CHAPTER VIII.
INDIA.—THE GALLANT NINE AT DELHI.
The early part of the year 1857 saw the outburst of the Indian Mutiny which was to startle the world by its unparalleled horrors and shake to its foundations our rule in India. Never before was a mere handful of white men called upon to face such a fearful ordeal as fell to the lot of the 38,000 soldiers who were sprinkled all over the North-West Provinces, and the record of that splendid struggle for mastery is one that thrills every Englishman’s heart with pride.
There are pages in it that one would willingly blot out, for from the outset some terrible blunders were committed. Inaction, smothered in “the regulations, Section XVII.,” allowed mutiny to rear its head unchecked and gain strength, until the time had almost passed when it could be stamped out. But if there were cowards and worse among the old-school British officers of that day, there were not wanting those who knew how to cope with the peril. We are glad to forget Hewitt and those who erred with him in the memory of Lawrence, Nicholson, Edwardes, Chamberlain, and the many other heroes who came to the front.
In every great crisis such as that which shook India in 1857 the occasion has always found the man. The Sepoy revolt was the means of bringing into prominence hundreds of men unsuspected of either genius or heroism, and of giving them a high niche in the temple of fame. Young subalterns suddenly thrust into positions of command, with the lives of women and children in their hands, displayed extraordinary courage and resource, and the annals of the Victoria Cross bear witness to the magnificent spirit of devotion which animated every breast.
One hundred and eighty-two Crosses were awarded for acts of valour performed in the Mutiny, the list of recipients including officers of the highest, and privates of the humblest, rank; doctors and civilians; men and beardless boys. In the following pages I shall describe some of the deeds which won the decoration and which stand out from the rest as especially notable, beginning with the historic episode of “the Gallant Nine” at Delhi.
The Indian Mutiny was not in its inception the revolution that some historians have averred it to be. It was a military mutiny arising from more or less real grievances of the sepoys, to which the affair of the “greased” cartridges served as the last straw. Moreover, it was confined to one Presidency, that of Bengal, and it is incorrect to say that the conspiracy was widespread and that a large number of native princes and rajahs were at the bottom of it.
As a matter of fact only two dynastic rulers—the execrable Nana Sahib and the Ranee of Jhansi—lent it their support. The majority of the native princes, among them being the powerful Maharajah of Pattiala, sided with the British from the first, and it was their fidelity, with their well-trained troops, which enabled us to keep the flag flying through that awful time.
“There were sepoys on both sides of the entrenchments at Lucknow,” says Dr. Fitchett in his Tale of the Great Mutiny. “Counting camp followers, native servants, etc., there were two black faces to every white face under the British flag which fluttered so proudly over the historic ridge at Delhi. The ‘protected’ Sikh chiefs kept British authority from temporary collapse betwixt the Jumna and the Sutlej. They formed what Sir Richard Temple calls ‘a political breakwater,’ on which the fury of rebellious Hindustan broke in vain.” Had the Mutiny indeed been a national uprising, what chances would the 38,000 white soldiers have had against the millions of natives who comprised India’s population?
It is important to bear all this in mind while following the course of events which marked the progress of revolt. We shall not then get such a distorted picture of the whole as is too frequently presented to us.
The Mutiny was a military one, as I have said. It began prematurely in an outbreak at Barrackpore, on March 29, 1857. Here a drunken fanatical sepoy, named Mungul Pandy, shot two British officers and set light to the “human powder magazine,” which was all too ready to explode. On the 10th of May following came the tragedy of Meerut, where the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, the 11th and 20th Regiments of Native Infantry rose and massacred every European not in the British lines, and this despite the presence there of a strong troop of horse artillery and a regiment of rifles, 1000 strong!