From Conjeveram to Arcot is twenty-seven miles, and the troops, in
spite of a delay caused by a tremendous storm of thunder and
lightning, reached the town in two days. The garrison, struck with
panic at the sudden coming of a foe, when they deemed themselves in
absolute security, at once abandoned the fort, which they might easily
have maintained until Chunda Sahib was able to send a force to relieve
it. The city was incapable of defence after the fort had been
abandoned, and Clive took possession of both, without firing a shot.
He at once set to work to store up provisions in the fort, in which he
found eight guns and an abundance of ammunition, as he foresaw the
likelihood of his having to stand a siege there; and then, leaving a
garrison to defend it in his absence, marched on the 4th of September
with the rest of his forces against the enemy, who had retired from
the town to the mud fort of Timari, six miles south of Arcot. After a
few discharges with their cannon they retired hastily, and Clive
marched back to Arcot.
Two days later, however, he found that they had been reinforced, and
as their position threatened his line of communications, he again
advanced towards them. He found the enemy about two thousand strong,
drawn up in a grove under cover of the guns of the fort. The grove was
inclosed by a bank and ditch, and some fifty yards away was a dry
tank, inclosed by a bank higher than that which surrounded the grove.
In this the enemy could retire, when dislodged from their first
position.
Charlie's heart beat fast when he heard the order given to advance.
The enemy outnumbered them by five to one, and were in a strong
position. As the English advanced, the enemy's two field pieces opened
upon them. Only three men were killed, and, led by their officers, the
men went at the grove at the double. The enemy at once evacuated it,
and took refuge in the tank, from behind whose high bank they opened
fire upon the English.
Clive at once divided his men into two columns, and sent them round to
attack the tank upon two sides. The movement was completely
successful. At the same moment the men went with a rush at the banks,
and upon reaching the top opened a heavy fire upon the crowded mass
within. These at once fled in disorder.
Clive then summoned the fort to surrender; but the commander, seeing
that Clive had no battering train, refused to do so; and Clive fell
back upon Arcot again, until his eighteen-pounders should arrive.
For the next eight days, the troops were engaged in throwing up
defences, and strengthening and victualling the fort. The enemy,
gaining confidence, gathered to the number of three thousand, and
encamped three miles from the town, proclaiming that they were about
to besiege; and at midnight on the 14th Clive sallied out, took them
by surprise, and dispersed them.
The two eighteen-pounders, for which Clive had sent to Madras, were
now well upon the road, under the protection of a small body of
Sepoys, and were approaching Conjeveram. The enemy sent a considerable
body of troops to cut off the guns, and Clive found that the small
number which he had sent out, to meet the approaching party, would not
be sufficient. He therefore resolved to take the whole force, leaving
only sufficient to garrison the fort.
The post which the enemy occupied was a temple near Conjeveram, and as
this was twenty-seven miles distant, the force would be obliged to be
absent for at least two days. As it would probably be attacked, and
might have to fight hard, he decided on leaving only thirty Europeans
and fifty Sepoys within the fort. He appointed Doctor Rae to the
command of the post during his absence, and placed Charlie and Peters
under his orders.
"I wonder whether they will have any fighting," Charlie said, as the
three officers looked from the walls of the fort after the departing
force.
"I wish we had gone with them," Peters put in; "but it will be a long
march, in the heat."
"I should think," Doctor Rae said, "that they are sure to have
fighting. I only hope they may not be attacked at night. The men are
very young and inexperienced, and there is nothing tries new soldiers
so much as a night attack. However, from what I hear of their own
wars, I believe that night attacks are rare among them. I don't know
that they have any superstition on the subject, as some African people
have, on the ground that evil spirits are about at night; but the
natives are certainly not brisk, after nightfall. They are extremely
susceptible to any fall of temperature, and as you have, of course,
noticed, sleep with their heads covered completely up. However, we
must keep a sharp lookout here, tonight."
"You don't think that we are likely to be attacked, sir, do you?"
"It is possible we may be," the doctor said. "They will know that
Captain Clive has set out from here, with the main body, and has left
only a small garrison. Of course they have spies, and will know that
there are only eighty men here, a number insufficient to defend one
side of this fort, to say nothing of the whole circle of the walls.
They have already found out that the English can fight in the open,
and their experience at Timari will make them shy of meeting us again.
Therefore, it is just possible that they may be marching in this
direction today, while Clive is going in the other, and that they may
intend carrying it with a rush.
"I should say, today let the men repose as much as possible; keep the
sentries on the gates and walls, but otherwise let them all have
absolute quiet. You can tell the whites, and I will let the Sepoys
know, that they will have to be in readiness all night, and that they
had better, therefore, sleep as much as possible today. We will take
it by turns to be on duty, one going round the walls and seeing that
the sentries are vigilant, while the others sit in the shade and doze
off, if they can. We must all three keep on the alert, during the
night."
Doctor Rae said that he, himself, would see that all went well for the
first four hours, after which Charlie should go on duty; and the two
subalterns accordingly made themselves as comfortable as they could in
their quarters, which were high up in the fort, and possessed a window
looking over the surrounding country.
"Well, Tim, what is the matter with you?" they asked that soldier, as
he came in with an earthenware jar of water, which he placed to cool
in the window. "You look pale."
"And it's pale I feel, your honor, with the life frightened fairly out
of me, a dozen times a day. It was bad enough on the march, but this
place just swarms with horrible reptiles. Shure an' it's a pity that
the holy Saint Patrick didn't find time to pay a visit to India. If
he'd driven the varmint into the sea for them, as he did in Ireland,
the whole population would have become Christians, out of pure
gratitude. Why, yer honor, in the cracks and crevices of the stones of
this ould place there are bushels and bushels of 'em. There are things
they call centipades, with a million legs on each side of them, and
horns big enough to frighten ye; of all sizes up to as long as my hand
and as thick as my finger; and they say that a bite from one of them
will put a man in a raging fever, and maybe kill him. Then there are
scorpions, the savagest looking little bastes ye ever saw, for all the
world like a little lobster with his tail turned over his back, and a
sting at the end of it. Then there's spiders, some of 'em nigh as big
as a cat."
"Oh, nonsense, Tim!" Charlie said; "I don't think, from what I've
heard, that there's a spider in India whose body is as big as a
mouse."
"It isn't their body, yer honor. It's their legs. They're just cruel
to look at. It was one of 'em that gave me a turn, a while ago. I was
just lying on my bed smoking my pipe, when I saw one of the creatures
(as big as a saucer, I'll take my oath) walking towards me with his
wicked eye fixed full on me. I jumped off the bed and on to a bench
that stood handy.
"'What are ye yelling about, Tim Kelly?' said Corporal Jones to me.
"'Here's a riotous baste here, corporal,' says I, 'that's meditating
an attack on me.'
"'Put your foot on it, man,' says he.
"'It's mighty fine,' says I, 'and I in my bare feet.'
"So the corporal tells Pat Murphy, my right-hand man, to tackle the
baste. I could see Pat didn't like the job ayther, yer honor, but he's
not the boy to shrink from his duty; so he comes and he takes post on
the form by my side, and just when the cratur is making up his mind to
charge us both, Pat jumps down upon him and squelched it.
"Shure, yer honor, the sight of such bastes is enough to turn a
Christian man's blood."
"The spider had no idea of attacking you, Kelly," Peters said,
laughing. "It might possibly bite you in the night, though I do not
think it would do so; or if you took it up in your fingers."
"The saints defind us, yer honor! I'd as soon think of taking a tiger
by the tail. The corporal, he's an Englishman, and lives in a country
where they've got snakes and reptiles; but it's hard on an Irish boy,
dacently brought up within ten miles of Cork's own town, to be exposed
to the like.
"And do ye know, yer honor, when I went out into the town yesterday,
what should I see but a man sitting down against a wall, with a little
bit of a flute in his hand, and a basket by his side. Well, yer honor,
I thought maybe he was going to play a tune, when he lifts up the top
of the basket and then began to play. Ye may call it music, yer honor,
but there was nayther tune nor music in it.
"Then all of a suddint two sarpents in the basket lifts up their
heads, with a great ear hanging down on each side, and began to wave
themselves about."
"Well, Tim, what happened then?" Charlie asked, struggling with his
laughter.
"Shure it's little I know what happened after, for I just took to my
heels, and I never drew breath till I was inside the gates."
"There was nothing to be frightened at, Tim," Charlie said. "It was a
snake charmer. I have never seen one yet, but there are numbers of
them all over India. Those were not ears you saw, but the hood. The
snakes like the music, and wave their heads about in time to it. I
believe that, although they are a very poisonous snake and their bite
is certain death, there is no need to be afraid of them, as the
charmers draw out their poison fangs when they catch them."
"Do they, now?" Tim said, in admiration. "I wonder what the regimental
barber would say to a job like that, now. He well nigh broke Dan
Sullivan's jaw, yesterday, in getting out a big tooth; and then swore
at the poor boy, for having such a powerful strong jaw. I should like
to see his face, if he was asked to pull out a tooth from one of them
dancing sarpents.
"I brought ye in some fruits, yer honors. I don't know what they are,
but you may trust me, they're not poison. I stopped for half an hour
beside the stall, till I saw some of the people of the country buying
and ating them. So then I judged that they were safe for yer honors."
"Now, Tim, you'd better go and lie down and get a sleep, if the
spiders will let you, for you will have to be under arms all night, as
it is possible that we may be attacked."
The first part of the night passed quietly. Double sentries were
placed at each of the angles of the walls. The cannons were loaded,
and all ready for instant action. Doctor Rae and his two subalterns
were upon the alert, visiting the posts every quarter of an hour to
see that the men were vigilant.
Towards two o'clock a dull sound was heard and, although nothing could
be seen, the men were at once called to arms, and took up the posts to
which they had already been told off on the walls. The noise
continued. It was slight and confused, but the natives are so quiet in
their movements, that the doctor did not doubt that a considerable
body of men were surrounding the place, and that he was about to be
attacked.
Presently one of the sentries over the gateway perceived something
approaching. He challenged, and immediately afterwards fired. The
sound of his gun seemed to serve as the signal for an assault, and a
large body of men rushed forward at the gate, while at two other
points a force ran up to the foot of the walls, and endeavoured to
plant ladders.
The garrison at once collected at the points of attack, a few sentries
only being left at intervals on the wall, to give notice should any
attempt be made elsewhere. From the walls, a heavy fire of musketry
was poured upon the masses below; while from the windows of all the
houses around, answering flashes of fire shot out, a rain of bullets
being directed at the battlements. Doctor Rae himself commanded at the
gate; one of the subalterns at each of the other points assailed.
The enemy fought with great determination. Several times the ladders
were planted and the men swarmed up them, but as often these were
hurled back upon the crowd below. At the gate the assailants
endeavoured to hew their way, with axes, through it; but so steady was
the fire directed, from the loopholes which commanded it, upon those
so engaged, that they were, each time, forced to recoil with great
slaughter. It was not until nearly daybreak that the attack ceased,
and the assailants, finding that they could not carry the place by a
coup de main, fell back.
The next day, the main body of the British force returned with the
convoy. News arrived, the following day, that the enemy were
approaching to lay siege to the place.
The news of the capture of Arcot had produced the effect which Clive
had anticipated from it. It alarmed and irritated the besiegers of
Trichinopoli, and inspired the besieged with hope and exultation. The
Mahratta chief of Gutti and the Rajah of Mysore, with whom Muhammud
Ali had for some time been negotiating, at once declared in his
favour. The Rajah of Tanjore and the chief of Pudicota, adjoining that
state, who had hitherto remained strictly neutral, now threw in their
fortunes with the English, and thereby secured the communications
between Trichinopoli and the coast.
Chunda Sahib determined to lose not a moment in recovering Arcot,
knowing that its recapture would at once cool the ardour of the new
native allies of the English; and that, with its capture, the last
hope of the besieged in Trichinopoli would be at an end. Continuing
the siege, he despatched three thousand of his best troops, with a
hundred and fifty Frenchmen, to reinforce the two thousand men already
near Arcot, under the command of his son Riza Sahib. Thus the force
about to attack Arcot amounted to five thousand men; while the
garrison under Clive's orders had, by the losses in the defence of the
fort, by fever and disease, been reduced to one hundred and twenty
Europeans, and two hundred Sepoys; while four out of the eight
officers were hors de combat.
The fort which this handful of men had to defend was in no way capable
of offering a prolonged resistance. Its walls were more than a mile in
circumference, and were in a very bad state of repair. The rampart was
narrow and the parapet low, and the ditch, in many places, dry. The
fort had two gates. These were in towers standing beyond the ditch,
and connected with the interior by a causeway across it. The houses in
the town in many places came close up to the walls, and from their
roofs the ramparts of the forts were commanded.
On the 23rd September Riza Sahib, with his army, took up his position
before Arcot. Their guns had not, however, arrived, with the exception
of four mortars; but they at once occupied all the houses near the
fort, and from the walls and upper windows kept up a heavy fire on the
besieged.
Clive determined to make an effort, at once, to drive them from this
position, and he accordingly, on the same afternoon, made a sortie. So
deadly a fire, however, was poured into the troops as they advanced,
that they were unable to make any way, and were forced to retreat into
the fort again, after suffering heavy loss.
On the night of the 24th, Charlie Marryat, with twenty men carrying
powder, was lowered from the walls; and an attempt was made to blow up
the houses nearest to them; but little damage was done, for the enemy
were on the alert, and they were unable to place the powder in
effective positions, and with a loss of ten of their number the
survivors with difficulty regained the fort.
For the next three weeks the position remained unchanged. So heavy was
the fire which the enemy, from their commanding position, maintained,
that no one could show his head for a moment, without running the risk
of being shot. Only a few sentinels were kept upon the walls, to
prevent the risk of surprise, and these had to remain stooping below
the parapet. Every day added to the losses.
Captain Clive had a series of wonderful escapes, and indeed the men
began to regard him with a sort of superstitious reverence, believing
that he had a charmed life. One of his three remaining officers,
seeing an enemy taking deliberate aim at him through a window,
endeavoured to pull him aside. The native changed his aim, and the
officer fell dead. On three other occasions sergeants, who accompanied
him on his rounds, were shot dead by his side. Yet no ball touched
him.
Provisions had been stored in the fort, before the commencement of the
siege, sufficient for sixty days; and of this a third was already
exhausted when, on the 14th of October, the French troops serving with
Riza Sahib received two eighteen-pounders, and seven smaller pieces of
artillery. Hitherto the besiegers had contented themselves with
harassing the garrison night and day, abstaining from any attack which
would cost them lives, until the arrival of their guns. Upon receiving
these, they at once placed them in a battery which they had prepared
on the northwest of the fort, and opened fire.
So well was this battery placed, and so accurate the aim of its gunner,
that the very first shot dismounted one of the eighteen-pounders in the
fort. The second again struck the gun and completely disabled it. The
besieged mounted their second heavy gun in its place, and were preparing
to open fire on the French battery, when a shot struck it also and
dismounted it. It was useless to attempt to replace it, and it was,
during the night, removed to a portion of the walls not exposed to the
fire of the enemy's battery. The besiegers continued their fire, and in
six days had demolished the wall facing their battery, making a breach
of fifty feet wide.
Clive, who had now only the two young subalterns serving under him,
worked indefatigably. His coolness and confidence of bearing kept up
the courage of his little garrison, and every night, when darkness hid
them from the view of the enemy's sharpshooters, the men laboured to
prepare for the impending attack. Works were thrown up inside the
fort, to command the breach. Two deep trenches were dug, one behind
the other; the one close to the wall, the other some distance farther
back. These trenches were filled with sharp iron three-pointed spikes,
and palisades erected extending from the ends of the ditches to the
ramparts, and a house pulled down in the rear to the height of a
breastwork, behind which the garrison could fire at the assailants, as
they endeavoured to cross the ditches.
One of the three field pieces Clive had brought with him he mounted on
a tower, flanking the breach outside. Two he held in reserve, and
placed two small guns, which he had found in the fort when he took it,
on the flat roof of a house in the fort commanding the inside of the
breach.
From the roofs of some of the houses around the fort the besiegers
beheld the progress of these defences; and Riza Sahib feared, in spite
of his enormously superior numbers, to run the risk of a repulse. He
knew that the amount of provisions which Clive had stored was not
large, and thinking that famine would inevitably compel his surrender,
shrank from incurring the risk of disheartening his army, by the
slaughter which an unsuccessful attempt to carry the place must
entail. He determined, at any rate, to increase the probability of
success, and utilize his superior forces, by making an assault at two
points, simultaneously. He therefore erected a battery on the
southwest, and began to effect a breach on that side, also.
Clive, on his part, had been busy endeavouring to obtain assistance.
His native emissaries, penetrating the enemy's lines, carried the news
of the situation of affairs in the fort to Madras, Fort Saint David,
and Trichinopoli. At Madras a few fresh troops had arrived from
England, and Mr. Saunders, feeling that Clive must be relieved at all
cost, however defenceless the state of Madras might be, despatched, on
the 20th of October, a hundred Europeans and a hundred Sepoys, under
Lieutenant Innis. These, after three days' marching, arrived at
Trivatoor, twenty-two miles from Arcot.
Riza Sahib had heard of his approach; and sent a large body of troops,
with two guns, to attack him. The contest was too unequal. Had the
British force been provided with field pieces, they might have gained
the day; but, after fighting with great bravery, they were forced to
fall back; with a loss of twenty English and two officers killed and
many more wounded, while the Sepoys suffered equally severely.
One of Clive's messengers reached Murari Reo, the Mahratta chief of
Gutti. This man was a ferocious free-booting chief, daring and brave
himself, and admiring those qualities in others. Hitherto, his
alliance with Muhammud Ali was little more than nominal, for he had
dreaded bringing upon himself the vengeance of Chunda Sahib and the
French, whose ultimate success in the strife appeared certain. Clive's
march upon Arcot, and the heroic defence which the handful of men
there were opposing to overwhelming numbers, excited his highest
admiration. As he afterwards said, he had never before believed that
the English could fight, and when Clive's messenger reached him, he at
once sent back a promise of assistance.
Riza Sahib learned, almost as soon as Clive himself, that the
Mahrattas were on the move. The prospects of his communications being
harassed, by these daring horsemen, filled him with anxiety. Murari
Reo was encamped, with six thousand men, at a spot thirty miles to the
west of Arcot; and he might, at any moment, swoop down upon the
besiegers. Although, therefore, Riza Sahib had for six days been at
work effecting a new breach, which was now nearly open to assault, he
sent on the 30th of October a flag of truce, with an offer to Clive of
terms, if he would surrender Arcot.
The garrison were to be allowed to march out with their arms and
baggage, while to Clive himself he offered a large sum of money. In
case of refusal, he threatened to storm the fort, and put all its
defenders to the sword. Clive returned a defiant refusal, and the guns
again opened on the second breach.
On the 9th of November, the Mahrattas began to show themselves in the
neighbourhood of the besieging army. The force under Lieutenant Innis
had been reinforced, and was now under the command of Captain
Kilpatrick, who had a hundred and fifty English troops, with four
field guns. This was now advancing.
Four days later the new breach had attained a width of thirty yards,
but Clive had prepared defences in the rear, similar to those at the
other breach; and the difficulties of the besiegers would here be much
greater, as the ditch was not fordable.
The fifty days which the siege had lasted had been terrible ones for
the garrison. Never daring to expose themselves unnecessarily during
the day, yet ever on the alert to repel an attack; labouring at night
at the defences, with their numbers daily dwindling, and the prospect
of an assault becoming more and more imminent, the work of the little
garrison was terrible; and it is to the defences of Lucknow and
Cawnpore, a hundred years later, that we must look to find a parallel,
in English warfare, for their endurance and bravery.
Both Charlie Marryat and Peters had been wounded, but in neither case
were the injuries severe enough to prevent their continuing on duty.
Tim Kelly had his arm broken by a ball, while another bullet cut a
deep seam along his cheek, and carried away a portion of his ear. With
his arm in splints and a sling, and the side of his face covered with
strappings and plaster, he still went about his business.
"Ah! Yer honors," he said one day to his masters; "I've often been out
catching rabbits, with ferrits to drive 'em out of their holes, and
sticks to knock 'em on the head, as soon as they showed themselves;
and it's a divarshun I was always mightily fond of, but I never quite
intered into the feelings of the rabbits. Now I understand them
complately, for ain't we rabbits ourselves? The officers, saving your
presence, are the ferrits who turn us out of our holes on duty; and
the niggers yonder, with their muskets and their matchlocks, are the
men with sticks, ready to knock us on head, directly we show
ourselves. If it plase Heaven that I ever return to the ould country
again, I'll niver lend a hand at rabbiting, to my dying day."