The Great White Hand; Or, the Tiger of Cawnpore: A story of the Indian Mutiny

by J. E. Muddock

With the booming of that gun, as the terrible day dawned on Cawnpore, there commenced a siege that, for horror and misery, has never been exceeded in the history of the world.

It was the month of June. The heat was terrific. The cloudless sky was like a canopy of fire. What little wind there was came like the blast from a glowing furnace. The tubes of the guns grew so hot in the sun’s rays that it was impossible to touch them with the hand. Behind the entrenchments were a heroic band of men—a mere handful—and with them nearly two hundred women and children.

It was for the sake of these dear ones that every man braced himself up to fight against those fearful odds, until he fell dead at his post. Not a craven heart beat in any breast there. Every person knew that the case was hopeless—that to hold out was but to prolong the agony. But “surrender” was a word no one would breathe.

For days and days went on the awful siege. The defenders, weary, overworked and starving, laboured, with the might of giants, in the trenches. The clothes rotted from their backs, and the grime from the guns caked hard and black upon their faces and hands. But, with dauntless courage, they served the guns, and this always under a tremendous fire, from which they were barely screened.

Where all were heroes, comparisons would be invidious indeed, and yet there were some whose names are indelibly written upon the scroll of fame, for the conspicuous manner in which they displayed their heroism.

Captain Moore was one of these. He was wounded at the very commencement of the siege—his arm was broken. But it could not break his spirit! He went about with the fractured limb in a sling. No toil seemed to weary him—no danger could daunt him. Day and night he laboured; encouraging the women, cheering the children. Now serving a gun—now heading a desperate sortie against the enemy. As a companion with him was Captain Jenkins of the 2nd Cavalry. He held the outposts beyond the trenches. Over and over again did the enemy try to dislodge him, but failed each time. At length a treacherous Sepoy, who had been feigning death, raised his gun and fired. The jawbone of the brave Jenkins was smashed, and he died an agonising death.

One day a red-hot shot from the enemy’s battery blew up a tumbrel and set fire to the woodwork of the carriage. A large quantity of ammunition was stored close by. If this caught fire the whole place, and every soul in it, would meet with instant destruction. It seemed as if nothing but a miracle could save them, for there was no water—nothing to extinguish the flames. But the miracle suddenly appeared in the person of a young hero; his name was Delafosse. A deadly stream of eighteen-pound shot was poured upon the spot by the besiegers, but, unmoved by this, Delafosse flung himself upon the ground beneath the blazing wood, which he tore off with his hands, and then stifled out the fire with dry earth. Such a cheer rose from the throats of the British at this heroic deed, that it must have sent terror to the hearts of the cruel and cowardly enemy.

Then upon a projection of the barrack wall there was perched young Stirling, known as the “dead-shot,” from his unerring aim. Day after day he sat on his perch and picked off single Sepoys. And the list would be incomplete without mention of the brave Scotchman, Jervis; he was an engineer. He was out in the open compound one day, and with the indomitable pride of race, refused to run from a black fellow, so he fell shot through the heart.

If midst our tears we sing a pæan in honour of these hero-martyrs, the wives and daughters of the fighting men of Cawnpore must go down to posterity as an example of all that women should be—noble, patient, uncomplaining.

Poets have sung how the women of old turned their hair into bow-strings, that their men might fight the enemy. Those Cawnpore women would have done the same, if it had been needed. And they did do an equivalent. When the canister could not be rammed home, owing to the damage done to the guns by the enemy’s fire, these noble women took off their stockings. These were filled with the contents of the shot-cases, and it is probably the only time that such cartridges were used.