The Tale of the Great Mutiny

by W. H. Fitchett

Many monuments have been erected to Nicholson; one over his actual grave, another—with an unfortunately elaborate inscription—in the parish church at Lisburn. But the fittest and most impressive monument is a plain obelisk erected on the crest of the Margalla Pass, the scene, in 1848, of one of his most daring exploits. There in the wild border pass stands the great stone pillar, and round it still gathers many a native tradition of the daring and might of the great sahib. Sir Donald Macnab says that when the worshippers of “Nikkul-Seyn” in Hazara heard of his death, “they came together to lament, and one of them stood forth and said there was no gain from living in a world that no longer held Nikalsain. So he cut his throat deliberately and died.” The others, however, reflected that this was not the way to serve their great guru; they must learn to worship “Nikalsain’s God”; and the entire sect actually accepted Christianity on the evidence of Nicholson’s personality!

Campbell’s column, meanwhile, had fought its way across two-thirds of the city, and come in sight of the massive arched gateway of the Jumma Musjid. But the engineers that accompanied the column had fallen; Campbell had no artillery to batter down the great gate of the mosque, and no bags of powder with which to blow it up. He was, however, a stubborn Scottish veteran, and he clung to his position in front of the mosque till he learnt of the failure to carry the Lahore Gate. Then, judging with soldierly coolness that it would be impossible to hold unsupported the enormously advanced position he had won, he fell back in leisurely fashion till he came into touch with the reserve column at the Cashmere Gate.

The British columns had been fighting for over six hours, and had lost 66 officers and 1104 men, or very nearly every fourth man in the assaulting force. Amongst the fallen, too, were many of the most daring spirits in the whole force, the men who were the natural leaders in every desperate enterprise. Less than 4000 of the brave men who followed Nicholson and Jones and Campbell across the breaches or through the Cashmere Gate that morning remained unwounded, and there were 40,000 Sepoys yet in Delhi! Of the great “egg,” too, which formed the city, the British held only the tiny northern extremity.

Under these conditions Wilson’s nerve once more failed him. He doubted whether he ought to persist in the assault. Was it not safer to fall back on the Ridge? Repeatedly, in fact, through the days of stubborn fighting which followed, Wilson meditated the fatal policy of retreat. He was worn-out in mind and body. His nerve had failed at Meerut when the Mutiny first broke out; it threatened to fail again here at Delhi, in the very crisis of the assault. To walk a few steps exhausted him. And it was fortunate for the honour of England and the fate of India that Wilson had round him at that crisis men of sterner fibre than his own. Some one told Nicholson, as he lay on his death-bed, of Wilson’s hesitations. “Thank God,” whispered Nicholson. “I have strength yet to shoot him if necessary!”

Wilberforce, in his “Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny,” gives a somewhat absurd, and not too credible, account of the incident which, according to him, kept Wilson’s nerve steady at that crisis. The 52nd, after so many hours of fighting, had fallen back on the reserve at the Cashmere Gate, and Wilberforce, who belonged to that regiment, was occupied with a brother officer in compounding a “long” glass of brandy and soda to quench his thirst. His companion poured in so generous an allowance of brandy that he was afraid to drink it. He says:—

Not liking to waste it, we looked round us, and saw a group of officers on the steps of the church, apparently engaged in an animated conversation. Among them was an old man, who looked as if a good “peg” (the common term for a brandy and soda) would do him good. Drawing, therefore, nearer the group, in order to offer the “peg” to the old officer, we heard our colonel say, “All I can say is that I won’t retire, but will hold the walls with my regiment.” I then offered our “peg” to the old officer, whom we afterwards knew to be General Wilson. He accepted it, drank it off, and a few minutes after we heard him say, “You are quite right—to retire would be to court disaster; we will stay where we are!”

“On such little matters,” Wilberforce gravely reflects, “great events often depend!” The course of British history in India, in a word, was decisively affected by that accidental glass of brandy and soda he offered to General Wilson! It tightened his shaken nerves to the key of resolution! Wilberforce’s book belongs rather to the realm of fiction than of grave history, and his history-making glass of brandy and soda may be dismissed as a flight of fancy. It was the cool judgment and the unfaltering daring of men like Baird Smith and Neville Chamberlain, and other gallant spirits immediately around Wilson, which saved him from the tragedy of a retreat. When Wilson asked Baird Smith whether it was possible to hold the ground they had won, the curt, decisive answer of that fine soldier was, “We must hold it!” And that white flame of heroic purpose burnt just as intensely in the whole circle of Wilson’s advisers.

The British troops held their position undisturbed on the night of the 14th. The 15th was spent in restoring order and preparing for a new assault. There is a curious conflict of testimony as to whether or not the troops had got out of hand owing to mere drunkenness. It is certain that enormous stores of beer, spirits, and wine were found in that portion of the city held by the British. Lord Roberts says, “I did not see a single drunken man throughout the day of assault, and I visited every position held by our troops within the walls of the city.” This bit of evidence seems final. Yet it would be easy to quote a dozen witnesses to prove that there was drunkenness to a perilous extent amongst the troops, and it is certain that Wilson found it expedient to give orders for the destruction of the whole of the vast stores of beer and spirits which had fallen into his hands.

A new plan of attack was devised by the engineers. Batteries were armed with guns captured from the enemy, and a destructive fire maintained on the chief positions yet held in the city. The attacks, too, were now directed, not along the narrow streets and winding lanes of the city, but through the houses themselves. Thus wall after wall was broken through, house after house captured, the Sepoys holding them were bayoneted, and so a stern and bloody path was driven to the Lahore Gate.

On the 16th the famous magazine which Willoughby had blown up, when Delhi fell into the hands of the rebels early in May, was captured, and it was found that Willoughby’s heroic act had been only partially successful. The magazine, that is, was less than half destroyed, and the British found in it no fewer than 171 guns, mostly of large calibre, with enormous stores of ammunition. The Sepoys read their doom in the constant flight of shells from the British batteries in the city. They read it, in almost plainer characters, in the stubborn daring with which a path was being blasted through the mass of crowded houses towards the Lahore Gate. And from the southern extremity of the city there commenced a great human leakage, a perpetual dribble of deserting Sepoys and flying budmashes.