A NIGHT IN A WELL.
The station of Rawal Pindi, in which the following incident took place, is a large military cantonment in the Punjab, about a hundred miles from the Indus at Attock, where the magnificent bridge across the rapid river now completes the connection by rail between the presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay with Peshawur our frontier outpost, which, like a watchful sentinel, stands looking straight into the gloomy portal of the far-famed Khyber Pass. It was at Rawal Pindi that the meeting took place between the Viceroy of India, Lord Dufferin, and the present Ameer of Afghanistan, before whom were then paraded not only the garrison of Rawal Pindi, or, as it is more generally known in those parts, by the familiar abbreviation of Pindi—a Punjabi word signifying a village—but a goodly array of the three arms, artillery, cavalry, and infantry, drawn from the garrisons of the Punjab and North-west Provinces of India. In ordinary times, the troops in garrison at Pindi consist of four or five batteries of royal artillery, both horse and field; a regiment of British, and one of Indian cavalry; and one regiment of British, and two of Bengal infantry, with a company of sappers and miners. The barracks—or, as they are called in India, the lines—occupied by these troops extend across the Grand Trunk Road leading to Peshawur, those of the royal artillery being almost, if not quite on the extreme right, and it is here that the occurrence which gives the heading to this article took place.
In front of the lines of each regiment is the quarter-guard belonging to it, at a distance of two or three hundred yards from the centre barrack. The men of this guard are turned out and inspected once by day and once by night by the officer on duty, technically known as the orderly officer. In rear of the quarter-guard, as has been already said, are the men’s barracks; and in rear of them the cook-houses and horse-lines, amongst and behind which are large wells—‘pucka wells,’ as they are called, from being lined for a long way down and about the surface with brick-work and cement, in distinction from the ordinary ‘cutcha wells,’ which are merely circular holes dug until water is reached.
The pucka wells in the Pindi cantonments are from twelve to fourteen feet in diameter, and from thirty to forty feet from the surface to the water. They are surrounded by low parapets; and from each well extend long troughs of brick and cement, into which the water drawn from the well is conducted by channels, for the use of the horses and other cattle belonging to the artillery or cavalry. The low parapets round the wells are sufficient protection, at all events in the daytime; though instances are not unfrequent when accidents have occurred on a dark night to goats, sheep, and even bullocks straying from their tethers, especially when a dust-storm has been adding by its turmoil to the bewilderment of all so unfortunate as to be caught abroad in it, as the writer has on more than one occasion, when compelled to stand or sit for hours behind some protecting wall or tree; the darkness in noonday has been so great that his hand, though held close to his eyes, was with difficulty discernible. When to such a state of things are added the roar of the wind and the beating of broken branches of trees, wisps of straw, and other articles caught up and hurtled along, it may be easily imagined how dazed and perplexed is the condition of every creature so exposed. A dust-storm, however, had nothing to say to the accident with which we have to do.
In rear of the cook-houses, wells, &c., come the mess-house and the bungalows in which the officers reside, each in its own compound or inclosure, about eighty or a hundred yards square, and about a quarter of a mile from the men’s lines.
One night in the cold season of 1866-67, as well as I can remember, the subaltern on duty at Pindi was Lieutenant Black—as we will call him—of the Royal Horse Artillery. He was well known in the arm of the service to which he belonged as a bold and fearless horseman, who had distinguished himself on many occasions as a race-rider both at home and abroad. On the evening in question he remained playing billiards in the mess-house until it was time to visit the quarter-guard in front of the lines. A little before midnight he mounted his horse at the door of the mess, and started. It was very dark; but he knew the road well, and had perfect faith in his horse, a favourite charger; so, immediately on passing the gate of the mess compound, he set off, as was his custom, at a smart canter along the straight road leading to the barracks. He passed through these, and soon reached the guard, which he turned out, and finding all present and correct, proceeded to return to his own bungalow, having completed his duty for the day. He rode through the lines by the way he had come; but then, being in a hurry to get to bed, he left the main road and took a short-cut across an open space. Notwithstanding the darkness, the horse was cantering freely on, no doubt as anxious as his master to reach his comfortable stall, when all at once Black felt him jump over some obstacle, which he cleared, and the next moment horse and rider were falling through the air; and a great splash and crash were the last things of which Black had any consciousness. After an interval—how long he couldn’t tell—sensation slowly returned, and he became aware that he was still sitting in his saddle, but bestriding a dead horse. His legs were in water; and the hollow reverberation of his voice when he shouted for help, as he did until he could do so no longer, informed him that he had fallen into one of the huge wells somewhere in the lines. It was intensely dark; but he soon became aware that there were other living creatures in the well, for from its sides came occasional weird rustlings and hissings, which added considerably to the horror of his situation, by creating a vague feeling of dread of some unknown danger close at hand.
Slowly the long night passed, and he could plainly hear the gongs of the different regiments as the hours were struck on them, and the sentries, as if in mockery, crying the usual ‘All’s well.’ Gradually day began to dawn, and light to show up above at the mouth of the well. By degrees, his prison became less dim, and he could see his surroundings. He was bestriding his dead charger, which lay crumpled up with a broken neck at the bottom of the well, in which was not more than three feet of water. Black himself, except for the shock, was uninjured. His legs were pretty well numbed, from being so long in the water, but there were no bones broken; and barring the terrible jar to his system, he was sound in every respect. As the sun arose, he began to peer about, and again tried to make himself heard above ground. This caused a renewal of the peculiar rustlings and hissings we have referred to; and he was now enabled to verify what he had dreaded and suspected when he first heard them in the dark. All round the sides of the well were holes, tenanted by snakes, most of them of the deadly cobra tribe, and many, seemingly, of an extraordinary size. Presently, like muffled thunder, the morning gun roused the sleepers in the various barracks, and the loud reveille quickly following it, brought hope of speedy release to the worn-out watcher.
The bheesties coming to draw water were the first to discover him, and their loud cries soon surrounded the mouth of the well with stalwart artillerymen. Drag-ropes were brought from the nearest battery; and Black, barely able to attach them to his body, was at length drawn, to all appearance more dead than alive, to upper air, unable to reply to the eager questionings of those by whom he was surrounded. He was placed on a hospital litter, and hurried off to his own bungalow. Under careful treatment, and thanks to a splendid constitution, he was in a short time again fit for duty.
When recounting the events of the night, Black didn’t forget to mention his sensations at hearing the hissings all round him, and which the darkness at first made him think to be closer even than they were. This at once caused a proposal to be made for a raid upon the inhabitants of the holes; but he begged that they should not be disturbed, saying that they could do no harm where they were, and that he couldn’t but feel deeply grateful for their forbearance in confining themselves to hissing his first and, he sincerely hoped, his last appearance in a well.