DELHI 1857.
Walker & Cockerell sc.
Delhi lies on the right bank of the Jumna; and nearly six miles of massive stone wall twenty-four feet high, with a ditch twenty-five feet broad and nearly as many feet deep in front, sweep round the city, forming a bow, of which the river is the string. Napier, afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala, had employed his rare skill as an engineer in strengthening the defences of the city. The walls were knotted with bastions, mounting 114 heavy guns. Behind them was a huge fanatical population and over 40,000 revolted Sepoys, with some 60 field-guns and exhaustless magazines of warlike supplies. Every week, from one revolted station after another, new waves of mutineers flowed into the city. Some 3000 British soldiers, with a few battalions of native troops, and 22 light guns, stood perched on the Ridge to undertake the desperate feat of besieging this huge stronghold!
The historic Ridge, it may be explained, is a low hill, not quite sixty feet high, and some two miles long, running obliquely towards the city walls. Its left touches the Jumna itself, at a distance of more than two miles from the city; its right was within 1200 yards of the hostile walls. At the middle of the Ridge stood the Flagstaff Tower. On its right extremity the Ridge overlooked the trunk road, and was surrounded by a fringe of houses and gardens, making it the weak point of the British position. The various buildings along the crest of the Ridge, Hindu Rao’s house, the observatory, an old Pathan mosque, the Flagstaff Tower, &c., were held by strong pickets, each with one or more field-guns. The external slope of the Ridge was covered with old buildings and enclosures, giving the enemy dangerous shelter in their attacks. The main body of the British was encamped on the reverse slope of the Ridge.
Delhi, it will be seen, was in no sense “invested.” Supplies and reinforcements flowed in with perfect safety on its river front throughout the whole siege. All that Barnard and his men could do was to keep the British flag flying on the Ridge, and hold their ground with obstinate, unquenchable courage, against almost daily assaults, until reinforcements reached them, and they could leap on the city.
The first reinforcement to arrive took the surprising shape of a baby! One officer alone, Tytler, of the 38th Native Infantry, had brought his wife into the camp; she was too ill to be sent to the rear, and, in a rough waggon for bed-chamber, gave birth to a son, who was solemnly named “Stanley Delhi Force.” The soldiers welcomed the infant with an odd mixture of humour and superstition. A British private was overheard to say, “Now we shall get our reinforcements. This camp was formed to avenge the blood of innocents, and the first reinforcement sent us is a new-born infant!”
The next day the famous Guides sent by Lawrence from his Frontier Force marched into camp, three troops of cavalry and six companies of infantry, under Daly, an officer of great daring and energy. This little force had marched 580 miles in twenty days, a feat of endurance unsurpassed in Indian history. The cavalry consisted mainly of Afghans, tall, swarthy, fierce-looking. The Ghoorkas were sturdy, undersized little Highlanders, born fighters all of them, and ready to follow their commanding officer, Major Reid, on any dare-devil feat to which he might lead them. The battalion numbered 490 men, and of these no less than 320—or three out of four—were killed or wounded during the siege. On the day of the assault (September 14) no fewer than 180 of them, who were lying sick or wounded in the hospital, volunteered for the assault, and came limping and bandaged into the ranks of their comrades, to join in the mad rush through the Cashmere Gate!