Life in an Indian Outpost

by Gordon Casserly

In front of the three stockaded sides of the fort a broad, V-shaped ditch was dug, five feet deep. On the fourth face the bank fell sheer thirty or forty feet to the river; and built out over the nullah on tree-trunks laid horizontally, their butts buried in the ground, was a gallery projecting from the stone wall. It was loopholed for men to fire, not only on three sides, but also directly beneath them down into the river-bed. Entrance to it was gained from a small door in the wall. Close to it, and similarly projecting over the nullah, was a device copied from the savage tribes of the frontier. This was a booby-trap, a bamboo platform hinged and held up by thick, hawser-like creepers fastened inside the wall. On it were piled rocks. A couple of blows with an axe would cut through the supporting creepers; and the platform, falling, would shower down an avalanche of huge stones on the heads of enemies gathered close under the sheer bank, and safe from the rifles of the defenders above. These traps are largely used by the Nagas, Mishmis, and other wild races along the borders of Assam and Burma. They are placed over steep and narrow mountain paths and discharged with disastrous effect on foes toiling up to the assault. During the Abor War they were frequently tried on General Bower who was too wary to be caught by them. He always took the precaution of sending parties of Gurkhas to scale the heights to search for and cut the booby-traps away before his column passed under them.

As the shallow stream ran close to the bank we erected, behind the wall, a dipping-pole and bucket to bring up water without danger from hostile fire to the men fetching it.

Our stockades would have proved very unpleasant obstacles to surmount. They had a forward rake to increase by the overhang the difficulty of escalading them. And along their tops was fastened a tangle of cut and sharp-pointed branches projecting well outwards, so that it was almost impossible to climb over.

In attacking a stockade the assailants try to get close up to it, fire in through the loopholes and hack it down with axes. To prevent this, six-foot panjis—sharpened bamboo stakes, their pointed ends hardened by fire—stuck thickly out from the face of our stockades. On the near slope of the ditches lines of panjis projected with their points at a downward angle; while on the far side fences of sharpened bamboos were planted. At the bottom of the ditches chevaux de frise of long panjis were fixed.

These panjis inflict ghastly injuries, and are more dangerous than bayonets. An officer of my acquaintance, when leading an assault on a stockade held by dacoits in Burma, ran against a panji which transfixed his thigh. He was eleven months in hospital before the wound healed; and for many years afterwards he was lame.

For twenty yards beyond the ditches the ground was covered with a five-feet-high entanglement of felled trees. Their butts were lashed to stout pegs driven deep into the earth. Their thinner branches were lopped off, the thicker ones cut and trimmed with sharp points towards the front. In military parlance this is called an abattis.

Anyone endeavouring to rush the defences of our fort would have found it a difficult feat, even if no bullets were showered on him from the loopholes. He would first have to force his way through twenty yards of entanglement, then climb a sharp-pointed fence, pass the chevaux de frise in the ditch, get by the downward-pointing panjis, evade the six-foot stakes projecting from the face of the stockade, and climb over the stockade itself through the overhead tangle of branches. And to do it under a hot fire would be almost impossible. To attack such a post successfully guns would be necessary—and a well-built double stockade would withstand light artillery.

For our own use winding paths led through the abattis to drawbridges before the two gates. These latter were of bamboo, hinged at the top and opening outwards and upwards, supported when open by high, forked poles. In each was a small wicket constructed on the same principle and only wide enough to admit one man at a time. Wickets and gates were stuck thick with projecting panjis.

Trees in the interior of the post were left standing to give shade, as were others growing in the line of the defences. And in the latter, forty feet from the ground, were platforms reached by ladders and hidden by the leafy branches. On them the sentries were stationed; and from them, during a night attack, men could fire and hurl bombs down on the assailants who would find it difficult to locate their position. From these sentry posts stout cords of twisted udal fibre led to kerosene oil tins hung up in the quarters occupied by officers and section commanders. In the tins stones were put, so that a pull on the cords would rattle the tins throughout the post and arouse the defenders without an approaching enemy being aware that the alarm had been given.

So much for the defences. As such a post would be constructed with a view to long occupation the question of housing the garrison comfortably remained. In the interior along each face two huts, each to hold a section of twenty or twenty-five men, with huts for the native officers, were built. The roofs were thickly thatched. The back and side walls were made of two rows of bamboo a foot apart, with rammed earth between them. The front walls were lightly made of bamboo and hinged at the top to open outwards and upwards in an emergency, so that the whole section could come out in line. For ordinary use a small door sufficed. Along the back wall ran a sloping guard-bed, with a broad shelf underneath, on which the sepoys' clothing could be laid. Overhead were pegs for their rifles and accoutrements.