DELHI: THE LEAP ON THE CITY
On September 13 four engineer officers—Medley and Lang, Greathed and
Home—undertook the perilous task of examining the breaches in the enemy’s
defences. Medley and Lang were detailed to examine the Cashmere Bastion,
and Lang asked to be allowed to go while it was yet daylight. Leave was
granted; and, with an escort of four men of the 60th, he crept to the
edge of the cover on the British front, then coolly ran up the glacis and
sat down upon the top of the counterscarp, under a heavy fire, studying
the ditch and the two breaches beyond, and returned unhurt, to pronounce
the breach practicable! It was necessary, however, to ascertain the depth
of the ditch, and Lang and Medley were sent again, after nightfall, on
this business.
Medley himself may tell the story of the daring adventure:—
It was a bright, starlight night, with no moon, and the roar
of the batteries, and clear, abrupt reports of the shells
from the mortars, alone broke the stillness of the scene;
while the flashes of the rockets, carcasses, and fireballs
lighting up the air ever and anon made a really beautiful
spectacle. The ghurees struck ten, and, as preconcerted,
the fire of the batteries suddenly ceased. Our party was in
readiness. We drew swords, felt that our revolvers were ready
to hand, and, leaving the shelter of the picquet, such as it
was, advanced stealthily into the enemy’s country.... With
the six men who were to accompany us, Lang and I emerged into
the open, and pushed straight for the breach. In five minutes
we found ourselves on the edge of the ditch, the dark mass of
the Cashmere Bastion immediately on the other side, and the
breach distinctly discernible. Not a soul was in sight. The
counterscarp was sixteen feet deep, and steep. Lang slid down
first, I passed down the ladder, and, taking two men out of the
six, descended after him, leaving the other four on the cope to
cover our retreat.
Two minutes more and we should have been at the top of
the breach. But, quiet as we had been, the enemy were on
the watch, and we heard several men running from the left
towards the breach. We therefore reascended, though with
some difficulty, and, throwing ourselves down on the grass,
waited in silence for what was to happen. A number of figures
immediately appeared on the top of the breach, their forms
clearly discernible against the bright sky, and not twenty
yards distant. We, however, were in the deep shade, and they
could not, apparently, see us. They conversed in a low tone,
and presently we heard the ring of their steel ramrods as they
loaded. We waited quietly, hoping that they would go away, when
another attempt might be made. Meanwhile, we could see that the
breach was a good one, the slope being easy of ascent, and that
there were no guns on the flank. We knew by experience, too,
that the ditch was easy of descent. After waiting, therefore,
some minutes longer, I gave the signal. The whole of us jumped
up at once and ran back towards our own ground. Directly we
were discovered a volley was sent after us. The balls came
whizzing about our ears, but no one was touched.
The other engineers performed their task with equal coolness and daring,
and at midnight all the breaches were reported practicable, and it was
resolved that the assault should be made in the morning.
Nicholson, at the head of a column of 1000 men—of whom 300 belonged to
the 75th—was to carry the breach near the Cashmere Bastion. The second
column, under Brigadier Jones, composed of the 8th, the 2nd Bengal
Fusileers, and the 4th Sikhs—850 in all—was to assail the gap near the
Water Bastion. The third column, 950 strong, under Campbell, of the
52nd, was to blow in the Cashmere Gate and fight its way into the city.
The fourth column, under Major Reid, made up of the Guides’ Infantry,
Ghoorkas, and men from the picquets, was to break in an entrance by the
Lahore Gate. A reserve column, 1000 strong, under Brigadier Longfield,
of the 8th, was to feed the attack at any point where help was required.
Five thousand men were thus to fling themselves on a great city held by
50,000!
It was three o’clock in the morning, the stars still burning in the
measureless depths of the Indian sky, when the columns stood in grim
silence ready for the assault. The chaplain of the forces records that
in not a few of the tents the service for the day was read before the
men went out into the darkness to join the columns. The lesson for the
day, as it happened, was Nahum iii., and the opening verse runs, “Woe to
the bloody city! It is full of lies and robbery.... Behold, I am against
thee, saith the Lord of Hosts.”
How do men feel who gather at such an hour and for such a deed? Lord
Roberts quotes from a brother officer’s diary a curious little picture of
British soldiers preparing themselves for one of the most daring exploits
in the history of war:—
We each of us looked carefully to the reloading of our pistols,
filling of flasks and getting as good protection as possible
for our heads, which would be exposed so much going up the
ladders. I wound two puggaries or turbans round my old forage
cap, with the last letter from the hills in the top, and
committed myself to the care of Providence. There was not much
sleep that night in our camp. I dropped off now and then, but
never for long, and whenever I woke I could see that there was
a light in more than one of the officers’ tents, and talking
was going on in a low tone amongst the men, the snapping of a
lock or the springing of a ramrod sounding far in the still
air, telling of preparation for the coming strife. A little
after midnight we fell in as quickly as possible, and by the
light of a lantern the orders for the assault were then read
to the men. Any officer or man who might be wounded was to
be left where he fell; no one was to step from the ranks to
help him, as there were no men to spare. If the assault were
successful he would be taken away in the doolies, or litters,
and carried to the rear, or wherever he could best receive
medical assistance. If we failed, wounded and sound should be
prepared to bear the worst. No prisoners were to be made, as
we had no one to guard them, and care was to be taken that no
women or children were injured. To this the men answered at
once by “No fear, sir.” The officers now pledged their honour,
on their swords, to abide by these orders, and the men then
promised to follow their example.
At this moment, just as the regiment was about to march off,
Father Bertrand came up in his vestments, and, addressing the
Colonel, begged for permission to bless the regiment, saying,
“We may differ, some of us, in matters of religion, but the
blessing of an old man and a clergyman can do nothing but
good.” The colonel at once assented, and Father Bertrand,
lifting his hands to heaven, blessed the regiment in a most
impressive manner, offering up at the same time a prayer for
our success, and for mercy on the souls of those soon to die.
The dash on the city was to have taken place at three o’clock in the
morning, but it was difficult to collect all the men from the picquets
who were to take part in the assault, and day was breaking before the
columns were complete. The engineers, closely examining the breaches,
found that during the night the Sepoys had blocked up the gaps with
sand-bags and had improvised _chevaux de frise_. The attack was
accordingly held back for a few minutes while the British batteries
re-opened for the purpose of smashing the new defences.
The sun was clear of the horizon when, at a signal, the batteries ceased.
A sudden silence fell on the slope of the Ridge and on the enemy’s wall.
A thrill ran through the waiting columns, as each man, like a hound
on the leash, braced himself up for the desperate rush. Nicholson had
been standing, silent and alone, in front of his column; and now with a
gesture of his hand he gave the signal. A shout, sudden, and stern, and
fierce, broke through the air. It came from the 60th Rifles, who with a
vehement cheer ran out to the front in skirmishing order, and in a moment
the four columns were in swift and orderly movement. Then the enemy’s
guns from every point broke into flame!
It is impossible to compress into a few paragraphs of cold type the story
of that great assault; the fire and passion of the charge, the stubborn
fury of the defence, the long, mad struggle through the streets. And the
fact that four desperate combats at as many separate points broke out at
once makes it still more difficult to give any single connected picture
of the scene.
Nicholson led column No. 1 steadily forward till it reached the edge of
the jungle. Then the engineers and storming party went forward at a run.
They reached the crest of the glacis, and stood there under a perfect
blaze of musketry. The stormers had outrun the ladder parties! The ditch
gaped sixteen feet wide below them. The breach in front was crowded
with dark figures, shouting, firing, hurling stones, all in a tempest
of Eastern fury. The ladders were quickly up, and were dropped into the
ditch. The men leaped down, and almost with the same impulse swept up
the further side—Nicholson’s tall figure leading—and men and officers,
contending madly with each other who should be first, raced up the broken
slope of the breach, dashed the Sepoys back in confused flight, and
gained the city!
The second column was as gallantly led as the first, and met with an
almost fiercer resistance. At the signal its storming party ran out from
the shelter of the Customs house. The two engineer officers, Greathed and
Ovenden, and twenty-nine men out of the thirty-nine who formed the ladder
parties were instantly shot down; but the attack never paused for an
instant. The men of the 8th, the Sikhs, and the Fusileers came on with a
silent speed and fury that nothing could stop. The ditch was crossed, as
with a single effort. One officer—little more than a lad—Ensign Phillips,
with soldierly quickness, and with the help of a few riflemen, swung
round the guns on the Water Bastion, and opened fire with them on the
Sepoys themselves.
The assault of the third column, directed at the Cashmere Gate, is,
perhaps, the most picturesque and well-known incident in the wild story
of that morning. This column did not find a breach; one had to be made!
Campbell brought up his column within sight of the Cashmere Gate, but
under cover; then, at the signal, a little cluster of soldiers ran out
towards the gate. Its first section consisted of Home, of the Engineers,
with two sergeants and ten sappers, each man carrying a bag containing
twenty-five pounds of gunpowder. Behind them ran a firing party of the
52nd, under Salkeld. The sight of that little, daring handful of men,
charging straight for the gate, so amazed the Sepoys that for a few
moments they stared at them without firing. Then, from the wall on either
side of the gate, from above the gate itself, and from an open wicket in
its broad expanse, broke a sustained and angry blaze of musketry!
To run steadily on in the teeth of such a fire was a feat of amazing
courage. But, Home leading, the little cluster of heroes never faltered.
The bridge in front of the gate had been almost completely destroyed, a
single beam being stretched across the ditch; and, in single file, each
man carrying his bag of powder, Home’s party—by this time reduced to
nearly one-half of its number—crossed, flung down the bags of powder at
the foot of the gate, and then leaped into the ditch for cover, leaving
the firing party behind to make the explosion.
Salkeld came up at a run, carrying the port-fire in his hand, his men,
with bent heads, racing beside him. Salkeld fell, shot through the leg
and arm; but, like the runner in Greek games, he handed the port-fire as
he fell to Corporal Burgess, who in turn, as he bent over the powder, was
shot dead. Lord Roberts says that in falling he yet ignited the powder.
Malleson, on the other hand, says that Sergeant Carmichael snatched the
port-fire from the dying hand of Burgess, lit the fuse, and then, in his
turn, fell mortally wounded. On this another brave fellow named Smith,
thinking Carmichael had failed, ran forward to seize the port-fire, but
saw the fuse burning, and leaped into the ditch, just in time to escape
the explosion.
In a moment there was a blast as of thunder, and—not the gate
unfortunately, but merely the little wicket in it, had vanished! The
bugler from the ditch sounded the advance; but such was the tumult of
battle now raging that the storming parties of the 52nd, waiting eagerly
to make their rush, heard neither the explosion nor the bugle-call.
Campbell, their colonel, however, had seen the flame of the explosion,
and gave the word. The storming party and the supports, all intermixed,
ran forward at the double, they crossed, man after man, the single beam
remaining of the bridge, and crept through the wicket. They found within
the gate an overturned cannon, and some blackened Sepoy corpses. The main
body followed, and from the two breaches and the Cashmere Gate the three
columns met, breathless, confused, but triumphant, in the open space
between the Cashmere Gate and the church.
The fourth column alone of the assaulting parties practically failed.
A battle is always rich in blunders; and the guns, which were to
have accompanied the column, somehow failed to arrive, and Reid, its
commander, pushed on without them. He had to face an unbroken wall 18
feet high, lined with guns and marksmen. Reid himself fell, wounded and
insensible, and there was some confusion as to who should take his place
as leader. It was expected that the Lahore Gate would have been opened
from within by the advance of the first column, but, before the Lahore
Gate was reached from within the city by the British, the fourth column
found itself unable to sustain the murderous fire from the walls, and
fell back into cover.
The Sepoys, in their exultation, actually ventured upon a sally, and Hope
Grant had to bring up the scanty cavalry of the camp to check the advance
of the enemy.
The cavalry could not charge, for this would bring them under the fire
of the walls; they would not withdraw, for this would uncover the camp.
They could only sit grimly in their saddles, and hold back the enemy by
the menace of their presence, while men and horses went down unceasingly
under the sleet of fire which broke over them. “For more than two
hours,” says Hodson, “we had to sit on our horses, under the heaviest
fire, without the chance of doing anything. My young regiment behaved
admirably, as did all hands. The slaughter was great. Lamb’s troop lost
twenty-seven men out of forty-eight, and nineteen horses, and the whole
cavalry suffered in the same proportion.”
Hope Grant tells how he praised the 9th Lancers for their cool
steadiness, and the men answered from the ranks that they were ready to
stand as long as he chose. “Hodson,” says one officer who was present,
“sat like a man carved in stone, apparently as unconcerned as the
sentries at the Horse Guards, and only by his eyes and his ready hand,
whenever occasion offered, could you have told that he was in deadly
peril, and the balls flying among us as thick as hail!”
Delhi in shape roughly resembles an egg, and, in the assault we have
described, the British had cracked, so to speak, the small end. Inside
the Cashmere Gate was a comparatively clear space, a church, a Hindoo
temple, and a mosque being scattered along its southern boundary. These
owed their existence to the somewhat mixed piety of James Skinner, a
gallant soldier, who played a brilliant part in Clive’s wars. His mother
was a Hindoo lady, his wife was a Mohammedan; and, being severely wounded
in some engagement, Skinner vowed, if he recovered, he would build
three places of worship—a church, a temple, and a mosque! And the three
buildings which stand opposite the Cashmere Gate are the fruits of that
very composite act of piety. The three assaulting columns, in broken
order and sadly reduced in numbers, but in resolute fighting mood, were
re-formed in the open space in front of these buildings.
The third column, under Colonel Campbell, cleared the buildings on its
left front, and then pushed forward on its perilous way straight through
the centre of the city towards the Jumma Musjid, a huge mosque that
lifted its great roof high above the streets and gardens of the city more
than two miles distant. The first and second columns, now practically
forming one, swung to the right, and, following the curve of the “egg” to
which we compared Delhi, proceeded to clear what was called the Rampart
Road, a narrow lane running immediately within the wall round the whole
city. It was intended to push along this lane till the Lahore Gate was
reached and seized. The Lahore Gate is the principal entrance into the
city, the main street—the Chandin Chouk, the Silver Bazaar—runs from it
to the King’s Palace, bisecting the “egg” which forms the city. If this
gate were carried, Delhi was practically in the British possession.
The column, led by Jones, pushed eagerly on. The Moree Gate and the Cabul
Gate were seized, the guns on the ramparts were captured, and the leading
files of the advance came in sight of the Lahore Gate. A lane, a little
more than two hundred and fifty yards long, led to it; but that narrow,
crooked path was “a valley of death” more cruel and bloody than that down
which Cardigan’s Light Cavalry rode in the famous charge at Balaclava.
The city wall itself formed the boundary of the lane on the right; the
left was formed by a mass of houses, with flat roofs and parapets,
crowded with riflemen. The lane was scarcely ten yards wide at its
broadest part; in places it was narrowed to three feet by the projecting
buttresses of the wall.
About a hundred and fifty yards up the lane was planted a brass gun,
sheltered by a bullet-proof screen. At the further extremity of the
lane, where the ground rose, was a second gun, placed so as to cover the
first, and itself covered by a bullet-proof screen. Then, like a massive
wall, crossing the head of the lane, rose the great Burn Bastion, heavily
armed, and capable of holding a thousand men. A force of some 8000
men, too, had just poured into the city through the Lahore and Ajmeer
Gates, returning from the sally they had made on Reid’s column; and
these swarmed round the side and head of the lane to hold it against the
British.
Never, perhaps, did soldiers undertake a more desperate feat than that
of fighting a way through this “gate of hell,” held by Sepoys, it will
be noted, full of triumph, owing to their repulse of the attack of the
fourth column under Reid already described. But never was a desperate
deed more gallantly attempted.
The attacking party was formed of the 1st Bengal Fusileers; and, their
officers leading, the men ran with a dash at the lane. They were scourged
with fire from the roofs to the left; the guns in their front swept the
lane with grape. But the men never faltered. They took the first gun
with a rush, and raced on for the second. But the lane narrowed, and the
“jam” checked the speed of the men. The fire of the enemy, concentrated
on a front so narrow, was murderous. Stones and round shot thrown by hand
from the roofs and parapets of the houses were added to musketry bullets
and grape, and the stormers fell back, panting and bleeding, but still
full of the wrath of battle, and leaving the body of many a slain comrade
scattered along the lane.
Two or three men refused to turn back, and actually reached the screen
through which the further gun was fired. One of these was Lieutenant
Butler, of the 1st Bengal Fusileers. As he came at the run through the
white smoke he struck the screen heavily with his body; at that moment
two Sepoys on the inner side thrust through the screen with their
bayonets. The shining deadly points of steel passed on either side of
Butler’s body, and he was pinned between them as between the suddenly
appearing prongs of a fork! Butler, twisting his head, saw through a
loophole the faces of the two Sepoys who held the bayonets, and who were
still vehemently pushing, under the belief that they held their enemy
impaled. With his revolver he coolly shot them both, and then fell back,
pelted with bullets, but, somehow, unhurt, to his comrades, who were
reforming for a second charge at the head of the lane.
On came the Fusileers again, a cluster of officers leading, well in
advance of their men. Major Jacob, who commanded the regiment, raced in
that heroic group. Speke was there, the brother of the African explorer;
Greville, Wemyss, and the gallant Butler once again. The first gun in the
lane was captured once more, and Greville, a cool and skilful soldier,
promptly spiked it. But the interval betwixt the first gun and the
second, had to be crossed. It was only a hundred yards, but on every foot
of it a ceaseless and fiery hail of shot was beating. The officers, as
they led, went down one by one. Jacob, one of the most gallant soldiers
of the whole siege, fell, mortally wounded. Jacob’s special quality
as a soldier was a strangely gentle but heroic coolness. The flame of
battle left him at the temperature of an icicle; its thunder did not
quicken his pulse by a single beat, and his soldiers had an absolute and
exultant confidence in the quick sight, the swift action, the unfaltering
composure of their gallant commander. Some of his men halted to pick him
up when he fell, but he called to them to leave him, and press forward.
Six other officers, one after another, were struck down; the rush
slackened, it paused, the men ebbed sullenly back; the second attack had
failed!
Nicholson, as the officer in general command of the assaulting columns,
might well have remained at the Cashmere Gate, controlling the movements
of the columns; but his eager, vehement spirit carried him always to the
fighting front. He first accompanied Campbell’s column on its perilous
march, but then rejoined his own proper column just as it came in sight
of the Lahore Gate. The officers immediately about him—men themselves of
the highest daring—advised that, as the attack of the fourth column had
failed, it would be wise strategy to hold strongly the portion of the
city they had carried and reorganise another general assault. They had
done enough for the day. Their men had lost heavily, and were exhausted.
They were in ignorance of the fortunes of the other columns.
But Nicholson’s fiery spirit was impatient of half measures or of delays.
He was eager, moreover, to check the dangerous elation caused amongst the
Sepoys by their repulse of the fourth column. So he resolutely launched
a new assault on the Lahore Gate. How gallantly the officers led in an
attack which yet their judgment condemned has been told.
Nicholson watched the twice-repeated rush of the Fusileers, and the fall,
one by one, of the officers who led them. When the men for a second time
fell back, Nicholson himself sprang into the lane, and, waving his
sword, called on his men, with the deep, vibrating voice all knew, to
follow their general. But even while he spoke, his sword pointing up the
lane, his face, full of the passion of battle, turned towards the broken,
staggering front of his men, a Sepoy leaned from the window of a house
close by, pointed his musket across a distance of little more than three
yards at Nicholson’s tall and stately figure, and shot him through the
body. Nicholson fell. The wound was mortal; but, raising himself up on
his elbow, he still called on the men to “go on.” He rejected impatiently
the eager help that was offered to him, and declared he would lie there
till the lane was carried. But, as Kaye puts it, he was asking dying what
he had asked living—that which was all but impossible.
Colonel Graydon tells how he stooped over the fallen Nicholson, and
begged to be allowed to convey him to a place of safety; but Nicholson
declared “he would allow no man to remove him, but would die there.” It
was, in fact, a characteristic flash of chivalry that made Nicholson at
last consent to be removed. He would allow no one to touch him, says
Trotter, “except Captain Hay, of the 60th Native Infantry, with whom he
was not upon friendly terms. ‘I will make up my difference with you,
Hay,’ he gasped out. ‘I will let you take me back.’”
The lane was strewn with the British dead. To carry it without artillery
was hopeless. There were no better soldiers on the Ridge than the 1st
Bengal Fusileers—“the dear old dirty-shirts” of Lord Lake. When they, on
the morning of that day, broke through the embrasures of the Cashmere
battery, one of their officers has left on record the statement that
“the Sepoys fled as they saw the white faces of the Fusileers looking
sternly at them.” They fled, that is, not from thrust of steel and flash
of musket, but before the mere menace of those threatening, war-hardened
countenances! The 1st, as a matter of fact, had their muskets slung
behind, to enable them to use their hands in climbing the breach, and so,
when they came up the crest of the breach and through the embrasures,
the men had no muskets in their hands. The threat written on their faces
literally put the Sepoys to flight. Where such men as these had failed,
what troops could succeed?
The column fell slowly and sullenly back to the Cabul Gate, the wounded
being sent to the rear. Lord Roberts tells us that, being sent by Wilson
to ascertain how affairs were going on in the city, he observed as he
rode through the Cashmere Gate a doolie by the side of the road without
bearers, and with evidently a wounded man inside. He says:—
I dismounted to see if I could be of any use to the occupant,
when I found, to my grief and consternation, that it was John
Nicholson, with death written on his face. He told me that the
bearers had put the doolie down and had gone off to plunder;
that he was in great pain, and wished to be taken to the
hospital. He was lying on his back, no wound was visible, and
but for the pallor of his face, always colourless, there was no
sign of the agony he must have been enduring. On my expressing
a hope that he was not seriously wounded, he said, “I am dying;
there is no chance for me.” The sight of that great man lying
helpless and on the point of death was almost more than I could
bear. Other men had daily died around me, friends and comrades
had been killed beside me, but I never felt as I felt then—to
lose Nicholson seemed to me at that moment to lose everything.
Nicholson’s fall, it is striking to note, impressed every one in that
tiny and heroic army at Delhi exactly as it impressed Roberts. He
lingered through all the days of slow, stubborn, resolute fighting, which
won Delhi; but day by day the news about Nicholson’s fluctuating life
was almost more important than the tidings that this position or that
had been carried. Nicholson was a man with Clive’s genius for battle
and mastery over men, while in the qualities of chivalry and honour he
deserved to be classed with Outram or Havelock. He was only thirty-seven
when he died; what fame he might have won, had he lived, no man can tell.
He was certainly one of the greatest soldiers the English-speaking race
has produced.
Many monuments have been erected to Nicholson; one over his actual grave,
another—with an unfortunately elaborate inscription—in the parish church
at Lisburn. But the fittest and most impressive monument is a plain
obelisk erected on the crest of the Margalla Pass, the scene, in 1848, of
one of his most daring exploits. There in the wild border pass stands the
great stone pillar, and round it still gathers many a native tradition of
the daring and might of the great sahib. Sir Donald Macnab says that when
the worshippers of “Nikkul-Seyn” in Hazara heard of his death, “they came
together to lament, and one of them stood forth and said there was no
gain from living in a world that no longer held Nikalsain. So he cut his
throat deliberately and died.” The others, however, reflected that this
was not the way to serve their great guru; they must learn to worship
“Nikalsain’s God”; and the entire sect actually accepted Christianity on
the evidence of Nicholson’s personality!
Campbell’s column, meanwhile, had fought its way across two-thirds of
the city, and come in sight of the massive arched gateway of the Jumma
Musjid. But the engineers that accompanied the column had fallen;
Campbell had no artillery to batter down the great gate of the mosque,
and no bags of powder with which to blow it up. He was, however, a
stubborn Scottish veteran, and he clung to his position in front of the
mosque till he learnt of the failure to carry the Lahore Gate. Then,
judging with soldierly coolness that it would be impossible to hold
unsupported the enormously advanced position he had won, he fell back in
leisurely fashion till he came into touch with the reserve column at the
Cashmere Gate.
The British columns had been fighting for over six hours, and had lost 66
officers and 1104 men, or very nearly every fourth man in the assaulting
force. Amongst the fallen, too, were many of the most daring spirits in
the whole force, the men who were the natural leaders in every desperate
enterprise. Less than 4000 of the brave men who followed Nicholson and
Jones and Campbell across the breaches or through the Cashmere Gate that
morning remained unwounded, and there were 40,000 Sepoys yet in Delhi! Of
the great “egg,” too, which formed the city, the British held only the
tiny northern extremity.
Under these conditions Wilson’s nerve once more failed him. He doubted
whether he ought to persist in the assault. Was it not safer to fall back
on the Ridge? Repeatedly, in fact, through the days of stubborn fighting
which followed, Wilson meditated the fatal policy of retreat. He was
worn-out in mind and body. His nerve had failed at Meerut when the Mutiny
first broke out; it threatened to fail again here at Delhi, in the very
crisis of the assault. To walk a few steps exhausted him. And it was
fortunate for the honour of England and the fate of India that Wilson
had round him at that crisis men of sterner fibre than his own. Some one
told Nicholson, as he lay on his death-bed, of Wilson’s hesitations.
“Thank God,” whispered Nicholson. “I have strength yet to shoot him if
necessary!”
Wilberforce, in his “Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny,” gives a
somewhat absurd, and not too credible, account of the incident which,
according to him, kept Wilson’s nerve steady at that crisis. The 52nd,
after so many hours of fighting, had fallen back on the reserve at the
Cashmere Gate, and Wilberforce, who belonged to that regiment, was
occupied with a brother officer in compounding a “long” glass of brandy
and soda to quench his thirst. His companion poured in so generous an
allowance of brandy that he was afraid to drink it. He says:—
Not liking to waste it, we looked round us, and saw a group of
officers on the steps of the church, apparently engaged in an
animated conversation. Among them was an old man, who looked as
if a good “peg” (the common term for a brandy and soda) would
do him good. Drawing, therefore, nearer the group, in order to
offer the “peg” to the old officer, we heard our colonel say,
“All I can say is that I won’t retire, but will hold the walls
with my regiment.” I then offered our “peg” to the old officer,
whom we afterwards knew to be General Wilson. He accepted it,
drank it off, and a few minutes after we heard him say, “You
are quite right—to retire would be to court disaster; we will
stay where we are!”
“On such little matters,” Wilberforce gravely reflects, “great events
often depend!” The course of British history in India, in a word, was
decisively affected by that accidental glass of brandy and soda he
offered to General Wilson! It tightened his shaken nerves to the key of
resolution! Wilberforce’s book belongs rather to the realm of fiction
than of grave history, and his history-making glass of brandy and soda
may be dismissed as a flight of fancy. It was the cool judgment and the
unfaltering daring of men like Baird Smith and Neville Chamberlain, and
other gallant spirits immediately around Wilson, which saved him from
the tragedy of a retreat. When Wilson asked Baird Smith whether it was
possible to hold the ground they had won, the curt, decisive answer of
that fine soldier was, “We _must_ hold it!” And that white flame of
heroic purpose burnt just as intensely in the whole circle of Wilson’s
advisers.
The British troops held their position undisturbed on the night of the
14th. The 15th was spent in restoring order and preparing for a new
assault. There is a curious conflict of testimony as to whether or not
the troops had got out of hand owing to mere drunkenness. It is certain
that enormous stores of beer, spirits, and wine were found in that
portion of the city held by the British. Lord Roberts says, “I did not
see a single drunken man throughout the day of assault, and I visited
every position held by our troops within the walls of the city.” This bit
of evidence seems final. Yet it would be easy to quote a dozen witnesses
to prove that there was drunkenness to a perilous extent amongst the
troops, and it is certain that Wilson found it expedient to give orders
for the destruction of the whole of the vast stores of beer and spirits
which had fallen into his hands.
A new plan of attack was devised by the engineers. Batteries were armed
with guns captured from the enemy, and a destructive fire maintained on
the chief positions yet held in the city. The attacks, too, were now
directed, not along the narrow streets and winding lanes of the city, but
through the houses themselves. Thus wall after wall was broken through,
house after house captured, the Sepoys holding them were bayoneted, and
so a stern and bloody path was driven to the Lahore Gate.
On the 16th the famous magazine which Willoughby had blown up, when
Delhi fell into the hands of the rebels early in May, was captured,
and it was found that Willoughby’s heroic act had been only partially
successful. The magazine, that is, was less than half destroyed, and the
British found in it no fewer than 171 guns, mostly of large calibre,
with enormous stores of ammunition. The Sepoys read their doom in the
constant flight of shells from the British batteries in the city. They
read it, in almost plainer characters, in the stubborn daring with which
a path was being blasted through the mass of crowded houses towards the
Lahore Gate. And from the southern extremity of the city there commenced
a great human leakage, a perpetual dribble of deserting Sepoys and flying
budmashes.
Lord Roberts served personally with the force driving its resolute way
across houses, courtyards, and lanes, towards the Lahore Gate, and he
tells, graphically, the story of its exploits. On September 19, the men
had broken their way through to the rear of the Burn Bastion. Only the
width of the lane separated them from the bastion itself. The little
party, 100 strong—only one-half of them British—gathered round the door
that opened on the lane, the engineer officer burst it open, and Gordon,
of the 75th Foot, leading, the handful of gallant men dashed across the
lane, leaped upon the ramp, raced up it, and jumped into the bastion.
They bayoneted or shot its guards, and captured the bastion without
losing a man!
The next day, with great daring, Roberts and Lang of the Engineers,
following a native guide, crept through the tangle of courtyards and
lanes, till they reached the upper room of a house within fifty yards
of the Lahore Gate. “From the window of this room,” says Roberts, “we
could see beneath us the Sepoys lounging about, engaged in cleaning their
muskets and other occupations; while some, in a lazy sort of fashion,
were acting as sentries over the gateway and two guns, one of which
pointed in the direction of the Sabzi Mandi, the other down the lane
behind the ramparts, leading to the Burn Bastion and Cabul Gate. I could
see from the number on their caps that these Sepoys belonged to the 5th
Native Infantry.” The troops were brought up silently by the same route,
and leaped suddenly on the gate, capturing it, and slaying or putting to
terrified flight the Sepoys whom Lang and Roberts had watched in such a
mood of careless and opium-fed unconcern only a few minutes before.
The party that captured the Lahore Gate then moved up the great street
running from it through the Silver Bazaar—its shops all closed—till they
reached the Delhi Bank, which they carried. Another column forced its way
into the Jumma Musjid, blowing in its gates without loss.