CHAPTER XII.
Pillage.—Military surveying.—Tippoo Saib.—His armour and mantle.—Tippoo’s treachery.—Seringapatam attacked by British and native troops, commanded by Major-General Baird.—Colonels Dunlop and Sherbrooke.—A shot breaks the chain of the draw-bridge.—Terrible carnage.—Tippoo Saib killed.—Seringapatam taken.—The storming of Ghuznee.—The forlorn hope.—The gate of the fortress blown in.—Colonel Dennie leads on the stormers.—The mistake.—A retreat sounded.—Brigadier Sale advances.—Desperate struggle.—The place taken.
“You have been told, boys, of a blockade, a bombardment, and a siege, and now you shall have a storming party, which is one of the most desperate of military undertakings. Pity it is that there should ever be occasion to resort to it, for pillage and plunder never yet made a good soldier, though they are thought of more than they ought to be. A soldier should never step out in disgrace, nor halt in the march of duty. If there be one thing more than another that I abhor, it is pillage and plunder.”
“Do the soldiers when they storm a place plunder, and do what they like?”
“It has been too common a thing in war, to promise the soldiers a few days’ pillage before they storm a place, to hearten them on; and they are not backward to profit by the opportunity. Some on these occasions act a brutal part; but there are men in the army whose hearts are unhardened by their profession, and whose generous dispositions move them more to clemency than cruelty. War has horrors enough, without adding to its evils by selfish and reckless cruelty and brutality. The soldier, whether he carries a musket, or wears epaulettes on his shoulders, who, fired with revenge and flushed with victory, stains his blade with the blood of a vanquished enemy, or ill-uses fear-struck and defenceless woman, is a ruffian, and not worthy to be called a man. He may think lightly of the curse of a dying husband or brother; he may turn into mirth the clasped hands and weeping eyes of injured innocence, but the artillery of Heaven will roar in his ears in an unlooked-for hour, and its thunders will be directed against his heart;—but I forget that you are waiting to hear of a storming party. I have been present at some, and have heard a description of many. I will tell you, first, of the storming of Seringapatam in India, in the year 1799, and then of the storming of Ghuznee, in Persia, a year or two ago.”
“Now, then, for the storming of Seringapatam.”
“I should have mentioned to you, that one part of the duty of a commander, especially when the seat of war is but imperfectly known, is to take care that military surveying is not neglected.”
“What do you mean by military surveying?”
“The art of military surveying, is to represent on paper the features of a country, that the operations of the service may be carried on with less difficulty, and more effect. If the commander of an army, or of a smaller force, is unacquainted with the country or neighbourhood in which he is, it will be necessary to reconnoitre it, for a knowledge of hills, woods, rivers, and brooks, as well as that of the force and position of the enemy. Military surveying is much the same as reconnoitering, only the latter is done rapidly with the naked eye, the former with instruments, and with greater care. But, I am forgetting the storming of Seringapatam.”