On the 16th he went forth to his ninth action. The rebels at Bithoor were now to feel the weight of his hand. They were a "scratch pack," from five regiments, but they had a strong position, and many of them were very brave men. They were drawn up in fields of sugar-cane, with a village and an enclosure here and there, and behind a line of breastwork. Behind these was a stream crossed by a stone bridge. Instead of having this in their rear, the enemy should have had it in front. No doubt he relied on his numbers. After a march, under a cloudless August sun, the troops came up with the enemy, and speedily routed him out of his cane-brakes, but not before, in some cases, men of the 42nd Native Infantry had crossed bayonets with the Madras Fusiliers. The real work had now to be done. Covered by his breastwork, the enemy fought with great obstinacy, keeping his great guns going, and maintaining a fire of musketry equal, so thought the general, to that of the Sikhs at Ferozeshah. Our artillery could not silence the Sepoy guns. There was nothing for it but the bayonet. Our infantry got the word they loved so much, and charging in upon the enemy, lifted him clean over the bridge, captured his guns, and put him to flight. Havelock halted at Bithoor one night, and then returned to Cawnpore. Before he left he had cleared the town, and had blown up the remains of the Nana's buildings. The reason for retreating was that the defeated force might have doubled round upon Cawnpore, and sacked it in the absence of the troops. This action terminated Havelock's first campaign. He now learned, to his chagrin, that Sir James Outram had been appointed to take command of the troops destined for the relief of Lucknow. Here we must quit for a time this noble soldier, whose services were inestimable. But before we return to Delhi, we must tell by what accumulation of stupidities the reinforcements destined for Havelock were delayed on the road.
The reasons lie in the defective resolution of the Calcutta Government. At an early stage in the mutiny, Jung Bahadoor, of Nepaul, had offered his assistance, and Major Ramsay, our agent at his capital, had transmitted the offer. He proposed to send six regiments of Nepaulese to Benares or Allahabad. The Government did not like to acquiesce in this destination of the troops. Benares and Allahabad were too important to be held by any natives. The proposal was declined; but, after a lapse of some days, when our prospects grew every moment more gloomy, Jung Bahadoor's offer was accepted, but he was directed to move on and occupy Goruckpore. Here he might do good and could do little harm. In this opinion not only the Calcutta Government, but Mr. Tucker at Benares, and Havelock at Cawnpore acquiesced, and the last declared that he could not accept aid from the Nepaulese, unless their women and children and sick were left in some place as a sort of hostages, so profound was the distrust at this time of any natives. Lord Canning has been censured with regard to his treatment of the Nepaulese, but we do not think wisely. His treatment of the Sepoys at Dinapore, however, does not admit of defence or excuse.
HOW MAJOR TOMBS WON THE VICTORIA CROSS. (See p. [227].)
Dinapore was a military station, ten miles west of Patna, and was the capital of the province of Behar inhabited by a turbulent population, numbering 300,000, a large proportion of whom were Mohammedans. There could be no security in the province until the Dinapore regiments were disarmed. Nothing would have been easier. In the middle of July, the 5th Foot, just landed from Mauritius, and half the 37th Foot were on their way up the Ganges. On their arrival at Dinapore these might have been landed, and, in conjunction with the 10th Foot, every native might have been disarmed in an hour. But Lord Canning left it to General Lloyd to say if the regiments should be disarmed, and General Lloyd had faith in the Sepoys. Moreover, Lord Canning refused to allow the 5th to land for an hour at Dinapore. The consequence of throwing the responsibility on Lloyd, and of refusing to detain the 5th, was very serious. General Lloyd thought it would be enough to take away from the Sepoys the percussion caps. This half-measure was executed on the 25th of July, just when Havelock was preparing to spring into Oude. The Sepoys murmured, threatened, but for the moment were quieted, and the general, thinking all over, went to lunch on board a steamer. Suddenly shots were heard. It appeared that when the Sepoys were ordered to deliver up the caps in their pouches, they fired; thereupon the 10th marched upon their lines and opened fire. The Sepoys at once decamped; some ran to the Ganges and tried to cross, but a sharp fire from a steamer sank their boats. The greater part made off, unpursued, towards Arrah. Their enterprise was not easy; they had the Sone to cross. A quick pursuit would have found them seeking boats on its right bank. No pursuit was made for three days, and in that time they had crossed the river and entered Arrah. Kour Singh, a large landowner, a man who exhibited a gun at the Great Exhibition in 1851, joined the mutineers, supplied boats, counsel, leadership. They marched on Arrah, intending to plunder the treasury, and crossing the Ganges at Buxar, enter Oude. They were frustrated by the bravery of some ten civilians and fifty Sikhs, who held the place with dauntless resolution until they were splendidly relieved by Major Vincent Eyre.
The effects of the Dinapore mutiny were felt all over Behar. The 12th Irregulars mutinied, cutting off the heads of Major and Mrs. Holmes; two companies of Sepoys at Hazareebagh broke out and burnt the station; magistrates and Europeans fled in all directions, and weeks elapsed, and a large display of force had to be made, before order was restored. Moreover, Kour Singh and the broken mutineers went to Nagode and raised the 50th Native Infantry; and several other regiments and parts of regiments took fire and exploded. These were the causes that arrested the march of reinforcements to Havelock, and frustrated his splendid efforts to reach Lucknow.
To return to Delhi, the reader will remember that at the beginning of July reinforcements from the Punjab had raised the British army before that place to 6,600 men. At the same time, however, five native regiments and a battery of artillery arrived on the left bank of the Jumna opposite Delhi from Rohilcund. This added upwards of 4,000 fresh men to the rebel army. With them came Mohamed Bukt Khan from Bareilly, formerly a subahdar of artillery, now a general of brigade, and, soon after his arrival, Commander-in-Chief of the Sepoy army. When they came up, the swollen river had broken the bridge of boats, which was not re-established for two days. Our forces were so few that we were compelled to look on while the enemy performed this operation at leisure. In the beginning of July the new arrivals so raised the spirits of the mutineers that they engaged in several desperate actions. Their first operation was daring, and a dangerous one for us. The road to the Punjab, so vital to our safety, was entirely guarded by native troops, perfectly trustworthy, but in weak detachments, placed here and there to keep the road clear of marauders. It was along this road that our sick and wounded were sent to Umballa, and that our convoys of treasure and ammunition passed to the camp. The Sepoys, of course, knew this, and were moderately well informed of the goings and comings of convoys. They had heard that a quantity of treasure was coming down, and that a number of sick were going up; they resolved to capture the first and to murder the second. So on the 3rd about 6,000 men of all arms, with several guns, moved out of the Lahore Gate, and went round our right. They were not unseen. All night they marched, making for Alipore, one march in the rear of our camp. Here they drove off the Sikh guard, but found neither sick nor treasure; the former had passed on the 2nd, the latter, delayed on the road, had not come up. The Sepoys, instead of pushing for Kurnaul, as they might have done, countermarched on Delhi. Major Coke, with 1,100 men and 12 guns, had been sent out to intercept them. Hodson and his horse had been on the look-out, and gave Coke ample information. But although our troops got within cannon-shot, and engaged the enemy, they did little except capture an ammunition waggon and a store cart, and recover the plunder of Alipore. In order to check these attacks on our line of communications, it was resolved to blow up all the bridges over the canal except one, and also to destroy part of an aqueduct, one of the mighty works of the former Mohammedan rulers of Delhi. These enterprises were effected during the next week, and thus greater safety was secured for the rear, and the country folk were able to bring provisions into our markets without danger from the Sepoys.
On the day after the attack on Alipore General Barnard sickened of cholera, and by night he was dead. Himself a distinguished soldier, and the son of a more distinguished soldier, Sir Andrew Barnard, he had found himself in a situation unsuited to his abilities; for having served in the Crimea as chief of the staff, he had only arrived in India a few months before the mutiny broke out. He was greatly respected and beloved in camp, but it must be owned he was hardly fit for the work in hand. He was succeeded by a seniority general of no mark, who in turn fell ill, and going off on sick leave, left Brigadier Archdale Wilson in command of the troops before Delhi.
On the 9th of July the newly-arrived Sepoys again sought to distinguish themselves by an assault upon our lines. Among the troops from Bareilly which had just entered Delhi were the troopers of the 8th Irregulars. A wing of the 9th was in our camp, and many men in it had friends in the mutinous 8th. The incidents of the day showed that these two regiments were in communication. "About ten o'clock in the morning," writes Captain Norman, "the insurgents appeared to be increasing in numbers in the suburbs on our right, when suddenly a body of cavalry emerged from cover on the extreme right of our right flank, and charged into camp.... The troop of Carabineers, all very young, most of them untrained soldiers, and only thirty-two in number of all ranks, turned and broke, save the officer and two or three men, who nobly stood. Lieutenant Hills, commanding the guns, seeing the cavalry come on unopposed, alone charged the head of the horsemen, to give his guns time to unlimber, and cut down one or two of the sowars, while the main body of horsemen riding over and past the guns, followed up the Carabineers, and a confused mass of horsemen came streaming in at the right of the camp. Major Tombs, whose tent was on the right, had heard the first alarm, and, calling for his horse to be brought after him, walked towards the picket just as the cavalry came on. He was just in time to see his gallant subaltern down on the ground, with one of the enemy's sowars ready to kill him. From a distance of thirty yards he fired with his revolver, and dropped Hills's opponent. Hills got up and engaged a man on foot, who was cut down by Tombs, after Hills had received a severe sabre-cut on the head. Meanwhile great confusion had been caused by the inroad of the sowars, most of whom made for the guns of the native troop of horse artillery, which was on the right of the camp, calling on the men to join them. The native horse artillerymen, however, behaved admirably, and called to Major Olpherts' European troop, which was then unlimbered close by, to fire through them at the mutineers. The latter, however, managed to secure and carry off some horses, and several followers were cut down in camp. Captain Fagan, of the artillery, rushing out of his tent, got together a few men, and followed up some of the sowars, who were then endeavouring to get away, and killed fifteen of them. More were killed by some men of the 1st Brigade, and all were driven out of the camp, some escaping by a bridge over the canal-cut in our rear. It is estimated that not more than 100 sowars were engaged in this enterprise, and about thirty-five were killed, including a native officer. All this time the cannonade from the city, and from many field-guns outside, raged fast and furious, and a heavy fire of musketry was kept up upon our batteries, and on the Subzee Mundi pickets from the enclosures and gardens of the suburbs. A column was therefore formed to dislodge them, consisting of Major Scott's horse battery, the available men of the 8th and 61st Foot and 4th Sikh Infantry—in all about 700 infantry, and six guns, reinforced en route by the headquarters and two companies of the 60th Rifles, under Lieutenant-Colonel J. Jones; the infantry brigade being commanded by Brigadier W. Jones, C.B., and Brigadier-General Chamberlain directing the whole. As this column swept up through the Subzee Mundi, Major Reid was instructed to move down and co-operate with such infantry as could be spared from the main picket. The insurgents were cleared out of the gardens without difficulty, though the denseness of the vegetation rendered the mere operation of passing through them a work of time. At some of the serais, however, a very obstinate resistance was made, and the insurgents were not dislodged without considerable loss. Eventually everything was effected that was desired, our success being greatly aided by the admirable and steady practice of Major Scott's battery under a heavy fire, eleven men being put hors de combat out of its small complement. By sunset the engagement was over, and the troops returned to camp, drenched through with rain, which, for several hours, had fallen at intervals with great violence. Our loss this day was one officer and 40 men killed, 8 officers and 163 men wounded, 11 men missing."
Not content with the result of the 9th, the mutineers, on the 14th, renewed the attack. They moved, as usual, out of the Lahore Gate, and made for the Subzee Mundi. The position on this side, however, had been strengthened greatly since the inroad of the troopers on the 9th, and the Sepoys were easily repelled. The fight became one of artillery and musketry, each party availing itself of good cover. At length we had to put an end to it in the usual way. Brigadier Chamberlain formed a column, and led them against the enemy—literally so; for our troops, not liking the look of a wall lined with Sepoys, stopped short, instead of charging at it. Thereupon Chamberlain, spurring his horse, leaped clean over the wall into the midst of the enemy, daring his own men to follow. They did, but Chamberlain got hit in the shoulder. Once on the move, our infantry kept the Sepoys going, and drove them from garden to garden and house to house up to the walls of Delhi. For this they paid heavily; for when they began to retire, the Sepoys took heart, and, issuing out, opened with musketry and grape. Luckily, Hodson, who had seen the column go in, followed with a few of his horse, and arrived at the moment of peril. Aided by some officers and the boldest spirits among the European and Guide Infantry, he stopped the enemy's cavalry, and then retired fighting, until two guns came up, and soon "drove the last living rebel into his pandemonium," as they called Delhi in those days. But we lost 15 killed, and had 150 wounded.