“Not yet.... I’m afraid we shall hear soon enough.”
On the following day, news of the achievements of the other columns arrived; good news mixed with bad, for Nicholson lay dying, shot through the body as he headed the charge and led his men to victory.
Soon came also tidings of the glorious acts of the heroes of the 3rd Column, of Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, of Sergeants Burgess, Carmichael, and Smith, and of Bugler Hawthorne—the heroes who had taken their lives in their hands and had blown up the Kashmir Gate, after overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, a deed with which all England rang. Of these six men, four were subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross; and the other two, Burgess and Carmichael, would have been honoured in the same way had they survived.
Truly, even in this year of heroes and heroic deeds, the story of these glorious men and of their act of devotion stands out clear to dazzle our imaginations, to lead us to thank God that they were of our breed, to make us wonder what we of the same blood would have done had we been in their place. Then let us hope we become more humble in our pride.
By the 18th of September the Lahore Gate and Bastion were also captured, and on the 20th the whole of Delhi was in our hands.
The Palace taken and the king a prisoner, the Indian Mutiny had lost its sting.
Yet, in spite of victory, gloom was over the camp, for a hero lay dying, and there was no hope of saving his life. John Nicholson’s wound had proved mortal: a life that had promised to be of unusual brilliance would soon be cut short, even before its work was more than half done—but that half had been done well. The career of this dying leader of men had been unique, even in the annals of British rule in India, whose pages teem with the deeds and lives of heroes in the noblest sense of that word—men worthy of all admiration, men whose lives inspire others to follow the gleam.