While engaged in this duty we (Norman, Johnson and I) were attacked by a party of the enemy who had been hiding in considerable numbers in a side-lane watching for a chance. A fight ensued; we had only a small guard with us, but, fortunately, the firing was heard by the men of a near piquet, some of whom came to our help. With their assistance we drove off the sepoys, but in the scrimmage my poor mare was shot. She was a very useful animal, and her death was a great loss to me at the time.
At sunset on the 14th of September only a very small portion of the walls of Delhi was in our possession. The densely-populated city remained to be conquered. The magazine, the palace, and the Fort of Selimgarh, all strongly fortified, were still in the hands of the enemy. The narrow strip of ground we had gained had been won at severe loss. Three out of the four officers who commanded the assaulting columns had been disabled, and 66 officers and 1,104 men had been killed and wounded.
'Cheer, Boys, Cheer!' The night of the 14th was spent by the General and staff in 'Skinner's [house],'[1] close to the church. Rest was badly needed, for almost everyone in the force, officers and men alike, had been hard at work, night and day, for a week. That night, luckily, we were allowed to be at peace, for whether it was that the rebels were as tired as we were, or that they were busy making preparations for further resistance, they did not disturb us; and when day broke we were all refreshed and ready to continue the struggle. At one time, indeed, early in the evening, the enemy appeared from their movements to be preparing to attack us, but just at that moment the band of the 4th Punjab Infantry struck up 'Cheer, Boys, Cheer!' upon which the men of the regiment did cheer, most lustily, and other regiments caught up and continued the inspiriting hurrahs, which apparently had the effect of disconcerting the mutineers and keeping them quiet.
CHAPTER [XIX.]
1857
On the morning of the 15th the situation was reviewed, and preparations made for the conquest of the city. Order was restored amongst the troops, who, as I have shown, had become somewhat demoralized by the street fighting. Regiments and brigades were got together; raids were made on all the store shops within reach, and every bottle of beer and spirits was [broken].[1] Some of the liquor would doubtless have been of great use in the hospitals, but there was no means of removing it, and the General wisely determined that it was best to put temptation out of the men's way. Guns and mortars were placed into position for shelling the city and palace, and a few houses near, where the enemy's sharpshooters had established themselves, were seized and occupied. We soon, however, gave up attacking such positions, for we found that street fighting could not be continued without the loss of more men than we had to spare, and that the wisest plan would be to keep the soldiers under cover as much as possible while we sapped from house to house. A battery commanding Selimgarh and part of the palace was constructed in the college gardens, and a breach was made in the wall of the magazine, which was captured the next morning with but slight loss.
On the 16th, and again on the 18th, Chamberlain took command of the troops inside the city while the General rested for a few hours. He was, as he expressed himself in a note to Chamberlain, 'completely done.'
The enemy now began to draw in their line. The suburbs were evacuated, and riding through the Sabzi Mandi, Kisenganj and Paharipur, we gazed with wonder at the size and strength of the works raised against us by the mutineers, in attacking which we had experienced such heavy loss during the early days of the siege, and from which No. 4 column had been obliged to retire on the day of the assault.
Capture of the Burn Bastion The smaller the position that had to be defended, the greater became the numbers concentrated in our immediate front, and every inch of our way through the city was stoutly disputed; but the advance, though slow, was steady, and considering the numbers of the insurgents, and the use they made at close quarters of their Field Artillery, our casualties were fewer than could have been expected.