Lord Roberts served personally with the force driving its resolute way across houses, courtyards, and lanes, towards the Lahore Gate, and he tells, graphically, the story of its exploits. On September 19, the men had broken their way through to the rear of the Burn Bastion. Only the width of the lane separated them from the bastion itself. The little party, 100 strong—only one-half of them British—gathered round the door that opened on the lane, the engineer officer burst it open, and Gordon, of the 75th Foot, leading, the handful of gallant men dashed across the lane, leaped upon the ramp, raced up it, and jumped into the bastion. They bayoneted or shot its guards, and captured the bastion without losing a man!

The next day, with great daring, Roberts and Lang of the Engineers, following a native guide, crept through the tangle of courtyards and lanes, till they reached the upper room of a house within fifty yards of the Lahore Gate. “From the window of this room,” says Roberts, “we could see beneath us the Sepoys lounging about, engaged in cleaning their muskets and other occupations; while some, in a lazy sort of fashion, were acting as sentries over the gateway and two guns, one of which pointed in the direction of the Sabzi Mandi, the other down the lane behind the ramparts, leading to the Burn Bastion and Cabul Gate. I could see from the number on their caps that these Sepoys belonged to the 5th Native Infantry.” The troops were brought up silently by the same route, and leaped suddenly on the gate, capturing it, and slaying or putting to terrified flight the Sepoys whom Lang and Roberts had watched in such a mood of careless and opium-fed unconcern only a few minutes before.

The party that captured the Lahore Gate then moved up the great street running from it through the Silver Bazaar—its shops all closed—till they reached the Delhi Bank, which they carried. Another column forced its way into the Jumma Musjid, blowing in its gates without loss.

CHAPTER XII
DELHI: RETRIBUTION

There remained the great palace, the last stronghold of the Mutiny, a building famous in history and in romance. The 60th Rifles were launched against it, the gates were blown open, and the troops broke their way in. They found it practically deserted. The garrison had fled, the king and his household were fugitives, and the clash of British bayonets, the tramp of British feet, rang through the abandoned halls and ruined corridors of the palace of the Mogul.

The flight of the garrison from the imperial palace had been hastened by a very gallant feat of arms. Between the palace and the bridge crossing the Jumna is a strong fort, a sort of outwork to the palace, called the Selingarh. An officer, Lieutenant Aikman, with a party of Wilde’s Sikhs, had been despatched to reconnoitre along the river front. Aikman, who knew the ground thoroughly, and who was of a daring temper, determined to make a dash at the Selingarh, and so prevent the escape of the king and his court across the river. With his handful of Sikhs, Aikman carried the Selingarh with one fierce rush, and seized the passage connecting the rear gate of the palace with the fort, thus plugging up that opportunity for flight. The king, with his court, as it happened, had fled already, but as Aikman held the rear gate of the palace, while the 60th Rifles blew in its front gates, all who remained in it were made prisoners.

That the imperial palace should have been carried almost without loss of life seems wonderful. It proves how completely the spirit of the Sepoys had been broken by the fiery valour of the British assaults. Yet even the capture of the palace was marked by some curious, though isolated, examples of courage on the part of the rebels.

Hope Grant, for example, records that a sentry was found at one of the palace gates dressed and equipped according to regulation, and marching up and down on his beat with his musket on his shoulder. “In a museum at Naples,” he adds, “is to be seen the skull and helmet of a man who was found buried at his post in a sentry-box in the midst of the lava. The inscription states the occupant to have been a ‘brave soldier’; but nothing could have been braver or cooler than the conduct of this Sepoy, who must have known that his fate was sealed.” Roberts, who shared in the rush for the palace gates, adds another curious example of Sepoy courage. They found the recesses in the long passage which led to the palace buildings packed with wounded men, but about thirty yards up the passage stood a Sepoy in the uniform of a grenadier of the 37th Native Infantry. The man stood quietly as the British came along the passage, with his musket on his hip. Then he coolly raised his musket and fired at the advancing party, sending his bullet through the helmet of the leading Englishman. Next, dropping his musket to the level, he charged single-handed down on the entire detachment of the 60th, and was killed!

Colonel Jones, who commanded the Rifles, sent a pencilled note to Wilson announcing, with soldier-like brevity, “Blown open the gate and got possession of the palace.”