The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

The Brigadier at the cantonments had now only the 38th and 74th to fall back upon, both native regiments, in whose fidelity he could put little trust. At all events he formed them into line, posting the 38th on the road that led to the Cashmere gate. As long as possible news of the mutiny of the 54th was kept from the other regiments, but when at last they heard it, they showed evident symptoms of mutiny. When the awful crash of the exploded magazine fell upon their ears, the outburst came. “Deen! Deen!” they shouted, signifying “Faith!” and rushed to their arms, which had been piled. They seized the guns, shot the commandant’s horse, and were soon in a state of complete insubordination.

The first regard of British officers and men in time of danger, whether it be on sea or land, is for the women and children, and now that the sepoys had shown themselves in their true colours, it was absolutely imperative, if the women and children were to be saved from terrible torture, that they should be removed to either Meerut or Kurnool, cities which were meanwhile loyal and unaffected. Brigadier Metcalfe sounded the retire, and those who could find conveyances were fortunate, as in most cases the native drivers had bolted with the horses and vehicles.

In the guard-house at the Cashmere gate a number of women and children, along with several officers, were huddled. Major Abbott, who was in charge, made the attempt to get the helpless females to the shelter of the cantonments, and ordered them to be placed on the gun carriages. The rebel sepoys opened a murderous fire on the carriages, and the ground was soon strewn with the dead and wounded. Several reached the shelter of Brigadier Metcalfe’s house, from whence they were conducted to the river Jumna, where they were allowed to make their escape as best they could.

We need not dwell upon the harrowing details of the adventures of those who escaped. They wandered about the jungle, starving and bruised. Delicately-nurtured women clinging to their babes went raving mad, and many perished. The villagers were every whit as brutal and cruel as the rebel soldiery, and men boasted publicly of outraging white women and then cutting off their breasts. It makes one’s blood boil to think of the awful indignities, the almost incredible tortures, and the slow lingering death which was the fate of our innocent and helpless women and children.

Certain nations accused us of wanton cruelty in the slaying of the rebels at the time when the hand of retribution, guided by Sir Colin Campbell, fell upon the inhuman monsters who had weltered and gloried in the shedding of Christian blood. Could the stab of the bayonet, blowing from the cannon’s mouth or death by hanging ever atone for the fearful sufferings of the pure and innocent? In our humanity we scorned to devise new tortures or have recourse to those of the Inquisition to avenge the massacre of the Christian women who had been outraged and done to death. If those who escaped to the jungle suffered untold agony, it was nothing to that which the women who remained in Delhi had to undergo. An officer who had to be an unwilling witness of many of the scenes tells the following blood-curdling story:—

“The sepoys took forty-eight females, most of them girls from ten to fourteen, many delicately nurtured ladies, and kept them for the base purposes of the heads of the insurrection for a whole week. At the end of that time they made them strip themselves, and gave them up to the lowest of the people to abuse in broad daylight in the streets of Delhi. They then commenced the work of torturing them to death, cutting off their breasts, fingers, and noses. One lady was three days in dying. They flayed the face of another lady, and made her walk naked through the streets.”

A number of officers, women, and children sought refuge in a mosque, where they were without food and water for several days. The men could have endured the hunger and thirst, but the suffering of the women and little children was intense. On the fourth day they treated with the sepoys, who on their oath swore to spare their lives and take them before the king. The men laid down their arms that they might get water for the suffering ones, and the whole party quitted the shelter of the mosque. They were instantly seized, and every one killed, eight officers, eight ladies, and eleven children perishing. The children were swung by the heels, and their brains dashed out in the presence of the parents.

On every side were traces of murder and pillage, and it is said that even greater ferocity, if that were possible, was used at Delhi than by the great assassin Nana Sahib at Cawnpore. Certainly the atrocities practised are unequalled in barbarity and cruelty, and coming from men who had broken our bread and eaten our salt, they demanded the most condign punishment. Delhi was now in full possession of the mutineers, and this ancient city, with its hundred mosques and minarets, seemed lost to the British Empire, for the 200,000 inhabitants were in no way reluctant to accept the change in government.

The king, seeing that Fortune had so far smiled on the insurgents, put himself at the head of the new movement. This crafty monarch, whose kingdom lay within the walls of the city, had a love of pomp and panoply, and no doubt delighted his followers by a State procession through the city to the palace of the Moguls. This is an immense edifice of more than a mile in circumference. The wall which surrounds it is over thirty feet in height, and besides serving as a kingly residence, it thus stands as a gigantic fortress.

The princes of the royal house were also concerned in the spread of the mutiny, Prince Mirza Mogul being commander-in-chief of the army, and his brother Mirza Abubeker, general of the cavalry. Although they had foully murdered many of their officers, the sepoys, to give them credit, did not run amok altogether, but put themselves under the command of native officers of inferior rank, who were now given high commands. They also knew that Britain would not let them hold undisturbed possession of the town, so they set about preparing defences in order to withstand a siege. Heavy guns were mounted on the bastions, and the guards were strengthened at the seven gates.