On the night of the 5th of July General Sir H. Barnard died of cholera, brought on by fatigue and anxiety of mind.
General Wilson began on a new system. They no longer attacked the villages, losing men and gaining little. They were now to remain on the defensive, and to burn or bury all corpses. For it was sickening to see the dogs and jackals, disturbed by the burying-parties, slowly waddling off, fat and gorged with their horrible feast.
Until buried the rebels were still enemies: their effluvia carried death into our ranks. As a sergeant once said: “Them Pandies, sir, is wuss when they are killed.”
On the 19th they received the first intelligence of the Cawnpore tragedy—of Wheeler’s capitulation and destruction—causing great depression in camp and more cholera.
They had been clearing the gardens of rebels beyond the Metcalfe grounds when Seaton saw two of Coke’s men coming along, carrying Captain Law, who had just been killed. He stopped to help them, and was stooping to take the men’s muskets when he was struck full on the left breast by a musket-ball fired at thirty-five paces’ distance. The blow was so violent that he was nearly knocked off his horse, and for some seconds could not breathe, the blood rushing from his mouth in foam. He naturally thought he was done for, but as soon as his breath came again, he opened his clothes and found out the course of the ball.
Seeing that no air issued from the wound, he secured his sword and pistol, and, dismounting from his horse, led him over a broken wall, and was on the point of falling headlong in a faint when the two men he had tried to help took him under the arms and got him to the Metcalfe picket.
The men there ran to meet him: one gave him a drop of rum and water, others brought a charpoy (native bedstead) and carried him off to the doctor. On the way he met Hodson, who galloped off at once to camp, so when they reached his tent, he found the doctor waiting and everything ready. The ball had struck on a rib, fractured it, driven it down on the lung, and then had passed out at his back. Hodson cared for him with the affection of a brother. He was to lie quite still and not speak for a week.
On the 1st of August the doctor took off this embargo—Seaton was recovering rapidly. In Delhi, our spies said, the Pandies were all jealous of one another and would not act in concert. The rebel sepoy carried in a purse round his waist the gold he had made by selling his share of our plundered treasures; this gold made him unwilling to risk his life in battle and made him suspect his comrades.
Their wounded were in a horrible state: there were no surgeons to perform any operations, no attendants to bring food or water. The limbs of some were rotting off with gangrene, others had wounds filled with maggots from neglect; all were bitterly contrasting their lot with the life of comfort they had enjoyed under British government. The old King, too, was in despair, and vented it in some poor poetry.
On the 7th of August there was a tremendous explosion in the city, and next day they heard that a powder manufactory had blown up, killing 400 people.