The rebels, 6000 strong, held an almost unassailable position, edged round with swamps and crossed in front by a deep and swift stream with an unknown ford. In the dusk, however, Nicholson led his troops across the stream. As they came splashing up from its waters he halted them, and, with his deep, far-reaching voice, told them to withhold their fire till within thirty yards of the enemy. He then led them steadily on, at a foot-pace, over a low hill, and through yet another swamp, while the fire of the enemy grew ever fiercer.
When within twenty yards of the enemy’s guns, Nicholson gave the word to charge. A swift volley, and an almost swifter rush, followed. The British in a moment were over the enemy’s guns, Nicholson still leading, his gleaming sword, as it rose and fell in desperate strokes, by this time turned bloody red. Gabbett, of the 61st, ran straight at one of the guns, and his men, though eagerly following, could not keep pace with their light-footed officer. He had just reached the gun, fully twenty paces in advance of his men, when his foot slipped, he fell, and was instantly bayoneted by a gigantic Sepoy. With a furious shout—a blast of wrathful passion—his panting men came up, carried the gun, and bayoneted the gunners.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON
From a portrait in the East India United Service Club
Nicholson had the true genius of a commander. The moment he had carried the guns he swung to the left; and led his men in a rush for a bridge across the canal in the enemy’s rear, which formed their only line of retreat to Delhi. An Indian force is always peculiarly sensitive to a stroke at its line of retreat, and the moment Nicholson’s strategy was understood the Sepoy army resolved itself into a flying mob, eager only to outrun the British in the race for the bridge. Nicholson captured thirteen guns, killed or wounded 800 of the enemy, and drove the rest, a mob of terrified fugitives, to Delhi, his own casualties amounting to sixty.
His men had outmarched their supplies, and they had at once to retrace their steps to Delhi. They had marched thirty-five miles, under furious rains and across muddy roads, and had beaten a force three times stronger than their own, holding an almost impregnable position, and had done it all in less than forty hours, during twenty-four of which they had been without food. It was a great feat, and as the footsore, mud-splashed soldiers came limping into the camp all the regimental bands on the Ridge turned out to play them in.
The few hours preceding Nicholson’s arrival at the Ridge were the darkest hours of the siege, and some at least of the British leaders were hesitating whether the attempt to carry the city ought not to be abandoned. The circumstances, indeed, were such as might well strain human fortitude to the breaking point. The British force of all arms, native and European, was under 6000. Its scanty and light artillery commanded only two out of the seven gates of Delhi. The siege, in fact, was, as one writer puts it, “a struggle between a mere handful of men on an open ridge and a host behind massive and well-fortified walls.” Cholera was raging among the British. The 52nd on August 14 marched into camp 680 strong with only six sick. On September 14—only four weeks later, that is—the effectives of the regiment were only 240 of all ranks. Nearly two men out of every three had gone down!
There was treachery, too, in Wilson’s scanty force. Their plans were betrayed to the enemy. The slaughter amongst the British officers in the native regiments was such as could only be explained by the fact that they were shot down by their own men from behind, rather than by their open foes in the front. The one good service General Reed did during his brief interval of command was to dismiss from the camp some suspected regiments.
Archdale Wilson’s nerve, like that of Barnard and of Reed, his predecessors, was shaken by the terrific strain of the siege, and he contemplated abandoning it. “Wilson’s head is going,” wrote Nicholson to Lawrence on September 7; “he says so himself, and it is quite evident he speaks the truth.” It was due chiefly to John Lawrence’s clear judgment and iron strength of will that a step so evil and perilous was not taken. Lawrence had flung his last coin, his last cartridge, his last man into the siege, and he warned Wilson that the whole fate of the British in India depended on an immediate assault. “Every day,” he wrote, “disaffection and mutiny spread. Every day adds to the danger of the native princes taking part against us.” The loyalty of the Sikhs themselves was strained to the breaking point. Had the British flag fallen back from the Ridge, not merely would Delhi have poured out its armed host, 50,000 strong, but every village in the north-west would have risen, and the tragedy of the Khyber Pass might have been repeated, on a vaster scale, upon the plains of Hindustan. The banks of the Jumna might have seen such a spectacle as Cabul once witnessed.