THE CITIES OF REFUGE
Minor disturbances on the outskirts left out of sight, the stress of
the storm may now be considered as confined to the region between Delhi
and Allahabad, where in Agra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow were still havens
of refuge, that, it was to be feared, could not long hold out against
the turbulent elements surging around and against them.
[Illustration: Taj of Agra, from the Fountain. Page 92.]
At Agra, one of the most magnificent cities in India, and the seat
of the Government of the North-Western Provinces, there reigned
the liveliest alarm among the large Christian community, though
Lieutenant-Governor Colvin at first tried to make too light of the
danger. When the neighbouring stations burst into mutiny, a panic set
in, the Sepoys were disarmed, and by the end of June the Europeans took
refuge within the high red walls of the fort, some mile and a half
in circuit, that enclose a strangely-mingled maze of buildings,
galleries, pavilions, domes, towers, vaults, offices, barracks,
arcades, gardens and lordly halls recalling the Arabian Nights, among
them such architectural wonders as the glittering palace of Akbar
and the exquisite Pearl Mosque, now turned into a hospital for the
nonce. In sight of these monuments of Mogul grandeur, a mile or so up
the Jumna, rise the snowy splendours of the Taj, that Sultana's tomb
praised by some as the most beautiful work of human hands; and on this
side, without the city, were the English homes that must be deserted
as insecure. The citadel of Agra now gave quarters to several thousand
persons, the number increasing as destitute fugitives came slinking in
from the wrecked stations around. There was an English regiment here,
and a small force of volunteers, who, in July, sallied out to meet a
Sepoy army, but had to retire with some loss; then the unfortunate
refugees found themselves forced helplessly to look on at the burning
of their houses without the walls, while thousands of prisoners,
released from the jail, spread over the country in their clanking
chains, and for a few days the _budmashes_ and the rabble had their
way in the city. No vigorous attempt, however, was made to besiege the
Fort, and its inmates got off with the half-serious, half-ludicrous
hardships of an anxious summer spent in marble halls and crowded
palace-chambers, where decorations of mosaic, enamel and coloured glass
ill made up for the lack of substantial comfort.
Poor Colvin, broken down, like so many another leader of that time, by
the burden of a charge too heavy for him, and pained by the quarrels
and murmurs of the pent-up multitude under his too feeble authority,
died in September, yet not till he had seen the motley garrison
venturing forth again, and beginning to restore order in the districts
about. On the whole, the story of Agra was rather a happily prosaic one
for a scene of such picturesque historic grandeur.
At Meerut also, where the Mutiny first broke out, our people got
through its further alarms by standing on anxious guard behind their
entrenchments, while Dunlop the magistrate, at the news of trouble
hurrying back from his holiday in the Himalayas, raised a force of
volunteers that by their bold sallies kept the disaffected in awe for
some way round.
Very different was the case of Lucknow, capital of Oudh, a vast expanse
of hovels and palaces, situated on the banks of the Goomtee, amid a
rich country famed as the garden of India. With its straggling suburbs,
it covered a space six miles long and about half as broad, including
groups of stately temples, palaces and pleasure-gardens. The central
part of the city was densely populated, and the chief streets offered
a lively scene, thronged as they were with natives in the picturesque
costumes of all parts of India, with rich palanquins, with stately
elephants, and camels in gay caparisons, with gorgeously-attired
cavaliers and their swaggering attendants. Every man in those days
went armed, frays and outrages being too common under the weak tyranny
of the lately deposed sovereign; even beggars demanded charity almost
at the point of the sword, and it was a point of prudence as well as
of honour for every dignitary to surround himself with a retinue of
formidable warriors.
Over this swarm of dangerous elements Sir Henry Lawrence now held rule,
worthy brother of the Punjaub administrator. There were four Lawrence
brothers, who all manfully played parts in the Mutiny. Among them Henry
seems to have been the most lovable, distinguished as a philanthropist
not less than as a statesman and a soldier. The institutions which he
founded for the education of soldiers' children in India still attest
his benevolence towards his own people. He had singular sympathy with
and knowledge of the natives, yet there was no sentimentalism in his
earnest desire for their welfare, and when the time came for stern
repression he would not shrink from the uncongenial task. On the
earliest disturbances, he telegraphed to Calcutta asking to be invested
with full powers to deal with them; then, prematurely aged as he was
by hard work and sickness, strained every nerve to meet the emergency,
which seems to have taken him not so much by surprise as in the case of
other high officers.
Discontent was strong in the newly-annexed kingdom of Oudh; and already
had Lawrence had to quell an attempt at mutiny caused by the greased
cartridges, before the native troops raised the standard of rebellion
at Delhi. Foreboding the worst from the news of what had happened on
the Jumna, he exerted himself to calm and conciliate the Sepoys at
Lucknow, and for a time succeeded in preserving an appearance of order,
under which, however, the signs of mischief brewing did not escape his
watchful eye. The Residency, his palatial quarters, with the public
offices and houses about it, stood upon a slight rising ground near
the river, overlooking the greater part of the city. From the first,
Lawrence began to turn this position into a fort of refuge, storing
here guns, ammunition, and supplies, as also in the Muchee Bhawun, an
imposing native fortress not far off. For garrison, part of the 32nd
Regiment, the only English troops he had, were moved in from their
Cantonments outside, and the Christian population soon abandoned their
homes for the asylum of the Residency. Yet at this time it was in no
state for serious defence; even weeks later, few foresaw the hot siege
it would undergo. Before long there appeared cause for actively pushing
on the work. Early in May there was a mutinous demonstration that
luckily could be appeased without bloodshed, but it too plainly showed
the temper of the Sepoys.
By the end of the month, the women and children were all ordered in
from the Cantonments. Business was now at a standstill, and English
people venturing into the streets met everywhere with scared as well as
scowling faces, many of the better class fearing to lose the safety of
our Government, while the turbulent elements of the population eagerly
awaited the signal for general lawlessness.
Sir Henry Lawrence has been blamed because, like other leaders on
whom rested the same responsibility, he delayed to disarm the Sepoy
regiments at Lucknow, fearing chiefly to bring about the mutiny of
others who, at various points in Oudh, still openly obeyed their
officers. Holding to his policy of pretended confidence, on May 30th he
was warned that a general mutiny would break out at evening gun-fire.
He went to dine in the Cantonments, as if no danger were to be feared;
and at the report of the nine o'clock gun, he remarked with a smile
to his informant, "Your friends are not punctual." But scarcely were
the words out of his mouth than a crackle of musketry came from the
lines. Calmly ordering his native guard to load, though for all he knew
it might be to shoot him on the spot, Lawrence hastened to overawe
their mutinous comrades. Only one whole regiment had broken out, most
of whose officers had time to escape with their lives. The Sepoys,
however, shot their brigadier as he tried to recall them to obedience,
and two other Englishmen were murdered, one a young cornet of seventeen
lying sick in his bungalow. For this small bloodshed the mutineers
consoled themselves by burning and plundering the abandoned bungalows,
till Lawrence came upon them at the head of an English detachment,
before whom they soon took to flight, yet not till the firing and
glare had spread wide alarm among the Europeans.
Of the two other Sepoy regiments, some five or six hundred men fell
in under their officers' orders; the rest kept out of the way, or
went off to the mutineers. Next morning, Lawrence followed them on to
the race-course, where they had retreated, and they fled afresh from
the English artillery, though not till the fugitive Sepoys had been
joined by the greater part of a cavalry regiment, for want of whom
effectual pursuit could not be made. In the course of the day there was
an abortive mob-rising within the city, easily put down by the native
police, a number of insurgents being captured and executed.
The English leaders tried to encourage themselves by the thought that
this long-dreaded mine had gone off with so little mischief, and that
now, at least, they knew their friends from their enemies. But they
did not foresee how fast would spread the madness which in so many
cases suddenly affected bodies hitherto faithful even against their
own comrades. A few days later, the police also mutinied and made
off, pursued by artillery, and a force of volunteer cavalry hastily
raised among the Europeans. Still a few hundred Sepoys, who had
stuck to their colours, were stationed beside English soldiers at the
Residency and the Muchee Bhawun; and, on an appeal to their loyalty, a
considerable number of old native pensioners, some of them blind and
crippled, presented themselves to stand by the Government whose salt
they had eaten so long.
Among the reminiscences of that trying time, young readers will
be especially interested in those of Mr. E.H. Hilton, an Eurasian
gentleman still living in Lucknow, to show with pride the carbine
he bore as a school-boy through the siege, and to say _quaeque ipse
miserrima vidi_, if he remember as much from school-books, which may
well have been driven out of his head by the experiences of his last
days at school.
Mr. Hilton, then well on in his teens, was in 1857 one of the senior
boys of the Martinière College, at which his parents held the posts of
Sergeant-Superintendent and Matron. This institution, also known as
Constantia House, from the motto _Labore et Constantia_ inscribed on
its front, is one of the lions of Lucknow. Founded at the beginning
of our century by General Claude Martin, a French soldier of
fortune, it has given a good education to thousands of European and
half-caste boys; nor is this the only educational endowment due to
his munificence. The Martinière, as it is commonly called, a huge,
fantastic, straggling mansion in a pleasant park some mile or two out
of the city, was the founder's residence during his lifetime, and
afterwards his monument and tomb, for he had himself buried in a vault
below the spacious halls and dormitories, now alive with the lads whom
that singular Frenchman had at heart to educate in the English language
and religion. At the time of the Mutiny, there were sixty-five resident
pupils, who had naturally to share the forebodings and alarms of that
terrible spring.
When all the other Christians stood on their guard, Mr. Schilling,
Principal of the Martinière, prepared to defend his charge against
any sudden attack. A small party, first of Sepoys, and when they
could no longer be trusted, of English soldiers, was stationed at the
College. The elder boys were armed with muskets or carbines. Stores
of food and water were collected; and Mr. Hilton tells us how the
first taste his school-fellows had of the trials of the Mutiny was the
frequent bursting of earthen water-jars, which drenched the boys in
the dormitory below. The centre of the building was barricaded with
bricks, sand-bags, boxes of old books and crockery, anything that could
be turned to account. The boys still did their school-work in the long
open wings, but with orders to make for the centre, thus turned into a
citadel, as soon as the alarm-bell rang. One boy always stood on the
look-out; and, as may be supposed, there were several false alarms,
when a troop of grass-cutters' ponies, or the dark edge of a dust-storm
was taken by the nervous young sentinels for an advancing army.
These lads were, indeed, in an exposed position, where they could not
long hope to hold out against soldiers, but might have beaten off a
sudden attack from the rabble of Lucknow. When the bungalows were
burned, young Hilton had nearly seen too much of that night's work. He
had gone, as usual, in charge of a party of his school-fellows, who
acted as choir-boys of the English Church, riding to and fro, it seems,
upon nothing less than elephants!
"We were in the midst of chanting the _Magnificat_, when suddenly the
bugles sounded the alarm. All the officers present quietly rose up and
marched out, and, after finishing the _Magnificat_, the service was
then suddenly brought to a close. The Rev. Mr. Polehampton took the
choir-boys to his house, and gave us the choice of remaining there or
proceeding to the Martinière at once. As our elephants were waiting
ready, I preferred to take the boys home, and we twelve set off on
our moonlight journey of about six miles. Near the Iron Bridge, we
passed a regiment of Sepoys marching with fixed bayonets, but, to our
great relief, they took no notice of us whatever. At the Huzrutgunge
Gate, opposite what is now Eduljee's shop, a sowar, with his sword
drawn, rode up and ordered our _mahout_ to stop. Seeing, however, that
his horse would not come near our elephant, I told the _mahout_ to
go on. After a little colloquial abuse between the two, the _mahout_
went on; the obstructive sowar took his departure with a few farewell
flourishes of his naked sword, and we arrived at the Martinière without
further molestation. There we found every one on the top of the
building looking at the far-off flames of the burning bungalows in the
Cantonments, and we received the hearty congratulations of all on what
they considered our providential escape."
After the mutiny of the police, a flying skirmish took place in view of
the Martinière, eagerly watched by the pupils, who were eager to join
in the fray, but had to remain on guard over their buildings. Their
Principal made a narrow escape, meeting the rebels as he drove through
the College-park, and getting away from them by the speed of his horse.
There is another story, perhaps a distorted version of the same, that
one of the teachers did fall into the hands of some stragglers, who
seemed inclined to shoot him, but contemptuously let him go as "only a
school-master!" These school-masters, and some of the school-boys too,
were to play the warrior before long.
Next morning, Mr. Schilling was ordered to abandon the College, and
move his boys into the Residency. A party of the 32nd leading the
way, and the elder lads with their muskets bringing up the rear, they
marched through the streets lined with sullen faces, where several
natives were seen going armed, but no one offered them any opposition.
At the Residency they were quartered uncomfortably enough in the house
of a native banker within the lines, and there went on with their
lessons as best they could for two or three weeks longer.
All our people had now to take shelter behind the still imperfect
defences. Large stores of food, fodder, and fire had been laid in.
Fortunately there were wells of good water within the Residency
entrenchment. Gunpowder and treasure were buried underground for
safety. Much against his will, Lawrence gave orders for demolishing
the houses around that might afford cover to assailants, but, ever
anxious to spare the feelings of the natives, he desired that their
holy places should be left untouched, so that the adjacent mosques
remained to be used as works for the besiegers. The preparations,
within and without, of the garrison were far from complete by the end
of June, when cholera and small-pox appeared among them, to add to the
gloom of their prospects. The buildings about the Residency were now
crowded with people, not only the whole English population of Lucknow,
but refugees from out-stations, who kept coming in for their lives. The
worst tidings reached them from all hands. No sign of help cleared the
threatening horizon. It was still open to Lawrence to abandon the city,
retreating under protection of his one European regiment and his guns.
But he took the boldest for the best policy, and kept the British flag
floating over its capital when all the rest of Oudh was in unrestrained
rebellion.
He even judged himself strong enough, or was unluckily persuaded,
to strike a blow outside his defences. Hearing that the vanguard of
a Sepoy army had reached Chinhut, a few miles from Lucknow, on the
last day of June, he marched out against them with some seven hundred
men, hoping to scatter the mutineers before they could enter the
city. But, unexpectedly, he found himself assailed by overwhelming
numbers, for he had been deceived through false information, and it
was a whole army, not their mere advance guard, with which he had to
do. The European soldiers could not long hold out under a burning sun,
when the native cavalry and gunners either fled or went over to the
enemy. The retreat became a shameful rout. The broken band was almost
surrounded, and owed its escape to the gallant charge made by a handful
of mounted volunteers, most of whom here saw their first battle. The
water-carriers, such indispensable attendants in this climate, having
deserted, our men suffered agonies from thirst, and many more might
have perished if the inhabitants had not come out to offer them water,
showing that we had still some friends left. But as Lawrence galloped
on, heavy-hearted, to break the bad news to those left behind in the
Residency, already he found the native population in hasty flight; and
soon an ominous silence made the streets outside our entrenchments like
a city of the dead. It grew lively enough later in the day, when the
victorious Sepoys came pouring in, and then began the long misery of
the defence of Lucknow.
But that renowned episode shall be treated of in a chapter apart.
For the present we pass on to Cawnpore, where another wretched crowd
were already undergoing the horrors of a siege, and had earnestly
begged from Lucknow the help it could not spare. Their sufferings and
fate should be fully told, as an epitome of the Mutiny's most painful
features.
Cawnpore, though no such splendid historic city as Delhi or Lucknow,
was an important military station, with a force of some three hundred
English soldiers, counting officers and invalids, to ten times as many
Sepoys. At Bithoor, about twelve miles up the Ganges, was the palace
of that wily and cruel Hindoo who, under the title of Nana Sahib,
became so widely known as the villain of a great tragedy. Adopted
son of the dethroned Mahratta potentate entitled the Peshwa, and
left a rich man by inheriting his wealth, he had a grievance against
our Government in its refusal to continue to him the ample pension
paid to the late Peshwa, whose heir by adoption, by foul play if all
stories are true, was, however, recognized as Maharajah of Bithoor, and
allowed to keep up a sumptuous court among some hundreds of idle and
insolent retainers. To ventilate his wrongs, Nana Sahib sent to England
a confidential agent named Azimoolah, a low-born adventurer like
himself, who by dint of shrewdness and impudence made an extraordinary
impression on London society. This part of his career reads like a
comic romance, and seems indeed to have suggested to Thackeray the
Rummun Loll of _The Newcomes_. But, though petted and flattered by
English fine ladies, Azimoolah could get no satisfaction from men in
office; then returned to his employer, during the Crimean War, with a
report that England was likely to be humbled by Russia.
The Nana dissembled his resentment, and appeared to have given himself
up to a life of pleasure, in which degrading Oriental sensualities were
strangely mixed with an affectation of European tastes. Yet, while
pretending friendship with the English, and leading them to think him a
good-natured, jovial fellow, whose main ambition was to cultivate their
society, this dissembler, it seems, secretly nursed the blackest hatred
against his neighbours and frequent guests, biding a time when he might
satisfy the grudge he bore against their race.
That startling news from Meerut had found our people at Cawnpore
engaged in the tedious round of duty, and the languid efforts to kill
time, which make the life of Anglo-Indians not lucky enough to get away
for the hot weather to bracing hill-stations. Henceforth, they could
not complain of any want of excitement. They had plenty of time for
preparation to meet the danger, for three weeks passed before it was
upon them.
The General in command here, Sir Hugh Wheeler, was an Indian veteran of
the older school, who could speak to the Sepoys in their own language,
and, like some other officers of his generation, had become so much one
of themselves as to marry a native woman. Such a man would naturally
be slow to believe his "children"--_babalogue_ the affectionate word
was, that came now to be used rather in scornful irony--capable of
being untrue to their salt. Yet when the demeanour of the Sepoys,
agitated as much by fear and unreasoning excitement, perhaps, as by
deliberate intention to revolt, became too plainly threatening, while
still expressing confidence, Wheeler ordered an entrenchment to be
thrown up and provided with stores, as a refuge for the Europeans in
case of need. So great was his trust in the Maharajah of Bithoor, that
he did not doubt to accept the Nana's assistance. A detachment of his
ragamuffin troops was actually put in charge of the treasury; and there
was some talk of the ladies and children being placed for safety in
the palace of this traitor, already plotting their ruin. Every night
now they slept within the entrenchment; but the officers of Sepoy
regiments had to show true courage by staying among their men, who
were not so much impressed by this forced show of confidence as by the
distrust of them evident in the preparations for defence.
At length even Sir Hugh began to take a gloomy view of the situation.
Many of those under him had done so from the first; and most pathetic
it is to read the letters written by some English people to their
friends at home by the last mail that got down to Calcutta--farewell
messages of men and women who felt how any hour now they might be
called on to face death. Before long the roads were all stopped, the
telegraph wires were cut, and almost the only news that reached this
blockaded garrison of what went on around them, was the grim hint
conveyed by white corpses floating down the sacred river, like an
offering to cruel Hindoo gods.
On the night of June 4 came the long-expected outbreak. Part of the
Sepoys gave themselves up to the usual outrages, breaking open the
jail, plundering the treasury and the magazine. The rest remained quiet
for a time, and one regiment was even falling in upon the _maidan_ to
obey its officers, when, with ill-starred haste, Sir Hugh Wheeler had
them fired on from the entrenchment, at which they ran away to join
the mutineers. About eighty, however, were found obstinately faithful.
More than one of the native officers also risked his life in trying
to restrain his men; but others sided with the revolt, among them a
Soubahdar named Teeka Singh, who became its general, the Nana Sahib
being adopted as a figure-head. He at once consented to lead them to
Delhi, and the whole disorderly crew had marched off on the road, when
his crafty counsellor, Azimoolah, is understood to have persuaded him
that instead of going to swell the triumph of a Moslem king, it would
be more to his glory and profit to exterminate the English at Cawnpore,
and set up a Brahmin power of his own. The Nana, in turn, won over
the Sepoys to this view, and next morning they marched back upon the
entrenchment at Cawnpore.
The English here had been fondly hoping the danger past with the
running away of their Sepoys, and congratulated themselves that, no
longer tied by duty, they would now be able to make their escape down
the river. What was their consternation when that trusted friend of
theirs unmasked himself by sending in to General Wheeler a note,
bidding him to expect an immediate attack! At hasty notice, they fled
within the entrenchment, some just in time; others, lingering or
trusting to concealment, were butchered by the desperadoes, who soon
filled the streets to make themselves a terror to respectable natives
as well as to Europeans. The strength of the disorder here was among
the Hindoos, at whose hands the Mohamedans were like to come ill-off;
and if they had not been united by a common hatred, they would probably
before long have taken to cutting one another's throats.
After spending the forenoon in pillage, murder, and arson, the rebel
army came forward to the bombardment of that weak entrenchment, which
was to endure a siege seldom surpassed for misery and disaster. Sir
Hugh Wheeler is judged to have made a fatal mistake in not possessing
himself of the magazine, a strong position, which, with all its
contents, he abandoned, rather than irritate the Sepoys by taking it
out of their hands, and thus, perhaps, drive them into revolt. He
seems not to have reckoned on any serious attack. The fortress he had
provided was the buildings of a hospital and some unfinished barracks,
surrounded by a low mud wall, standing out in the open plain, and
commanded on all sides by substantial edifices, at a few hundred
yards' distance, to give cover for the besiegers, who soon surrounded
it with batteries of our own heavy guns, while the defenders had
mounted only a few nine-pounders. Within such slight defences were
huddled some thousand Christian souls, four hundred of them fighting
men. They had plenty of muskets and rifles, but sorely needed every
other means of defence.
For now broke over these poor people a storm of cannon-balls and
bullets, pouring upon them all day like the slaughtering rays of the
sun overhead, and hardly ceasing by night, when they must steal forth
in wary silence to hide away their dead. At first every crashing shot
called forth shrieks of alarm from the women and children; but soon
they grew too well accustomed to the deadly din. In two or three days
all the buildings which gave them shelter were riddled through and
through. There was no part of the enclosure where flying missiles and
falling brickwork did not work havoc, as well as upon the thin circle
of defenders exposing themselves behind the wretched walls. By the
end of a week all the artillerymen had been killed or wounded beside
their ill-protected guns. But the sick, too, were put out of pain, in
whatever corners they might be laid. Children fell dead at play, their
mothers in nursing them. One shot struck down husband, wife and child
at once. Another carried off the head of General Wheeler's sick son,
before the eyes of his horrified family. Two men and seven women were
the victims of a single shell. An important out-work was the unfinished
barrack, garrisoned by less than a score of men, few of whom ever left
that post unhurt. Yet all did their duty as manfully as if not robbed
by continual alarms of their nightly rest, with brave hearts tormented
night and day by fear for their patient dear ones.
Foremost among so many heroes was Captain Moore of the 32nd, who
seems to have been looked on as the soul of the defence, ever present
at the sorest need, and never seen but to leave "men something more
courageous, and women something less unhappy." We recognize another
Greatheart of a different order in Mr. Moncrieff, the chaplain,
unsparing of himself to cheer the living and soothe the dying with
words to which none now could listen in careless ease. Few and short,
indeed, were the prayers which that Christian flock could make over
their dead, stealthily buried by night in an empty well without the
rampart. Another well within proved more perilous than that of
Bethlehem, from which David longed to drink. This was the garrison's
one supply of water, and the ruthless enemy trained guns upon it,
firing even by night as soon as they heard the creaking of the tackle.
When the Hindoo water-carriers had all been killed, or scared away,
soldiers were paid several rupees for every pail they drew at the risk
of their lives. A brave civilian named Mackillop, declaring himself no
fighting man, undertook this post of honour, held only for a few days.
In the heat of June, on that dusty plain, no fainting woman or crying
child could have a drink of water, but at the price of blood. Washing
was out of the question--a severe hardship in such a climate.
Water was not the sole want of our country-people, to many of whom the
Indian summer had hitherto seemed scarcely endurable through the help
of ice, effervescing beverages, apartments darkened and artificially
cooled. After a week, the thatched roof of their largest building was
set on fire by night, its helpless inmates hardly saved amid a shower
of bullets poured on the space lit up by the flames. With this was
destroyed the store of drugs and surgical instruments, so that little
henceforth could be done for the sick and wounded. Another time the
wood-work of a gun kindled close to the store of ammunition; then young
Lieutenant Delafosse, exposing himself to the cannon turned upon this
perilous spot, lay down beneath the blazing carriage, tore out the
fire, and stifled it with earth before it could spread.
Many of that crowd had now to lie in the open air, or in what holes and
corners they could find for shade, exposed to the sun, and threatened
by the approach of the rainy season. A plague of flies made not the
least of the sufferings by which some were driven mad. They found
the stench of dead animals almost intolerable. Their provisions soon
began to run short; they were put on scanty rations of bad flour and
split-peas. Now and then, sympathizing or calculating townsfolk managed
to smuggle to them by night a basket of bread or some bottles of milk,
but such god-sends would not go far among so many. A mongrel dog, a
stray horse, a vagrant sacred bull, venturing near the entrenchment,
was sure to fall a welcome prey. But no expedient could do more than
stave off the starvation close at hand for them. Worst of all, the
ammunition was not inexhaustible. Such balls as they had would no
longer fit the worn-out guns. Then the ladies offered their stockings
to be filled with shot. But guns failed before cartridges. At length
there were only two left serviceable, when a quarter of the defenders
had perished, and still the foe rained death all around the frail
refuge, of which one who saw it a few weeks later says: "I could not
have believed that any human beings could have stood out for one day in
such a place. The walls, inside and out, were riddled with shot; you
could hardly put your hand on a clear spot. The ditch and wall--it is
absurd to call it a fortification--any child could have jumped over;
and yet behind these for three weeks the little force held their own."
This is the report of Lady Inglis, herself fresh from the perils of
Lucknow, which she judged slight in proportion.
Several times dashing sorties were made to silence the most troublesome
batteries, or drive away the marksmen who swarmed like rats in adjacent
buildings. Thrice the enemy emboldened themselves to an assault, which
was easily repulsed, though under the shelter of cotton-bales, pushed
before them, a number of Sepoys contrived to advance close up to the
entrenchment. They were better served by their spies, who let them
know how losses and starvation must soon give the garrison into their
hands without any cost of onslaught. One after another of our men stole
out in disguise, vainly commissioned to seek help from Allahabad. Most
of these emissaries were caught and ill-treated. More than one native
messenger did get through to Lucknow; but with a sore heart Sir Henry
Lawrence had to deny the appeal of his beleaguered countrymen, knowing
by this time that it was all he could do to hold his own. The only
reinforcement that reached Cawnpore was one young officer, who came
galloping through the fire of the enemy, and leaped the wall to bring
the news how his comrades had failed to make the same lucky escape.
Other fugitives, seeking this poor place of refuge, were murdered on
the way. Meanwhile, the ranks of the besiegers were daily swollen by
all the scoundrelism of the district and by the followers of rebellious
chiefs, eager to avenge the wrongs of their subjection to British rule.
Yet with them also things went not so smoothly as at first. The booty,
over which they were apt to quarrel, began to be exhausted. The Sepoys
could hardly be brought to face the wall of fire that ever girdled
their desperate victims. The dissensions among rival believers grew
strong. Their leader, jealous and suspicious of the increasing power
of the Moslem party, was impatient to seal his authority in the blood
of those stubborn Christians. Force failing so long, he fell back on
treachery. When the siege had lasted three weeks, the garrison received
a grandiloquent summons from Nana Sahib, proposing surrender on
condition of receiving a safe passage to Allahabad.
General Wheeler was inclined to scorn this offer; but Moore and others,
who had well earned the right to advise prudence, urged that no
chivalrous pride should prevent them considering the inevitable fate
of so many non-combatants. Their provisions were almost at an end.
Trust in such an enemy might be doubtful, but it was the one hope of
life for the women and children, if no relief came, and whence could it
come? Had they only themselves to care for, these officers might have
cut a way through their mutinous Sepoys. As it was, they stooped to
negotiate, and on June 26th agreed to deliver up their battered works
and guns, the Nana consenting that they should march out under arms,
and promising means of conveyance and victuals to carry them down the
river. The only difficulty was a demand on his part to take possession
the same night; but when the English plenipotentiaries threatened to
blow up their magazine rather, he gave in to let them wait till next
morning. Through the night he was busy with his cruel counsellors, and
to one named Tantia Topee, afterwards better known as a rebel general,
he committed the execution of the blackest plot in this dark history.
That night our country-people slept their first quiet sleep for long,
which to most of them was to be their last on earth. To some this
strange stillness seemed disquieting after the din of three dreadful
weeks. Early in the morning, gathering up what valuables and relics
of the terrible sojourn could be borne away, they left their ruined
abode with mingled emotions, on litters, carriages, and elephants, or
marching warily in front and rear of the long train, were escorted
down to the river by soldiers, now the Nana's, lately their own, amid
a vast crowd of half-scowling, half-wondering natives. The Ghaut, or
landing-steps, lay nearly a mile off, approached through the dry bed
of a torrent lined at its mouth with houses and timber. About this
hollow way Tantia Topee had concealed hundreds of men and several guns.
As soon as the head of that slow procession reached the river-side,
a bugle sounded, a line of Sepoys closed the head of the ravine to
cut off retreat, and from every point of cover there broke forth a
murderous roar as thousands of balls and bullets were hailed upon the
entrapped crowd below.
The embarkation had already begun; the foremost of the English had
laid their arms in the boats, and taken off their coats to the work;
the wounded and children were being lifted on board and placed under
the thatched roofs of these clumsy vessels. But at that signal the
boatmen had all deserted, after setting the thatch on fire, and some
unhappy creatures were burned to death, while others plunged into the
water, vainly seeking escape from the balls splashing around them. On
land also a fearful slaughter was going on. Some of the Englishmen
tried to return the fire; some laboured to push off the boats, which
had purposely been stuck fast in the sand. Only three were launched,
one of which drifted across to the opposite bank, and there fell into
the hands of another band of slaughterers. The second appears to have
made a little way down the river before being disabled by a round
shot. The third got off clear, floating along the sluggish current, a
target for ambushed cannon and musketry, through which swam several
brave men, some to sink beneath the reddened stream, some to reach that
sole ark of deliverance. The rest remained at the traitor's mercy.
After most of them had been shot down, their false escort of troopers
dashed into the water to finish the bloody work, stabbing women and
tearing children in pieces. The General was butchered here, with his
young daughter, unless, as would appear from some accounts, Sir Hugh
survived in a dying state on board the escaped boat. Here died the
chaplain, beginning a prayer. A whole girls' school and their mistress
perished wretchedly. Nearly five hundred in all must have fallen on the
banks or in that fatal ravine, when a messenger arrived from the Nana,
ordering to kill the men, but to spare such women and children as still
survived. A hundred and twenty-five, half dead with terror, drenched
with mud and blood, were collected from the carnage and brought to
Cawnpore.
The one boat which had escaped was crowded with about a hundred
persons, dead and living, including some of the chief heroes of the
defence. There is no more thrilling tale in fiction than the adventures
of that hopeless crew. They had no oars; their rudder was soon broken
by a shot. Paddling with bits of plank, they slowly drifted down the
Ganges, fired at from either bank. More than once they stuck fast in
the sand, and at night the women had to be disembarked before the
cumbrous craft could be got off. By daylight they had come only a few
miles from Cawnpore. Again were they attacked from the bank, and found
themselves pursued by a boat filled with armed men. The torrential
rains of an Indian summer burst upon them. They were obliged to tear
off the thatched roof of the boat, as the enemy had tried to set it on
fire. The second night found them helplessly aground; but a hurricane
came to their aid, and the boat floated off before morning, only to
drift into a backwater. There they grounded once more, and the enemy
soon gathered about them in overpowering numbers.
Some dozen men, under Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson, waded on shore to
beat back the assailants, while the rest made an effort to shove off
the boat. This little party, sent out on what seemed a forlorn hope,
in the end furnished the only survivors; their leader was one of four
who lived to tell the tale. Desperately charging the mob of Sepoys
and peasants on the bank, they drove them back for some distance, but
soon found themselves surrounded by overwhelming numbers. Without the
loss of a man, however, though not without wounds, they cut their way
back to the shore, to find the boat gone. Expecting to catch it up,
they pushed on down the stream, but could see nothing of it, and had
to shift for themselves as best they could. Spread out in open order
to give less mark for bullets, they held together, loading and firing
upon the rabble that pressed at their heels, yet not too near, like a
cowardly pack of wolves. When the hunted Englishmen had toiled some
two or three miles barefoot over rough ground, a temple appeared in
the distance, for which the officer shaped his course. Mowbray Thomson
himself, in his _Story of Cawnpore_, describes the last stand made here
by this remnant of its garrison.
"I instantly set four of the men crouching in the doorway with bayonets
fixed, and their muskets so placed as to form a _cheval-de-frise_ in
the narrow entrance. The mob came on helter-skelter, in such maddening
haste that some of them fell or were pushed on to the bayonets, and
their transfixed bodies made the barrier impassable to the rest, upon
whom we, from behind our novel defence, poured shot upon shot into the
crowd. The situation was the more favourable to us, in consequence of
the temple having been built upon a base of brickwork three feet from
the ground, and approached by steps on one side....
"Foiled in their attempts to enter our asylum, they next began to dig
at its foundation; but the walls had been well laid, and were not so
easily to be moved as they expected. They now fetched faggots, and from
the circular construction of the building they were able to place them
right in front of the doorway with impunity, there being no window or
loop-hole in the place through which we could attack them, nor any
means of so doing, without exposing ourselves to the whole mob at
the entrance. In the centre of the temple there was an altar for the
presentation of gifts to the presiding deity; his shrine, however,
had not lately been enriched, or it had more recently been visited by
his ministering priests, for there were no gifts upon it. There was,
however, in a deep hole in the centre of the stone which constituted
the altar, a hollow with a pint or two of water in it, which, although
long since putrid, we baled out with our hands, and sucked down with
great avidity. When the pile of faggots had reached the top of the
doorway, or nearly so, they set them on fire, expecting to suffocate
us; but a strong breeze kindly sent the great body of the smoke away
from the interior of the temple. Fearing that the suffocating sultry
atmosphere would be soon insupportable, I proposed to the men to sell
their lives as dearly as possible; but we stood until the wood had
sunk down into a pile of embers, and we began to hope that we might
brave out their torture till night (apparently the only friend left
us) would let us get out for food and attempted escape. But their next
expedient compelled an evacuation; for they brought bags of gunpowder,
and threw them upon the red-hot ashes. Delay would have been certain
suffocation--so out we rushed. The burning wood terribly marred our
bare feet, but it was no time to think of trifles. Jumping the parapet
we were in the thick of the rabble in an instant; we fired a volley and
ran a-muck with the bayonet."
One by one, making for the river, most of the poor fellows were shot
down, some before reaching it, some while swimming for their lives.
Most thankful was Mowbray Thomson now that a year or two before he
had spent a guinea on learning to swim at the Holborn Baths. Only he,
Lieutenant Delafosse, and two Irish privates escaped both the yelling
crowd that thronged the bank, and not more cruel alligators that
lurked here in the blood-stained water. Stripping themselves as they
went, they swam on for two or three hours, the current helping to carry
them away till the last of their pursuers dropped off; then they could
venture to rest, up to their necks in water, plunging into the stream
again at every sound. At length, utterly exhausted by fatigue and want
of food, they saw nothing for it but to let themselves be dragged out
by a band of natives, whose professions of friendliness they hardly
credited, yet found them friends indeed. These four sole survivors of
our force at Cawnpore were sheltered by a humane rajah till they could
be safe in Havelock's ranks.
"When you got once more among your countrymen, and the whole terrible
thing was over, what did you do first?" Thomson came to be asked, years
afterwards; and his answer was, "Why, I went and reported myself as
present and ready for duty."
Their less fortunate comrades in the boat, captured after such
resistance as could be offered by its famished and fainting crew,
had been taken back to Cawnpore. The men were ordered to be shot.
One of the officers said a few prayers; they shook hands all round
like Englishmen; the Sepoys fired, and finished the work with their
swords. The women had to be dragged away from their husbands before
this execution could be done. To the number of about thirty, including
children, they were added to that band of captives in the Nana's hands,
which presently became increased by another party of hapless fugitives
from Futtehgurh, hoping here at last to find safety after an ordeal of
their own, as we have already seen.
The fate of these prisoners is too well known. Some two hundred in
all, they were confined for more than a fortnight within sight of
the house where the Nana celebrated his doubtful triumph, under the
coveted title of Peshwa, which he had now conferred upon himself. In
want and woe, ill-fed, attended by "sweepers," that degraded caste
whose touch is taken for pollution, they had to listen to the revelry
of their tyrant's minions, and some were called on to grind corn for
him, as if to bring home to them their slavish plight. Still, the
worst was delayed. Probably the Nana had once meant to hold them as
hostages. But as his affairs grew more disquieting, through the hate
of rival pretenders, and the defeat of his troops before Havelock,
perhaps enraged to fury perhaps rightly calculating that the British
were urged on to such irresistible efforts by the hope of rescuing his
captives, he resolved on a crime, for which the chief ladies of his own
household, the widows of the adopted father to whom he owed everything,
heathen as they were, are said to have called shame upon him, and
threatened to commit suicide if he murdered any more of their sex.
The avenging army was now at hand, not to be frightened away by the
roar of the idle salutes by which the Nana would fain have persuaded
himself and others that he was indeed a mighty conqueror. Before going
out to meet it on July 15th, he gave the order which has for ever
loaded his name with infamy.[3] A few men, still suffered to live among
the prisoners, were summoned forth. With them came the biggest of the
boys, a lad of fourteen, fatally ambitious not to be counted among
women and children. These were soon disposed of. Soon afterwards, a
band of Sepoys were sent to fire into the house packed with its mob
of helpless inmates; but the mutineers, who had done many a bloody
deed, seem to have shrank from this. Half-a-dozen of them fired a few
harmless shots, taking care to aim at the ceiling. Then were brought
up five ruthless ruffians, fit for such work, two of them butchers by
trade. By the quickly gathering gloom of Indian twilight, they entered
the shambles, sword in hand; and soon shrieks and entreaties, dying
down to groans through the darkness, told how these poor Christians
came to an end of their sorrows. Proud, delicate English ladies, dusky
Eurasians, sickly children, the night fell upon them all, never to see
another sun.
One day more, and these unfortunates might have heard the guns of their
advancing deliverer. After a succession of arduous combats, toiling
through deep slush and sweltering air, Havelock had come within a few
miles of Cawnpore, to find Nana Sahib waiting to dispute the passage
with more than thrice his own numbers drawn up across the road. Very
early in the morning, the British soldiers had been roused from their
hungry bivouac in the open air. What their chief had to tell them
was how he had heard of women and children still alive in Cawnpore;
his clear voice broke into a sob as he cried, "With God's help, men,
we shall save them, or every man of us die in the attempt!" The men
answered with three cheers, and needed no word of command to set out
under the moonlight.
The sun rose upon the hottest day they had yet had to struggle through.
A march of sixteen miles, that in itself was a trying day's work for
India, brought them in sight of the enemy. Taken in flank by a careful
manœuvre, the Sepoys were rolled up before the onrush of the Rossshire
Buffs, and not now for the first or last time, had terror struck to
their hearts by the fierce strains of the Highland bagpipe. Twice they
rallied, but twice again our men drove them from their guns, to which
English and Scots raced forward in eager rivalry. The blowing up of
the Cawnpore magazine proclaimed a complete defeat. When night fell,
the cowardly tyrant was flying amid his routed troops, and the weary
Britons dropped to sleep on the ground they had won, cheered by hopes
that the prize of the victory would be the lives of their country-folk.
It is said that on the night of this battle of Cawnpore, Havelock
himself learned how he had come too late; but, in any case, his
thousand men or less were not fit to be led a step further. Next day,
when they entered the deserted city, their ranks began to be saddened
by vague rumours of the tragedy they had toiled and bled to avert.
But they could not realize the horror of it, till some Highlanders,
prowling in search of drink or booty, came upon the house where their
shoes plashed in blood and the floor was strewn with gory relics,
strips of clothing, long locks of hair, babies' shoes and pinafores,
torn leaves of paper, all soaked or stained with the same red tokens of
what had been done within those walls. The trail of blood led them to
a well in the court-yard, filled to the brim with mangled corpses--a
sight from which brave men burst away in passionate tears and curses.
Over that gruesome spot now stands a richly-sculptured monument, where
emblems of Christian faith and hope seem to speak peace to the souls of
the victims buried beneath its silent marble. But who can wonder if,
by such an open grave, our maddened soldiers then forgot all teachings
of their creed, swearing wild oaths--oaths too well kept--to take
vengeance on the heathen that thus made war with helpless women and
children! Yet more worthy of our true greatness are the words of one
who has eloquently chronicled the atrocities of Cawnpore, to draw from
them the lesson, that upon their most deep-dyed scenes each Englishman
should rather "breathe a silent petition for grace to do in his
generation some small thing towards the conciliation of races estranged
by a terrible memory"--alas! by more than one such memory.
Having reached Cawnpore too late, in spite of their utmost exertions,
our small army had now before it the greater task of relieving Lucknow,
believed to be in the utmost straits. But inevitable delays bridled
their impatience. The Nana's troops were still in force not far off.
Even far in Havelock's rear, within a day's railway journey from
Calcutta, there was an outbreak which had to be put down by the
reinforcements hurrying up to his aid. Before we return to the siege
of Delhi, a minor episode here should be related as one of the most
gallant actions of the Mutiny, and yet no more than a characteristic
sample of what Englishmen did in those days.
On July the 25th the Sepoys at Dinapore mutinied, and though stopped
from doing much mischief there by the presence of European troops,
managed to get safe away, as at Meerut, through the incapacity of a
General unfit for command. Marching some twenty-five hundred strong
to Arrah, a small station in the neighbourhood, they released the
prisoners, plundered the treasury, and were joined by a mob of
country-people, at the head of whom placed himself an influential and
discontented nobleman named Koer Singh.
But here the few Europeans were prepared for the trial that now came
upon them. The women and children being sent out of danger, a small
house belonging to Mr. Wake, the magistrate, had been put in a state
of defence, and stored with food and ammunition. It was an isolated
building of one large room, used as a billiard-room, with cellars and
arches below, and a flat roof protected by a parapet. Into this, the
Englishmen, not twenty in number, betook themselves, with some fifty
faithful Sikhs; and, almost all the former being sportsmen, if not
soldiers, they kept up such a fire as taught the enemy to be very
careful how they came too near their little stronghold.
The siege, however, was hotly pushed. A rain of balls fell, day and
night, on the defences, behind which, strange to say, only a single
man was seriously wounded, though the Sepoys fired from a wall not
twenty yards off, and from the surrounding trees and the ditch of the
compound. Two small cannon were brought to bear on the house, one from
the roof of a bungalow which commanded it. An attempt had first been
made to carry it by storm, but the defenders were so active at their
loop-holes that the assailants did not care to try again. Other means
failing, they set fire to a heap of red pepper on the windward side,
hoping to smoke out the garrison. A not less serious annoyance was
the stench of dead horses shot underneath the walls. But Wake and his
brave band held out doggedly, and would not listen to any proposal for
surrender.
Meanwhile, their friends at Dinapore were eager to make an effort for
their relief. With some difficulty, the consent of the sluggish General
was won, and over four hundred men steamed down the Ganges to land at
the nearest point to Arrah. By bright moonlight they struck out over
the flooded country. But the night-march was too hurried and careless.
The relieving force, fired on from an ambush, fell into disastrous
confusion, turned back, fighting their way into the boats, and got away
with the loss of half their number. Yet, in that scene of panic and
slaughter, some fugitives so distinguished themselves that two Victoria
Crosses were earned on the retreat.
The besieged soon learned how their hopes of succour had been dashed
down, and might well have given themselves up to despair. When the
siege had lasted a week, it appeared not far from an end. The enemy
were found to be running a mine against them. Water had luckily been
dug down to under the house, but their food began to fail. Then,
looking out on the morning of August 3, expecting perhaps to see the
sun rise for the last time, to their astonishment they discovered
no one to prevent them from sallying forth and capturing the sheep
which had been feeding in the compound under their hungry eyes. The
beleaguering Sepoys had unaccountably vanished.
Help was indeed at hand from another side. Vincent Eyre, a hero of
the Afghan war, had been moving to their relief with not two hundred
men and three guns. Though on the way he heard of the repulse of the
Dinapore detachment, more than twice his own strength, he did not turn
back. Making for an unfinished railway embankment as the best road to
Arrah, he encountered Koer Singh's whole force of two or three thousand
Sepoys and an unnumbered rabble, who crowded upon the little band,
and must soon have swept them away by the mere weight of bullets. But
the Englishmen charged into the thick of the crowd, and this time it
was the enemy's turn to fly in dismay. Next day, the garrison of that
billiard-room joyfully hailed the friends who had thus marvellously
relieved them; and it is hard to say which had more right to be proud
of their feat of arms. Koer Singh, beaten away from Arrah, nevertheless
long held the field, and did his side good service by keeping the
country in disorder, that helped to delay the advance of our troops to
the fields on which they were so urgently needed.
Now has to be recorded a curious trait, very characteristic of
Englishmen in India. While Havelock was waiting on the scene of that
woeful massacre, till he should be able to advance, with such saddening
memories fresh about them, with such deadly trials still before them,
the officers kept up their spirits by organizing the "Cawnpore Autumn
Race Meeting," which their pious General thought right to attend.
The fawning or scowling natives, who now were fain at least to make
some show of loyalty, must have thought the ways of Englishmen more
unaccountable than ever.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: It is only fair to say that an attempt has been made so
far to whitewash this hated name by representing the Nana as a dull,
feeble tyrant, who, in this as in other actions, was the servant rather
than the master of his ferocious soldiery.]