The Tale of the Great Mutiny

by W. H. Fitchett

No sign of help came from without. Wheeler’s last despatch, dated June 24, ended with the words, “We want aid, aid, aid.” But not merely no aid, no whisper even from the outer world reached the unhappy garrison.

The Sepoys, on their part, were growing weary of the siege. Their losses were enormous. They might batter the entrenchments into dust, but they could not capture an inch of the blackened area these shot-wrecked lines of earth girdled. These Sahibs were fiercer than wounded tigers. They were, indeed, perplexingly and disquietingly aggressive. They were perpetually making fierce little sallies, whose track was marked by slaughtered Sepoys. Nana Sahib felt there was real danger that his allies might abandon their desperate task. He therefore undertook to accomplish by craft what the Sepoys could not do with cannon and bayonet.

Nana Sahib unearthed from some gloomy room in the building which formed his headquarters a captive Englishwoman waiting to be slaughtered, and sent her as a messenger to the entrenchments on the morning of June 24. “All those,” ran the brief note, “who are in no way connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie, and are willing to lay down their arms, shall receive a safe passage to Allahabad.”

Wheeler, with a soldier’s pride, was unwilling to give up the patch of ground he held for the Queen. The younger men, with the flame of battle in their blood, were eager to fight to the bitter end. To trust to the faith of mutineers, or to the humanity of a Hindu of Nana Sahib’s tiger-like nature, they argued, was a sadly desperate venture. Yet that way there might lie a chance of life for the women and children. Death was certain if the siege lasted. It might be less certain if they capitulated.

The 25th was spent in negotiations. Moore and two others met the Nana’s representatives at a spot 200 yards outside the entrenchments. They offered to surrender on condition that they were allowed to march out under arms, with sixty rounds of ammunition to each man; that carriages were provided for the wounded, the ladies, and the children; and that boats, duly stocked with food, were supplied to carry them to Allahabad. In the afternoon the Nana sent in a verbal message saying that he accepted the terms, and the British must march out that night. They refused to do this, as they needed to make some preparations. On this, the Nana sent an insolent message announcing that he must have his will; that if they delayed he would open on them with all his guns; and, as they were perishing fast from mere hunger, a few hours would leave not one of them alive.

Whiting, a gallant soldier, met the insolent threat with high courage. Let the Nana’s soldiers, if they liked, he answered, try to carry the entrenchments. They had tried in vain for three weeks to do so. “If pushed to the last extremity,” Whiting added, “they had powder enough in the magazine to blow both armies into the Ganges!”

Then the Nana changed his tone, and grew effusively polite. His emissaries condoled with Wheeler for the sufferings he had gone through. But, thanks to Allah, the Ever-Merciful, all was ended now! The sahibs and the memsahibs had nothing before them but a pleasant river voyage to their friends! A committee of British officers, under a guard of rebel cavalry, inspected the boats gathered at the landing-place, scarcely a mile distant from the entrenchments; at their request temporary floors of bamboos were laid down in the boats, and roofs of thatch stretched over them.

Nana Sahib, as a matter of fact, meant murder; murder, sudden, bloody, and all-embracing. But he enjoyed, so to speak, toying with his unconscious victims beforehand. Over the gorgon-like visage of murder he hung a smiling and dainty mask, and with soft-voiced courtesy he consented to all arrangements for the “comfort” of his victims!

That night at Cawnpore there were two busy spots, a mile distant from each other. In the entrenchments the poor survivors were preparing for their march, a march—though they knew it not—to the grave. Mothers were collecting the garments of their little ones. Some paid a last sad visit to the fatal well, where their dead were lying. Others were packing their scanty possessions, intending to carry them with them. Soldiers were cleaning their muskets and storing their cartridges. And a mile distant, Tantia Topee, the Nana’s general, was planting his cannon and arranging his Sepoys so as to pour upon the boats at a given signal a fire which should slay the whole unhappy company they carried.