Barclay of the Guides

by Herbert Strang

"In very truth thou art favoured above all men," he said. "I myself would fain serve the great Nikalsain."

"But thou dost not know Delhi, Sherdil-ji," replied Ahmed.

"True, but by often asking one can find the way. Wah! I will nevertheless fight as befits one of my name, and I promise thee that when the day is done the Purbiyas shall lie around me like grass from the scythe."

Dawn was just breaking on that sultry September 14, when the bugle sounded the advance. The Rifles led the way in skirmishing order; the first column, with Nicholson ahead, marched on steadily until they reached the edge of the jungle. Then the Engineers and the storming party, with their ladders, rose from cover, and sprang forward to the breach near the Kashmir bastion. A storm of musket-shots assailed them as they gained the crest of the glacis; scores of men fell; but the survivors let down their ladders, the British officers ran down them into the ditch, the men close behind, and with a great cheer they rushed up the scarp and into the breach. The sight of their gleaming bayonets was too much for the sepoys. They fled, and Nicholson led his men into Delhi.

Meanwhile, at the Mori bastion, Colonel Jones had been met by a tremendous fusillade that mowed down three-fourths of his ladder-men, and a great number of his storming party. But while his men were still struggling with the ladder, twenty-five of the 8th Foot slid into the ditch, and scrambled up into the breach at a point where attack had not been expected. The rebels were taken aback; Jones seized the moment of hesitation, and in a few minutes the rest of his column were upon the ramparts. They swept on towards the Kabul gate, driving the enemy before them, and a wild whoop rose from the panting men as they saw their flag planted on the summit of the gate.

The progress of the third column had been marked by an act of heroism. The Kashmir gate must be blown open before they could enter. Home, a subaltern of the Engineers, with two British sergeants and a dozen natives, ran forward to the gate under a heavy fire, carrying twenty-five pound powder-bags. A step or two behind came Lieutenant Salkeld with a firing party and a bugler. They ran across the ditch by the planks of the drawbridge, and came unscathed to the foot of the great double gates, the rebels seeming to be scared into inaction by the very audacity of the feat. They laid the bags against the gate; then a terrible fire was again directed upon them. A sergeant fell dead; Home dropped unhurt into the ditch; Salkeld, holding the portfire, was shot through arm and leg, and fell back helpless. He handed the portfire to Corporal Burgess, who was shot dead before he could light the fuse. Carmichael took the portfire and had just lighted the fuse, when he received a mortal wound. Smith, fearing that Carmichael had failed, sprang forward, match-box in hand; but the portfire exploded just as he reached the gate, and he plunged into the ditch to escape the greater explosion. Next moment the gate was shattered to fragments. Now was the bugler's turn. Three times he sounded the advance, but amid the din all around it was not heard. The explosion itself, however, gave the signal, and Colonel Campbell led his men forward at the double, and dashed into the city but a few minutes after the first and second columns had entered it.

The fourth column had meanwhile suffered a disastrous check. The guns which were to accompany it were late in arriving, and when they did come, the gunners were only sufficient to work one out of the four. Major Reid was waiting until others could be found, when he heard the explosion at the Kashmir gate and learnt that a portion of his native troops were already engaged at the Idgah. It was time to be up and doing, so he set off to the attack of Kishenganj, leaving his guns behind. But a musket-ball struck him on the head, and he fell insensible into the ditch. There was some disorder among the men, and a doubt as to who was now in command of the column; and when Reid settled that, on returning to consciousness, by ordering Captain Lawrence to take the command, the fire of artillery and musketry from the unbreached walls of Kishenganj was so heavy as to necessitate the withdrawal of the column to their starting-place at Hindu Rao's house. Hope Grant's cavalry, drawn up to guard their flank when they pressed forward to the city, as had been the intention, were forced to sit their horses for two long hours without a chance of doing anything, under a hurricane of lead and iron from the Burn bastion. Only a third of them were British, but the troopers of the Guides and Hodson's Horse behaved as steadily under this critical ordeal as the British Lancers. In the excitement of action men may face lightheartedly dangers to which they are oblivious: it needs more heroism to sit like sentries at the Horse Guards while balls are flying thick around. By and by they were helped to hold their ground by Captain Bourchier's battery of horse artillery. And not till they learnt that the three storming columns had entered the city, and established themselves there, did they fall back to their bivouac around Ludlow Castle.

In the city the ramparts were in British hands, from the Kashmir gate to the Kabul gate, and Colonel Campbell had pushed on across the Chandni Chauk, and as far as the great mosque, which had been fortified. From it and the surrounding houses a deadly fire was poured upon the British, and Campbell, finding that the support he had expected from the other columns was not forthcoming, fell back upon the Begam Bagh, a vast walled garden, where he bivouacked.

Meanwhile, Nicholson had pressed on along the foot of the walls towards the Kabul gate, where British colours now flew. The plan had been to clear the ramparts as far westward as the Lahore gate, and Nicholson expected that Major Reid's column would by this time have entered the city there. Nothing daunted by Reid's failure, Nicholson determined to push forward without this support.

Between the Kabul and the Lahore gates was the Burn bastion, the strongest part of the defences, whence a galling fire was being kept up both on the cavalry drawn up outside and on the infantry in the narrow streets within. A narrow lane, three hundred yards long, and varying from ten feet to three in width, ran between the Kabul gate and the bastion, lined with mud huts on one side and on the other by the ramparts. The rebels, taking heart at the one success they had achieved in the repulse of the fourth column and the havoc wrought by the Burn bastion, had come crowding back into the lane, the further end of which they defended with two brass guns posted behind a bullet-proof screen.