THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY.
There were events that made a deeper impression on the minds of the
English public; military exploits more grand and comprehensive; episodes
more fatal, more harrowing; trains of operation in which well-known
heroic names more frequently found place—but there was nothing in the
whole history of the Indian mutiny more admirable or worthy of study
than the defence of Lucknow by Brigadier Inglis and the British who were
shut up with him in the Residency. Such a triumph over difficulties has
not often been placed upon record. Nothing but the most resolute
determination, the most complete soldierly obedience, the most untiring
watchfulness, the most gentle care of those who from sex or age were
unable to defend themselves, the most thorough reliance on himself and
on those around him, could have enabled that gallant man to bear up
against the overwhelming difficulties which pressed upon him throughout
the months of July, August, and September. He occupied one corner of an
enormous city, every other part of which was swarming with deadly
enemies. No companion could leave him, without danger of instant death
at the hands of the rebel sepoys and the Lucknow rabble; no friends
could succour him, seeing that anything less than a considerable
military force would have been cut off ere it reached the gates of the
Residency; no food or drink, no medicines or comforts, no clothing, no
ammunition, in addition to that which was actually within the place at
the beginning of July, could be brought in. Great beyond expression were
the responsibilities and anxieties of one placed in command during
eighty-seven of such days—but there was also a moral grandeur in the
situation, never to be forgotten.
In former chapters of this work,[94] much has been said concerning
Lucknow, its relations towards the British government on the one hand,
and the court of Oude on the other, and the operations which enabled
Havelock and Neill to bring a small reinforcement to its British
garrison towards the close of September; but what the garrison did and
suffered during the three months before this succour could reach them,
has yet to be told. The eventful story may be given conveniently in this
place, as one among certain intermediate subjects between the military
operations of Sir Henry Havelock and those of Sir Colin Campbell.
Let us endeavour, by recapitulating a few facts, to realise in some
degree the position of the British at Lucknow when July commenced. The
city is a little over fifty miles from Cawnpore—exactly fifty to the
Alum Bagh, fifty-three to the Residency, and fifty-seven to the
cantonment. Most of its principal buildings, including the Residency,
were on the right or southwest bank of the river Goomtee. There was a
cantonment Residency, and also a city Residency, at both of which,
according to his daily duties, it was the custom of the lamented Sir
Henry Lawrence to dwell, before the troubles of the mutiny began; but it
is the city Residency which has acquired a notoriety that will never
die. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the mere official mansion
called the Residency bore but a small ratio to the area and the
buildings now known to English readers by that name. This ambiguity is
not without its inconveniences, for it denotes a Residency _within_ a
Residency. Understanding the Residency to mean English Lucknow, the part
of the city containing the offices and dwellings of most of the official
English residents, then it may be described as an irregular quadrangle a
few hundred yards square, jutting out at the north corner, and indented
or contracted at the west. Within that limit were numerous residences
and other buildings, some military, some political or civil, some
private. The word ‘garrison’ was applied after the defence began, to
buildings which had previously been private or official residences; if,
therefore, the reader meets in one map with ‘Fayrer’s House,’ and in
another with ‘Fayrer’s Garrison,’ he must infer that a private residence
was fortified as a stronghold when the troubles began. In this chapter
we shall in most instances denominate the whole area as the
_intrenchment_ or _enclosure_, with the Residency itself as one of the
buildings; and we shall furthermore retain the original designation of
_house_, rather than _garrison_, for each of the minor residences. The
northeast side of the whole enclosure was nearly parallel with the
river; and the north corner was in near proximity to an iron bridge
carrying a road over the river to the cantonment.
How the British became cooped up within that enclosure, the reader
already knows; a few words will bring to recollection the facts fully
treated in the chapters lately cited. We have there seen that there were
burnings of bungalows, and cartridge troubles, as early as April, in the
cantonment of Lucknow; that on the 3d of May some of the native troops
became insubordinate at the Moosa Bagh, a military post three or four
miles northwest of the Residency; that the 3d Oude infantry was broken
into fragments by this mutiny and its consequences; that Sir Henry
Lawrence sought to restore a healthy feeling by munificently rewarding
certain native soldiers who had remained faithful under temptation; that
towards the close of the month he attended very sedulously to various
magazines and military posts in and near the city; that he fortified the
English quarter by placing defence-works on and near the walls by which
it was already three-fourths surrounded, and by setting up other
defences on the remaining fourth side; that he brought all the women and
children, and all the sick, of the English community, into the space
thus enclosed and guarded; that on the last two days of the month he had
the vexation of seeing most of the native troops in Lucknow and at the
cantonment, belonging to the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th
cavalry, march off in mutiny towards Seetapoor; and that of the seven
hundred who remained behind, he did not know how many he could trust
even for a single hour. Next, under the month of June, we have seen that
nearly all the districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the
insurgents, increasing at every stage the difficulties which beset Sir
Henry as civil and military chief of the province; that he knew the
mutineers were approaching Lucknow as a hostile army, and that he looked
around in vain for reinforcements; that he paid off most of the sepoys
still remaining with him, glad to get rid of men whose continuance in
fidelity could not be relied on; that he greatly strengthened the
Residency, and also the Muchee Bhowan, a castellated structure northwest
of it, formerly inhabited by the dependents of the King of Oude; that
all his letters and messages to other places became gradually cut off,
leaving him without news of the occurrences in other parts of India;
that he stored the Residency with six months’ provisions for a thousand
persons as a means of preparing for the worst; and that on the last day
of the month he fought a most disastrous battle with the mutineers at
Chinhut, seven or eight miles out of Lucknow. Then, when July opened, we
have seen the British in a critical and painful situation. Lawrence
having lost many of his most valued troops, could no longer garrison the
Muchee Bhowan, the cantonment, the dâk bungalow, or any place beyond the
Residency. No European was safe except within the Residency enclosure;
and how little safety was found there was miserably shewn on the 2d of
the month, when a shell from the insurgents wounded the great and good
Sir Henry Lawrence, causing his death on the 4th, after he had made over
the military command of Lucknow to Brigadier Inglis, and the civil
command to Major Banks.
The Europeans, then, become prisoners within the walls of the Residency
enclosure at Lucknow—officers, soldiers, revenue-collectors, judges,
magistrates, chaplains, merchants, ladies, children. And with them were
such native soldiers and native servants as still remained faithful to
the British ‘raj.’ What was the exact number of persons thus thrown into
involuntary companionship at the beginning of July appears somewhat
uncertain; but an exact enumeration has been given of those who took up
their quarters within the Residency on the 30th of May, when the
symptoms of mutiny rendered it no longer safe that the women and
children should remain in the city or at the cantonment. The number was
794.[95] The principal persons belonging to the European community at
Lucknow were the following: Sir Henry Lawrence, chief-commissioner;
Captain Hayes, military secretary; Major Anderson, chief-engineer;
Brigadier Inglis, commandant of the garrison; Brigadier Handscomb,
commandant of the Oude brigade; Captain Carnegie, provost-marshal;
Captain Simons, chief artillery officer; Colonel Master, 7th native
cavalry; Colonel Case and Major Low, H.M. 32d foot; Major Bruyère, 13th
native infantry; Major Apthorp, 41st native infantry; Colonel Palmer and
Major Bird, 48th native infantry; Colonel Halford, 71st native infantry;
Brigadier Gray, Oude Irregulars; Mr Gubbins, finance commissioner; Mr
Ommaney, judicial commissioner; Mr Cooper, chief-secretary. Some of
these died between the 30th of May and the 4th of July, but a few only.
When the whole of the Europeans, officers and privates, had been hastily
driven by the mutiny from the cantonment to the Residency; when all the
native troops who remained faithful had been in like manner removed to
the same place; and when the Muchee Bhowan and all the other buildings
in Lucknow had been abandoned by the British and their adherents—the
intrenched position at and around the Residency became necessarily the
home of a very much larger number of persons; comprising, in addition to
the eight hundred or so just adverted to, many hundred British soldiers,
and such of the sepoys as remained ‘true to their salt.’
In one sense, the Europeans were not taken by surprise. They had watched
the energetic exertions of Sir Henry during the month of June, in which
he exhibited so sagacious a foresight of troubles about to come. They
had seen him accumulate a vast store of provisions; procure tents and
firewood for the Residency; arm it gradually with twenty-four guns and
ten mortars; order in vast quantities of shot, shell, and gunpowder,
from the Muchee Bhowan and the magazines; make arrangements for blowing
up all the warlike _matériel_ which he could not bring in; bury his
barrels of powder beneath the earth in certain open spots in the
enclosure; bury, in like manner, twenty-three lacs of the Company’s
money, until more peaceful days should arrive; destroy many outlying
buildings which commanded or overtopped the Residency; organise all the
males in the place as component elements in a defensive force; bring in
everything useful from the cantonment; build up, in front of the chief
structures in the enclosure, huge stacks of firewood, covered with earth
and pierced for guns; bring the royal jewels and other valuables from
the king’s palace into the Residency for safety; and disarm—much to
their chagrin—the servants and dependents of the late royal family. All
this the Europeans had seen the gallant Lawrence effect during the five
weeks which preceded his death. Of the non-military men suddenly
converted into soldiers, Captain Anderson says: ‘Sir Henry Lawrence
deemed it expedient to enrol all the European and Eurasian writers in
the public offices as volunteers, and he directed arms and ammunition to
be served out to them. Some of these men were taken into the volunteer
cavalry—which also comprised officers civil and military—and the
remainder were drilled as infantry. At the commencement, when these men
were first brought together, to be regularly drilled by sergeants from
Her Majesty’s 32d regiment, the chance of ever making them act in a body
seemed almost hopeless. There were men of all ages, sizes, and figures.
Here stood a tall athletic Englishman; there came a fat and heavy
Eurasian, with more width about the waist than across the chest; next to
the Eurasian came another of the same class, who looked like a
porter-barrel, short and squat, and the belt round his waist very
closely resembled a hoop; not far off you observed an old, bent-double
man, who seemed too weak to support the weight of his musket and
pouch.... We must not always judge by appearances. Amongst this
awkward-looking body there sprang up, during the siege, bold, intrepid,
and daring men!’
Notwithstanding these preparations, however, the calamity fell upon the
inmates too suddenly. The fatal result of the battle of Chinhut
compelled every one to take refuge within the Residency enclosure; even
those who had hitherto lived in the city, rushed in, without
preparation, many leaving all their property behind them except a few
trifling articles. No one was, or ever could be, bitter against Sir
Henry Lawrence; yet were there many criticisms, many expressions of
regret, at the policy which led to the battle; and it is unquestionable
that much of the misery subsequently borne arose from the precipitate
arrangements rendered inevitable on the 30th of June and the following
day. When they saw the rebels march into Lucknow, invest the Residency,
set up a howitzer-battery in front of it, and loophole the walls of
houses for musketry, the Europeans could no longer wait to provide for
domestic and personal comforts, or even conveniences: they hastened to
their prison-house with such resources as could be hastily provided.
Here, then, was a British community thrown most unexpectedly into close
companionship, under circumstances trying to all. It is no wonder that
some among the number kept diaries of the strange scenes they witnessed,
the sad distresses they bore; nor could there be other than a strong
yearning on the part of the English public for a perusal of such diaries
or narratives. Hence the publication of several small but deeply
interesting volumes relating to the defence of Lucknow—one by Mr Rees, a
Calcutta merchant, who happened, unluckily for himself, to be at Lucknow
when the troubles began; another by the wife of one of the two English
chaplains; a third by Captain Anderson; a fourth by a staff-officer.[96]
Such diaries, when used in illustration and correction one of another,
are and must ever be the best sources of information concerning the
inner life of Lucknow during that extraordinary period.
Terrible was the confusion within the Residency enclosure for the first
few days. Those who had hastened into the place from other spots were
endeavouring to find or make something which they could call ‘home;’
those who had been wounded at Chinhut were suffering in agony within the
walls of a building hastily fitted up for them; while the military men
looked anxiously around at the defences of the place, to see what could
be done to keep the enemy out. When the officers, civil or military,
went on the roofs of the houses, they had the mortification of seeing
the mutineers gradually concentrating their forces towards the
Residency; they saw, also, that the prisoners had escaped from the
jails, to join the ranks of those who hated or at any rate opposed the
Feringhees.
Arrangements had for some time been in progress, and were now hastily
completed, to fortify the principal buildings within the enclosure. If
we imagine this English Lucknow to be an irregular diamond-shaped
enclosure, with the acute angles very nearly north and south; then it
may be said that the south angle was the nearest point to the Cawnpore
road, and the north angle the nearest to the iron bridge over the
Goomtee towards the cantonment. Near the south point was the house of
Captain Anderson, standing in the middle of a garden or open court
surrounded by a wall; the house was defended by barricades, and
loopholed for musketry; while the garden was strengthened by a trench
and rows of palisades. Next to this house, and communicating with it by
a hole in the wall, was a newly constructed defence-work that received
the name of the Cawnpore Battery, mounted with guns, and intended to
command some of the houses and streets adjacent to the Cawnpore road. Mr
Deprat’s house had a verandah which, for defensive purposes, was blocked
up with a mud-wall six feet high and two feet and a half thick; this
wall was continued in a straight line to that of the next house, and
carried up to a height of nine feet, with loopholes for musketry. Next
to this was a house occupied as a school for boys of the Martinière
College,[97] strengthened by a stockade of beams placed before it; and
adjacent was a street or road defended by stockades, barricades, and a
trench. Further towards the western angle of the enclosure was a
building formerly known as the Daroo Shuffa or King’s Hospital, but now
called the Brigade Mess-house, having a well-protected and lofty terrace
which commanded an exterior building called Johannes’ house. In its rear
was a parallelogram, divided by buildings into two squares or courts,
occupied in various ways by officers and their families. Then came
groups of low brick buildings around two quadrangles called the Sikh
Squares, on the tops of which erections were thrown up to enable the
troops to fire out upon the town. Separated from these by a narrow lane
was the house of Mr Gubbins, the financial commissioner; the lane was
barricaded by earth, beams, and brambles; the buildings were
strengthened in every way; while the extreme western point was a battery
formed by Mr Gubbins himself. Then, passing along the northwest side
were seen in turn the racket-court, the slaughter-house, the sheep-pen,
and the butcher-yard, all near the boundary of the fortified position,
and separated one from another by wide open spaces; there was a
storehouse for _bhoosa_ (cut chaff for cattle-food), and a guardhouse
for Europeans; and all the buildings were loopholed for musketry. In the
rear of the Bhoosa Intrenchment, as this post was called, was Mr
Ommaney’s house, guarded by a deep ditch and a cactus-hedge, and
provided with two pieces of ordnance. North of the slaughter-house a
mortar-battery was formed. The English church was the next important
building towards the north; it was speedily converted into a granary;
and in the church-yard was formed a mortar-battery capable of shelling
all the portion of the city between it and the iron bridge. This
church-yard was destined afterwards to present melancholy proofs of the
large number of deaths among the English defenders of the place. Beyond
the church-yard was Lieutenant Innes’s house, in dangerous proximity to
many buildings held by the rebels, and bounded on two sides by a garden;
it was a difficult but most important duty to strengthen this house as
much as possible. The extreme northern part of the whole enclosure, not
five hundred yards from the iron bridge, was scarcely susceptible of
defence in itself; but it was fully protected by the Redan Battery,
constructed by Captain Fulton: this was decidedly the best battery in
the whole place, commanding a wide sweep of city and country on both
banks of the river. Along the northeast side, connected at one end with
the Redan, was a series of earthworks, fascines, and sand-bags,
loopholed for musketry, and mounted with guns. A long range of sloping
garden-ground was turned into a glacis in front of the line of
intrenchment just named. In the centre of the northern half of the whole
place was the Residency proper, the official home of the
chief-commissioner; this was a large and beautiful brick building, which
was speedily made to accommodate many hundred persons; and as it was on
high ground, the terrace-roof commanded a view of the whole city—to
whoever would incur the peril of standing there.[98] The hospital, a
very large building near the eastern angle of the whole enclosure, had
once been the banqueting-room for the British resident at the King of
Oude’s court; but it was now occupied as a hospital, a dispensary,
officers’ quarters, and a laboratory for making fuses and cartridges; it
was defended by mortars and guns in various directions. The Ballee or
Bailey guard was near the hospital, but on a lower level; various parts
of it were occupied as a store-room, a treasury, and barracks; the
portion really constituting the Bailey guard gate, the station of the
sepoys formerly guarding the Residency, was unluckily beyond the limits
of the enclosure, and was productive of more harm than good to the
garrison; as a means of security, the gateway was blocked up with earth,
and defended by guns. Dr Fayrer’s house, south of the hospital, had a
terrace-roof whence rifles were frequently brought to bear on the
insurgents, and near it a gun or two were placed in position. Southward
again was the civil dispensary; and near this the post-office, a
building which, from its position and construction, was one of the most
important in the whole place; soldiers were barracked in the interior, a
shell and fuse room was set apart, the engineers made it their
head-quarters, several families resided in it, and guns and mortars were
planted in and around it. The financial-office, and the house of Mrs
Sago (mistress of a charity-school), were on the southeast side of the
enclosure, and were with great difficulty brought into a defensive
state. The judicial office, near Sago’s house, could only be protected
from an open lane by a wall of fascines and earth. The jail, near the
Cawnpore Gate, was converted into barracks; and the native hospital
became a tolerably sheltered place. The Begum’s Kothee, or ‘lady’s
house’ (formerly belonging to a native lady of rank), was in the centre
of the whole enclosure; it comprised many buildings, which were
afterwards parcelled off as commissariat store-rooms, cooking-rooms, and
dwellings for officers’ families.
It will thus be seen that the Residency at Lucknow, so often mentioned
in connection with the history of the mutiny, was a small town rather
than a single building. But it will also be seen that this small town
was most dangerously placed, in juxtaposition to a large city full of
hostile inhabitants and revolted sepoys. Before Sir Henry Lawrence took
it in hand in June, it could be approached and entered from all sides;
and at the beginning of July only a part of the defence-works above
described were completed. The officers had to fight and build, to suffer
and work, to watch and fortify, day after day, under privations
difficult for others to appreciate. The various houses, more frequently
designated _garrisons_ by those engaged in the siege, did really deserve
that title in a military sense; for they were gradually transformed into
little forts or strongholds, each placed under one commander, and each
defended indomitably against all attacks from the enemy. To give one as
an example of many—Captain Anderson, who had resided at Lucknow, as
assistant-commissioner, ever since the annexation of Oude, made his own
house one of these fortified posts; he had under him eighteen men and
one subaltern officer, with whose aid he withstood a _five months’_
siege, notwithstanding the enemy had nine 9-pounder guns playing on his
house. The wall of the compound around the house was levelled, and a
stockade put in its place; within the stockade was a ditch, then an
earthwork five feet high, and then another ditch with pointed bamboos,
forming a _chevaux-de-frise_. It was, in truth, a small citadel, and one
very important for the safety of the whole place.
[Illustration:
Plan of Residency and part of the City of Lucknow.
]
The siege began on the 1st of July, the day following the disastrous
battle of Chinhut. It was indeed a siege, even more so than that to
which Sir Hugh Wheeler had been exposed at Cawnpore; for there was not
only constant firing of musketry, cannon, and mortars, by the
mutineers against the Residency; but there were also subterranean
mines or galleries dug from the outer streets under the enclosing
wall, to blow up the defenders and their defence-works. At every hour
of the day, at every corner of the Residency enclosure, was it
necessary to keep strict watch. A telegraph, worked at the top of one
of the buildings, gave signals to the officers at the Muchee Bhowan,
directing them to blow up that fort, and retire to the Residency with
the treasure and the guns. This was a most perilous enterprise, but
under the skilful superintendence of Captain Francis and Lieutenant
Huxhain it succeeded; 240 barrels of gunpowder, and 600,000 rounds of
ammunition, were blown into the air, to prevent them from falling into
the hands of the enemy; and then the few officers and soldiers marched
from the Muchee Bhowan to the Residency, where they helped to
strengthen the wofully small number of efficient fighting-men.[99] All
this was done by midnight on the 1st. On the 2d, while resting on a
couch after his exhausting and anxious labours, Sir Henry Lawrence was
struck by the shell which took away his valuable life; for it was a
day on which _ten thousand_ rebels were firing shells, balls, and
bullets into or at the Residency. Miss Palmer, daughter of Colonel
Palmer of the 48th, had her thigh shattered by a ball which entered
one of the buildings; and Mr Ommaney was among the wounded. On the 3d
dire confusion was everywhere visible; for all felt that their great
leader would die of his wound: none had yet fully realised the
appalling difficulties of their position; yet were they distracted by
family anxieties on the one hand, and public duty on the other. On the
4th, Lawrence descended to the grave; on that day his nephew, Mr G. H.
Lawrence, was wounded; and on that day, also, all order or legitimate
trade ceased in the city, for marauders and budmashes plundered the
shops. No military honours marked the funeral of Sir Henry; there was
neither time nor opportunity for any display; a hurried prayer was
repeated amid the booming of the enemy’s cannon, and a few spadefuls
of earth speedily covered the mortal remains of one whose good name
was not likely soon to die.[100] On or about the 5th, the enemy seized
the building known as Johannes’ house, from which they were able to
keep up a deadly fire of musketry against Anderson’s house, the jail
barracks, the post-office, and the Begum’s Kothee; it was afterwards
much regretted that this house had not been included among those
demolished by Sir Henry. On the 6th and 7th, the harassing fire
continued from various points. Some of the bhoosa, or chopped straw
for bullocks’ fodder, had been left in an ill-defended place; it was
fired by the enemy, and totally consumed, placing in imminent danger a
powder-magazine at no great distance. Major Francis had both his legs
cut off by a cannon-ball, while quietly sitting in the mess-room; Mr
Marshall, an opium-merchant, was killed, and the Rev. Mr Polehampton
was wounded, about this time. It was a cruel vexation to the garrison
to see and feel how much they were suffering through the skilful
gunnery which the British had taught to the miscreants now in the
insurgent army. The enemy’s artillerymen displayed great rapidity,
ingenuity, and perseverance, in planting batteries in positions
totally unlooked for; some even on house-tops, and others in spots
where the garrison could not respond to their fire. It was more than
suspected that Europeans were among them; indeed one reckless member
of an otherwise worthy English family was recognised among the number,
bringing discredit upon brothers and cousins who were at that very
time gallantly serving the Company elsewhere. Many of the enemy’s
batteries were not more than fifty or a hundred yards distant from the
marginal buildings of the Residency enclosure; the balls knocked down
pillars and verandahs with fearful accuracy. Most of the deaths,
however, from ten to twenty a day, were caused by musket-bullets; the
enemy had many good marksmen—especially a rebel African, who used his
musket with deadly effect from Johannes’ house. If Sir Henry Lawrence
had been a sterner soldier, if he had not been influenced by such
considerate feelings for the opinions and prejudices of others, the
British would have lost fewer lives than they did in Lucknow. We have
already said that many of the houses around the Residency were
destroyed by orders of Sir Henry, to prevent the enemy from converting
them into strongholds; but it was afterwards known that the military
officers under him urged the necessity for a still greater demolition.
Brigadier Inglis, when at a later date he made a military report of
the siege and the defence, adverted to this point in very decisive
language. ‘When the blockade commenced,’ he said, ‘only two of our
batteries were completed, part of the defences were yet in an
unfinished condition, and the buildings in the immediate vicinity,
which gave cover to the enemy, were only very partially cleared away.
Indeed, our heaviest losses have been caused by the fire from the
enemy’s sharpshooters, stationed in the adjoining mosques and houses
of the native nobility, to the necessity of destroying which the
attention of Sir Henry had been repeatedly drawn by the staff of
engineers; but his invariable reply was: “Spare the holy places, and
private property too, as far as possible;” and we have consequently
suffered severely from our very tenderness to the religious prejudices
and respect to the rights of our rebellious citizens and soldiery. As
soon as the enemy had thoroughly completed the investment of the
Residency, they occupied these houses, some of which were within easy
pistol-shot of our barricades, in immense force, and rapidly made
loopholes on those sides which bore on our post, from which they kept
up a terrific and incessant fire day and night.’
The second week of the siege began, bringing with it an augmentation of
the troubles already bitterly tasted. One day the Bailey guard would be
fiercely attacked, another day the Cawnpore Battery, demanding incessant
watchfulness on the part of the officers and men posted at those
outworks. Brigadier Inglis sent off letters and messages to Cawnpore and
Allahabad; but none reached their destination, the messengers being all
intercepted on the way. He did not know how his missives fared; he only
knew that no aid, no intelligence, reached him, and he measured his
resources with an anxious heart. Sometimes a few officers would retire
to snatch a little rest just before midnight, and then would be roused
at one or two o’clock in the morning by a message that Gubbins’s
house—or ‘garrison,’ as most of the houses within the enclosure were now
called—or the Bailey guard, or some other important post, was closely
attacked. Sleep, food, everything was forgotten at such moments, except
the one paramount duty of repelling the enemy at the attacked point. One
day a rebel musketeer pushed forward to such a spot as enabled him to
shoot Lieutenant Charlton within side the very door of the church. The
enemy sometimes fired logs of wood from their cannon and mortars, as if
deficient in shot and shell; but they did not slacken from this or any
other cause; they sent shots which set the commissioner’s house on fire,
causing much danger and difficulty in extinguishing the flames; and it
became perilous for any one within the enclosure to be seen for an
instant by the enemy—so deadly accurate were their marksmen. Once now
and then the officers with a few men, longing for a dash that would
inspirit them in the midst of their troubles, would astonish the enemy
by making a sortie beyond the defences, spiking a gun or two,
despatching a few of the rebels, and hastening back to the enclosure.
Lives being, however, too valuable to be risked for advantages so small
as these, the brigadier sought rather to discourage than encourage such
acts of heroism. Mr Bryson and Lieutenant Baxter were among the many who
fell at this time. The officers did men’s duty, the civilians did
military duty; for there were not hands enough to guard properly the
numerous threatened points. One night all spare hands would be called
upon to cover with tarpaulin the bhoosa stacks in the racket-court; on
another, civilians who never before did labourers’ work were called up
to dig earth and to carry sand-bags for batteries or breastworks; or
they would stand sentinels all night in drenching rains. And then,
perhaps on returning to their houses or ‘garrisons’ in the morning, they
would find them untenable by reason of the torrent of balls and bullets
to which they had been exposed. The open spots between the several
buildings became gradually more and more dangerous. ‘A man could not
shew his nose,’ says Captain Anderson, ‘without hearing the whiz of
bullets close to his head. The shot, too, came from every direction; and
when a poor fellow had nearly jerked his head off his shoulders in
making humble salutations to passing bullets, he would have his penance
disagreeably changed into a sudden and severe contortion of the whole
body to avoid a round shot or shell. So soon as a man left his post he
had no time for meditation; his only plan was to proceed rapidly. In
fact, to walk slow was in some places very, very dangerous; and many a
poor fellow was shot, who was too proud to run past places where bullets
danced on the walls like a handful of pease in a frying-pan.’
The third week arrived. Now were the gallant defenders still more
distressed and indignant than they had hitherto been; for the enemy
commenced firing at the Brigade Mess, where large numbers of ladies and
children had taken refuge; attacks were thus made on those who could not
defend themselves, and the officers and soldiers found their attention
distracted from necessary duties at other points. Anderson’s house had
by this time become so riddled with shot, that the stores were removed
from it; and Deprat’s house, similarly battered by the enemy, in like
manner became uninhabitable. The buildings near the boundary naturally
suffered most; and, as a consequence, those nearer the centre became
more and more crowded with inmates. Day by day did officers and men work
hard to strengthen the defences. Mortars were placed behind the
earthwork at the post-office, to jet forth shells upon the troublesome
Johannes’ house; stockades and traverses were made, to screen the
entrance to the Residency, within which so many persons were domiciled.
Nevertheless the attack increased in vigour quite as rapidly as the
defence; for the insurgents appear to have received large
reinforcements. Their custom was to fire all night, so as to afford the
garrison no rest, and thus tire them out; they so pointed a mortar as to
send two shells directly into the Residency itself; they commenced a new
battery, to bear upon Gubbins’s house; their cannon-balls—of which there
were indications of a new supply—fell upon and into Fayrer’s and
Gubbins’s houses, the post-office and the Brigade Mess; a shot burst
through a room in which many of the principal officers were
breakfasting; a mine was sprung inside the Water Gate, intended to blow
up the Redan Battery; and at the same time vigorous attacks were made
with guns and musketry on almost every part of the enclosure, as if to
bewilder the garrison with crushing onslaughts on every side. The pen
cannot describe the state of incessant anxiety into which these daily
proceedings threw the forlorn inmates of the place: no one could look
forward to a night of sleep after a harassing day; for the booming of
cannon, and the anticipated visit of a cannon-ball or a mortar-shell,
drove away sleep from most eyelids. It was on the 20th that the
specially vigorous attack, just adverted to, was made; so general and
energetic, that it almost partook of the character of a storming or
assault of a beleaguered city. Nothing but the most untiring assiduity
could have saved the garrison from destruction. Every one who could
handle a musket or load a cannon, did so; others helped to construct
stockades and earthen barriers; and even many of the sick and wounded
rose from their pallets, staggered along to the points most attacked,
sought to aid in the general cause, and in some instances dropped dead
while so doing. Almost every building was the object of a distinct
attack. The Redan Battery was fortunately not blown up, the enemy having
miscalculated the distance of their mine; but the explosion was followed
by a desperate struggle on the glacis outside, in which the insurgents
were mowed down by grape-shot before they would abandon their attempt to
enter at that point. At Innes’s house, Lieutenant Loughnan maintained a
long and fierce contest against a body of insurgents twentyfold more
numerous than the little band who aided him; before they desisted, no
less than a hundred dead and wounded were carried off by the rebels. The
financial office and Sago’s house, entirely defended by non-military
men, bore up bravely against the torrent brought against them. The
judicial office, under Captain Germon, and Anderson’s house, under
Captain Anderson, were not only successfully defended, but the handful
of troops aided other points where there were no military men. The
Brigade Mess, Gubbins’s house, the houses near the Cawnpore Battery—all
were attacked with vigour, but every attack was repelled.
When the muster-roll was called after these exciting scenes, it was
found that many valuable lives had been lost. Yet is it truly remarkable
that less than thirty persons of all classes in the garrison were killed
or wounded on the 20th. No officer was killed; among the wounded were
Captains Lowe and Forbes, Lieutenants Edmonstone and M’Farlane, and
Adjutant Smith. Mr Rees asserts that the loss of the enemy, during seven
hours of incessant fighting, could hardly have been less than a thousand
men. It was the grape-shot poured forth from the garrison that worked
this terrible destruction. The week had been attended with its usual
list of isolated losses within the enclosure. On one day Lieutenant
Lester was killed; on another, Lieutenants Bryce and O’Brien were
wounded; and on another, Lieutenant Harmer was laid low.
The arrival of the fourth week of the siege found Brigadier Inglis and
his companions stout in heart, but yet depressed in spirits; proud of
what they had achieved on the 20th, but fearful that many more such
dangers would beset them. The detachment of the 32d foot was that on
which Inglis most relied in a military point of view, and in that the
casualties had been 150 in three weeks. He had sent out repeated
messengers, but had hitherto obtained not a word of news from any
quarter; shut out from the world of India, he knew of nothing but his
own cares and responsibilities. On the 23d, however, a gleam of joy shot
through the garrison; a messenger, amid imminent peril, had been to
Cawnpore, and brought back news of Havelock’s victories in the Doab.
Inglis immediately sent him off again, with an urgent request to the
gallant general to advance with his column to Lucknow as quickly as
possible. The English residents began to count the days that must elapse
before Havelock could arrive—a hopeful thing at the time, but bitterly
disappointing afterwards; for they knew not how or why it was that
succour did not arrive. Whatever might be the hopes or fears for the
future, there was an ever-present danger which demanded daily and hourly
attention. Although mortified by their late defeat, the enemy did not on
that account give up their attacks. On narrowly watching, the engineers
detected the enemy forming a mine beneath the ground from Johannes’
house to the Sikh Square and the Brigade Mess; they could hear the
miners at their subterraneous work, and they did what military engineers
are accustomed to in such cases—run out a countermine, and destroy the
enemy’s handiwork by an explosion. Above ground the attack was
maintained chiefly by artillery, the hurling of balls, shells,
shrapnels, and those abominable compounds of pitchy and sulphureous
substances which artillerymen call ‘stinkpots.’ The breakfast-table of
the officers at the post-office was one morning visited by an eight-inch
shell, which fell on it without exploding. On the 25th a letter arrived
from Colonel Tytler at Cawnpore, the first received from any quarter
throughout July; for the former messenger had brought rumours concerning
Havelock, not a letter or a message. Great was the joy at learning that
Havelock intended to advance to Lucknow; and Inglis at once sent off to
him a plan of the city, to aid his proceedings—offering the messenger
five thousand rupees if he safely brought back an answer. An anxious
time indeed was it for all, and well might they look out for succour.
Major Banks, the civil commissioner appointed by Sir Henry Lawrence, was
shot dead while reconnoitring from the top of an outhouse; he was an
officer who had served nearly thirty years in India, and who, both as a
soldier and a linguist, had won a good name. Dr Brydon was wounded; the
Rev. Mr Polehampton was killed, as were Lieutenants Lewin, Shepherd, and
Archer, and many others whose lives were valuable, not only to their
families, but to all in the garrison. The death of Major Banks increased
the cares and responsibilities of Brigadier Inglis, who, now that there
was no chief-commissioner, felt the necessity of placing the whole
community under strict military-garrison rules.
In the official dispatch afterwards prepared by Inglis, full justice was
done to the ingenuity and perseverance of the besiegers. Speaking of the
large guns placed in batteries on every side of the enclosure, he said:
‘These were planted all round our post at small distances, some being
actually within fifty yards of our defences, but in places where our own
heavy guns could not reply to them; while the perseverance and ingenuity
of the enemy in erecting barricades in front of and around their guns,
in a very short time rendered all attempts to silence them by musketry
entirely unavailing. Neither could they be effectually silenced by
shells, by reason of their extreme proximity to our position, and
because, moreover, the enemy had recourse to digging very narrow
trenches about eight feet in depth in rear of each gun, in which the men
lay while our shells were flying, and which so effectually concealed
them, even while working the gun, that our baffled sharpshooters could
only see their hands while in the act of loading.’
And now, the reader may ask, what were the ladies and children doing
during this terrible month of July; and how did the officers and men
fare in their domestic and personal matters? It is a sad tale, full of
trouble and misery; and yet it is a heroic tale. No one flinched, no one
dreamed for an instant of succumbing to the enemy. It must be
remembered, as a beginning of all the privations, that the Europeans
went into the Residency very scantily supplied with personal
necessaries. When the cantonment was burned during the mutiny of the
31st of May, much property belonging to the officers was destroyed; and
when every one hurried in for shelter after the disastrous 30th of June,
no time was allowed for making purchases in the city, or bringing in
property from bungalows or storehouses outside the official stronghold.
Hence every one was driven to make the best of such commodities as had
been secured by the last day of June. Even during the greater part of
that month the troubles were many; the enclosure Residency was full of
officers and men, all hard at work; the heat was excessive; cholera,
dysentery, and small-pox were at their deadly work; the church being
full of grain, those who sought religious aid in time of need met for
divine service in any available spot; most of the native servants ran
away when the troubles began; and many of them ended their service by
robbing their masters.
How July opened for the British, may faintly be imagined. The
commissariat chief was ill; no one could promptly organise that office
under the sudden emergency; the food and draught bullocks, unattended
to, roamed about the place; and many of them were shot, or tumbled into
wells. Terrible work was it for the officers to bury the killed
bullocks, lest their decaying carcasses should taint the air in
excessively hot weather. Some of the artillery horses were driven mad
for want of food and water. Day after day, after working hard in the
trenches, the officers had to employ themselves at night in burying dead
bullocks and horses—officers, be it understood; for the men were all
employed as sentries or in other duties. It was not until after many
days that they could turn out of the enclosure all the spare horses, and
secure the rest. As the heat continued, and as the dead bodies of
animals increased in number, the stench became overpowering, and was one
of the greatest grievances to which the garrison were exposed; the
temperature at night was often less patiently borne than that by day,
and the officers and men were troubled by painful boils. Even when wet
days occurred, matters were not much improved; for the hot vapours from
stagnant pools engendered fever, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhœa. The
children died rapidly, and the hospital-rooms were always full; the sick
and wounded could not be carried to upper apartments, because the
enemy’s shot and shell rendered all such places untenable. The officers
were put on half-rations early in the month; and even those rations they
in many cases had to cook for themselves, owing to the disappearance of
the native servants. The English ladies suffered unnumbered privations
and inconveniences. The clergyman’s wife, in her _Diary_, told of the
very first day of the siege in these words: ‘No sooner was the first gun
fired, than the ladies and children—congregated in large numbers in Dr
Fayrer’s house—were all hurried down stairs into an underground room
called the Tye Khana, damp, dark, and gloomy as a vault, and excessively
dirty. Here we sat all day, feeling too miserable, anxious, and
terrified to speak, the gentlemen occasionally coming down to reassure
us and tell us how things were going on. —— was nearly all the day in
the hospital, where the scene was terrible; the place so crowded with
wounded and dying men that there was no room to pass between them, and
everything in a state of indescribable misery, discomfort, and
confusion.’ In the preceding month it had been a hardship for the ladies
to be deprived of the luxuries of Anglo-Indian life; but they were now
driven to measure comforts by a different standard. They were called
upon to sweep their own rooms, draw water from the wells, wash their own
clothes, and perform all the menial duties of a household; while their
husbands or fathers were cramped up in little outhouses or stables, or
anywhere that might afford temporary shelter at night. When food became
scanty and disease prevalent, these troubles were of course augmented,
and difference of rank became almost obliterated where all had to suffer
alike. Many families were huddled together in one large room, and all
privacy was destroyed. The sick and wounded were, as may be supposed, in
sad plight; for, kind as the rest were, there were too many harassing
duties to permit them to help adequately those who were too weak to help
themselves. Officers and men were lying about in the hospital rooms,
covered with blood and often with vermin; the _dhobees_ or washermen
were too weak-handed for the preservation of cleanliness, and few of the
British had the luxury of a change of linen; the windows being kept
closed and barricaded, to prevent the entrance of shot from without, the
pestilential atmosphere carried off almost as many unfortunates as the
enemy’s missiles. The writer of the _Lady’s Diary_, whose narrative is
seldom relieved by one gleam of cheerfulness, departs from her habitual
sadness when describing the mode in which eleven ladies and seven
children slept on the floor in the Tye Khana or cellar, ‘fitting into
each other like bits into a puzzle.’ Chairs being few in number, most of
the ladies sat on the floor, and at meal-times placed their plates on
their knees. The cellar being perfectly dark, candles were lighted at
meal-times. The reason for keeping so many persons in this subterranean
abode was to lessen the chance of their being shot in any upper
apartment. Of one torment, the flies, every person complained bitterly
who was shut up in the Residency enclosure on those fearfully hot days.
Mr Rees says: ‘They daily increased to such an extent that we at last
began to feel life irksome, more on their account than from any other of
our numerous troubles. In the day, flies; at night, mosquitoes. But the
latter were bearable; the former intolerable. Lucknow had always been
noted for its flies; but at no time had they been known to be so
troublesome. The mass of putrid matter that was allowed to accumulate,
the rains, the commissariat stores, the hospital, had attracted these
insects in incredible numbers. The Egyptians could not possibly have
been more molested than we were by this pest. They swarmed in millions,
and though we blew daily some hundreds of thousands into the air, this
seemed to make no diminution in their numbers; the ground was still
black with them, and the tables were literally covered with these cursed
flies. We could not sleep in the day on account of them. We could
scarcely eat. Our beef, of which we got a tolerably small quantity every
day, was usually studded with them; and when I ate my miserable boiled
lentil-soup and unleavened bread, a number of scamps flew into my mouth,
or tumbled into and floated about in my plate.’
Let us proceed, and watch the military operations of the month of
August.
The fifth week of the siege opened with the same scenes as before,
deepened in intensity. The enemy, it is true, did not attack with more
vigour, but the defenders were gradually weakened in every one of their
resources—except courage, and the resolution to bear all rather than
yield to the enemy. Colonel Tytler’s letter had afforded hope that the
relieving column under Havelock would arrive at Lucknow before the end
of July; but when the 30th and 31st had passed, and the 1st and 2d of
August had passed also, then were their hopes cruelly dashed. It
required all the energy of Brigadier Inglis to keep up the spirits of
himself and his companions under the disappointment. He did not know,
and was destined to remain for some time in ignorance, that Havelock had
been forced to return to Cawnpore, owing to the losses suffered by his
heroic little band. About the beginning of the month, great numbers of
additional rebel sepoys entered Lucknow, increasing the phalanx opposed
to the British. They began a new mine near Sago’s house, and another
near the Brigade Mess, in which many of the ladies and children were
sheltered; and it required all the activity of the officers to frustrate
these underground enemies. The rebels planted a 24-pounder near the iron
bridge, to batter the church and the Residency. On one day a shell burst
in a room of the Begum’s Kothee, where Lieutenant James and Mr Lawrence
were ill in bed, but without injuring them; and on another a soldier was
shot dead by a cannon-ball in the very centre room of the hospital.
Inglis tried, but tried in vain, to get any one to take a letter, even
so small as to go into a quill, to Havelock; the enterprise was so
perilous, that the offer of a great reward fell powerless. Thus reduced
to his own resources, he began anxiously to count up his stores and
supplies: he protected the powder-magazine with heavy beams, laden with
a great thickness of earth; and he got the civilians to labour at the
earthworks, and to watch the batteries, for nearly all his engineers
were ill. One engineer-officer, Captain Fulton, was happily spared from
illness longer than most of the others; and he laboured unremittingly
and most skilfully to baffle the enemy’s mining by countermining: he
organised a body of sappers from among the humbler members of the
garrison, and begged every one who did sentry-duty at night to listen
for and give information concerning any underground sounds that denoted
the driving of galleries or mines by the enemy. One of the ladies, Mrs
Dorin, was among the number who this week fell from the shots of the
enemy. An event of this kind was peculiarly distressing to all; an
officer learns to brave death, but he is inexpressibly saddened when he
sees tender women falling near him by bullets.
The sixth week arrived. The brigadier, by redoubling his offers, did at
length succeed in obtaining the aid of a native, who started on the
dangerous duty of conveying a small note to General Havelock at
Cawnpore. This done, he renewed his anxious superintendence of matters
within the enclosure. The enemy mounted on the top of Johannes’ house,
and thence kept up a very annoying fire on the Brigade Mess. They also
recommenced mining near the Redan. On the 8th of August the garrison
could hear and see much marching and countermarching of troops within
the city, without being able to divine its cause; they fondly hoped,
when the booming of guns was heard, that Havelock was approaching. This
hope was, however, speedily and bitterly dashed; for on the following
day a great force of rebels was seen to approach from the direction of
the cantonment, cross the river, and join the main body of the
insurgents within Lucknow. This was a bad omen, for it prefigured an
increase in the number, frequency, and varieties of attack. On the 10th
the enemy succeeded in exploding one of their mines opposite Johannes’
house; it blew up sixty feet of palisades and earthen defences. Under
cover of this surprise, and of a tremendous firing of guns, the enemy
pushed forward into all the buildings near the Cawnpore Battery and
Johannes’ house; but they encountered so steady and determined a
resistance that they were beaten at all points. Near Sago’s house, too,
they fired another mine, which blew up two soldiers; but here, in like
manner, they were repulsed after a fierce contest. This explosion was
accompanied or attended by an incident almost as strange as that
connected with the soldier at Muchee Bhowan; the two men were blown into
the air, but both escaped with their lives; one fell within the
enclosure, slightly bruised, but not seriously injured; the other,
falling into an open road between the enclosure and the enemy, jumped up
when he found himself unhurt, and clambered over a wall or through the
breach, untouched by the storm of bullets sent after him. On the same
day there were other attacks on Innes’s, Anderson’s, and Gubbins’s
houses or garrisons. Of the attacks on the Brigade Mess, the Cawnpore
Battery, and Anderson’s house, Brigadier Inglis afterwards thus spoke in
his dispatch: ‘The enemy sprang a mine close to the Brigade Mess, which
entirely destroyed our defences for the space of twenty feet, and blew
in a great portion of the outside wall of the house occupied by Mr
Schilling’s garrison. On the dust clearing away, a breach appeared
through which a regiment could have advanced in perfect order, and a few
of the enemy came on with the utmost determination; but they were met
with such a withering flank-fire of musketry from the officers and men
holding the top of the Brigade Mess, that they beat a speedy retreat,
leaving the more adventurous of their numbers lying on the crest of the
breach. While this operation was going on, another large body advanced
on the Cawnpore Battery, and succeeded in locating themselves for a few
minutes in the ditch. They were, however, dislodged by hand-grenades. At
Captain Anderson’s post, they also came boldly forward with
scaling-ladders, which they planted against the wall; but here, as
elsewhere, they were met with the most indomitable resolution; and the
leaders being slain, the rest fled, leaving the ladders, and retreated
to their batteries and loopholed defences, whence they kept up for the
rest of the day an unusually heavy cannonade and musketry fire.’ All the
attacks, it is true, were frustrated, but only by fearful labour on the
part of the defenders; every man was worn down by exhaustion on this
terrible day. A message or rather a rumour was received, obscure in its
purport, but conveying the impression that Havelock had been baffled in
his attempt to reach Lucknow: news that produced very great despondency
in the garrison, among those who had become sick at heart as well as in
body. When a cannon-ball rushed along and demolished the verandah of the
Residency or chief-commissioner’s house, it could not do less than add
to the trepidation of the numerous families domiciled within the walls
of that building, already brought into a state of nervous agitation by
the incessant noises and dangers. Death and wounds were as rife as ever
during this week. A shot broke the leg of Ensign Studdy while
breakfasting in the Residency; Captain Waterman was wounded; Lieutenant
Bryce died of a wound received some days earlier; Major Anderson,
chief-engineer, died of dysentery and over-fatigue, bringing grief to
the whole garrison for the loss of a most valuable and intrepid officer.
These were the chief names: those of humbler rank who fell to rise no
more were too many to be officially recorded; they were hastily buried
in the church-yard, and soon driven from the memories of those who had
no time to dwell on the past.
Up to the day when the seventh week of the siege opened, there had been
twenty letters sent for succour, first by Sir Henry Lawrence, and then
by Brigadier Inglis; and to only one of these had a direct reply been
received. Only a few of them, indeed, had reached their destinations;
and of these few, a reply from one alone safely passed through all the
perils between Cawnpore and Lucknow. As has been already said, this
reply was not such as to comfort the British residents; they had to
rouse themselves to a continuance of the same kind of exertions as
before. The enemy did not give them one day, scarcely one hour, of rest.
On the 12th of August so fierce an attack was made on the Cawnpore
Battery, that all the defenders were forced to shield themselves from
the balls and bullets—still remaining at hand, however, in case a closer
assault were attempted. It being found, too, that a mine was being run
by the enemy in the direction of Sago’s house, some of the officers made
a daring sortie to examine this mine, much to their own peril. Then
commenced, as before, a system of countermining, each party of miners
being able to hear the other working in an adjoining gallery; it became
a struggle which should blow the other up; the British succeeded, and
shattered all the works of the enemy at that spot. Nothing in the whole
progress of the siege was more extraordinary than this perpetual mining
and countermining. While the infantry and artillery on both sides were
at their usual deadly work in the open air, the Sappers and Miners were
converting the ground beneath into a honey-comb of dark galleries and
passages—the enemy attempting to blow up the defence-works, and the
defenders attempting to anticipate this by blowing up the enemy.
Whenever the firing by the mutineers slackened in any material degree,
the defenders took advantage of the opportunity to make new sand-bags
for batteries and earthworks, in place of the old ones which had been
destroyed. The 15th of August was a white day within the enclosure; _no
burial took place_. It was also rendered notable by the receipt of a
letter from General Havelock—a letter telling of inability to afford
present succour, and therefore a mournful letter; but still it was
better than none, seeing that it pointed out to all the necessity for
continued exertions in the common cause. Now came the time when a great
increase of discomfort was in store for the numerous persons who had
been accommodated in the Residency, the official house of the
chief-commissioner. The building had been so shaken by shells and balls
that it was no longer secure; and the inmates were removed to other
quarters. On the 18th a terrible commotion took place; the enemy
exploded a mine under the Sikh Square or barrack, and made a breach of
thirty feet in the defence-boundary of the enclosure. Instantly all
hands were set to work; boxes, planks, doors, beams, were brought from
various quarters to stop up the gap; while muskets and pistols were
brought to bear upon the assailants. Not only did the gallant fellows
within the enclosure repel the enemy, but they made a sortie, and blew
up some of the exterior buildings which were in inconvenient proximity.
By the explosion on this day, Captain Orr, Lieutenant Meecham, and other
officers and men, were hurled into the air, but with less serious
results than might have been expected; several, however, were suffocated
by the débris which fell upon them.
By the eighth week the garrison had become in a strange way accustomed
to bullets and balls; that is, though always in misery of some kind or
other, the report of firearms had been rendered so thoroughly familiar
to them, through every day and night’s experience, that it was a matter
of course to hear missiles whiz past the ear. Mr Rees, speaking of his
daily movements from building to building in the enclosure, says: ‘At
one time a bullet passed through my hat; at another I escaped being shot
dead by one of the enemy’s best riflemen, by an unfortunate soldier
passing unexpectedly before me, and receiving the wound through the
temples instead; at another I moved off from a place where in less than
a twinkling of an eye afterwards a musket-bullet stuck in the wall; at
another, again, I was covered with dust and pieces of brick by a
round-shot that struck the wall not two inches away from me; at another,
again, a shell burst a couple of yards away from me, killing an old
woman, and wounding a native boy and a native cook.’ Every day was
marked by some vicissitudes. On the 20th, the enemy opened a tremendous
cannonading, which knocked down a guard-room over the Mess-house, and
lessened the number of places from which the garrison could obtain a
look-out. The enemy were also on that day detected in the attempt to run
new mines under the Cawnpore Battery and the Bailey guard. This led to a
brilliant sortie, headed by Captain M’Cabe and Lieutenant Browne, which
resulted not only in the spiking of two of the enemy’s guns, but also in
the blowing up of Johannes’ house, which had been such a perpetual
source of annoyance to the garrison. It was one of the best day’s work
yet accomplished, and cheered the poor, hard-worked fellows for a time.
Yet they had enough to trouble them; the Cawnpore and Redan batteries
were almost knocked to pieces, and needed constant repair; the judicial
office became so riddled with shot that the women and children had to be
removed from it; the enemy’s sharpshooters were deadly accurate in their
aim; their miners began new mines as fast as the old ones were destroyed
or rendered innoxious; and Inglis’s little band was rapidly thinning.