The whole story shows what is possible to clear judgment and resolute courage; but where these failed, or where some old Bengal officer retained his blind and fond credulity as to the “staunchness” of his men, then great tragedies became possible.
Thus at Futteghur, some seventy miles from Cawnpore, the 10th Native Infantry, with some irregular troops, held the cantonments. General Goldie was divisional commander; Colonel Smith held command of the 10th, and cherished a piously confident belief in the loyalty of his Sepoys. The civilians, with a shrewder insight into the state of affairs, believed mutiny certain, and murder highly probable, and determined to leave the station. On June 4 a little fleet of boats, laden with almost the entire English colony in the place—merchants, shopkeepers, missionaries, with their wives and children—started down the river, to the huge disgust of Colonel Smith, who thought their departure a libel on his beloved Sepoys. Part of the company found refuge with a friendly Zemindar, while three boats, containing nearly seventy persons—of whom forty-nine were women and children—pushed on to Cawnpore. In Cawnpore, however, though they were in ignorance of the fact, Wheeler and his gallant few were already fighting for life against overwhelming odds.
News soon reached the Sepoy lines at Cawnpore that three boat-loads of Sahibs were on the river, and a rush was made for them. The poor victims had pulled in to the bank and were enjoying “afternoon tea” when the horde of mutineers burst upon them. Some tried to hide in the long grass, which was set on fire above them. The rest, scorched, wounded, half-naked, with bleeding feet—mothers trying to shelter or carry their children—were dragged to the presence of Nana Sahib. The ladies and children were ordered to sit on the ground; their husbands, with their hands tied, were arranged in careful order behind them. Being thus picturesquely arranged for easy murder, some files of the 2nd Cavalry were marched up to kill the whole. The process was lengthy, wives clinging to their husbands, mothers trying to shelter their little ones with their own bodies from the keen cavalry swords. Nana Sahib watched the whole process with the leisurely and discriminating interest of a connoisseur.
On June 18 Colonel Smith’s trusted Sepoys broke into open revolt at the station, whence these poor fugitives had fled. The little British garrison, consisting of thirty fighting men, with sixty ladies and children, took refuge in a low mud fort, and held it for nearly three weeks. Then they fought their way to their boats and fled. They were fiercely pursued. One boat grounded, and its miserable passengers were summarily murdered. Death by bullets, by sunstroke, by drowning, pursued the rest. One boat-load escaped, but escaped only to reach Cawnpore, and to perish amid the horrors of the slaughter-house there.
One survivor has left a record of that dreadful voyage. He was in the boat that first grounded and was boarded by the Sepoys. He describes how the passengers were shot, and how “Major Robertson, seeing no hope, begged the ladies to come into the water rather than fall into their hands. While the ladies were throwing themselves into the water I jumped into the boat, took up a loaded musket, and, going astern, shot a Sepoy.... Mr. and Mrs. Fisher were about twenty yards from the boat; he had his child in his arms, apparently lifeless. Mrs. Fisher could not stand against the current; her dress, which acted like a sail, knocked her down, when she was helped up by Mr. Fisher.... Early the next morning a voice hailed us from the shore, which we recognised as Mr. Fisher’s. He came on board, and informed us that his poor wife and child had been drowned in his arms.”
For skill, daring, and promptitude, nothing exceeded the fashion in which the incipient mutiny at Multan was trampled out. At no other post were the conditions more perilous. The garrison consisted of a troop of native horse-artillery, two regiments of native infantry, and the 1st Irregular Cavalry; the only English troops were 50 artillerymen in charge of the magazine. Here, then, were 50 British artillerymen, without guns, opposed to over 3000 Sepoys—horse, foot, and artillery!
The decisive factor in the problem was the character of the British commander, Major Chamberlain. His strong will and genius for command held the 1st Irregular Cavalry steady. They were Hindus from the neighbourhood of Delhi, with a full measure of the superstition and pride of caste which swept away other regiments. But they believed in their commander. He swayed their imaginations as with a touch of magic. The spell of his looks and voice, his imperious will, overbore the impulse to revolt. His men declared they would follow him to the death! Chamberlain resolved to disarm the other native regiments, and he performed the perilous feat, not only with miraculous audacity, but with a miraculous nicety of arrangement.
The 2nd Punjaub Infantry and the 1st Punjaub Cavalry were to arrive at the station on a given day. They were native troops, but could—for the moment at least—be trusted. The new troops came in at nightfall. At 4 A.M. the next morning the two Sepoy regiments and a troop of native artillery were marched out as if for an ordinary parade. They were suddenly halted; the Punjaub troops quietly marched betwixt them and their lines; the fifty English gunners took their places beside the guns of the native artillery, and a little band of Sikh cavalry that could be trusted rode up to the flank of the guns.
Then Chamberlain gave the order to the suspected regiments to “pile arms.” One Sepoy shouted, “Don’t give up your arms! Fight for them;” but his English adjutant instantly grasped him by the throat, shook him as a terrier would shake a rat, and flung him on the ground. The mutinous Sepoys hesitated; their courage sank; they meekly piled arms, were marched back weaponless to their barracks, and the station was saved. But it was a great feat to disarm a whole garrison with only fifty English gunners. The regiment of irregular cavalry was permanently saved by the spell of Chamberlain’s authority, and, as a reward, is still the 1st Regiment of Bengal Cavalry.
Some of the revolting regiments, it is satisfactory to know, had very distressful experiences. They found that mutiny was a bad investment. Let the tale of the 55th, for example, be told. The regiment broke into open mutiny at Mardan on May 22, fired on their officers, and marched off to the hills with the regimental colours and treasure. Its colonel, Spottiswoode, blew out his brains in mingled grief and despair when he saw his “faithful” Sepoys in open revolt.