[3] Kaye's Sepoy War, Vol. II, p. 645.
IV.
STORMING THE CITY.
From that time till the morning of the 11th, when the last of the four batteries was completed, our gallant Engineers and working parties and Gunners worked as men have never worked before or since. All night long picks and spades and shovels were busily plied, under a heavy fire, in constructing the batteries; on which, so soon as finished, the heavy guns and mortars were mounted; and as successively they were placed in position they joined in swelling the furious storm of shot and shell which never ceased tearing down the masonry of the city defences till the moment of the assault in the grey dawn of the 14th. The last battery was built under the shelter of the ruined walls of the Custom-house, at a distance of 180 yards from the water bastion, under a terrific and incessant fire from the Kashmir and Water bastions and the curtain between them, Let the reader try to realise this; and he will admit that no more desperate or daring enterprise was ever achieved in front of a besieged fortress.
On the 13th it was my hard fate to be on outpost duty at Azadpore, where rumours reached me that the assault was likely to be delivered before dawn on the 14th. My picquet should in ordinary course have been relieved that morning, but no relief came; and as the day wore on, it seemed that I was destined to be left out there kicking my heels, forlorn and forgotten, till all should be over. This was more than could be borne; so I despatched messenger after messenger into camp with imploring letters, begging for the recall of my picquet. My entreaties were successful, and I had the intense, if selfish, gratification of at length seeing in the distance the small column of dust which heralded the approach of the party that had been sent to take my place. Very grumpy and sulky was the officer in command; but, after all, it was his turn for the duty. Every one must take his luck as it comes. Consoling him with this crusted old apothegm, I lost no time in clearing out of the post and taking my detachment back to camp; but even then I was destined to grievous disappointment. The troops intended to form the Cavalry Brigade under Sir Hope Grant had been told off, and my party had to content itself with forming part of the reserve which remained in camp. So I lost the chance of being one of the glorious six hundred, whose heroic endurance that day under a fierce hurricane of grape and musketry "prevented the enemy, who had driven back the 4th Column, from advancing along the open ground between the Ridge and the City, and taking the whole of our left attack in flank."[4] When the attempt of the column under the gallant Colonel Reid to force an entrance into the City by the Lahore Gate failed, partly owing to the want of artillery, and partly to the defeat of the auxiliary Kashmir contingent, the whole brunt of keeping the victorious rebels, many thousands in numbers, from pouring out of Kissengunge and pursuing our retreating infantry, fell on the Cavalry Brigade. Before, however, the enemy could dare to trust themselves on the plain beyond the shelter of their walls, it was necessary to drive the horsemen from it; and fierce was the effort to do so. From the walls of the City, from the suburbs of Kissengunge, a fiery hail of lead unceasingly swept. Saddle after saddle was emptied; horse after horse fell, but not for a moment was there the slightest wavering or unsteadiness. Quietly and without confusion the ranks continued to close together and fill ever-recurring gaps, grimly determined to hold their ground to the last man. Utterly unable to return the fire, or to do anything but remain immoveable as passive living targets, they seemed doomed to eventual annihilation—when Tomb's famous troop of horse artillery galloped to the rescue. Taking up a position at the closest of close quarters, not more than two hundred yards from the enemy, it was not long after our guns came into action that they drove the hitherto triumphant rebels back from the external walls into the labyrinth of houses in their rear, and materially reduced their fire. But from the Lahore Gate an unsilenced 24-pounder still continued to pour grape into the ranks, and to tear many a ghastly gap in them. Not till the rebel fire, drawn off by the success of our attack on the Kashmiri Gate, had dwindled away to harmlessness, and all danger of a sortie was effectually extinguished, was the sorely crippled Cavalry Brigade withdrawn from its post of honour.
Though this deed of the six hundred before the walls of Delhi has not been sung by the Poet Laureate, and is not so world-famous as that of the other six hundred at Balaclava, it fully deserves to be bracketed with it as an example of heroism and self-sacrificing devotion. Each is a brilliant instance of the perfect union of discipline and courage. If the charge of the Light Brigade was a blunder, so much the greater is the glory of the brave men who rode to death without questioning their orders.
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
There was no blunder in the order which devoted the six hundred of the Delhi Cavalry to face a feu d'enfer for the salvation of their Infantry comrades. Every soldier who knows what it is to "sit still to be shot at" will appreciate with pride the feat of arms performed on that morning of the 14th September 1857 by the British and Native Cavalry Brigade under the command of the fearless and gentle Sir Hope Grant.
So vivid is the description of this episode in the glowing pages of Sir John Kaye that I find it difficult to resist the temptation of transcribing it; but most of my military readers are doubtless familiar with it; and if any have not yet read his History of the Sepoy War in India, I would recommend them to lose no time in studying that deeply interesting work. It is an imperishable tribute to the glory of our arms, and no one who reads its narrative of the brave deeds done by Englishmen, civilians as well as soldiers, aided by Sikhs and Gurkhas and the few other loyal races of India during that time of supreme stress and trial, can help feeling his heart fill with honest and patriotic pride, and with confident hope that if ever again so fierce a struggle should be forced on ourselves or our descendants, the old spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race will prove true to itself.