The Tale of the Great Mutiny

by W. H. Fitchett

The guard on that day consisted of a detachment of the 38th Native Infantry. They had broken into mutiny, and assisted with cheers and laughter at the spectacle of Colonel Ripley, of the 54th N.I., with other officers of that regiment, being hunted and sabred by some of the mutinous light cavalry who had arrived from Meerut. Two companies of the 54th were sent hurriedly to the gate, and met the body of their colonel being carried out literally hacked to pieces.

Colonel Vibart, one of the officers of the 54th, has given in his work, “The Sepoy Mutiny,” a vivid account of the scene in the main-guard, as he entered it. In one corner lay the dead bodies of five British officers who had just been shot. The main-guard itself was crowded with Sepoys in a mood of sullen disloyalty. Through the gate which opened on the city could be seen the revolted cavalry troopers, in their French-grey uniforms, their swords wet with the blood of the British officers they had just slain. A cluster of terrified English ladies—some of them widows already, though they knew it not—had sought refuge here, and their white faces added a note of terror to the picture.

Major Abbott, with 150 men of the 74th N.I., presently marched into the main-guard; but the hold of the officers on the men was of the slightest, and when mutiny, in the mass of Sepoys crowded into the main-guard, would break out into murder, nobody could guess.

Major Abbott collected the dead bodies of the fallen officers, put them in an open bullock-cart, covered them with the skirts of some ladies’ dresses, and despatched the cart, with its tragic freight, to the cantonments on the Ridge. The cart found its way to the Flagstaff Tower on the Ridge, and was abandoned there; and when, a month afterwards, the force under Sir Henry Barnard marched on to the crest the cart still stood there, with the dead bodies of the unfortunate officers—by this time turned to skeletons—in it.

Matters quickly came to a crisis at the Cashmere Gate. About four o’clock in the afternoon there came in quick succession the sound of guns from the magazine. This was followed by a deep, sullen, and prolonged blast that shook the very walls of the main-guard itself, while up into the blue sky slowly climbed a mighty cloud of smoke. Willoughby had blown up the great powder-magazine; and the sound shook both the nerves and the loyalty of the Sepoys who crowded the main-guard. There was kindled amongst them the maddest agitation, not lessened by the sudden appearance of Willoughby and Forrest, scorched and blackened by the explosion from which they had in some marvellous fashion escaped.

Brigadier Graves, from the Ridge, now summoned Abbott and the men of the 74th back to that post. After some delay they commenced their march, two guns being sent in advance. But the first sound of their marching feet acted as a match to the human powder-magazine. The leading files of Abbott’s men had passed through the Cashmere Gate when the Sepoys of the 38th suddenly rushed at it and closed it, and commenced to fire on their officers. In a moment the main-guard was a scene of terror and massacre. It was filled with eddying smoke, with shouts, with the sound of crackling muskets, of swearing men and shrieking women. Here is Colonel Vibart’s description of the scene:—

The horrible truth now flashed on me—we were being massacred right and left, without any means of escape! Scarcely knowing what I was doing, I made for the ramp which leads from the courtyard to the bastion above. Every one appeared to be doing the same. Twice I was knocked over as we all frantically rushed up the slope, the bullets whistling past us like hail, and flattening themselves against the parapet with a frightful hiss. To this day it is a perfect marvel to me how any one of us escaped being hit. Poor Smith and Reveley, both of the 74th, were killed close beside me. The latter was carrying a loaded gun, and, raising himself with a dying effort, he discharged both barrels into a knot of Sepoys, and the next moment expired.

The struggling crowd of British officers and ladies reached the bastion and crowded into its embrasures, while the Sepoys from the main-guard below took deliberate pot-shots at them. Presently a light gun was brought to bear on the unhappy fugitives crouching on the summit of the bastion. The ditch was twenty-five feet below, but there was no choice. One by one the officers jumped down. Some buckled their sword-belts together and lowered the ladies. One very stout old lady, Colonel Vibart records, “would neither jump down nor be lowered down; would do nothing but scream. Just then another shot from the gun crashed into the parapet; somebody gave the poor woman a push, and she tumbled headlong into the ditch beneath.” Officers and ladies scrambled up the almost perpendicular bank which forms the farther wall of the ditch, and escaped into the jungle beyond, and began their peril-haunted flight to Meerut.

Abbott, of the 74th, had a less sensational escape. His men told him they had protected him as long as they could; he must now fly for his life. Abbott resisted long, but at last said, “Very well. I’m off to Meerut; but,” he added, with a soldier’s instinct, “give me the colours.” And, carrying the colours of his regiment, he set off with one other officer on his melancholy walk to Meerut.