might
see him. They used to be admitted into his tent in bodies of about a
dozen at a time. Once in the presence, they seated themselves on the
ground and fixed their eyes upon the object of their adoration, who all
the while went on steadfastly with whatever work he was engaged in,
never even lifting his eyes to the faces of his mute worshippers."
[Illustration: "They seated themselves on the ground and fixed their
eyes upon the object of their adoration."]
"Sometimes, overcome perhaps by prickings of conscience, or carried
away by feelings he could not control, one of them would prostrate
himself in prayer. This was an offence against the committal of which
warning had been given, and the penalty never varied: three dozen
lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails on the bare back."
With Chuttur Singh's open revolt the second Sikh War had fairly begun.
Nicholson was now more and more in demand, doing guerilla service, or
engaged in such useful work as collecting boats for Sir Joseph
Thackwell to cross the Chenab River and acting as intelligence officer
to the forces. At the battle of Chillianwallah he did duty as
aide-de-camp to Lord Gough, and at Guzerat, which followed soon after,
he and his Pathans enjoyed the distinction of capturing nine guns from
the enemy.
A striking tribute to Nicholson's personality, and the valour he
displayed on these occasions, is the well-vouched-for story that for
many years afterwards, when visitors came to view these battlefields,
the country people would begin their accounts by saying, "Nikalseyn
stood just _there_!"
After the conclusion of the campaign, which saw him a brevet-major,
Nicholson decided to take a two years' holiday and return home. What
influenced him to this most was the desire to comfort his mother, who,
he knew, was grieving over the loss of her two sons, William and
Alexander. But it was not easy for him to leave. India, as he wrote,
was "like a rat-trap," more difficult to get out of than into, and it
was not until January 1850 that he was at last free to depart. His old
friend and colleague, Herbert Edwardes, as it happened, was also of a
mind to see "the old country" again, so the two journeyed together down
to Bombay, whence they took ship for England.
But before Nicholson was to see his widowed mother again he was to pass
through a romantic experience which deserves a chapter to itself.
[1] _An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny_.