Week after week the fighting went on most gallantly, and the story gleams with records of shining pluck; it rings with the clash of steel on steel; it thrills to the rattle of musketry volleys and the deeper voice of the cannon. Thus Hope Grant tells how, on the night of the 19th, from sunset till half-past eleven, he kept back, by repeated charges of squadrons of the 9th Lancers and the Guides, with the help of some field-guns, an attack on the rear of the British position.
The fighting was close and furious. As Daly came up through the darkness into the fight, Tombs said, “Daly, if you don’t charge, my guns are taken;” and Daly, shaking his reins, and followed by a handful of his Guides, dashed on the enemy, and saved the guns. Colonel Yule, of the 9th Lancers, was killed; Daly himself was severely wounded; and the enemy, in the dark, worked round the flanks of the British guns, and two of the pieces were on the point of being taken.
Hope Grant collected a few men, and rode fiercely into the enemy’s ranks. His horse was shot, and, galloping wildly into the mass of Sepoys, fell dead. Hope Grant was thus left unhorsed in the darkness, and in the midst of the enemy! His orderly, a fine, tall Sowar, who had remained loyal when his regiment mutinied, was in a moment by his side, and cried, “Take my horse; it is your only chance of safety.” Hope Grant refused the generous offer, and, taking a firm grasp of the horse’s tail, bade the Sowar drag him out of the mêlée. The next day Hope Grant sent for the Sowar, warmly praised his gallant conduct, and offered him a reward in money. The brave fellow drew himself up with dignity, salaamed, and said, “No, Sahib, I will take no money.”
Seaton describes how, during that wild night combat, they watched, from the Ridge above, the flashes of the guns, rending the gloom with darting points of flame, and listened to the shouts, the clash of weapons, the crackle of the musketry that marked the progress of the fight. Presently there came a sudden glare, then a roar that for a moment drowned all other sounds. One of the British limbers had blown up. The fight was going badly. Then, out of the darkness, came the cry of a human voice, “Where is the General?” It was an officer asking reinforcements, and three companies of the 1st Fusileers, who were standing hard by, silent and invisible in the dusk, were sent down to the fight. They moved forward at the curt word of command: presently the rolling crash of their volleys was heard; a line of red, dancing points of fire through the darkness marked their progress, and the guns were saved!
June 23 was the centenary of Plassey, and a prediction, widely spread amongst the Sepoys, announced that on that day the raj of the British was to end. As it happened, that particular day was also a great religious festival for the Hindus, whilst it was the day of the new moon, and so was held by Mohammedans as a fortunate day. Accordingly an attack of great fury, and maintained for eight long hours, was made on the British right. Some reinforcements, amounting to 850 men, were on the 22nd within twenty miles of Delhi, and a staff officer was despatched to hurry them on; and they actually reached the Ridge in time to take part in the final effort which drove back the enemy. Roberts says that “no men could have fought better than did the Sepoys. They charged the Rifles, the Guides, and the Ghoorkas again and again.” But nothing could shake the cool and obstinate—the almost scornful—valour of the British.
Every available man in the camp was at the front, and when the 2nd Fusileers and the 4th Sikhs, who formed the approaching reinforcement, came pressing on with eager speed to the crest of the Ridge, over which the battle-smoke was drifting in dense white clouds, they were at once sent into the fight, and the enemy was finally driven back with a loss of over 1600 men. It is not easy to picture the exhaustion of the British at the close of a fight so stern and prolonged. “When I arrived at Hindu Rao’s,” wrote an eye-witness, “I found every one exhausted. There were the 1st Fusileers and some Rifles all done up. I went on to the new advanced battery; it was crowded with worn-out men. The artillerymen, likewise done up, had ceased firing; another party of Rifles in a similar state in another position. 120 men of the 2nd Fusileers, who had marched twenty-three miles that morning and had had no breakfast, were lying down exhausted. Three weak companies of Ghoorkas were out as skirmishers; but they, too, were exhausted, and the remainder were resting under a rock. The heat was terrific, and the thermometer must have been at least 140 degrees, with a hot wind blowing, and a frightful glare.” Of ten officers in the 2nd Fusileers five were struck down by coup de soleil.
The next day Neville Chamberlain, Lawrence’s favourite officer, rode into the camp, and assumed the post of adjutant-general.
On July 3 Baird Smith reached the Ridge, and took charge of the engineering operations of the siege. On July 5 Sir Henry Barnard died, killed by the burden of a task too great for him, and Reed assumed command. He held it for less than ten days, and then passed it over to Archdale Wilson, who had shared in the discredit of Meerut, and who, though a brave man, had scanty gifts of leadership.
Twice over during those days of fierce and prolonged battle a time had been fixed for assaulting the city, and twice the plan had been spoiled by an earlier counter-attack of the enemy. Baird Smith, on his arrival, approved of the scheme for an assault, and urged it on Reed, who hesitated over it during the brief period of his command, and then handed it over as a perplexing legacy to his successor Wilson. The proposal to leap on Delhi was finally abandoned; but Baird Smith, the coolest brain employed in the siege, recorded long afterwards his deliberate judgment that “if we had assaulted any time between the 4th and 14th of July we should have carried the place.”
On July 9, an attack of great strength, and marked by great daring, was made by the enemy, and was almost lifted into success by the disloyalty of a detachment of the 9th Irregular Cavalry. They were on outpost duty, watching the trunk road. They allowed the enemy to approach the British position without giving warning, and when Hills, who commanded two guns in front of the General’s mound, ran out of his tent and leaped on his horse, he found a troop of Carabineers in broken flight, sweeping past him, and the enemy almost on his guns. He shouted “Action front!” then, to give his gunners a chance of firing, rode single-handed into the enemy’s squadrons, a solitary swordsman charging a regiment!