Round the Wonderful World

by G. E. Mitton

Now we are nearing the Lahore Gate and you can see that Delhi is a walled city. The walls run all round for six miles, and are backed up by a twenty-five feet ditch, so that it is a tough city for any army to take. The gate itself is a fine building. When the British troops, who varied at times from 5000 to 10,000 men, set to work to attack this strong city, held by 40,000 to 100,000 natives, many of them trained and disciplined soldiers, taught by the very men against whom they were fighting, it seemed an impossible task. The audacity of it! This gate was one of the hardest of all to break through. Four attacking parties had been sent against the walls, the other three got in, but the one that came here failed. Then the others tried to work their way through, inside the city, to capture this gate. They crept along the narrow lane running inside the wall, but it was commanded everywhere from the heights of the houses by the enemy, who poured down a murderous fire into it. Again and again the reckless men, who determined to take the gate, started off on the deadly errand, again and again they were wiped off, and alas! one of those mortally wounded was General John Nicholson, whose utter disregard of danger and marvellous understanding of the native character had made many of the natives look on him as a god!

Now we are outside and driving up to the ridge. Every British boy and girl has heard of the ridge. It played a great part in the Mutiny. It is a long backbone of hill which runs close up to the city at one end. We will leave our carriage to go slowly along to the far end, where the road winds up, and we ourselves will scramble up at this side till we gain the Mutiny Memorial, a Gothic tower rising in many stages like a church spire. We can mount the steps inside to see the view. It is worth it, for miles and miles of country lie spread before us from this height.

I don't want to go into details of history, but if ever there is a place where history was made it is here. On this ridge for months was camped the British army, including some loyal native regiments, and all the time they never wavered in their determination to retake Delhi, then in the hands of the natives. Our men could not be said to besiege the city, because to besiege means to sit down all round a place and prevent the inhabitants from getting supplies from outside until they are compelled to give in or are too weak to resist the entrance of the besiegers; we never invested Delhi in this way. There were not enough men even to attempt it; the natives could always get supplies into the city, if they wanted, from the river Jumna, which runs past the other side. But the British sat steadily on their heights in grim determination, and never lost the chance of a move. They died in hundreds; remember it was during an Indian summer, and even under the best conditions, with ice and punkahs and shade, the European finds it hard to get through the hot weather. Here there were no conveniences and very few even of what might be considered necessaries. The men suffered from dysentery, fever, wounds, and sunstroke, and yet they carried through their forlorn hope triumphantly, and it was hardly a year later that the Queen of England was proclaimed Sovereign of India.

In that great plain, which stretches far as eye can see on the other side of the ridge, some twenty years later another proclamation was made, and the Queen was further proclaimed under the title of Empress of India; while in 1911 her grandson, King George, himself proclaimed Delhi as the capital of India in place of Calcutta.

Over the screen of trees you can see beautiful Delhi lying within its hoary walls. You can see the towers and steeples and minarets and domes of the city. Now look the other way, along the ridge. That great pillar close to us is very old; it was made by one of the Hindu kings, but it was only put up here ten years after the Mutiny, and is not interesting. That white house farther on is now a hospital; it was once a private house, and in it General Nicholson died. Look on again, much farther, past trees and other houses, and you will see a rounded building with turrets—that is the Flagstaff Tower so fiercely held.

Come down now to rejoin the carriage and we will go back to the city by the Kashmir Gate. Of all the gates this is the one with the most daring story of adventure attached to it.

When the British had resolved to make an assault on the city they detailed four parties, as I said, to attack in four places. One of them was this gate. The other three places had been partially broken in by the guns, and there was a chance for those heroic madmen to get through, but this was entire. The assaulting party had first to break a way in and then get through.

And they did it!

The five told off to make the breach were Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, and Sergeants Carmichael, Burgess, and Smith. Some carried bags of gunpowder, and others, the fire to set them off. It was daylight when they ran towards the gate across a single plank spanning the ditch, so that they had to go one by one in full range of the enemy's fire from the walls. The marvel is that any lived to reach the gate alive. When one fell another leaped forward to carry on his task. The bags were flung down, and those who placed them tumbled back into the ditch, while their comrades set the powder alight and rolled down too. Out of the whole party only Home and Smith survived. The wicket of the gate was burst open by the explosion, and the storming party, also crossing that single plank, made for it, got inside, and beat back the foe, meeting their comrades, who had burst in at other points, inside.

The tale of "how Horatius kept the bridge" pales before this amazing pluck.