The Queen's Cup. Henty George Alfred

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СКАЧАТЬ Sepoys were now the assailants, and with furious shouts pressed round the little body of British troops.

      "Steady, men, steady," Captain Mallett shouted, as he drove his sword through the body of one of the rebel leaders who rushed at him. "Keep together, back to back. We shall have help here in a minute."

      It was longer than that, however, before relief came. For three or four minutes a desperate struggle went on, then Marshall's voice was heard shouting:

      "This way, men, this way!"

      A moment later there was a surging movement in the ranks of the insurgents, and with a dozen men Marshall burst through them, and joined the party. These at once fell furiously upon the mutineers, and the latter were already giving way when some fifty of the Punjaubies, led by their officers, fell upon them.

      The effect was decisive. The Sepoys scattered at once, and fled in all directions, pursued by the furious soldiers and the Punjaubies. Reaching the walls, the fugitives leapt recklessly down. Forty or fifty of them were cut down by the cavalry, but the greater portion reached the broken ground in safety. Here the cavalry could not follow them, for the ground was covered with rocks and boulders concealed by the bushes. In the village itself three hundred and fifty lay dead.

      "Thanks, Marshall," Frank Mallett said, when the fight in the village was over. "You arrived just in time, for it was going very hard with us. Altogether it was more than we bargained for, for they were certainly over a thousand strong. They must have been joined by a very strong party yesterday."

      "I ought not to have gone so far," Marshall replied, "but I had no idea that all the Punjaubies had come to our side of the fight. The men were so eager that I had the greatest difficulty in getting them off the pursuit. Fortunately I met Herbert, and learned that all his men were with us. Then I gathered a dozen of our fellows, and rushed off, telling him to follow as soon as he could get some of his men together.

      "You can imagine what agony I felt when, as I entered the open space, I saw a surging mass of Sepoys, and no sign of any of you; and how I cursed my own folly, and what delight I felt, as on cutting our way through we found that you were still on your feet."

      "Yes, it was a close shave, Marshall; another two or three minutes and it would have been all over. The men fought like lions, as you can see by the piled-up dead there. Half of them were down, and twenty men cannot hold out long against four or five hundred.

      "We owe our lives to you beyond all question. I don't see that you were in the least to blame in the matter, for naturally you would suppose that some of the Punjaubies would have joined us. Besides, it was of course essential that you should not give the Sepoys time to rally, but should follow them up hotly.

      "Where is Anstruther?"

      "I don't know. I have not seen him since we entered the square."

      "Have any of you seen Mr. Anstruther?" Captain Mallett asked, turning to some soldiers standing near.

      "He is lying over there, sir," one of the men said. "He was just in front of me when the Pandies fired that volley at us as we came out of the streets, and he pitched forward and fell like a stone. I think that he was shot through the head, sir."

      They went across to the spot. The ensign lay there shot through the brain. Four or five soldiers lay round him; one of them was dead, the others more or less seriously wounded.

      "Sound the assembly," Captain Mallett said, as he turned away sadly, to a bugler. "Let us see what our losses are."

      Chapter 4

      The bugle sounded, and in a short time the infantry fell in. They had been engaged in searching the houses for mutineers. The Punjaubies had lost but five killed and thirteen wounded, while of the whites an officer and eighteen men were killed and sixteen wounded; nine of the former having fallen in the bayonet struggle with the Sepoys. Nine guns were captured, none of which had been fired, the attack having been so sudden that the Sepoys had only had time to fall in before their assailants were upon them.

      "It is a creditable victory," Mallett said, "considering that we had to face more than double the number that we expected. Our casualties are heavy, but they are nothing to those of the mutineers.

      "Sergeant, take a file of men and go round and count the number of the enemy who have fallen.

      "Ah, here comes a Sowar, and we shall hear what the cavalry have been doing outside."

      The trooper handed him a paper: "Fifty-three of the enemy killed, the rest escaped into the jungle. On our side two wounded; one seriously, one slightly."

      "That is as well as we could expect, Marshall. Of course, most of them got over the wall at the back. You see, all our plans were disarranged by finding them in such unexpected strength. Had we been able to thrash them by ourselves, the Punjaubies would have cut off the retreat in that direction. As it was, that part of the business is a failure."

      The Sergeant presently returned.

      "There are 340 in the streets, sir," he reported; "and I reckon there are another 20 or 30 killed in the houses, but I have not searched them yet."

      "That is sufficiently close; upwards of 400 is good enough.

      "Now, Mr. Marshall, set the men to work making stretchers to carry the wounded.

      "Mr. Herbert, will you tell off a party of your men to dig a large grave outside the village for the killed, and a small one apart for Mr. Anstruther? Poor fellow, I am sorry indeed at his loss; he would have made a fine officer.

      "Sergeant Hugging, take a party and search the village for provisions. We have got bread, but lay hands on any fowls or goats that you can find, and there may be some sheep."

      While this party was away, another tore down the woodwork of an empty house, and fires were soon burning, an abundance of fowl and goats having been obtained. The cavalry had by this time come in.

      While the meal was being cooked the British and Punjaub dead were carried out to the spot where the grave had been dug. The troops had a hearty meal, and then marched out from the village. They were drawn up round the graves, and the bodies were laid reverently in them. Captain Mallett said a few words over them; the earth was then shovelled in and levelled, and the troops marched to a wood a mile distant, where they halted until the heat of the day was over. They returned by the direct road to the camp, which they reached at midnight.

      All concerned gained great credit for the heavy blow that had been inflicted on the mutineers, and the affair was highly spoken of in the Brigadier's report to the Commander in Chief. Shortly afterwards Mallett's name appeared in general orders as promoted to a brevet Majority, pending a confirmation by the home authorities.

      Two days after the return of the little column, the brigade marched and joined the force collected at Cawnpore for the final operation against Lucknow, and on the 3rd of March reached the Commander in Chief at the Dil Koosha, which had been captured with the same ease as on the occasion of the former advance.

      They found that while the main body had gathered there, 6,000 men under Sir James Outram had crossed the Goomtee from the Alum Bagh, and, after defeating two serious attacks by the enemy, had taken up a position at Chinhut. On the 9th, Sir Colin Campbell captured the Martiniere with trifling loss. On the 11th General Outram pushed his advance as far as the iron bridge, and established batteries commanding the passage of the stone bridge also. On the 12th the Imambarra was breached and stormed, and the troops pressed so hotly on the flying enemy that they entered the Kaiser Bagh, the strongest fortified palace СКАЧАТЬ