Left and right they hurried, stumbling over the broken ground to reach the batteries, which were thundering at short range against the fast crumbling walls. In No. 2, which Malcolm entered, he found a young lieutenant of artillery, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, working a heavy gun almost single-handed, so terribly had the Royal Regiment suffered in the contest waged with the rebel gunners during seven days and nights.
Almost simultaneously the three batteries became silent. With a heart-stirring cheer the Rifles dashed forward and fired a volley to cover the advance of the ladder-men, and the first step was taken in the actual capture of Delhi.
The loud yell of the Rifles served as a signal to the other columns. The second, gallantly led by Jones, rushed up to the Water Bastion and entered it, but not until twenty-nine out of thirty-nine men carrying ladders were killed or wounded. On Jones’s right, Nicholson, ever in the van, seemed to lift his column by sheer strength of will through an avalanche of musketry, heavy stones, grape-shot and bayonet thrusts, while the rebels, swarming like wasps to the breach, inspired each other by hurling threats and curses at the Nazarenes. But to stop Nicholson and his host they must kill every man, and be killed themselves in the killing, and, not having the stomach for that sort of fight, they ran.
Thus far a magnificent success had been achieved. It was carried further, almost perfected, by the splendid self-sacrifice displayed by the six who had promised to blow open the Cashmere Gate. To this day their names are blazoned on a tablet between its two arches—“Lieutenants Home and Salkeld of the Engineers, Bugler Hawthorne of the 52d and Sergeants Carmichael, Smith and Burgess of the Bengal Sappers.” Smith and Hawthorne lived to wear the Victoria Crosses awarded for their feat. The others, while death glazed their eyes and dimmed their ears, may have known by the rush of men past where they lay that their sacrifice had not been in vain. The stout timbers and iron bands were rent by the powder-bags, and the third column fought a passage through the double gateway into the tiny square in front of St. James’s Church.
Then, as if the story of Delhi were to serve as a microcosm of fortune’s smiles and frowns in human affairs, the victorious career of the British columns received a serious, almost a mortal check. The mutineers were in full retreat, terror-stricken and dismayed. Thousands were already crossing the bridge of boats when the word went round that the Feringhis were beaten.
They were not, but the over-caution against which Nicholson had railed for months again betrayed itself in the failure of the second column to capture the Lahore Gate when that vital position lay at its mercy. Audacity, ever excellent in war, is sound as a proposition of Euclid in operations against Asiatics.
Brigadier and men had done what they were asked to do—they ought to have done more. Having penetrated beyond the Mori Bastion they fell back and fortified themselves against counter assault, thus displaying unimpeachable tactics, but bad generalship in view of the enemy’s demoralization. Instantly Akhab Khan, who commanded in that quarter of the city, claimed a victory. The mutineers flocked back to their deserted posts. While one section pressed Jones hard, another fell on Reid’s Ghoorkahs and the cavalry brigade. They actually pushed the counter attack as far as Hindu Rao’s house on the Ridge, until Hope Grant’s cavalry and Tomb’s magnificent horse artillery tackled them. A terrific mêlée ensued. Twenty-five out of fifty gunners were killed or wounded, the 9th Lancers suffered with equal severity, but the rebels were held, punished, and defeated, after two hours of desperate conflict.
The mischance at the Lahore Gate cost England a life she could ill spare. When he heard what had happened, Nicholson ran to the Mori Bastion, gathered men from both columns and tried to storm the Lahore Bastion at all hazards. It was asking too much, but those gallant hearts did not falter. They followed their beloved leader into a narrow lane, the only way from the one point to the other. They fell in scores, but Nicholson’s giant figure still towered in front. With sword raised he shouted to the survivors to come on. Then a bullet struck him in the chest and he fell.
With him, for a time, drooped the flag of Britain. The utter confusion which followed is shown by Lord Robert’s statement in his Memoirs that he found Nicholson lying in a dhooly near the Cashmere Gate, the native carriers having fled. Although Baird Smith, a skilled engineer and artillerist, had secured against a coup de main that small portion of the city occupied by the besiegers, General Wilson was minded to withdraw the troops. Even now he considered the task of subduing Delhi to be beyond their powers. Baird Smith insisted that he should hold on. Nicholson sent a typical message from his deathbed on the Ridge that he still had strength enough left to struggle to his feet and pistol the first man who counseled retreat, and the harassed commander-in-chief consented to the continuance of the fighting.
Although his judgment was mistaken he had good reasons for it. Akhab Khan, on whom the real leadership devolved when it became known that the King and his sons had fled from the palace, tried a ruse that might well have proved fatal to his adversaries. Counting on the exhaustion of the British and the privations they had endured during the long months on the Ridge, he caused the deserted streets, between the Cashmere and Mori Gates, to be strewed with bottles of wine, beer and spirits. To men enfeebled by heat and want of food the liquor was more deadly than lead or steel. Were it not that Akhab Khan himself was shot through the forehead while trying to repel the advance of Taylor’s engineers along the main road to the palace from the Cashmere Gate, it was well within the bounds of possibility that the afternoon of the 14th might have witnessed a British debacle.