The Tale of the Great Mutiny

by W. H. Fitchett

The standing orders were, “Keep under cover, be always on the alert, and never fire a shot unless you can see your man.” But it was very difficult to enforce the first clause of those instructions, at least. Lady Inglis tells how she once personally remonstrated with a too daring private of the 32nd for exposing himself too rashly, and reminded him of the “instructions.” “Yes,” he said, “but it’s not the way of Englishmen to fight behind walls!”

As a matter of fact, the sorties were incessant and most daring, and were commonly got up by small independent parties, who wished to clear out a house held by the enemy, or silence a gun that proved too tormenting. “The local sorties,” says Innes, “were made generally by parties of not more than half-a-dozen men.” They would choose their own leader, creep out close to the site of some hostile gun or picket, dash on it, spike the gun, kill a few of the enemy, send the others flying, and return in triumph!

In the more regular sorties an engineer officer and a sergeant leading would run out, carrying a bag of gunpowder or a couple of hand grenades. If the door of the attacked house was open, grenades were thrown in. If it were shut they drove in a bayonet, or screwed a gimlet in its wood, suspended a bag of powder to it, and lit the fuse. The moment the crash came the stormers charged into the building, bayoneted the Sepoys holding it, placed another bag of gunpowder on the floor, lit the fuse, and fell back, the house five minutes afterwards flying up in fragments into the air. So expert did the men become in these house attacks that they learned the art of always going to the right, not the left, of a doorway or passage, so that they could fire into it without exposing the whole body.

This sort of fighting naturally brought the more gallant spirits to the front. A private of the 32nd, called Cooney, played a great part in these independent combats. With a single comrade he charged into an enemy’s battery, shouting, as he leaped over the ridge of earth, “Right and left, extend!” so that the Sepoys imagined a strong body was following, and fled precipitately, leaving the ingenious Cooney and his comrade to spike the guns at leisure!

Captain Birch says: “Cooney’s exploits were marvellous. He was backed by a Sepoy named Kandiel, who simply adored him. Single-handed, and without any orders, Cooney would go outside our position, and he knew more about the enemy’s movements than anybody else. Over and over again he was put into the guard-room for ‘disobedience of orders,’ and as often let out when there was fighting to be done. On one occasion, he surprised one of the enemy’s batteries into which he crawled, followed by his faithful Sepoy, bayoneting four men, and spiking the guns. He was often wounded, and several times left his bed to volunteer for a sortie.” Cooney was an Irishman, and loved fighting for its own sake. He fell in a sortie made after Havelock’s relief.

Fayrer, the Residency surgeon, combined with equal energy the somewhat contradictory duties of inflicting wounds and of healing them. He worked with tireless energy, attending to the sick and wounded in the Residency itself. But he records, “I have constant opportunity of using my guns and rifles from the roof of my house, or from the platform in front of it.” And when this indefatigable doctor was not going his round among the sick and dying, he was to be found on his house-roof bringing down Sepoys with the deadly skill he had learned in the jungle against tigers and deer.

The best shot on the British side was Lieutenant Sewell, who, happy in the possession of a double-barrelled Enfield rifle, from a loophole on the top of the brigade mess, which commanded a thoroughfare through the Sepoy position, bagged his men as a good sportsman might bag pheasants in a crowded cover. But the Sepoys, too, had their marksmen, whose accuracy was deadly, and whose exploits won from the British garrison the nicknames of “Jim the Rifleman” and “Bob the Nailer.” “Bob the Nailer,” from his perch high up in what was called Johannes’ house, wrought deadly mischief. The British at last paid him the compliment of levelling a howitzer at him, and dropping a shell into his eyrie. But shells were vain. It was discovered afterwards that “Bob the Nailer,” when he saw that the gun was about to fire, dropped down into a sheltered room, to emerge, as soon as the shell had exploded, with his fatal rifle once more.

Once a dash was made at Johannes’ house, and its garrison slaughtered, but “Bob the Nailer” escaped, and there was not time to blow up the house. Later in the siege a mine was run under his perch, and Johannes’ house, crowded with Sepoys, with “Bob the Nailer” at its summit, was blown into space.

There were moments in the siege when, naturally, the spirits of many in the garrison sank. The children were dying from want of air, of exercise, of wholesome food. They shrank into mere wizen-faced old men—tiny skeletons with tightened, parchment-like skin, instead of round, cherub-like faces. Scurvy tainted the blood of the unfortunate garrison. Sleeplessness and the ever-present atmosphere of danger shook their nerves. Men stole out day after day, at the risk of their lives, to gather the leaves of a cruciferous plant, whose green leaves, unscorched by the flame of powder, could be seen amongst the ruins. A rank and dreadful stench of decaying bodies hung over the shot-tormented Residency, and poisoned the very air. Lady Inglis tells how the ladies held rueful debate among themselves as to the lawfulness of taking their own lives if the Residency fell.