The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8. Dodd George

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СКАЧАТЬ of refuge. Their adventures partake of a new interest, because there was a broad and swift river to be crossed. A young ensign of the 54th regiment, a stripling who had just commenced military service under the Company, had a sad tale to tell, how the European officers of his regiment had fallen almost to a man. He was in the cantonment when the news arrived of the approach of the Meerut mutineers; his regiment was ordered to hasten to the city; and he, like other officers, was fain to hope that the men would remain true to their colours. Leaving two companies to follow with two guns, the other eight marched off to the city, distant, as has already been stated, about two miles. Arriving at the mainguard of the Cashmere Gate, the regiment encountered the mutinous 3d Bengal cavalry, who immediately shot down nearly all the officers of the eight companies: the men of those companies shewing, by a refusal to defend their officers, that they were quite ready for revolt. The colonel, indeed, was bayoneted by one of his own men after a trooper had shot him. In about half an hour the other two companies arrived with the two guns; but as the few remaining officers of the regiment knew not which of their men, if any, could be depended on, they formed a kind of small fort or citadel of the mainguard, into which they brought their few remaining companions one by one. The poor youth, who had just commenced soldiering, and who had never seen a dead body, was nearly overwhelmed with grief at the sight of his brother-officers, with whom he had laughed and chatted a few hours before, lying side by side dead and mutilated. The main body of the regiment remained sullen, though not mutinous, until about five o’clock in the evening; but then the spirit of evil seemed to seize them, and they turned upon the Europeans near them, shooting indiscriminately. The scene became agonising. Many women and children had gone to the mainguard for security; and now they as well as the officers found it necessary to flee for very life. Some ran, leaped, clomb, until they got beyond the wall of the city; others waited to help those who were weaker or of more tender years. Some of the ladies, though wounded, lowered themselves by handkerchiefs into the ditch, from embrasures in the parapet, and were caught by officers below; and then ensued the terrible labour of dragging or carrying them up the counterscarp on the other side of the ditch. (A ditch, in military matters, be it remembered, is a dry, broad, very deep trench outside a fortified wall, with nearly vertical sides, called the scarp and counterscarp.) The young officer tells how that he and his male companions would have made a dash towards Meerut, sword in hand, or have sold their lives at once; but that their chief thoughts were now for the women and children. What were the privations of such a company as this, in fords and jungles, in hunger and nakedness, we shall presently see by means of a narrative from another quarter.

      It is an officer of the 38th who shall now tell his tale – how that his own personal troubles, when alone, were slight compared with those which he had afterwards to bear in company with other fugitive Europeans. This officer states that, while the refugees were anxiously watching the course of events at the Flagstaff Tower, they were momentarily expecting aid from Meerut. They could not believe that Major-general Hewett would have allowed the mutineers to march from Meerut to Delhi without either making an attempt to intercept them, or following on their heels; and their disappointment in this particular led to some of the unfavourable comments made on that general’s line of conduct. The officer of the 38th, whose narrative is now under notice, shared the difficulty of all the others in endeavouring to keep the men at their duty; and he speaks of the terrible sight, more than once adverted to, which met his eye at the mainguard inside the Cashmere Gate: ‘By the gate, side by side, and covered by pretty ladies’ dresses taken from some house, as if in mockery, lay the bodies of poor Captain Smith, Burrowes, Edwardes, and Waterfield, and the quarter-master-sergeant; some lying calm as shot dead, and others with an expression of pain, mutilated by bayonets and swords.’ When all became hopeless within the city, and the brigadier had given orders to retire, the officers made a show of bringing off their regiments as well as their families; but it was only a show; for such of the men as had remained faithful up to this time now fell away, and the Europeans found themselves compelled to escape as best they could. The officer hastened to the cantonment, disconsolate and helpless, but having no immediate idea of escape. With the colonel of the same regiment, however, he was urged to adopt that course, as the cantonment itself was now in a blaze. The two ran off in the dead of the night towards the river, crouching beneath trees when enemies seemed near; they forded the Jumna Canal, slaking their parched lips as they waded or swam; and they tore off the brighter parts of their glittering accoutrements, to prevent betrayal. In the morning, faint and hungered, they took refuge in a hut while a body of sepoys was searching around, as if for victims. A few Hindoo peasants discovering them, told them where they could hide in a tope of trees, and brought them chupatties and milk. Being able to ford across a narrow branch of the Jumna soon afterwards, they concealed themselves in the wild jungle; and there, to their joy and surprise, they found others of their friends in the same kind of concealment – joy damped, it is true, at the thought of educated English men and women crouching among long jungle-grass like savages or wild beasts. On counting numbers, they found they were thirteen, eight gentlemen and five ladies and children; and as they had several guns and swords among them, they took heart, and prepared to struggle against further difficulties.

      To bring up the two parallel threads of the story, the escapes of the larger party, comprising the women and little ones, must now be told. In the afternoon of the preceding day, after arrangements had been made for conveying the ladies on gun-carriages from the city to the cantonment, the natives who had been trusted with this duty turned faithless, and the Europeans within the Cashmere Gate, finding themselves shot at, sought to escape beyond the walls in any way they could. One after another, women and children as well as men, leaped over into the ditch, scrambled up the other side, and ran off towards the house of Sir T. Metcalfe. One lady, the mother of three daughters who had to share in the flight, was shot through the shoulder, yet still kept on. The native servants – in the absence of their master, who afterwards had his own tale to tell of jungle-life and narrow escapes – gave them a little food; but just before the house was about being fired by the insurgents, the fugitives left it, and succeeded in fording the narrow stream to the spot mentioned above. When the thirteen had told their adventures, and formed a plan, they started anew, and sought a spot where they could ford the majestic Jumna. The officer must here tell the story of this perilous fording: ‘Our hearts failed, and no wonder, where ladies were concerned, as we looked at the broad swift river. It was getting dark, too. Two natives went across. We watched them anxiously wade a considerable portion of the river; then their heads alone appeared above water. It was our only chance of life, and our brave ladies never flinched. The water was so deep, that where a tall man would wade, a short man would be drowned. I thought it was all over when, on reaching the deep water with Mrs – on my left arm, a native supporting her on the other side, we were shot [drifted] down the river; however, by desperate efforts and the assistance of another native, we reached the bank in safety. I swam back once more for another of our party; and so ultimately we all got safe over. It was a brave feat for our ladies to do.’ But so it was throughout these terrific scenes: the heroism, the patience, the long-suffering endurance of these gentlewomen, bore up to the last; feebleness of frame was vanquished by nobility of spirit; and the men were often kept in heart, though deeply pained, by the uncomplaining perseverance of their gentle companions in misery. Our fugitives passed a wretched night after this fording of the Jumna, crouching in the jungle, with no sound ‘but the chattering of their teeth.’ The next day threw them into the hands of a large band of ruffians; and as the guns of the officers had been rendered useless by wet, the consequence was direful: the whole party were stripped and robbed, and then left without food, without clothing, without resource, to wander whither they could. With naked feet, and skins blistering in the sun, they toiled on. ‘How the ladies stood it,’ says the officer whose narrative we are following, ‘is marvellous; they never murmured or flinched, or distressed us by a show of terror.’ Fortunately, a fakeer, in a Hindoo village, ventured to give them shelter; they remained three days, obtaining a little food, but nothing more. A German zemindar or landowner, who had been so long in India as to be hardly distinguishable from a Hindoo, hearing of their plight, sent for them, gave them some rough cloth to huddle on as substitutes for garments, and caused a message to be sent to Meerut, which brought relief to them; and they reached that town in seven days after leaving Delhi – worn out in mind and body, haggard, lame, penniless, but thankful that their lives had been spared.

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