Sahib (50 page)

The scene was enough to overwhelm men who were already dispirited and disappointed. Those who had been wounded in our previous attacks lay there, some stripped naked, some without heads, some without arms or legs, others with their bodies slashed about in the most hideous fashion … Could anything be more distressing for affectionate comrades to look upon? I say affectionate, for soldiers living together in tents, or barracks, in daily familiar intercourse, get to know each others qualities, good or bad, and the hardships of the service bind them together in a way unknown to more casual acquaintances. Many of these mutilated objects were still alive. We could see their agonised breathing. Some raised their heads clotted with blood, and other the stumps of arms, or legs, and faintly cried for help and pity.
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They reached the breach to find the defenders in armour: ‘a coat, breastplate, shoulder plates and armlets, with a helmet and chain faceguard – so that bullets had little effect’. Despite the courage of the attackers they could make no progress.

Before I had been on the breach five minutes I was hit by a large shot in the back, which threw me down from the bastion,
toppled me over and over, and sent me rolling sideways down the steep slope until one of our grenadiers brought me up with his bayonet which he jabbed through my shoe, injuring the fleshy part of my foot under the great toe. The man who helped me get back up was shot dead that minute … I got back to my place to see poor Lieutenant Templar, who had planted his flag on top of the bastion as he said he would, cut to pieces by one of the enemy. Before I had been back long, a stinkpot, or earthen jar of some combustible material, fell on my pouch, in which I had fifty rounds of ball cartridge. The whole lot blew up. I never saw the pouch again, and I was hurled down from the top to the bottom of the bastion. How I got there I never knew, but when I came to I was lying below the breach with my legs in the water, my clothes burned, my face severely scorched and all the hair burned off the back of my head.
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Lake raised the siege, having lost over 3,000 men and a good deal of prestige. Shipp’s heroism, however, was recognised by the grant of an ensigncy in HM’s 65th Foot. ‘On the day of my appointment, ’ he wrote, ‘I was metamorphosed into a gentleman. I had a new coat, my hair was cut and curled, and I was invited to dine with the Commander-in-Chief.’ The kindly Lord Lake sent him a tent, two camels and a horse, and ‘the rest of my outfit was generously given me by my excellent patron, Captain Lindsay’.
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Three weeks later Shipp was promoted lieutenant in HM’s 76th Foot and soon returned to England but, falling into debt, sold his commission. He then re-enlisted in the 24th Dragoons to make his way again. Bhurtpore was eventually taken by Lord Combermere in 1826.

Commanders were often reluctant to risk an assault, not only because of the risk of failure and the possibility of heavy casualties, but because it was axiomatic that troops engaged in such a venture would be impossible to control once they got into the fortress. Lieutenant Charles Griffiths of HM’s 61st Foot reflected on this general truth when he got into Delhi in September 1857:

There is no more terrible spectacle than a city taken by storm. All the pent-up passions of men are here let loose without restraint. Roused to a pitch of fury from long-continued resistance
and eager to take vengeance on the murderers of women and children, the men in their pitiless rage showed no mercy. The dark days of Badajoz and San Sebastian were renewed on a scale at Delhi; and during the assault, seeing the impetuous fury of our men, I could not help recalling to my mind the harrowing details of the old Peninsular wars, here reproduced before my eyes.
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At Multan, John Ryder described how:

The victors and the vanquished were now become equally brutish; the former by excess of fortune, the latter by excess of misery. Every one was plundered whom our men could lay their hands upon, regardless of their pitiful cry, and in some instances women and children were shot down amongst the men. Our men now appeared to be brutish beyond everything, having but little mercy for one another – still less for an enemy, and very little pity indeed could be found in any one … 

No one with Christian feeling should be guilty of such cowardly and unsoldierly actions as those committed. English-men! Blush at your cruelty, and be ashamed of the unmanly actions perpetrated upon old men, entirely harmless; and still worse, upon the poor, helpless women. In several instances, on breaking into the retreats of these unfortunate creatures, a volley of shots was fired amongst them, as they were huddled together in a corner, regardless of old men, women and children. All shared the same fate … 

A man of the 3rd Company of my regiment, an Irish Roman Catholic, named B—, went into a room and took a young girl from her mother’s side, and perpetrated that offence for which he has to answer to God who heard that poor girl’s cries and petitions. Had I been upon the spot I would have shot him dead.
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The same shocking drama was played out almost whenever a place was taken by storm. In 1843 Henry Daly entered a small town in Kohistan, and found:

The scene entering the town is beyond description. Tents, baggage, things of all description lying about the streets, and the bodies of the unfortunate men who had delayed their
departure too long, or who were too brave to fly and leave their wives and children without first sacrificing their lives in their defence. I suppose I need not tell you that no males above fourteen years were spared … 

Daly rescued an Afghan lady and gave her to a soldier for safe escort, warning them not to be rough with her. ‘Lor bless you, sir,’ replied the man, ‘I wouldn’t hurt one of these poor creatures for the world, but I would shoot one of these (pointing to the men) like a dog.’ Daly carried some drinking water to an old woman, ‘but all she said was “Curse the Feringhees!” Well had we merited them.’
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The most celebrated siege endured by the British in India was, of course, that of Lucknow; its first and most serious phase running from July to late September 1857, when Havelock and Outram managed to force their way into the Residency compound, and continuing until Campbell arrived to end the siege in November. The garrison, initially around 800 British officers and men with HM’s 32nd as their nucleus, slightly fewer loyal sepoys and some 153 civilian volunteers, just outnumbered the 1,280 noncombatants, a mixture of officers’ and soldiers’ wives and children, local Christians and Indian servants. Henry Lawrence, as major general and chief commissioner, both the military commander and senior civil official, was mortally wounded on 2 July and died on the 4th, handing over military command to Brigadier Inglis and civil authority to Major Banks, himself killed by a sniper on 21 July, when civil authority also devolved on Inglis.

The defence of Lucknow became a classic example of a colonial siege. Outside, a numerically superior enemy, dangerous both when initially flushed with victory and later when embittered and facing defeat and retribution, and inside a microcosm of Anglo-Indian society, striving to remain brave and confident despite a steady toll caused by disease and hostile fire, with anguish sharpened by the slow erosion of family groups. On the day Henry Lawrence was hit, Maria Germon, wife of an officer in 13th BNI, thought that she too was going to die:

The firing was fearful – the enemy must have discovered from some spies that Sir Henry was at our house for the attack on the gate was fearful – we all gave ourselves up for lost for we did not then know the cowards they were and we expected every moment they would be over the garden wall – there was no escape for us if they were once in the garden. We asked [The Revd] Mr Harris to read prayers and I think everyone of us prepared for the worst – the shots were now coming in so thick into the verandah where Sir Henry was lying that several officers were wounded and Sir Henry was obliged to be moved into the drawing room. We gave out an immense quantity of rags to the poor soldiers as they passed up and down from the roof of the house wounded. Towards evening the fire slackened but we were not allowed to leave the
tye khana
[underground room] – at night Mr Harris came and read prayers again and then we all lay down on the floor without undressing.
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Kate Bartrum whose husband Richard was outside with the 3rd Oudh Irregular Cavalry, recorded the fate of so many of the children: ‘Mrs Clark’s infant died today,’ she wrote on 3 August. ‘Her other little child was taken care of by Mrs Pitt, but notwithstanding the tender care which was taken care of him, he sank from exhaustion and died about a fortnight after.’ Five days later she wrote that ‘poor Mrs Kaye has lost her child, such a sweet little thing it was petted and loved by all in the room’.
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Simply providing small children with nourishing food got ever more difficult. In August Julia Inglis reported that:

A poor woman, Mrs Beale by name, whose husband, an over-seer of roads, had been killed in the siege, came today to ask me to give her a little milk for her only child, who was dying for want of proper nourishment. It went to my heart to refuse her; but at this time I had only just enough for my own children, and baby could not have lived without it. I think she understood that I would have given her some if I could.
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On 27 August Maria Germon wrote that:

Sir H. Lawrence’s stores were sold today and they fetched enormous prices – a bottle of honey 42 Rupees and upwards,
a dozen of brandy 107 Rupees, a ham 70 Rupees, two tins of soup 55 Rupees, people seemed to bid recklessly, Charlie said – he would buy nothing. They were to be paid for on the first issue of pay which many I suppose think they will never live to receive. Charlie bought a pair of soldier’s highlows [boots] for 8 Rupees from a sergeant – more useful than truffled larks etc.
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Prices continued to rise: on 10 September, 20 rupees were given for 2 pounds of sugar, whilst a leaf of tobacco cost 1 rupee.

Surgeon Anthony Home, who had been on his way to China with HM’s 90th Foot when diverted to India, and who arrived with Havelock’s column, observed that almost everybody lived on chapatties, ‘that is, into cakes made of flour and water, well kneaded and toasted over hot embers; but though I ate these delicacies three times a day I endured them only – they wanted salt and everything to make them palatable’. The same flour also served ‘as a substitute for toilet soap … it answered very well, but it meant wasting bread at a time that we could not spare a crumb’. On 25 September, with food strictly rationed, Home spent the day busy with scalpel and bone-saw, and: ‘To the charity of a brother officer I owed the only food I had that day – consisting only of parched gram – a kind of pea used for feeding horses – and washed down with some water.’
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Towards the end of the final part of the siege some food was strictly rationed. Men got 12 ounces of meat daily, women 6 ounces and children 2 ounces, ‘bone inclusive, which is sometimes nearly one half’. A group of seventeen received 15 pounds of flour for making chuppaties, and there was a little lentil to make dhal, some rice and just a little salt. ‘We still have a little tea,’ wrote Maria Germon, ‘but no sugar, milk, wine or beer – our beverage is toast and water, a large jug of which is always put on the table.’
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Dr Fayrer shot 150 sparrows and made a sparrow curry, but Mrs Germon could not be persuaded to try it.

Soon everyone in the Residency compound was afflicted by what the ladies euphemistically referred to as ‘light infantry’, or hair lice. ‘More dreadful discoveries of Light Infantry,’ reported Maria Germon on 12 September. Four days later the news was worse: ‘Only two ladies of the garrison found free of Light Infantry.’ On
25 September she gave 5 rupees for ‘a small tooth comb’. It was a good deal of money, ‘but I am in such a state about keeping my hair free from Light Infantry’, she wrote; ‘poor Mrs Fayrer a little delicate creature was reduced to tears yesterday by having more discovered in her hair’.
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But keeping clean and decent became almost impossible in the crowded compound at the height of a blazing summer, and the flies were a particular trial, as L. E. Rees, a businessman serving as a volunteer, described:

Lucknow had always been noted for its flies, but at no time had they been known to be so troublesome … They swarmed in their millions, and although we blew daily some hundreds and thousands into the air, this seemed to make no diminution in their numbers. The ground was still black with them, and the tables were literally covered with these cursed flies.

We could not sleep in the day on account of them. We could scarcely eat. Our beef, of which we get a tolerably small quantity every other day, is usually studded with them; and while I eat my miserable dall [dhal] and roti … a number of scamps fly into my mouth, or tumble into the plate, and float about in it, impromptu peppercorns and … enough to make a saint swear.
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Rees recalled that: ‘The stench from dead horses and bullocks and other animals killed by the enemy’s fire, was worse than disagreeable, it was pestilential, and laid the seeds of the many diseases from which we afterwards suffered.’
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The garrison’s morale ebbed and flowed as hopes of relief were dashed and raised. They soared as Havelock’s force arrived but then drooped again: although the garrison was now able to hold a much wider perimeter there were more mouths to feed. In the great tradition of Victorian adventures, there were Scots amongst the relieving force. On 25 September the women and children had assembled ‘in trembling expectation’ outside Fayrer’s house. ‘How the rough and bearded soldiers of the 78th Highlanders rushed amongst them, wringing their hands with loud and repeated gratulations,’ wrote Surgeon Home. ‘How the rough-looking men took the children up in their arms, caressed them, and passed them back to others to be fondled … ’.
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Mrs Germon thought it: