The scouts of the advanced guard were approaching a very broad deep "nullah" which I had been ordered to reconnoitre with the view of finding a practicable way across it for our guns. On the level plain behind us, under the bright sun, moved slowly onwards the strong body of Cavalry, of which we were merely the forerunners. Beyond the "nullah," nestled among its fields and mango groves a small village, from which emerged two tall peasants, clad in their usual white cotton working clothes, each of them carrying a matchlock.
With the utmost deliberation these two men approached the ravine, and, lying down in a sheltered hollow, opened fire on us. They could have been under no illusions as to their chances of escape. They saw that they were two against two thousand. They knew that their puny effort to stop us was hopeless; but yet they did all they could, and devoted themselves to death in defence of the brown mud walls which held their household gods. In vain we shouted to them that we did not intend to harm their village—that we were going past it, and would not enter it. They evidently did not believe us; and continued to load and fire with as much expedition as their long, clumsy, tinder-locks allowed them. They were sure to hit some of us in time: so we were obliged to scatter and cross the nullah at different points, and "fall upon them with the edge of the sword."
When the final great eruption of the rebels from the Moosabagh took place on the 21st March, Brigadier Campbell was undoubtedly caught napping. It was not till many thousands of the enemy had streamed out and had already crossed miles of country that the Brigade was slipped in pursuit. The first to get under way were two troops of the 1st Sikh Irregulars under Captain the Hon'ble Hugh Chichester, with whom Lieutenant Sandeman and I were sent. We galloped for several miles without coming across more than a few scattered groups, and were beginning to think that the reported flight of the "Pandies" was a false alarm, when suddenly the numbers of the fugitives began to increase, and presently we were in the thick of them. With the exception of a few men of rank on elephants, they were all on foot. Their horsemen had got clean away from us. Our progress now became less rapid, for we were engaged in a series of "scrimmages," and before long the rest of the regiment came up, as did the 7th Hussars and the Military Train.
Late as we were in catching up the rebels, we yet inflicted great slaughter on them, with hardly any damage to ourselves till late in the day, almost at the end of the pursuit, when our regiment suffered an irreparable loss, which will be presently narrated.
We had, as usual in similar affairs, got broken up into small groups and single individuals, when I noticed on my left front a sturdy rascal, seemingly, from his dress, a dismounted cavalry soldier, stalking along, with a musket on his shoulder, sullenly disdaining to run. Him I marked for my prey and dashed after: but when I got within a few yards of him he faced about and covered me with his musket, expressing himself at the same time in very forcible terms of abuse and defiance. This uncompromising attitude on his part made me think it would be more prudent to shoot than to attempt to sabre him: so I wheeled off to the left and circled round him to the right, returned my sword, and drew my revolver. All this time he held his ground, slowly turning on his pivot, and never ceasing to follow my movements with his aim; but he reserved his fire, for no doubt he coolly reflected that, if he missed me, he would be at my mercy. Every barrel of my revolver did I empty at him, and every time without hitting him. Between his legs—under his arms—past his head—flew my bullets, till the whole six were expended. Nothing remained but to gallop away to a safe distance, re-load, and renew the experiment, or else to trust to my sword and charge him. I dare say that if there had been no witnesses about I would have chosen the former alternative: but there were many men of the regiment close by, and sheer shame prevented me; so I returned the useless pistol, drew my sword, and with my heart in my mouth went straight at him at full speed. As I raised my arm to smite, he pulled the trigger. Bending myself half out of the saddle on the near side I escaped the bullet, and delivered on his head with all my force a cut which dropped him to the ground. Though mortally wounded he was not dead; and he fumbled in his cummerbund for a revolver which was sticking out of it; so I dismounted, and as he—dazed and blinded—pulled the pistol out of his waist-cloth, I seized his wrist and directed his aim harmlessly into the air. I then wrenched the weapon from his grasp and used another barrel of it to put him out of his pain. That revolver was subsequently identified as having belonged to an officer named Thackwell, if my memory serves me right, who had been killed in the City a few days previously when separated from his comrades.
Some little time after this incident I saw a small group of fugitives far away on our left, making for a walled village, and it occurred to me to try a long shot at them with my Lancaster rifle, which was always carried by my orderly on a belt slung over his shoulder; so I turned round and asked for it, but the orderly was not to be seen, and some of the other men said:—"Don't you know, Sahib, that your orderly has been killed?" "Killed!" I exclaimed. "When? Has he not been following me all along?" Then, for the first time, I learned that the faithful fellow, who must have been close at my heels when I charged the sepoy, but of whose presence in my excitement I had been totally oblivious, had been hit in the chest by the bullet which I had so narrowly escaped and had been seen to fall. I could not then return to the fatal spot, but I sent a couple of men back at once to find the poor fellow, and, if he should be still alive, to get a doolie and carry him to the hospital tent in camp.
For several miles we kept up the pursuit till we had apparently exhausted the lead—to use a miner's term—on which we had struck. We were about to give up the chase, when, from the far side of a ravine, a solitary fugitive fired his musket at a group of our officers. He must have aimed at the one who, from his full brown beard and apparent age, seemed to him the most important and most likely to be the commander. That shot cost us the life of our brave Commanding Officer. The gallant Captain Wale fell, mortally wounded by two slugs, one of which passed through his beard into his throat, the other into his mouth. He was instantly avenged, for, as the rebel sepoy turned to fly, he also fell dead, hit in the spine by a bullet from the revolver of Captain Chichester.
In a few minutes, to the deep grief of his officers and men, by whom he was loved as few Commanding Officers are ever loved, poor Wale breathed his last. A doolie was sent for from the rear, his body placed in it and reverently carried back to camp. Sick at heart, I now sought the place where my unfortunate orderly had met his fate. My worst fears were realized. He was dead. His body had not been disturbed by the men whom I had sent to find him, and he was lying on his back, the rifle underneath him, with a hole through the leather sling just where it crossed over the heart. Close by lay the corpse of the sepoy.
Very sad was our return to camp that day. I had no sooner placed before my tent the doolie in which was the body of my poor orderly than his father, a fine old Sikh, who also was a sowar in the regiment, and who, having remained in camp on that occasion, was in complete ignorance of our losses, came up to me with a smile on his handsome old face to ask after his son. My heart was too full to speak. I could only point to the doolie, the curtains of which were closed. Lifting one of them up, he looked in and knew his bereavement. The proud old soldier set his face hard, drew himself up, saluted me, and said:—"My son's 'nokri' (service) is over. Let me take his place. I will be your orderly now, Sahib." I am not ashamed to say that this touching act of simple, unaffected Spartan fortitude completely unmanned me.