Some years before that period, the fort of Gurrah Khootah was besieged by a considerable force from the Deccan, and they persisted in the siege for some eighteen months, but could not take it. The rajah, then its owner, not being able to drive the invading force away, solicited Jean Baptiste, a bastard Frenchman in Scindia's service, to disperse the besiegers, with a promise that he would reward him for so doing with some land in the vicinity of the fort. This was accepted by the Frenchman, who, with a considerable force, succeeded in driving the besiegers to their own country. This accomplished, he took up his ground on the place the besiegers had left; and, a day having been appointed for the arrangement of the promised reward, the hypocritical Jean Baptiste marched into the fort in the greatest splendour and magnificence, with colours flying, drums beating, war-trumpets screeching, &c. His forces were permitted to enter indiscriminately, and no treachery was even dreamed of. When the usual greetings and congratulations were over, shoulder to shoulder, and breast to breast, at a preconcerted signal, the unsuspecting and unarmed garrison were pounced upon, and driven out of the fort, and deprived of their wives and daughters. Jean Baptiste then gave, or sold, the said fort to Scindia, who placed in charge of it one Harratoone, an Armenian.
The garrison, under this man's command, sold the fort for their arrears of pay, and the purchaser was the grandson of him whom Jean Baptiste had so treacherously deceived; and, if every one had his right, it was legally his own without paying for it.
This grandson of the original owner of the fort paid up the arrears of the garrison—eighty thousand rupees—the old garrison walked out, and he walked in. Scindia, however, still considered this fort to be his; but, as he could not take it, he called upon us, his allies, to take it for him. Had it been the old garrison, we should have been better pleased; but it was our duty to obey orders; so to work we went, the garrison having positively refused to give it up without a struggle.
This fort stands on the river Scend; and two sides of it are protected and guarded by that river, which is deep. The other two faces are protected by a strong stone wall thrown round the fort, on the banks of a branch of the same river. It was, therefore, necessary that we should make ourselves masters of this outwork, before we commenced breaching the fort. For this purpose a corner bastion was selected, where the water of the river was not more than three feet deep. In a few hours the breach was ready, and the moon's rising was the time appointed for the storming of this bastion. The ascent was high and difficult. The general was in the battery when the storming party moved out, and I was rather surprised to see him proceed with them down to the river. I, of course, stuck close to his elbow. The enemy soon observed us, and commenced a heavy fire, but too high. Our brave sepoys mounted the breach like heroes; but at the top the fight seemed desperate on both sides, and at one time we thought our men were giving way. Impressed with this notion, our brave little general dashed through the water, and was on the top of the bastion in a moment, and soon cheered his men in. The enemy fled towards the fort, and left us in quiet possession of the outer fortification. There was a large house, about two hundred paces from this corner, which our men occupied during the night, and we returned to the camp pleased with our day's exploit, and that we had not stained Old England's banner.
On the following morning the engineer fixed on a place for the batteries on the opposite side of the river, and breached an enormous bastion, which, like that of the fort of Mundellah, ran down to the water's edge. In four-and-twenty hours the heavy guns were moved down and put into their places for work, establishing our grand magazine in a village immediately behind them, to which a road had been dug for the purpose of conveying the ammunition, without being exposed to the firing from the fort. The general gave most positive orders, before he left the battery, that no ammunition should, on any account, be lodged in the magazine, but that it should be kept behind the village. These orders having been given, we rode home to breakfast. I had scarcely swallowed a mouthful when the general seemed restless, and presently said, "Shipp, saddle your horse immediately, and ride at speed to the grand battery. I have a strange presentiment that all is not right there." My horse was saddled in a moment, and I galloped down with all possible speed. When I arrived at the battery I really thought I should have fallen off my horse, for the first things that met my eye were the whole of the tumbrells, with shots and shells, and some thousands of rounds of gunpowder. These were all drawn up in the battery, and a single shot from the fort would have blown them all up. I ordered them to be removed instantly behind the village; and this we completed without the enemy's firing one shot. I found, on inquiry, that the captain to whom the general's command was given, delivered his orders to his subaltern—the subaltern to the sergeant—the sergeant to the corporal—and so on to the poor stupid driver of the bullocks. I hope this circumstance may meet the eye of the young soldier, and teach him the absolute necessity of the strictest obedience to orders, and impress upon his mind that, whatever may be his rank, it does not place him above seeing things executed himself. Had those tumbrells, through the neglect which occurred, been blown up, many lives must have been destroyed, and the loss of the contents of the tumbrells would have obliged us to have raised the siege, and given the enemy time to fortify their fort. All this mischief would have fallen on him whose imperative duty it was to have seen the general's orders obeyed, and not to have intrusted their execution to others. Crimes out of number would have been framed against him: such as utter contempt of orders—pointed neglect of duty—wantonly destroying the lives of his soldiers, and the property of the government with which he had been intrusted. Nothing could have saved his commission; and, if the accident had happened, what could have soothed his feelings? As it was, the escape was quite providential; for, scarcely had the last tumbrell got round the corner of the village, before the enemy commenced a heavy cannonade on the very spot from which the ammunition tumbrells had been removed. On my return towards camp I met the general riding towards the fort at speed, still imagining that something was not right. When I reported to him the circumstances just described, he rode on and admonished the captain in most severe terms; but his heart was as humane as it was brave, and he soon pardoned the neglect, and forgot all about it.
We then went round the other works, to see that everything was safe and in obedience to his orders. In the mortar-battery, the general observed to the captain of the artillery, that he thought the magazine was too close to the battery; but the officer explained the nature of its construction, which satisfied him of its security, and we rode home again.
We were in hopes of opening our breaching-guns on the following morning, for which purpose we all rode down to see them commence. The shelling-battery had commenced the day before, and did wonderful execution. The guns were loaded; the match was lit; when, on a sudden, our attention was drawn from the contemplation of this view to one of a less pleasant nature—an awful explosion in our mortar-battery, the shells from which were ascending some yards above the heads of the artillery-men, and then exploding. I was immediately dispatched to ascertain the cause of this unfortunate occurrence. I rode within a hundred and eighty yards of the fort, but I was not conscious that I was so near, till their balls roused me from my reverie. Something still kept blowing up in our mortar-battery, so that I had not time to go further round. I continued my course, therefore, as hard as my horse would go, till I arrived at the river. The crossing, at this part of the river, was completely commanded by three guns, which the good-natured souls in the fort had laid for me when I should get in the middle of the said crossing. The water was about four feet deep; consequently, my progress was slow. The first shot went about twenty yards over me; the next fell short; but the third struck the water so close to me, that the spray covered both myself and my horse, and I was wet through. In this state I dismounted, keeping my horse between me and the fort, for I had still the worst part to go over. The moment they saw me dismount, there was a general shout from the bastion, conceiving that the last shot had killed me. This shouting and taunting roused the indignation of the aid-de-camp, and, to check their mirth, he mounted again, and took off his hat and waved it in defiance of them. Upon this they sent three messengers at once, but not one came to me. Before I reached the battery the enemy were, naturally enough, very busy in availing themselves of the general panic caused by our mortar magazine having blown up. Near the battery, the first object that met my sight was a native gunner literally skinned from head to foot, crying most piteously for a drink of water. Nearer the battery lay several European and native soldiers dead. Everything was in the greatest confusion, and consternation was on every countenance. The dreadful catastrophe happened in the following manner:—
Behind the mortars lay some hundreds of shells, ready loaded, to be used as they might be required; a shell, fired from one of the centre mortars, burst in the muzzle; the fusee recoiled and fell on the loaded shells; these exploded, and communicated with the magazine, which, at that moment, a person had entered for the purpose of bringing out some requisite. The explosion blew up this poor man, the unfortunate native gunner before spoken of. It was more than twenty paces between the magazine and the spot where this poor creature was found. In two days after, he died. The melancholy event could not have been foreseen or prevented; but the consequences were serious—sixteen men suffered, four of them Europeans. Three of the victims were lying in the battery, without their bodies having been even touched with gunpowder. They died from concussion of the brain. One European was blown some yards into the river, without the slightest injury. Conductor Glassop, of the Bengal Foot Artillery, a man of upwards of twenty stone, was standing amidst the shells when they blew up, and, strange to say, escaped uninjured. Circumstances like these are the inscrutable doings of Providence, and far beyond man's poor and narrow comprehension. At this time the general had himself arrived, and having ascertained the cause of the sad catastrophe, could only add his moiety of commiseration for the poor sufferers. Blame could not be attached to anyone. The affair was one of the unavoidable accidents of war, which no human foresight could have guarded against or prevented.
The enemy, availing themselves of the calamity, rushed to that side of the fort in great numbers, and brought every moveable gun and matchlock to bear on the scene of woe. Having removed the dead and wounded to camp, we reloaded the whole of the mortars and howitzers in the two batteries, and levelled them at the multitude of people that had collected on the fort. They were fired in quick succession, when a general flight took place, and many of them ran their last race. Nearly sixty shells, with some few shots, were fired in a few minutes, and not a soul could for some time afterwards be seen at the same side of the fort, save some few bearing away the dead and the wounded. We then gave them three cheers, but they returned not the greeting.
At this moment our breaching-battery opened with a salvo, accompanied with three hearty cheers, which that side of the garrison returned. After this we went on coolly and systematically, and we returned home again, visiting the several posts and batteries. In the evening, the European soldiers were committed to the grave, followed by their comrades, who dropped a tear to their memory.