Cawnpore

by George Otto Trevelyan

"It is well known that in these days all the English have entertained these evil designs—first to destroy the religion of the whole Hindostani army, and then to make the people Christians by compulsion. Therefore we, solely on account of our religion, have combined with the people, and have not spared alive one infidel, and have re-established the Delhi dynasty on these terms, and thus act in obedience to orders and receive double pay. Hundreds of guns and a large amount of treasure have fallen into our hands; therefore it is fitting that whoever of the soldiers and the people dislike turning Christians should unite with one heart and act courageously, not leaving the seed of these infidels remaining. For any quantity of supplies delivered to the army the owners are to take the receipts of the officers; and they will receive double payment from the Imperial Government. Whoever shall in these times exhibit cowardice, or credulously believe the promises of those impostors, the English, shall very shortly be put to shame for such a deed; and, rubbing the hands of sorrow, shall receive for their fidelity the reward the ruler of Lucknow got. It is further necessary that all Hindoos and Mussulmans unite in this struggle, and, following the instructions of some respectable people, keep themselves secure, so that good order may be maintained, the poorer classes kept contented, and they themselves be exalted to rank and dignity; also, that all, so far as it is possible, copy this proclamation, and despatch it everywhere, so that all true Hindoos and Mussulmans may be alive and watchful, and fix it in some conspicuous place (but prudently, to avoid detection), and strike a blow with a sword before giving circulation to it. The first pay of the soldiers of Delhi will be thirty rupees per month for a trooper, and ten rupees for a footman. Nearly one hundred thousand men are ready; and there are thirteen flags of the English regiments, and about fourteen standards from different parts, now raised aloft for our religion, for God, and the conqueror; and it is the intention of Cawnpore to root out the seed of the Devil. This is what we of the army here wish."

This message was succeeded by a proclamation issued from the peacock throne, in which the Mogul promised a monthly wage of twelve rupees and a respectable estate to every sepoy who would rally to the banner of the ancient dynasty. He likewise ordained that no cows should thenceforward be killed throughout the land, and finished by pronouncing a malediction upon the head of any one who should intercept the imperial courier. The wretch was doomed to eat pork and beef: and, as the messenger was eventually hanged by an English officer of the Seventieth Infantry, it may be presumed that the curse has by this time been fulfilled to the letter.

The rebel cause was soon strengthened by a more valuable reinforcement than either the posse comitatus of the province, or the sympathy of the Delhi mutineers. At the village of Chowbeypore, on the Great North Road, had been stationed a detachment from the garrison of Lucknow, comprising a squadron of native cavalry, and two companies of sepoys, commanded by Captain Staples, four subalterns, and a European serjeant-major. At about two o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, the ninth of June, these gentlemen were roused from their luncheon by the sound of a bugle playing the "Assembly." Rushing forth, they demanded why so strange a liberty had been taken, and were told that it was by the orders of the Nana. At the mention of this ill-omened name our officers flung themselves on horseback, and rode for dear life, with all the disadvantages resulting from ignorance of the country and a bad start. That was a run in which the game was allowed no law. The Captain was shot down from his saddle, and cut in pieces where he lay. Two Englishmen took to the water like hunted stags, and there miserably perished. Two others were headed by a mob of villagers, and driven back among the sabres and pistols of their pursuers. Lieutenant Bolton alone, by dint of hard riding, escaped to Cawnpore with a bullet-hole in his cheek;—if escape it may be called, which was only the postponement of death. After a chase of sixteen miles he reached the neighbourhood of the town at nightfall; passed unobserved through the lines of the mutineers; and camped out on the plain, waiting until dawn should disclose to him the outline of the intrenchment. Our sentries, astonished by the apparition of a cavalier riding at the earthwork through the twilight like a mounted Remus, fired, and struck his horse. No one, however, was surprised to find that even a crippled steed could clear those defences at a leap. The fugitive was heartily greeted by his countrymen, and entertained with such hospitality as their situation would admit. Wounded and exhausted as he was, he proved well worth his keep.

The troops who had revolted at Chowbeypore marched into Cawnpore, bringing with them three English heads in a basket, and taking up on their way a toll-keeper named Joseph Carter, and his wife; a young person, who was daily expecting her first baby. This offering, combined agreeably to his taste of the dead and the living, was mightily acceptable to the Nana. With fraternal kindness he made a present of the grisly trophies to Bala Rao, who exposed them in his saloon, and gave a sort of conversazione at which they formed the leading attraction. Mr. Carter was shot, as a matter of course; and his little widow would have shared his fate, had not the relicts of the late Peishwa, the step-mothers by adoption of the Maharaja, felt a womanly commiseration for one so tender and so afflicted. The good ladies begged hard for this single example of clemency, and begged in vain. At length their pride of sex was roused against such determined brutality towards a woman who had so lately been a wife, and was so soon to be a mother, and they threatened to commit suicide unless their petition was granted. The Nana then gave way, and permitted his relatives to carry off their protégée to the apartments appropriated to the females in the palace at Bithoor, where they placed her under the charge of an experienced Mahomedan nurse. He insisted, however, that she should be considered as under custody, and appointed a squad of troopers to see that she was forthcoming whenever it might suit his will and pleasure. He never lost sight of a victim. He boasted the worst half of, at any rate, one kingly quality,—an unerring memory.

On the next Friday the remnant of the native force which had mutinied at Benares made their appearance on the opposite side of the river. The exit of these gentlemen from the Holy City had not been of a nature to gratify their conceit, and their entry into Cawnpore was the reverse of triumphant. They straggled up, jaded and dispirited, without any semblance of martial order, some on horseback, and others perched up in the uncomfortable country-carts of Hindostan, which seem to have been devised with the express object of conveying the least possible amount of freight with the greatest expenditure of traction power. Their condition excited the contempt and cupidity of the officials appointed to superintend the river traffic in the interest of the Nana; who accordingly refused to ferry across these shabby auxiliaries for less than a rupee per head. Considering that the majority of the passengers were of pure Sikh blood, their spirit must indeed have been broken before they could have endured such insolence and extortion.

On the fifteenth of June, a welcome message was brought to the Maharaja from the Meer Nawab, a Mussulman of rank, who sent word that he was coming up from the eastward with a couple of thousand regular infantry, and a full complement of artillery. Azimoolah resolved that his subordinates should not have an opportunity of repeating their conduct of the previous week. Every mark of respect was to be displayed towards so august and puissant a chieftain. The bridge contractors were commissioned to collect barges for the transit of the expected allies, and the confectioners of the town received instructions to prepare for their refreshment a ménu, containing all those dishes of sweetened animal food so nauseous to a European palate. On the morrow the Nawab arrived at the head of two fine regiments, which had been raised on the occasion of Lord Dalhousie's annexation, amidst the deep but suppressed uneasiness of all who gave the native mind credit for the human qualities of ambition, shame, and patriotism;—of all who believed the Hindoo capable of any loftier sentiment than the desire to curry favour with an English magistrate, touch a hundred rupees per mensem from an English treasury, talk broken Addison, and read the "Deserted Village" in the original. On the rolls of our army these battalions were styled the Fourth and Fifth Oude Locals: but sepoys have invariably some pet title for their own corps, (in most cases a corruption of the name of its first colonel,) more suited to the Indian tongue than our complicated military nomenclature. Thus the First, the Fifty-third, and the Fifty-sixth Bengal Native Infantry, were spoken of familiarly as "Gillises," "Lamboorn's," and "Garsteen's." The Oude soldiers under the Meer Nawab were known to themselves and their compatriots as the men of the Nadiree and the Akhtaree Regiments.

When the new-comers caught sight of the fortress which had hitherto baffled the ingenuity and courage of their associates, they expressed no small contempt for the generalship of the Nana, but bade him be at his ease, for that they would engage to put him in possession of the intrenchment after they had enjoyed a day's rest and surfeit. And so, on the eighteenth of June, at the hour when, exactly two and forty years before, the French tirailleurs were swarming through the woods of Hougoumont up to the loopholes of the wall which they never passed, the Oude mutineers charged in a mass across the plain, and over our rampart; bore down the defenders; overturned a gun; and seemed for a moment in a fair way of justifying their vaunt. A moment only: for, without waiting for orders, angry Sahibs came running from all sides to the rescue. Our people slewed round a nine-pounder; gave them first some stockingfuls of grape, and then an English rush; and sent them back to their master fewer and wiser than they came.

The rebel position presented an aspect animated and picturesque in a high degree. To the north of our fortification, between the Racket-court and the Chapel of Ease, was planted a battery well armed with mortars and twenty-four pounder cannon. In this region the command was taken by the Nunhey Nawab, the Mahomedan grandee, who, with Bakur Ali, and others, had been plundered and imprisoned by the Brahmins during their first outbreak of religious spite. The high-spirited Moslem soldiery at once refused to brook this outrage, and began to talk of setting up the Nawab's claim to royalty against that of the Maharaja: upon which the latter released his prisoners, and thenceforward behaved towards them rather as an equal than as a master. The Nana's rival showed both judgment and vigour. He beat up all the pensioned veterans of the neighbourhood who had formerly served in the artillery, and employed work-people of both sexes in keeping him supplied with red-hot shot. On one occasion an apprentice to the trade took it into his head to try the experiment of heating a loaded shell, and succeeded in blowing up a woman and five men, including, we may presume, himself. The Nawab passed most of his time in the gallery of the Racket-court, where, in the late afternoon of more quiet days, had lolled a cluster of chatty Englishmen; opening bottles of soda-water; chaffing the players with the threadbare raillery that suffices for the simple taste of a limited community; descending in parties of four, cheroot in mouth, when the cry of "game-ball all" warned them that their turn was come. Occasionally he would issue forth to see how his gunners were getting on, and to watch the effect of their practice through a telescope. A half-caste Christian, who had disguised himself as a Mahomedan with admirable skill, gives an interesting account of what passed in this quarter. He says, "I saw Nunhey Nawab coming to the batteries accompanied by a number of troopers, and sepoys, and his own attendants also; and I was told by the people that the Nawab had received a post of great dignity, and was in command of a battery. About one o'clock I came close to Major-General Wheeler's bungalow, and, finding a piece of mat in the compound, lay down on it, and saw several troopers going about, forcing people to carry water to the batteries. Hearing an uproar I rose from the place where I was, when a trooper, seeing me, told me that it was a great shame for a young Mussulman like me to be thus idling away my time, and that I should assist at the batteries. He also told me that a young man, the son of Kurrum Ali, the one-eyed, a pensioned soubahdar, was sent for by the Nawab, and had laid a gun so precisely that the shot carried away a portion of one of the barracks within the intrenchment, for which he received a reward of ninety rupees, and a shawl. I replied to this that I possessed no arms, and had never been a soldier." It was no wonder that a battery where the service was conducted on so open-handed a system soon became the popular resort. The lovely Azeezun made this spot her head-quarters. She appears to have exercised a strange fascination over our good friend Nanukchund, so frequently does she appear in the course of his narrative. Whether he cherished towards her a sneaking kindness; or a grudge for some past incivility; or, as is most probable, both the one and the other, he certainly never leaves her alone for many pages together. In his quaint way he writes:—"It shows great daring in Azeezun, that she is always armed and present in the batteries, owing to her attachment to the cavalry; and she takes her favourites among them aside, and entertains them with milk, &c. on the public road."

The Meer Nawab planted the cannon, which he had brought with him across the river, on the south-east of our position, near the Artillery Mess House. This manœuvre forthwith debarred the garrison from obtaining occasional and perilous access to the tank; a privation the more severely felt, because the Oude men, bent on avenging their repulse, worked their pieces with a will, and kept up at point-blank range so hot a fire upon the mouth of our well that the drawing of water was a deed of heroism by night, and in daylight an act of insanity. In the west, Bakur Ali, who had shared with the Nunhey Nawab his disgrace and his restoration to favour, bombarded our outposts from among the stables of the Second Cavalry; while in and about the lines of the First Native Infantry stood a number of heavy guns, known by the collective appellation of "the Sepoy Battery," under cover of which a Jemmadar, who fancied himself gifted with a turn for engineering, was sinking a mine by the aid of some invalid sappers and miners, whom he had persuaded to place themselves at his disposal. In the south-west direction was a stately mansion, which formerly held rank as a charitable institution, under the title of the "Salvador," a name which the effeminate articulation of the native had long before this converted into the "Savada." As the Mahomedan faction mustered strong in the vicinity of the Racket-court, so the Savada soon became the centre of Hindoo influence. It was the special haunt of the Nana. Here were his ministers, his diviners, his courtiers, and the prisoners from whom he purposed to extort something besides their breath. Here was the battery which went by his name. Here was the tent of his most able and ardent partizan, Teeka Sing, the generalissimo. Here too, in an agreeable corner of the grounds, under the shade of a conspicuous grove, conveniently remote alike from the camp of the Moslem and the muzzles of the English artillery, was pitched his own pavilion; for he seems to have inherited the Mahratta preference for canvas over brick and mortar. The chiefs of that hardy and unquiet race seldom had a tight roof over their heads until they were laid beneath some mausoleum of fair white marble, sparkling with cornelian and jasper and lapsis lazuli, constructed out of the spoils and the tribute of nations.

The mutineers showed every intention of enjoying their spell of liberty and domination. These revolted regiments were rapidly turning into mobs. The work of the batteries was left to the retainers of ambitious Rajahs; to pensioned gunners; and to such amateurs as had a stomach for fighting, and a taste for the shawls and cash lavished by the Nunhey Nawab. The sepoys, meanwhile, lounged in the shops which fringed the canal, eating sweetstuff with schoolboy avidity, and drinking sherbet to their hearts' content; or swaggered along the streets with a nonchalance copied from their reminiscences of the fashionable frequenters of the band-stand, criticizing the driving of those among their comrades who had been fortunate enough to lay their hands upon a buggy belonging to a British officer. No decent people were to be seen in the public places. No business was done in the main thoroughfares. The tradesmen, in piteous trepidation, eyed the passing scamps from behind their shutters, consoling their enforced idleness by recollecting in what angle of the garden their money was interred, and framing excuses against the probable visit of the Nana's tax-collector, or the possible return of the English authorities. The opium-sellers and the innkeepers, who in these days anterior to Mr. Wilson's budget had not attained to the dignity of licensed victuallers, alone drove a thriving trade. The warriors of the Religions smoked, and chewed, and snored supine, clad in cotton drawers and a pair of clumsy shoes; their necks encircled by the Brahminical thread, token of their privileged and sacred extraction. To this costume they superadded a red coat, at such times as the stings of conscience, or the reproaches of priest and paramour, drove them out to get a lazy shot at the infidels and an appetite for their curry.