Hills actually cut down the leading man, and wounded the second; then two troopers charging him at once, he was rolled over, man and horse, and the troops swept over him. Hills struggled, bruised and half-dazed, to his feet, picked up his sword, and was at once attacked by two of the rebel cavalry and a foot soldier. Hills coolly shot the first horseman riding down upon him, then catching the lance of the second in his left hand, thrust him through the body with his sword. He was instantly attacked by the third enemy, and his sword wrenched from him. Hills, on this, fell back upon first principles, and struck his opponent in the face repeatedly with his fist. But he was by this time himself exhausted, and fell. Then, exactly as his antagonist lifted his sword to slay him, Tombs, who had cut his way through the enemy, and was coming up at a gallop to help his comrade, with a clever pistol-shot from a distance of thirty paces killed the Sepoy. It was a Homeric combat, and both Tombs and Hills received the Victoria Cross.
The enemy meanwhile had galloped past the guns, eager to reach the native artillery, which they hoped would ride off with them. The 9th Lancers, however, had turned out in their shirt-sleeves, and they, riding fiercely home, drove off the enemy.
It is always interesting to listen to the story of a gallant deed, as told by the doer himself. The reckless valour which Lieutenant Hills showed in charging, single-handed, a column of rebel cavalry, in order to secure for his gunners a chance of opening fire, can hardly be described by a remote historian. But Hills has told the story of his own deed, and an extract from his tale, at least, is worth giving:—
I thought that by charging them I might make a commotion, and give the gun time to load, so in I went at the front rank, cut down the first fellow, slashed the next across the face as hard as I could, when two Sowars charged me. Both their horses crashed into mine at the same moment, and, of course, both horse and myself were sent flying. We went down at such a pace that I escaped the cuts made at me, one of them giving my jacket an awful slice just below the left arm—it only, however, cut the jacket. Well, I lay quite snug until all had passed over me, and then got up and looked about for my sword. I found it full ten yards off. I had hardly got hold of it when three fellows returned, two on horseback. The first I wounded, and dropped him from his horse. The second charged me with a lance. I put it aside, and caught him an awful gash on the head and face. I thought I had killed him. Apparently he must have clung to his horse, for he disappeared. The wounded man then came up, but got his skull split. Then came on the third man—a young, active fellow. I found myself getting very weak from want of breath, the fall from my horse having pumped me considerably, and my cloak, somehow or other, had got tightly fixed round my throat, and was actually choking me. I went, however, at the fellow and cut him on the shoulder, but some “kupra” (cloth) on it apparently turned the blow. He managed to seize the hilt of my sword, and twisted it out of my hand, and then we had a hand-to-hand fight, I punching his head with my fists, and he trying to cut me, but I was too close to him. Somehow or other I fell, and then was the time, fortunately for me, that Tombs came up and shot the fellow. I was so choked by my cloak that move I could not until I got it loosened. By-the-bye, I forgot to say that I fired at this chap twice, but the pistol snapped, and I was so enraged I drove it at the fellow’s head, missing him, however.
The Sepoys had planted a battery of guns at a point in their front called Ludlow Castle, and maintained from it a constant fire on Metcalfe House. Their skirmishers, too, crept up with great audacity, and maintained a ceaseless fire on the British pickets. It was necessary to silence this battery, and early in the morning of August 12, without call of bugle or roll of drum, a force of British, Sikhs, and Ghoorkas, with a handful of cavalry, stole down the slope of the Ridge in order to carry the offending guns. The order was given for profoundest silence, and almost like a procession of shadows the little column crept over the Ridge through the gloom, and disappeared in the midst of the low-lying ground on its way to the rebel guns.
Undetected in the sheltering blackness, the column reached the sleeping battery. A startled Sepoy, who caught through the haze and shadow a sudden glimpse of stern faces and the gleam of bayonets, gave a hasty challenge. It was answered by a volley which ran like a streak of jagged flame through the darkness, and with a rush the British—their officers gallantly leading, and Sikh and Ghoorka trying to outrace their English comrades—swept on to the battery. The Sepoys succeeded in discharging two guns on their assailants; but Lord Roberts records that the discharge of the third gun was prevented by a gallant Irish soldier named Reegan. He leaped with levelled bayonet over the earthwork, and charged the artilleryman, who was in the very act of thrusting his port-fire on to the powder in the touch-hole of the gun. Reegan was struck at on every side, but nothing stopped him, and the fierce lunge of his bayonet slew the artilleryman and prevented the discharge of the gun. Captain Greville, followed by two or three men, flung himself on another gun, and slew or drove off its gunners.
Hodson characteristically says, “It was a very comfortable little affair!” As a matter of fact, it was, for a dozen fierce minutes, a deadly hand-to-hand combat. “The rebel artillerymen,” says Roberts, “stood to their guns splendidly, and fought till they were all killed.” The rebels, too, were in great force, and as the passionate mêlée swayed to and fro, and the muskets crackled fiercely, and angry thrust of bayonet was answered by desperate stroke of tulwar, the slaughter was great. Some 250 Sepoys were slain, while the British only lost one officer and nineteen men, though nearly a hundred more were wounded. But the battery was destroyed, and four guns brought back in triumph to the camp.
The return of the force was a scene of mad excitement. A wounded officer sat astride one gun, waving his hand in triumph. A soldier, with musket and bayonet fixed, bestrode each horse, and dozens of shouting infantrymen—many with wounds and torn uniform, and all with smoke-blackened faces—clung, madly cheering, to the captured pieces.
On August 7 there rode into the British camp perhaps the most famous and daring soldier in all India, the man with whose memory the siege of Delhi, and the great assault which ended the siege, are for ever associated—John Nicholson.