Cawnpore

by George Otto Trevelyan

About half-an-hour after this the woman called "the Begum" informed the captives that the Peishwa had determined to have them killed. One of the ladies went up to the native officer who commanded the guard, and told him that she learned they were all to die. To this he replied that, if such were the case, he must have heard something about it; so that she had no cause to be afraid: and a soldier said to the Begum: "Your orders will not be obeyed. Who are you that you should give orders?" Upon this the woman fired up, and hurried off to lay the affair before the Nana. During her absence the sepoys discussed the matter, and resolved that they would never lift their weapons against the prisoners. One of them afterwards confessed to a friend that his own motive for so deciding was anxiety to stand well with the Sahibs, if ever they got back to Cawnpore. The Begum presently returned with five men, each carrying a sabre. Two were Hindoo peasants: the one thirty-five years of age, fair and tall, with long mustachios, but flat-faced and wall-eyed: the other considerably his senior, short, and of a sallow complexion. Two were butchers by calling: portly strapping fellows, both well on in life. The larger of the two was disfigured by the traces of the small-pox. They were Mahommedans, of course; as no Hindoo could adopt a trade which obliged him to spill the blood of a cow.

These four were dressed in dirty white clothes. The fifth, likewise a Mussulman, wore the red uniform of the Maharaja's body-guard, and is reported to have been the sweetheart of the Begum. He was called Survur Khan, and passed for a native of some distant province. A bystander remarked that he had hair on his hands.

The sepoys were bidden to fall on. Half-a-dozen among them advanced, and discharged their muskets through the windows at the ceiling of the apartments. Thereupon the five men entered. It was the short gloaming of Hindostan:—the hour when ladies take their evening drive. She who had accosted the officer was standing in the doorway. With her were the native doctor, and two Hindoo menials. That much of the business might be seen from the verandah, but all else was concealed amidst the interior gloom. Shrieks and scuffling acquainted those without that the journeymen were earning their hire. Survur Khan soon emerged with his sword broken off at the hilt. He procured another from the Nana's house, and a few minutes after appeared again on the same errand. The third blade was of better temper; or perhaps the thick of the work was already over. By the time darkness had closed in, the men came forth and locked up the house for the night. Then the screams ceased: but the groans lasted till morning.

The sun rose as usual. When he had been up nearly three hours the five repaired to the scene of their labours over-night. They were attended by a few sweepers, who proceeded to transfer the contents of the house to a dry well situated behind some trees which grew hard by. "The bodies," says one who was present throughout, "were dragged out, most of them by the hair of the head. Those who had clothes worth taking were stripped. Some of the women were alive. I cannot say how many: but three could speak. They prayed for the sake of God that an end might be put to their sufferings. I remarked one very stout woman, an half-caste, who was severely wounded in both arms, who entreated to be killed. She and two or three others were placed against the bank of the cut by which bullocks go down in drawing water. The dead were first thrown in. Yes: there was a great crowd looking on: they were standing along the walls of the compound. They were principally city people and villagers. Yes: there were also sepoys. Three boys were alive. They were fair children. The eldest, I think, must have been six or seven, and the youngest five years. They were running round the well (where else could they go to?) and there was none to save them. No; none said a word, or tried to save them."

At length the smallest of them made an infantile attempt to get away. The little thing had been frightened past bearing by the murder of one of the surviving ladies. He thus attracted the observation of a native, who flung him and his companions down the well. One deponent is of opinion that the man first took the trouble to kill the children. Others think not. The corpses of the gentlemen must have been committed to the same receptacle: for a townsman who looked over the brink fancied that there was "a Sahib uppermost." This is the history of what took place at Cawnpore, between four in the afternoon of one day and nine in the morning of another, almost under the shadow of the church-tower, and within call of the Theatre, the Assembly Rooms, and the Masonic Lodge. Long before noon on the sixteenth July there remained no living European within the circuit of the station.

But there were plenty at no great distance: for, about the turn of day, our force, after travelling five leagues, rested for a space in a hamlet buried amidst a forest of mango groves. A mile to northward lay the sepoy host, entrenched across the spot where the byway to Cawnpore branches from the Grand Trunk Road. Seven guns commanded the approaches, and behind a succession of fortified villages were gathered five thousand fighting men, prepared to strike a last blow for their necks and their booty. Havelock resolved to turn the flank of the Nana: for he was aware that, if an opponent assails a native army otherwise than as it intended to be assailed when it took up its position, the general for a certainty loses his head, and the soldiers their heart. The word was given, and our column defiled at a steady pace round the left of the hostile line. The Fusileers led, with two field-pieces in their rear. Then came the Highlanders, and the bulk of the artillery; followed by the Sixty-fourth, the Eighty-fourth, and the Sikh battalion. For some time the mutineers seemed to be unconscious of what was going on: deceived by clumps of fruit-trees, that screened our movement; and distracted by the sharp look-out which they were keeping straight ahead. But soon an evident sensation was created along their whole array. Their batteries began discharging shot and shell with greater liberality than accuracy; while a body of cavaliers pushed forward in the direction of our march, and made a demonstration that did not lead to much. As soon as the enemy's flank was completely exposed to the English attack, our troops halted, faced, and advanced in the order wherein they found themselves, covered by two companies of the Fusileers extended as skirmishers. Colonel Hamilton bade the pipes strike up, and led the Seventy-eighth against a cluster of houses defended by three guns. His horse was shot between his legs: but the kilts never stopped until they were masters of all inside the village. Three more pieces were captured by Major Stirling and the Sixty-fourth regiment. The rebel infantry were everywhere in full retreat: for the last half-hour nothing had been seen of the cavalry: and the battle appeared to be won.

Our fire had already ceased. The officers were congratulating each other on their easy victory: the privates were lighting their cheroots, and speculating on the probability of an extra allowance of rum: when of a sudden a twenty-four pounder, planted on the Cawnpore Road, opened with fatal precision upon our exhausted ranks. Two large masses of horsemen rode forward over the plain. The foot rallied, and came down with drums beating and colours flying: and the presence of a numerous staff, in gallant attire, announced that the Peishwa himself was there, bent on daring something great in defence of his tottering throne. Meanwhile our artillery cattle, tired out by continual labour over vile roads and under a burning sun, could no longer drag the cannon into action. The volunteers did whatever might be done by a dozen and a half planters mounted on untrained hunters. The insurgents grew insolent: our soldiers were falling fast: and the British general perceived that the crisis was not yet over. He despatched his son to the spot where the men of the Sixty-fourth were lying down under such cover as they could get, with an order to rise and charge.

They leapt to their feet, rejoicing to fling aside their inaction: and young Havelock placed himself at their head, and steered his horse straight for the muzzle of the gun: mindful, perhaps, how, four and forty years before, a light-haired strippling of his name and blood showed our allies on the banks of the Bidassoa that an English steed could clear a French breastwork.[5] But our people were not Spaniards: and more than one indignant veteran asked in grumbling tones whether the corps might not be trusted to the guidance of its own officers. Nor did their major need that any one should show him the way, when once he had dismounted, and thrown to a groom the bridle of his fidgety little charger, a shapely bay Arab, on whose back, four months later, he was shot dead amidst his shattered regiment in a glorious but ineffectual attempt to retrieve a disastrous day.

And then the mutineers realized the change that a few weeks had wrought in the nature of the task which they had selected and cut out for themselves. The affair was no longer with mixed groups of invalids and civilians, without strategy or discipline, resisting desperately wherever they might chance to be brought to bay. Now from left to right extended the unbroken line of white faces, and red cloth, and sparkling steel. In front of all, the field officer stepped briskly out, doing his best to keep ahead of his people. There marched the captains, duly posted on the flank of their companies; and the subalterns, gesticulating with their swords; and the sober, bearded serjeants, each behind his respective section. Embattled in their national order, and burning with more than their national lust of combat, on they came, the unconquerable British Infantry. The grape was flying thick and true. Files rolled over. Men stumbled, and recovered themselves, and went on for a while, and then turned and hobbled to the rear. But the Sixty-fourth was not to be denied. Closer and closer drew the measured tramp of feet: and the heart of the foe died within him, and his fire grew hasty and ill-directed. As the last volley cut the air overhead, our soldiers raised a mighty shout, and rushed forward, each at his own pace. And then every rebel thought only of himself. Those nearest the place were first to make away: but throughout the host there were none who still aspired to stay within push of the English bayonets. Such as had any stomach left for fighting were sickened by a dose of shrapnel and canister from four light guns, which Maude had driven up within point-blank range. Squadron after squadron, battalion upon battalion, these humbled Brahmins dropped their weapons, stripped off their packs, and spurred, and ran, and limped, and scrambled, back to the city that was to have been the chief and central abode of sepoy domination.