What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
The scene of this story is Meerut, the time May Day, 1857, a year in which England’s hold on India was well nigh shaken off. Meerut is situated on a plain, and lies forty miles or so to the north and east of Delhi. It is bounded on the east by the Ganges and on the west by the Jumna, and covers an area of, roughly speaking, about five miles in circumference. In the fateful ’57 it was one of the most important military stations, and the largest cantonment in British India. A great wall, or esplanade, which in its turn was cut in two by a deep nullah, divided the town into two separate parallelograms, one of which was occupied by the European force, the other by the natives.
The hot day--and Meerut is hot--had closed, and the short Indian twilight had given place to a night of exceeding beauty. A refreshing breeze was blowing from the east, and the moon burnished with a sheen that was almost dazzling the domes of the numerous mosques, and threw into silhouette relief the palms and cocoa trees, and the masses of native huts. The majority of the European population were taking their airing as was customary after the sun had set, and the ‘Park Road’ was a scene of gaiety. Strings of vehicles, numberless horsemen, and crowds of natives moved to and fro. The air was filled with the murmur of many voices; the laughter of women, the sweet prattle of children, and wafted on the breeze came the monotonous sounds of tom-toms, and the wail-like singing of groups of natives as they prepared their suppers over the open braziers of charcoal that scented the atmosphere with its fumes. Abutting on the Park Road, and commanding a wide and extensive view, was a handsome bungalow surrounded with a well kept garden. On the verandah were a party of ladies and gentlemen. The men were military men, and the ladies were their relatives, and playing about on the verandah, under the care of an old ayah, was a sweet English child, fragile, and white of face, as most English children are who are born in India, but of an exquisite beauty that promised a magnificent womanhood. But though well and hearty then, that dear child was in a few days to be lying dead, gashed and hacked almost beyond recognition. From the roof of the verandah a swinging lamp threw a soft light over the little group seated in a semicircle, with small tables before them, on which were glasses and the inevitable brandy pawnee. Two silent khitmurgars stood like dusky statues ready to obey the slightest order given by their master or mistress.
This bungalow was the home of an officer whom it is only necessary to refer to as the colonel. The sweet child playing there was his only daughter, and one of the ladies, whose beautiful face was clouded with an expression that might be described as half fear, half anxiety, was his wife. All the colonel’s male companions were officers, one of them being Lieutenant George Willoughby, of the Ordnance Commissariat Department. He was a young man, but was the officer in charge of the great Delhi magazine. He looked every inch a soldier, and his face expressed determination and force of character. Lounging there in a large chair, toying with a fragrant cigar, and apparently deeply interested in watching the little volumes of smoke curl upward as he puffed them from under his moustache, his legs crossed, his head thrown back, and one arm hanging listlessly over the rail of the chair, he was the picture of a quiet, unobtrusive English gentleman. But a slight study of the face would have convinced anyone that beneath that calm exterior lay a tremendous latent power that once aroused could be terrible and deadly to his enemies, and that this was really the case was soon to be amply proved.
Another of the group was a still younger man, handsome as Apollo, and with a frame that seemed to be knit with steel. Although younger his military rank was equal to Willoughby’s, for he too was a lieutenant of the Bengal Artillery, and was also stationed at Delhi. His name was Richard Shelton, and, like his friend and colleague, he had a pronounced soldierly bearing, and his fine bright blue eyes, of the true English type, and his clear cut features and firm mouth, spoke of a frank, open, loyal, and brave nature.
These two officers and friends had ridden over that afternoon from Delhi on a visit to their friend, the colonel, with the object of discussing the portentous signs of the times, for the air was filled with rumours, and mutiny had displayed itself. Discontent was rampant in the native regiments, and the question was to what extent would it go? If there were those amongst the British who read the handwriting on the wall with ill-concealed alarm, it is none the less true that the majority of the officers in Upper India were rather disposed to laugh these fears to scorn. For with the almost fatuous self-reliance peculiar to the English, they believed they were powerful enough to hold their own against any number of natives. With one exception, perhaps, all the gentlemen there belonged to the first category. The exception was Richard Shelton. He was young, and had but recently received his promotion, and not only was he endowed with an unusual share of animal spirits, but he was of a sanguine, almost enthusiastic temperament, and moreover he was in love. On the first blush that may seem a reason why he should have been more anxious, but love is ever hopeful, and indisposed to look on the gloomy side of things. At any rate, being full of the fire of youth, and not having yet acquired the staid wisdom of his elders, young Shelton did not trouble himself much about what the morrow or the next week might bring forth. Very likely, if somebody had said to him--
‘I say, Shelton, old fellow, if the natives were to rise what would you do?’ This answer would have come with a ringing laugh--‘Why, go for them, and smash them. What else would you have me do?’
The young lady with whom Shelton was in love was the colonel’s niece, Blanche Merton, an orphan girl of great beauty, and the colonel’s ward. She had only come out to India a year before as governess to her cousin--the colonel’s daughter. Blanche had been born and had spent most of her life in one of the sweetest and breeziest of Hampshire villages, and she had not resided long enough in India to become jaded and enervated by the climate, which, in course of time, insidiously undermines the constitutions of white women. A handsomer couple, and a couple more suited to each other than Lieutenant Shelton and Blanche Merton, could not have been found in the whole of British India. They had known each other eight months, and been desperately in love nearly the whole time. The conversation of the little party had flagged somewhat, but suddenly Willoughby asked in a preoccupied way:
‘What is going to be the upshot of matters, colonel, do you think?’
This question had reference to the mutinous spirit that had shown itself. There had been a parade on the 24th of April, when eighty-five out of ninety men had mutinied, and that very week, beginning with the 1st of May, they were to be tried, and the cantonment was accordingly greatly excited.
‘Well,’ answered the colonel, thoughtfully, as he stroked his moustache and twirled his cigar between his long white fingers, ‘the prisoners will be convicted on the clearest of evidence, and exemplary punishment meted out to them.’
‘And what after that?’ asked Willoughby, significantly.
‘Ah, that remains to be seen. I think and hope we are strong enough to hold our own, but if there was a general rising, that is about all we could do, and might succumb unless succour was speedily sent to us.’
This remark had rather a depressing effect, and there was silence again; but Blanche had gone into the house for something, and Shelton, thinking only of her, and how entrancingly beautiful she looked in her white gauze dress, and with the bunch of Indian roses in her dark hair, had slipped away after her.
Presently Willoughby said: ‘Yes, we might hold our own for a time--a short time, but it’s no use blinking the fact, we are weak in numbers.’
‘It seems to me,’ returned the colonel, with the same thoughtful air, ‘that you in Delhi are worse off than we are.’
‘True,’ said Willoughby, with a bitter little laugh, ‘for the first thing the mutineers would do if they got the upper hand would be to endeavour to loot the magazine to obtain the vast supplies of the munitions of war that we’ve got there.’
‘It would be a terrible thing if they should succeed in doing that,’ put in the colonel’s wife, and shuddering as she spoke.
‘It would,’ answered Willoughby, quietly.
‘And there are such a few of you to guard the magazine,’ added the lady.
‘Very few,’ said Willoughby in the same quiet way. Then, after a pause, he continued with a significant emphasis, ‘But, nevertheless, I don’t think if all the regiments here and in Delhi were to mutiny they would obtain possession of the magazine while I am in charge.’
‘Why not?’ asked the colonel’s wife.
‘Because I would blow it up if I found that I couldn’t hold the place,’ was the quiet but impressively emphatic answer.
‘Well, well,’ said the colonel, wishing to change the subject, for he saw that it was affecting the ladies, ‘it won’t come to that. We may have a little trouble, but we shall get over it. Any mutinous spirit will be put down with an iron hand. Besides, I really don’t think the natives generally have any bad feeling for us.’
Backwards and forwards along the road went a continuous stream of natives--Hindoos and Brahmins, high caste and low caste--mingling freely with the Europeans. And could the colonel at that moment have read the hearts that beat beneath those dusky skins he would have seen how grievously in error he was, for the hatred and loathing for the Feringhees were all but universal. And, though ‘white-robed peace’ seemed to smile on all that fair scene, there was beneath a seething mass of discontent, only wanting a tiny vent as a beginning, when the whole mine might explode and spread desolation and ruin throughout India. But little did any of those ladies and gentlemen sitting on that verandah that hot May night dream of the volcano beneath their feet, and least of all did Shelton and Blanche trouble themselves with the portents in the air. These two young people, so full of life and health and hope, were building castles in the air and dreaming of the day that should see them united.
There was a considerable pause again in the conversation, and then Willoughby, in that quiet, emphatic way of his which was well calculated to carry conviction, remarked in answer to what the colonel had just said:
‘I don’t altogether agree with you, colonel. My impression is the natives hate us heartily, and if they can but get the chance will sweep us out of the land.’
‘Ah, yes, if they can but get the chance,’ replied his host. ‘But there’s the point. They will not get the chance.’
In a few minutes a khitmurgar came to announce that tea was served, and the ladies and gentlemen went into the house, but the child still played about, and the ayah remained. She was squatted down in one corner of the verandah enjoying a few draws of a hubble-bubble. The khitmurgars who had been waiting on the colonel and his party commenced to clear the tables of the glasses and bottles; and one of the men, a stern, sullen-looking fellow, said to the other:
‘Heard you, Jewan, what these Feringhee dogs said?’
‘Some of it, Meerza,’ returned the man addressed. ‘But I understand not so much of their hateful language as you.’
‘Well, the colonel sahib says we don’t hate his countrymen.’
Here the two men broke into a scornful laugh, and Jewan remarked:
‘Poor fool. Ere the moon has waned he may have learnt differently. If all goes well, the blood of all the white devils in Meerut shall dye the streets, and even the Gunga over there shall run red with it. Shiva the Destroyer has willed it, and it will be as I say.’
‘What is that you say, Jewan?’ asked the little girl, who had been arrested in her play by the words that fell from the man’s lips. Her question caused him to turn upon her with a look so wild and so full of fierce hatred that she screamed and rushed towards her nurse. The ayah sprang up and caught her in her arms, saying soothingly:
‘What is it, Missy Baba? What has frightened the pet lamb?’
‘Oh! ayah, Jewan looks so dreadful he has frightened me.’
Alarmed by the scream of the child the colonel ran from the house, asking excitedly what was the matter.
‘Oh, papa, papa!’ exclaimed his daughter, as she flew to him, ‘I heard Jewan say such dreadful things; and when I asked him what it was he had said, he frightened me by the way he glared at me.’
‘What does this mean, you rascal?’ demanded the colonel, angrily, and speaking in Hindostanee. ‘I am tempted to horsewhip your hide, you black dog.’
The man drew himself up to every inch of his height. He was a tall, commanding-looking man with a mobile face, and eyes that seemed to burn like glowing coals.
‘Sahib,’ he said, proudly and scornfully, ‘I am no dog.’
Then, without another word, he marched down the steps of the verandah into the garden and disappeared into the darkness.
The colonel was much distressed. It was another sign of the times. A few months before no servant would have dared to have answered his master in such a way.
The other ladies and gentlemen had by this time appeared on the scene, and many were the anxious inquiries as to the cause of the disturbance. But for the sake of the ladies the colonel gave an evasive answer, and, re-entering the house, leading his daughter by the hand, the others followed all but two--Shelton and Blanche. They lingered. With the artfulness of a lover he detained her by saying, ‘Oh, I say, Blanche, isn’t this a splendid night? How brilliant the moon is.’
‘Yes,’ she answered, linking her hands in his arm, and turning her own beautiful face up to his. ‘But I wish, dear, we were under an English sky instead of this Indian one.’
‘Why?’
‘I--I hardly know. I don’t like this country. If the fears that I have heard expressed that the natives may rise are realised how dreadful it will be.’
‘Tut--little woman,’ answered the brave lad cheerily. ‘Don’t let any gloomy forebodings trouble you. There is discontent, it is true, but we shall calm it down.’
‘I hope so--I hope so,’ said Blanche, with an unusually thoughtful air.
‘It will be so, my pet. But come, let us go in, for I heard the colonel suggest cards.’
‘But shall I not have you to myself for a few minutes again this evening? Remember that as you leave so early in the morning I shall not see you before you go.’
‘Of course, darling, we shall have another spoon to-night,’ he said in his hearty manner, and letting his lips come into contact with hers, to which she made no objection. ‘You see Willoughby and I must report ourselves in Delhi by eight o’clock, but I intend to come over next Sunday and see you.’
‘Oh, you love,’ she murmured, allowing him to embrace her still more closely, until they were suddenly startled by the voice of the colonel, who, coming on to the verandah, said:
‘I say, you young people, we want you, you know. You can surely manage to tear yourselves from each other’s arms for a little while.’
‘Certainly, certainly, colonel,’ answered Shelton in an embarrassed way. ‘But I was just drawing Blanche’s attention to that group of stars, and----’
‘Ah, how very funny,’ interrupted the colonel with a laugh. ‘It seemed to me you were trying to smother her, and I wasn’t sure which was your head and which was hers. But come now, get in. We want to make up some whist parties.’
A little later on Blanche did manage to get another few minutes alone with her lover, and with many warm embraces they separated--not for ever, for they were to meet again, but under circumstances that neither dreamed of then. His promise to see her again on the Sunday remained unfulfilled. Not from any fault of his, but for reasons that were not explained an order was issued of a peremptory character which prevented any officer or private going outside of Delhi.
On the following Saturday, that is on May 9, there was enacted in Meerut an extraordinarily dramatic scene, that was the prelude, though the white people knew it not, of a ghastly drama such as India had never before witnessed during the rule of the British.
In the interval between the 1st and the 9th the mutineers had been tried by a court-martial composed of native and British officers, and sentenced to ten years’ hard labour. The first part of the sentence--that of stripping them of their uniform in the presence of all the regiment--was to be carried out, and on that eventful Saturday morning, under a strong guard of rifles and carabineers, the disgraced eighty-five were marched to the parade-ground to be still further disgraced.
It was a stirring scene, for when the reveille had sounded long lines of troops, mounted and on foot, marched towards the plain that for ever afterwards was to be historic ground. The clattering of horses’ hoofs and the rumbling of artillery added to the general commotion, and soon the plain was swarming with armed men. It was no dress or drill parade, but a terribly stern display of authority and power, that it was firmly believed would overawe the mutinous spirit. Heavily shotted field guns were placed in position, while the drawn sabres of the dragoons flashed blindingly in the blazing sunlight. On three sides of the plain were bodies of troops armed with the new grooved rifle, and were ready, should the signal be given, to belch forth fire and send their rotary messengers of death into the surging masses of natives.
The mutineers belonged to the 3rd Native Cavalry, and their commanding officer was Colonel Carmichael Smyth. All being ready, he stepped forward, and in a loud, clear voice, that was not altogether free from emotion, however, he read the sentence of the court-martial. That formality ended, the accoutrements were taken from the mutineers, and their uniforms stripped from their backs. Then came the armourers and smiths with their shackles and tools, and, in the presence of that great concourse of spectators, civilian and military, the disgraced men were made to wear the chains of felons. They raised their arms and cried aloud to their general to save them from such ignominy, but the fiat had gone forth. They were doomed. There was not a Sepoy or native civilian present but gasped for breath as he felt the rising indignation in his throat. But what could they do in the presence of those stern white soldiers, those shotted guns, those grooved rifles, and the drawn sabres? Yes, they could do something--they could endure and wait.
When, after some hours, the ceremony was completed, the manacled felons were consigned to the gaol, and over them was placed a native guard only. Oh, fatuous act of folly! Who was responsible for it? History is silent, and he or they who made the blunder have long since mouldered to the dust from whence they sprang.
The anxious and eventful day ended. The Europeans took their airing as usual, and met each other at the dinner tables hopeful and cheerful. They had struck such terror into the hearts of the natives, by the stern and terrible act, that all fear of a rising had passed. Such was the general feeling amongst the whites, but during the hours of the short Indian night there was an unusual movement amongst the natives. In the lines of the native soldiery, through the surrounding villages and amongst the crowded bazaars, a fatal sign was passing. Fleet-footed natives sped from place to place and put into the hands of the principal men a small cake. It was a chupatty, and by prearrangement was the signal for a rising. The broiling sun rose on the Sunday morning, and the Europeans, having no thought of coming danger, wended their way to the station church. Amongst them were the colonel and his family, including his sweet little daughter and her pretty governess Blanche, who looked prettier than ever, and was radiant with a sense of happiness that found no expression in words, but showed itself in her beaming eyes and flushed cheeks. And the cause of this was a letter from her lover in Delhi, brought to her that morning by a coolie. In it Shelton expressed his joy that the great ‘disarming and felon-marking act’ of the day before had passed off so quietly; and he expressed a belief that the lesson thus taught to the natives would be lasting, and there would be no more mutinous conduct. But what had excited in Blanche such a sense of joy was this line: ‘And now, sweetest of women, to-morrow I shall hold you in my arms again, for I have got two days’ leave, and am going to spend them in Meerut. You may look for me about tiffin time.’
Full of the expectation that this great joy would be realised, how eagerly did she look forward to the morrow. But, had she been gifted with the power of prescience, and could have foreseen the events that were to happen in a few hours, she would have shrunk with curdling horror, and have cried aloud to God for protection.
Divine service ended, and homeward the people returned again, laughing and chatting and hand-shaking as friends met friends. And tiffin was partaken of, and the siesta indulged in without a single thought of insecurity.
Alas, what fatal blindness! Was it not a cruel fate that dulled the senses of every white man in the cantonment on that awful Sunday! Had someone only suspected and been able to arouse the officers to a sense of their danger, in all human probability history would never have been called upon to record the ghastly horrors of the Indian Mutiny. While the white people slept through the sweltering heat of that May afternoon there was unusual stir in the native lines and in the bazaars, and down the Ganges, as well as down the Jumna, a budgerow slowly drifted, and at intervals of about five minutes on board of that budgerow there were sounded three distinct and emphasised strokes on a large tom-tom. That beating of the tom-tom was a signal to the villagers and fishermen who dwelt on the banks of the rivers to repair with all speed to the city in readiness for the great event.
Still the white men slept! A fatuous belief in their might had lulled them to a fatal slumber. Shiva, the Destroyer--the God of the natives--had spoken, but the God of the Christians gave no sign.
The white men slept!
The afternoon waned. The evening breeze set in, and the Christians rose and prepared for evening worship; and as they wended their way to church they saw for the first time sights and sounds that paled the faces of the women, and begot anxiety in the men. Columns of illuminated smoke were rising to the darkening sky; and from afar off came the sound of bugles calling to arms, and mingling with it was the roll of musketry. Service in the church did not take place, and the scared people hurried back; for now from lip to lip flew the news--‘The native soldiers have risen!’ It had a dreadful sound, for under any circumstances it meant a tremendous struggle, and many a brave man would bite the dust ere the insurrection was quelled.
That confusion ensued amongst the whites goes without saying, for none knew exactly where the danger lay. Firm in his belief in his dark-skinned comrades the white-haired colonel mounted his horse and rode boldly into the midst of his regiment, which was assembled on the plain. He tried to harangue the men, but ere he had spoken many words there was a report, and a bullet shattered his arm. In a few seconds he fell from his horse riddled with bullets. It was the first blood. Then throwing off all reserve the black soldiers seemed to suddenly transform themselves to fiends. With hideous cries and shouts, and followed by a yelling rabble thirsting for the white men’s lives, they rushed towards the town bent on slaughter.
And almost at the same moment a young and beautiful woman, mounted on a magnificent horse, her form concealed by a military cloak, crossed the plain, and, urging the animal to its wildest gallop, sped towards Delhi.
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late,
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods.
When the eighty-five condemned men were consigned to the gaol they were placed under the care of a native guard only, and the prisoners exclaimed to their guard: ‘Are you countrymen of ours that you can calmly see us thus treated and disgraced by these accursed Feringhees?’ And the taunt was taken up and carried from man to man, and it ran like wildfire through the native regiments, and through the bazaars, and through the villages. And it was borne down the rivers and up the rivers, and over the dusty plain to Delhi men sped with the cry on their lips. And when the sinking sun was reddening the rolling waters of the Ganges, native eyes in Delhi were turning anxiously towards Meerut for the flaming signal in the sky, that should announce to them that fire and sword were doing their deadly work on the European residents in the great cantonment.
While the white men were sleeping the natives were acting. They surged to the prison, civilians and soldiers alike. Some of the latter were in uniform, some in their stable dress. Some were fully accoutred, and bestrode their chargers all ready for war. Others rode their steeds with only watering-rein and horse-cloth; but every soldier was armed with sabre and pistol, and hundreds of the rabble had pistols and guns of some sort. They met with no opposition at the prison. If the guard did not help they looked on passively. The cells were forced open, the prisoners brought forth, and native smiths were at hand to strike off the shackles. Then the erstwhile prisoners mounted behind their comrades and rode to the lines for more horses and arms, and Hindoos and Mohammedans, high caste and low caste, women and children, joined in one mighty shout, ‘Death to the Feringhees!’--‘Deen, deen!’ which means ‘Death’--and was to become their rallying cry throughout the great struggle. Forth they rushed like a destroying whirlwind. Wherever a white soldier was met he was mercilessly slaughtered. Such Europeans as were driving or riding were shot down, men, women, and children, without mercy, without pity. And from the dens of infamy, and the slums, and the bazaars, poured a stream of human beings pitiless as the fabled ghouls, and all bent on plundering and burning. As the moon rose it looked on an appallingly weird scene of horror and cruelty. The blazing bungalows of the English officers roared and hissed, and English women and English children, gashed and mutilated out of all recognition, lay dead in the streets. One of the first bungalows to be attacked was that of the colonel as he rode out to harangue his men. His wife fell, shot through the heart, as she tried to shield her child. Faithful to her trust, the old ayah endeavoured to carry the child off from its dead mother and place it in a place of safety, if there was such a place. But she was cut down with a sabre, and she and the sweet little girl were slashed to pieces. Then the house was looted and given to the flames.
Blanche Merton would have fallen a victim at that first outbreak of fury. But fearing the worst, she had not waited for the house to be attacked. She was moved by an impulse to die with her lover no less than to warn him and his comrades in Delhi, and, being a superb horsewoman, she rushed to the stables, having first seized the colonel’s military cloak, which was hanging in the hall. With her own hands she saddled his favourite riding-horse, and, concealing her face with a black veil, she rode towards the river undetected, and having gained the highway beyond the Goomtee, she gave her horse the rein.
That night was a night of horror in Meerut, the parallel for which could hardly be found in history. The whole town seemed to be a swirling furnace of many-coloured flames. The air was sultry. There was not a breath of wind, and the stupendous column of smoke spread itself out over the doomed town like a funeral pall. The shrieks of horses and cattle as they were burned in their stables mingled with the gloating cries of the infuriated natives; while the roar of the musketry made itself heard above all, and proclaimed the carnage that was going on. Women and children and non-combatants cried to God for pity, and endeavoured to find shelter in the gardens, outhouses, stables, under the trees, but all without avail. The black demons searched them out, and shot them or hacked them to pieces. The streets were deluged with blood; the river ran red.
Many a heroic deed that has gone unrecorded was done that night by white men; and many a half-maddened mother, with a prayer on her lips, threw away her life in her fruitless endeavours to save the lives of her little ones.
But the scene of the story must shift. When the hellish work in Meerut had been finished the mutineers sped away to Delhi. But before they reached it the brave Blanche Merton had arrived. At such a pace had she ridden that her horse died soon after she had dismounted at Lieutenant Shelton’s quarters, and she was so excited and so exhausted that she could scarcely speak. As soon as she got her voice she told them that mutiny had broken out in Meerut, and the English were being massacred. There was corroboration of her report in the flame-coloured sky away to the north-east where the bungalows were burning, but otherwise Shelton was disposed to think that her fears had led her to exaggerate the extent of the revolt. Glad he was to see her, and as he kissed her fondly he said:
‘You are safe here, anyway, my darling, and I do not think there is any danger of the tide of mutiny flowing thus far.’
He was hopeful and sanguine, but it was different with others to whom the news was speedily communicated. They knew how weak the little force was in Delhi, and that they could offer but small resistance if the mutineers should get the upper hand in Meerut and attack Delhi.
The great magazine and fort, with its tremendous stores of war material, was no great distance from the palace; that superb home of the Moghul kings that lifted its proud domes and turrets above the Jumna. The entire place was under the charge of Willoughby, and he had with him two other lieutenants--officers of the Bengal Artillery, and six European conductors and commissariat sergeants, one of them being an Irishman named Scully. There were nine in all. Nine only to defend their precious charge! To us now it seems inconceivable that the authorities could have been so fatuous as to leave so important a place as Delhi unguarded. But so it was, save by a mere handful of men. Lieutenant Willoughby, however, was of the stuff that makes all Englishmen proud. Calling his little band together, he told them the news, and said that it was certain the mutineers would attempt a dash for the magazine, for they could do little without ammunition. But he added:
‘We will hold the place, boys, against a host. The black devils may have a brief triumph in Meerut, and come here; but the garrison of Meerut, which is a strong one, will soon recover, and will send us succour; though, should the worst come to the worst, comrades, not a shell, not a gun, nor an ounce of powder, if we can help it, shall fall into the hands of the rebels, for we will blow the whole place into ruins, and find our graves beneath them.’
A tremendous cheer was the answer he received, and then the gallant band set to work to be prepared for whatever might happen. The outer gate was closed, and strongly barricaded. Guns were brought out and loaded with double charges of grape and canister, and placed in such a position that they commanded the approaches.
While these preparations were developing Shelton received orders to do all in his power to hold a house which had been used as a Government depôt, and contained accoutrements and other stores, besides a number of rifles. He procured an ample supply of ammunition from the magazine, and he had with him a sergeant and a corporal. Blanche would have refused to have left him, even supposing he had wished it, but he knew there was nowhere he could send her to where she was likely to be safer than there. And so she insisted on being furnished with a revolver--which she had learned to use since her arrival in India--and she vowed that she would stand by his side to the death.
The morning sun was rising in a glory of crimson splendour when the mutineers, stained with blood and dust and grimed with powder, swarmed over the Jumna and clattered into Delhi. Under the windows of the palace they surged, and called for the king--that white-haired, treacherous old villain, who believed that his hour of triumph had struck, and that the house of Moghul would be restored to its ancient splendour. The rebels were admitted by the Mohammedan guard, and then they almost shook the wall with a thunderous shout of ‘Glory to the Padishah and death to the Feringhees!’
Swelled now by their comrades of the palace they swarmed into the town, cutting down every European they met, and a detachment rushed for the house held by Shelton and his sweetheart and his two other companions. The lower doors and windows had been barricaded; and from the upper windows a well-delivered fire checked for a moment the onrush of the mutineers. But it was only for a moment. Some of their number had gone down into the dust, but that only served to still further madden the survivors, who stormed the house, to be beaten back, however, once more by the defenders’ fire. Recovering themselves, they fired a volley at the windows, and one of the bullets struck the corporal dead.
Shelton saw now that it would be impossible to hold the place for many minutes, and he turned with anxious gaze to the beloved woman at his side. Her face was pale as death, but she was calm, and in her hand she still grasped the smoking revolver. Every barrel was empty, and she had sent at least four of the rabble to their account.
‘My beloved,’ he exclaimed in a tone of despair, ‘I fear that hope of saving you has passed.’
‘Yes, darling,’ she said, quietly. ‘Hope for us in this world has gone; but we shall be united in the next. Load the revolver again.’
He quickly thrust a cartridge into each barrel, and returned it to her, and at the same moment he saw his brave and only remaining soldier companion go down, shot through the head. Then he kicked in the head of a barrel of powder he had taken the precaution to have brought up, and passing his arm round Blanche’s waist he was about to fire his revolver into the powder, when he suddenly changed his mind, and said hurriedly:
‘Darling, I believe we can escape and find safety in the fort.’
‘Where you go, I will go,’ she answered.
Hurriedly fixing a few feet of slow match to the powder barrel he lighted the loose end; then taking Blanche’s hand they hurried down the stairs, revolvers in hand. They gained the back door, which led into the garden, and by almost superhuman effort they removed the barricading of the door and rushed out and cleared the garden before their escape was discovered. But at that moment there was a tremendous explosion, and the house they had just left crumbled to ruins. For some minutes the mutineers were scattered by the shock, and it seemed as if the brave Shelton and the equally brave Blanche would gain shelter. But they were seen, and a swarm of mounted soldiers sped after them. Placing Blanche against a wall Shelton stood in front of her, and emptied his revolver at the advancing horsemen, and two of their number pitched from their saddles, but the next moment the faithful lovers fell, clasped in each other’s arms, and riddled with bullets. In life they had loved and hoped, and in death they were not divided; their hopes would become fruition in a better and a brighter world.
In the meantime how fared it with the brave defenders of the fort?
Baffled in their attempt to obtain possession of the house the mutineers rushed to the magazine with their rallying cry of ‘Deen, deen!’ Willoughby and his noble band were prepared for them. They had concentrated their nine-pounder guns, and behind them had piled up as much ammunition as they had had time to procure. A few yards away was a heap of powder, and a train carried from it into the magazine itself, where the heads had been knocked out of many of the barrels and the powder scattered, with loaded shells placed in it. There were tons of powder, shells, and explosives of all kinds; and when further defence was found to be impossible the train was to be fired.
While the howling troopers on horse and foot were speeding to the fort, mounted messengers were sent from the king to demand from Willoughby the surrender of the place.
‘Back to your royal master, slaves,’ was the haughty and defiant answer, ‘and tell him to come himself and we will surrender the ruins, together with our corpses, to him.’
The messenger made known this defiant answer to the mutineers, who were now clamouring round in a surging, jostling mass, and a determined rush was made for the gate. But they fell back as a withering storm of grape shot tore through them. That storm was most destructive in its effects; but the soldiers and the rabble that had joined them from the slums and dens of the city were too strongly bent on slaying the Feringhees to allow themselves to be defeated by the slaughter of some of their number. So gathering themselves together again, they howled ‘Deen, deen!’ and made another rush, but once more they were hurled back by the blast of fire and shot.
Seldom in the annals of warfare has there been a more stubborn, more heroic, defence made by a handful of men against a host of trained soldiers than was made by Willoughby and his comrades; for, be it remembered that they were fighting regiments of soldiers who had been trained and drilled in the art of warfare by the English themselves, and, as often proved before and since, the Sepoy makes almost as good a fighting-man as his white brother, although he perhaps lacks in that stubbornness and unconquerable determination which are peculiarly characteristic of the Englishman. But in the case we are dealing with the Sepoys were stubborn enough. They knew, indeed, that it was death or victory with them. And they quite believed that if they could but obtain the immense accumulation of ammunition stored in the Delhi arsenal, not only could they hold the city of the Moghuls against all the armies of England, but that they could actually conquer India. For it was big guns and shot and shell they wanted, and from nowhere else could they obtain them save Delhi. It was, therefore, their only hope, and it may safely be asserted that not one amongst them deemed it possible that the stores would not fall into their hands, as it was well known that only nine men held the fort. But what they did not know was that those nine men were unconquerable.
It is no disparagement of the rest to say that Willoughby, by his magnificent example, inspired the others to greater deeds of valour. When on the evening of the 1st of May, as he sat on the verandah of the colonel’s bungalow at Meerut, he had stated that he would blow the magazine up rather than surrender it, he made no idle boast. But his belief was, as he and his noble companions worked the guns and kept the howling foe at bay, that the necessity to destroy the magazine would not arise, since they would be able to hold out till succour reached them from Meerut. For not knowing the extent of the disaster which had overwhelmed that station, he naturally expected some portion of its strong garrison would immediately be despatched to Delhi’s relief. But, alas! when the hoofs of the mutinous troopers’ horses rung upon the bridge that spanned the Jumna before Delhi, they sounded the death-knell of every British resident in the city, with some three or four exceptions.
There is an expressive Hindostanee word, lachar, which means helpless and something more; and at this awful crisis in our Indian rule the English were certainly lachar. They might slay many of their foes, but they could not save their lives or property. Such as were soldiers knew that it was one of the risks attending their profession of arms that they might be called upon at any moment to fight for and lay down their lives. But it was hard, it was pitiable, it was maddening, that the dear women and sweet children should fall a prey to the brutal and tiger-like ferocity of the revolted soldiers, and there is no doubt that the thought of their loved ones nerved many an arm to fight with the heroism of desperate despair.
For five long hours did Willoughby keep the host at bay; and often and often during those dreadful hours did he rush to the bastion on the river face and turn his gaze in the direction of Meerut, hoping to see the succour he expected coming in the shape of a regiment of English soldiers speeding on with all the speed their chargers were capable of. But the plain was misty with dust and heat; and not a living thing was in sight beyond the river save some vultures that hovered lazily in the heated air as if waiting patiently for the feast they knew would soon be theirs.
And during those five hours the mutineers charged again and again at the gate which was so ably defended, but each time they recoiled, leaving a heap of their dead. No accurate record has come to us of the number of their slain on that awful day, but it has been computed at thousands, for mingling with the soldiers was an immense gathering of civilians who had armed themselves with all sorts of weapons, and poured forth to assist in massacring the English. But still the enormous number of their dead did not deter them. Indeed, the sight only served to frenzy them still more. Horses and men--soldiers and civilians--encumbered the ground, victims to the grape and canister belched forth by the nine-pounders. And the constantly accumulating heaps made it difficult for the living to reach the gate which they hoped to batter in. At last, however, they bethought themselves of ladders. The marvel is that they had not thought of them before. Scores of ladders were soon procured when once they had been suggested, and then with shouts and cries that rent the very air the mutineers began to swarm up the walls.
And now brave Willoughby felt that the supreme moment had come at last. Never had soldier more nobly, more devotedly, and more heroically done his duty. But he saw, alas! that his efforts were useless. For the last time he rushed to the bastion. One more look--a long, anxious look--over that great plain that was all a quiver with the fierce heat of the unchecked sun. But not a sign was there of the hoped-for succour. Meerut had failed them, and there was nothing left now but to die. Then the splendid hero went back to his guns.
‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘we are abandoned to our fate. Meerut has not sent, perhaps could not send, us help. But though we are defeated we are not conquered. We have as soldiers done our duty, and defended to the last the stores committed to our care. Further defence is impossible, and there is but one more thing to do, and that is to die.’
He raised his sword as the prearranged sign, word was then passed by one of his lieutenants to Scully, who stood ready. Scully lit his match and fired the train.
There was an awful pause. The minarets and domes of the wonderful city glittered in the sunlight, and the face of heaven was without a cloud. Nature was peaceful and at rest; but men were striving to tear their fellow men to pieces, and there was a Babel of fierce, discordant cries. The walls of the fort were black with hundreds of soldiers and civilians who were struggling with each other as to who should be first to cut down the Englishmen. Between the sweltering crowds on the walls and the thousands below the scaling ladders formed a connecting link, and they were black, too, with the writhing masses of men trying to work their way up. Beyond the closely-wedged crowd that extended from the walls outwards for something like fifty yards was a fringe of rabble; the scouring of the gaols and the contributions of the places of infamy with which the city abounded. And in this fringe was a large percentage of women and young people of both sexes; though there wasn’t one there but was athirst for the Feringhees’ blood. And when it was seen that the rebel Sepoys had gained the summit of the surrounding walls of the fort there arose from thousands of lips an exultant roar, for it seemed that the Englishmen were at last in the power of the mob. But suddenly that roar ceased with a quick and paralysing accession of fear that struck the human mass dumb, for something had happened--a convulsion of nature, as it seemed. The sun was darkened; the firm earth rocked, and shook, and rose and fell, and concurrent with these things was a compact, sullen, solid boom, that expanded and stretched out as it were until it became a mighty and stupendous volume of sound. Where a few seconds before the walls had stood black with hundreds of fierce men on murder intent was a heap of ruins; and all around not hundreds but thousands of human beings were hurled to the ground maimed, shattered, and slain. And of those who had presence of mind to turn and flee, some were overtaken and stricken senseless with flying masonry, masses of iron, or baulks of timbers; while others fell dead from fright, and others again went raving mad; and some rushed to the river and threw themselves in, desperate with despair, for it seemed as if their own god Shiva had turned upon his votaries and was bent on wiping them off the face of the earth. The effects of this great explosion were remarkable. The whole city was shaken. Ponderous houses reeled and tottered, and buildings miles away were rent and split. Every tree within a radius of a couple of hundred yards was blasted and withered. Huge masses of masonry were hurled high into the air. Heavy guns were tossed away as if they had been toys caught by a strong wind. The six-feet walls of solid masonry were shattered to crumbling ruins, burying many hundreds of natives, while hundreds more were blown up into the air like wisps of straw. The destruction of the war material was complete. Not a pound of powder, not a shell, not a gun, remained for the natives to use against the white men. To that fact probably we owe our ultimate success over the rebels. For if all that ammunition and all those guns had fallen into the hands of the mutineers at that moment, there is no telling what they might have accomplished.
Willoughby had indeed nobly done his duty. To their disgrace, however, be it said, there were those at home--the fireside politicians, the little Englander and carpet-slipper travellers--who censured him for the act. But Englishmen at heart admire courage and devotion to duty. Generations yet unborn, when they read the pathetic story of Shelton and Blanche Merton, will draw a sigh of pity, while around the memory of Lieutenant George Willoughby will ever shine a halo of glory, and Englishmen will refer to him with a sense of swelling pride as the Hero of Delhi, who with fire and death helped to save India.
NOTE.--Curiously enough Willoughby and a comrade, Lieutenant Forrest, escaped from the fiery blast that scattered such ruin and death around. Willoughby, however, was much burnt, and Forrest was severely wounded, having been shot in the arm. The brave Scully who fired the train must have been blown to atoms. It was estimated that 2,000 mutineers at least were killed by the explosion, and as many perhaps had been previously shot down by grape and canister which the heroic little garrison poured forth with such deadly effect.
