Brigadier Graves had not been idle. He first sent word that all Europeans in the city should muster at the Flagstaff Tower, a stone building, with battlements, standing on the centre of the ridge; but his orders were too late, or rather the troopers and felons were too speedy for the orders to be of service. Then, as we have stated, he sent the 54th, followed by two guns, to quell any tumult. But the 54th had no sooner entered the Cashmere Gate than some troopers rode up and shot Colonel Ripley and all his officers, except three who got away. Major Patterson now entered with the guns, and at sight of these the troopers rode off. But the 54th immediately broke up and joined the mutineers. Brigadier Graves sent down three companies of the 74th and two more guns. These only provided fresh mutineers, for not a man would obey orders. The guns were ordered back; but on their road a party of mutineers met them, wounded the horse of the officer in charge and carried the guns back to Delhi. All the Sepoys now became active mutineers.
There were two magazines in the station: a large one, containing above a thousand barrels of powder, placed two miles outside the city walls, and at anybody's mercy, and a smaller one within the walls, not far from the palace, containing not more than fifty barrels. It is of the latter we have to write. Sir Charles Napier had condemned this building. Its gates were so weak, he said, a mob could push them in. On the 11th of May there were nine officers and men to defend this magazine. They were Lieutenant George Willoughby in command, Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor; Conductors Buckley, Shaw, and Scully; Sub-Conductor Crow, and Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. Their memories are worthy of all honour. In the forenoon they were beset by a crowd, raging, tumultuous, demanding admission. Seeing this, Willoughby prepared for defence. He closed and barricaded the gates, and a train was laid by Conductors Buckley, Scully, and Sergeant Stewart, ready to be fired at a preconcerted signal, which was that of Conductor Buckley raising his hat from his head, on the order being given by Lieutenant Willoughby.
The mob had been balked at the outset. They had been reinforced by a body of the king's soldiers, but still they were kept at bay. But when the old king and his counsellors found that the troops in cantonments were in revolt, that the spies he sent out returned reporting that no British were coming from Meerut, and that the Native Infantry from Meerut had entered Delhi, then fresh troops poured down upon the magazine. The whole of the besieging crowd were eager for powder and arms. The king's soldiers summoned the Europeans to surrender. They were defied. Then the crowd swarmed to the attack and opened fire. At the first round the natives in the magazine fled. But the nine Englishmen remained. Scaling-ladders were brought; Sepoys mounted the tombs in the burial-ground overlooking the enclosure, and fired on the little garrison. These plied their foes with grape, but as fast as the iron sleet swept away one body, another followed. For five hours the gallant nine maintained the unequal contest. Scully stood by the trunk of a tree, ready to fire the mine. Every moment the attack grew hotter and the defence weaker: for Edwards and Crow were killed; Forrest and Buckley were wounded. All hope was gone. Willoughby passed the word to Buckley to raise his hat, the signal for firing the train, and Scully coolly and with deliberate care applied the match. In a moment the whole building was rent by the explosion, and hundreds of the enemy, crowding on, were buried in the ruins. Forrest, Raynor, Willoughby, Buckley, and Scully made their way out, scorched and bruised, but alive. A trooper cut down the brave Scully, and Willoughby was killed by marauders in a village on the road to Meerut; but Forrest, Raynor, Stewart, and Buckley succeeded in reaching that place alive, and each received the Victoria Cross as a reward.
The explosion of the magazine may be regarded as the last act in defence of Delhi. The fugitives who had reached the Flagstaff Tower were now crowded within it, uncertain of their fate. The Sepoys who surrounded the two guns were watched by armed Europeans from the roof of the tower; but it would have been destruction to fire. The ladies were loosening cartridges, and the men were resolving on defence when defence was hopeless. One by one the fugitives had come in. Major Abbott had brought up a cartload of dead and wounded officers. The Sepoys were growing defiant. When the magazine blew up they became excited; they had long refused to obey orders; they now told the officers they had better be gone, "this was no longer a place for them." The words were true. All who could got carriages or horses, and those who could get neither, set out on foot. The Sepoys did not oppose them. The brave Brigadier Graves, Captain Nicholl, and Dr. Stewart lingered to the last; but at length these went also, and Delhi was in the power of the king and the Sepoys. An attempt had been made to blow up the great magazine, but the Sepoys frustrated it, and so ended the scene. One Sepoy only followed the officers in their flight. The fugitives bent their steps towards Kurnaul, and only some arrived. They were beset by the village marauders, who robbed and wounded, or murdered, all parties alike. Some were nearly naked, their clothes having been torn from them; some were severely wounded; some lay down to die from fatigue and grief. It was a dreadful night; and in Delhi there were still forty-three persons, chiefly women and children. They had taken refuge in the palace; on the 18th of May the poor creatures were given up to the mutineers, and massacred in a body by them and the king's brutal sons.
Sir Henry Lawrence, ever vigilant and prompt, saved Lucknow for a time, by disarming the 7th Oude Irregulars, on the 3rd of May. On the 12th Sir Henry held a durbar, and rewarded, with solemn forms, a subahdar, a havildar, and two Sepoys, who had been instrumental directly in arresting emissaries who were preaching sedition. Sir Henry made a noble speech to the soldiers representing all the native forces in the cantonment, praised, warned, exhorted them, and so he gained a month to prepare for a doom that was inevitable; a month to prepare and provision a fortified post in the heart of Lucknow, where a handful of Europeans and a few faithful natives were destined, with endless honour, to uplift and keep flying the British standard in one of the centres of rebellion.
The electric telegraph saved the Punjab. We have already told how from the office in Delhi went a message along the wire to Lahore. It was read at Umballa, en route; it was read at Lahore; it was shot north-westward to Sir John Lawrence at Rawul Pindee, and to Herbert Edwardes, John Nicholson, and Sydney Cotton at Peshawur. They had it by noon in Lahore: a messenger coming in from Meerut confirmed it. By eventide Sir John Lawrence had read the momentous words at Rawul Pindee; by midnight they were scanned at Peshawur. They fell into the hands of men prompt to face and to overcome danger; keen of sight and swift of action. There was to be no paltering with mutiny in the Punjab. The Britons were resolved to be masters in that land. The morning of the 12th of May brought fresh and fuller tidings, and out of them grew a fixed resolve. The Europeans had kept the secret imparted by the magic dial, and determined to be first in the field.
There were at Mean Meer, six miles from Lahore, three regiments of native infantry and one of cavalry. These Brigadier Corbett and Mr. Montgomery and others, after brief deliberation, resolved to disarm. The means at hand were slight, but sufficient for brave men. They were the 81st Queen's, and two troops of horse, and four companies of foot artillery. A ball had been appointed for the night of the 12th, and it was agreed that this festivity should be held, and that the troops should parade on the morning of the 13th. The 12th brought fresh news. A Sikh discovered and revealed a plot to seize the fort in Lahore, and massacre every white man. The authorities kept their discovery to themselves, and prepared by a bold stroke to anticipate the conspirators. The ball was held. The revel was kept up till nearly dawn, when the officers stole away to attend a parade which was to determine the fate of British rule in the country of the five rivers. During that night a company of the 81st were driving along in carts to Govindghur, three companies were held in readiness to relieve the conspirators of the 26th in Lahore Fort, and six companies were left in cantonments to perform a principal part on the parade ground. The pretence for the parade was to read a general order touching the disarmament of the 34th, at Barrackpore. When the regiments were in line, an order was read aloud to the Sepoys, explaining to them that they were about to be deprived of their arms to prevent them from disgracing themselves and their colours by yielding to the temptations of bad men, and rising in mutiny. At the conclusion of the reading, the order went forth to "pile arms." By this time the 81st had moved to the rear of the guns. There were twelve, each loaded with grape, and by each gun stood an artilleryman port-fire in hand. Colonel Renny of the 81st also gave the order to load, and the ring of the steel ramrods told the Sepoys there was no hope for them. The infantry piled arms, the cavalry took off their sabres and pouches; a company of the 81st swept them up; the crisis was past, and Lahore was saved on the third morning after the outbreak at Meerut. On that memorable morning, too, three companies of the 81st marched into the fort of Lahore. The 26th, astonished and surprised, laid down their arms without a murmur.
DISARMAMENT OF THE 26TH AT BARRACKPORE. (See p. [193].)
On the same day there were other deeds performed between the Ravee and Sutlej. On the right bank of the latter river, and commanding the Great Road from Delhi to Lahore, stands the fort of Philour. To the south-east, over the river, is the cloth-working town of Loodiana, also on the Great Road, and to the north-west the cantonment of Jallandhar. Philour was wholly in the hands of the Sepoy guard, and a native regiment, the 3rd, was encamped under its walls. There were only eight Europeans in the fort, one of whom, Mr. Brown, had arrived on the 12th of May with telegraphic apparatus to open communication with Jallandhar. For when the officer commanding at the latter station heard of the mutiny, his first thought was for the safety of Philour. He sent Mr. Brown and his apparatus in a light cart, and he marched out 150 men of the 8th Queen's at night to garrison the fort. The gallant eight had one gun. They closed the fort, and loaded the piece with grape; and kept watch over the Sepoys within and the Sepoys without. It was an anxious night, and the gun was not quitted for one moment. Before day had dawned, up came the men of the 8th, with the welcome addition, picked up on the road, of two horse-artillery guns and some Punjabee troopers, under the chivalrous Probyn. The Sepoys in the fort were surprised and dismayed when they were relieved, and marched out of the fort. They, too, were to have risen on the 15th, and Philour was to have been the rendezvous of all the mutineers in the Punjab.