Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny 1857-59 Part 3

"It's not your place to be taking colours; go back to your regiment this instant, sir!" However, the officers of the staff who were with Sir Colin gave a cheer for Colonel Ewart, and one of them presented him with a cap to cover his head, which was still bare. He turned back, apparently very much upset at the reception given to him by the old Chief; but I afterwards heard that Sir Colin sent for him in the afternoon, apologised for his rudeness, and thanked him for his services. Before I conclude, I may remark that I have often thought over this incident, and the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that, from the wild and excited appearance of Colonel Ewart, who had been by that time more than an hour without his hat in the fierce rays of the sun, covered with blood and powder smoke, and his eyes still flashing with the excitement of the fight, giving him the appearance of a man under the influence of something more potent than "blue ribbon"

tipple--I feel pretty sure, I say, that, when Sir Colin first saw him, he thought he was drunk. When he found out his mistake he was of course sorry for his rudeness.

After the capture of the Shah Nujeef, a field officer was required to hold the barracks, which was one of the most important posts on our left advance, and although severely wounded, having several sabre-cuts and many bruises on his body, Colonel Ewart volunteered for the post of commandant of the force. This post he held until the night of the evacuation of the Residency and the retreat from Lucknow, for the purpose of relieving Cawnpore for the second time from the grasp of the Nana Sahib and the Gwalior Contingent. It was at the retaking of Cawnpore that Colonel Ewart eventually had his arm carried off by a cannon-shot; and the last time I saw him was when I a.s.sisted to lift him into a _dooly_ on the plain of Cawnpore on the 1st of December, 1857.

But I must leave the retaking of Cawnpore to its proper place in these reminiscences, and resume my narrative of the capture of the Secundrabagh.

I mentioned previously that the muster-rolls had scarcely been called outside the gateway, when the enemy evidently became aware that the place was no longer held for them by living men, and a terrible fire was opened on us from both our right and left, as well as from the Shah Nujeef in our direct front.

Let me here mention, before I take leave of the Secundrabagh, that I have often been told that the hole in the wall by which the Ninety-Third entered is still in existence. This I had heard from several sources, and on Sunday morning, the 21st of August, 1892, when revisiting Lucknow, I left the Royal Hotel with a guide who did not know that I had ever seen Lucknow before, and who a.s.sured me that the breach had been preserved just as it was left on the 16th of November, 1857, after the Ninety-Third had pa.s.sed through it; and I had made up my mind to re-enter the Secundrabagh once again by the same old hole. On reaching the gate I therefore made the _gharry_ stop, and walked round the outside of the wall to the hole; but as soon as I arrived at the spot I saw that the gap pointed out to me as the one by which the Ninety-Third entered was a fraud, and I astonished the guide by refusing to pa.s.s through it. The hole now shown as the one by which we entered was made through the wall by an 18-pounder gun, which was brought from Cawnpore by Captain Blount's troop of Royal Horse-Artillery. This was about twenty yards to the left of the real hole, and was made to enable a few men to keep up a cross fire through it till the stormers could get footing inside the actual breach. This post was held by Sergeant James Morrison and several sharp-shooters from my company, who, by direction of Sir Colin, made a rush on this hole before the order was given for the Fourth Punjab Infantry to storm. Any military man of the least experience seeing the hole and its size now, thirty-five years after the event, will know this to be a fact. The real breach was much bigger and could admit three men abreast, and, as near as I can judge, was about the centre of the road which now pa.s.ses through the Secundrabagh.

The guide, I may say, admitted such to be the case when he found that I had seen the Secundrabagh before his time. Although it was only a hole, and not what is correctly called a breach, in the wall, it was so wide, and the surrounding parts of the wall had been so shaken by round-shot, that the upper portion forming the arch must have fallen down within a few years after 1857, and this evidently formed a convenient breach in the wall through which the present road has been constructed.[19] The smaller hole meanwhile has been laid hold of by the guides as the identical pa.s.sage by which the Secundrabagh was stormed.

Having corrected the guide on this point, I will now give my recollections of the a.s.sault on the Shah Nujeef, and the Kuddum Russool which stands on its right, advancing from the Secundrabagh.

The Kuddum Russool was a strongly-built domed mosque not nearly so large as the Shah Nujeef, but it had been surrounded by a strong wall and converted into a powder magazine by the English between the annexation of Lucknow and the outbreak of the Mutiny. I think this fact is mentioned by Mr. Gubbins in his _Mutinies in Oude_. The Kuddum Russool was still used by the mutineers as a powder-magazine, but the powder had been conveyed from it into the tomb of the Shah Nujeef, when the latter was converted into a post of defence to bar our advance on the Residency.

Before the order was given for the attack on the Shah Nujeef, I may mention that the quartermaster-general's department had made an estimate of the number of the enemy slain in the Secundrabagh from their appearance and from their parade-states of that morning. The mutineers, let me say, had still kept up their English discipline and parade-forms, and their parade-states and muster-rolls of the 16th of November were discovered among other doc.u.ments in a room of the Secundrabagh which had been their general's quarters and orderly-room. It was then found that four separate regiments had occupied the Secundrabagh, numbering about two thousand five hundred men, and these had been augmented by a number of _budmashes_ from the city, bringing up the list of actual slain in the house and garden to about three thousand. Of these, over two thousand lay dead inside the rooms of the main building and the inner court. The colours, drums, etc., of the Seventy-First Native Infantry and the Eleventh Oude Irregular Infantry were captured. The mutineers fought under their English colours, and there were several Mahommedan standards of green silk captured besides the English colours. The Seventy-First Native Infantry was one of the crack corps of the Company's army, and many of the men were wearing the Punjab medals on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. This regiment and the Eleventh Oude Irregulars were simply annihilated. On examining the bodies of the dead, over fifty men of the Seventy-First were found to have furloughs, or leave-certificates, signed by their former commanding officer in their pockets, showing that they had been on leave when their regiment mutinied and had rejoined their colours to fight against us. It is a curious fact that after the Mutiny was suppressed, many sepoys tendered these leave-certificates as proof that they had _not_ taken part in the rebellion; and I believe all such got enrolled either in the police or in the new regiments that were being raised, and obtained their back pay. And doubtless if the Ninety-Third and Fifty-Third bayonets had not cancelled those of the Seventy-First Native Infantry all those _loyal_ men would afterwards have presented their leave-certificates, and have claimed pay for the time they were fighting against us!

When the number of the slain was reported to Sir Colin, he turned to Brigadier Hope, and said "This morning's work will strike terror into the sepoys,--it will strike terror into them," and he repeated it several times. Then turning to us again he said: "Ninety-Third, you have bravely done your share of this morning's work, and Cawnpore is avenged!

There is more hard work to be done; but unless as a last resource, I will not call on you to storm more positions to-day. Your duty will be to cover the guns after they are dragged into position. But, my boys, if need be, remember I depend on you to carry the next position in the same daring manner in which you carried the Secundrabagh." With that some one from the ranks called out, "Will we get a medal for this, Sir Colin?" To which he replied: "Well, my lads, I can't say what Her Majesty's Government may do; but if you don't get a medal, all I can say is you have deserved one better than any troops I have ever seen under fire. I shall inform the Governor-General, and, through him, Her Majesty the Queen, that I have never seen troops behave better." The order was then given to man the drag-ropes of Peel's guns for the advance on the Shah Nujeef, and obeyed with a cheer; and, as it turned out, the Ninety-Third had to storm that position also.

The advance on the Shah Nujeef has been so often described that I will cut my recollections of it short. At the word of command Captain Middleton's battery of Royal Artillery dashed forward with loud cheers, the drivers waving their whips and the gunners their caps as they pa.s.sed us and Peel's guns at the gallop. The 24-pounder guns meanwhile were dragged along by our men and the sailors in the teeth of a perfect hail of lead and iron from the enemy's batteries. In the middle of the march a poor sailor lad, just in front of me, had his leg carried clean off above the knee by a round-shot, and, although knocked head over heels by the force of the shot, he sat bolt upright on the gra.s.s, with the blood spouting from the stump of his limb like water from the hose of a fire-engine, and shouted, "Here goes a shilling a day, a shilling a day!

Pitch into them, boys, pitch into them! Remember Cawnpore, Ninety-Third, remember Cawnpore! Go at them, my hearties!" and he fell back in a dead faint, and on we went. I afterwards heard that the poor fellow was dead before a doctor could reach the spot to bind up his limb.

I will conclude this chapter with an extract from Sir Colin's despatch on the advance on the Shah Nujeef:

The Ninety-Third and Captain Peel's guns rolled on in one irresistible wave, the men falling fast, but the column advanced till the heavy guns were within twenty yards of the walls of the Shah Nujeef, where they were unlimbered and poured in round after round against the ma.s.sive walls of the building, the withering fire of the Highlanders covering the Naval Brigade from great loss. But it was an action almost unexampled in war. Captain Peel behaved very much as if he had been laying the _Shannon_ alongside an enemy's frigate.

But in this despatch Sir Colin does not mention that he was himself wounded by a bullet after it had pa.s.sed through the head of a Ninety-Third grenadier.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] _Ficus Indica._

[19] The author is quite right in this surmise; the road was made through the old breach in 1861.

CHAPTER V

PERSONAL ANECDOTES--CAPTURE OF THE SHaH NUJEEF--A FEARFUL EXPERIENCE

I must now leave for a little the general struggle, and turn to the actions of individual men as they fell under my own observation,--actions which neither appear in despatches nor in history; and, by the way, I may remark that one of the best accounts extant of the taking of the Shah Nujeef is that of Colonel Alison, in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for October, 1858. Both the Alisons were severely wounded on that occasion,--Colonel Archibald Alison, Military Secretary, and his brother, Captain F. M. Alison, A.D.C. to Sir Colin Campbell. I will now relate a service rendered by Sergeant M. W. Findlay, of my company, which was never noticed nor rewarded. Sergeant Findlay, let me state, merely considered that he had done his duty, but that is no reason why I should not mention his name. I believe he is still in India, and a distinguished officer of the Rajpootana-Malwa Railway Volunteers at Ajmere. However, after Captain Peel's guns were dragged into position, the Ninety-Third took up whatever shelter they could get on the right and left of the guns, and I, with several others, got behind the walls of an unroofed mud hut, through which we made loopholes on the side next to the Shah Nujeef, and were thus able to keep up a destructive fire on the enemy. Let me add here that the surgeons of the force were overwhelmed with work, and attending to the wounded in the thick of the fire. Some time after the attack had commenced we noticed Captain Alison and his horse in a heap together a few yards behind where we were in shelter. Sergeant Findlay rushed out, got the wounded officer clear of his dead horse under a perfect hail of bullets and round-shot, and carried him under the shelter of the walls where we were lying. He then ran off in search of a surgeon to bandage his wounds, which were bleeding very profusely; but the surgeons were all too busy, and Sir Colin was most strict on the point of wounds being attended to.

Officers, no matter what their rank, had no precedence over the rank-and-file in this respect; in fact, Sir Colin often expressed the opinion that an officer could be far more easily replaced than a well-drilled private. However, there was no surgeon available; so Sergeant Findlay took his own bandage,--every soldier on going on active service is supplied with lint and a bandage to have them handy in case of wounds--set to work, stanched the bleeding, and bandaged up the wounds of Captain Alison in such a surgeon-like manner that, when Dr.

Menzies of the Ninety-Third at length came to see him, he thought he had been attended to by a doctor. When he did discover that it was Sergeant Findlay who had put on the bandages, he expressed his surprise, and said that in all probability this prompt action had saved Captain Alison's life, who otherwise might have been weakened by loss of blood beyond recovery before a doctor could have attended to him. Dr. Menzies there and then applied to Captain Dawson to get Sergeant Findlay into the field-hospital as an extra a.s.sistant to attend to the wounded. In closing this incident I may remark that I have known men get the Victoria Cross for incurring far less danger than Sergeant Findlay did in exposing himself to bring Captain Alison under shelter. The bullets were literally flying round him like hail; several pa.s.sed through his clothes, and his feather bonnet was shot off his head. When he had finished putting on the bandages he coolly remarked: "I must go out and get my bonnet for fear I get sunstruck;" so out he went for his hat, and before he got back scores of bullets were fired at him from the walls of the Shah Nujeef.

The next man I shall refer to was Sergeant Daniel White, one of the coolest and most fearless men in the regiment. Sergeant White was a man of superior education, an excellent vocalist and reciter, with a most retentive memory, and one of the best amateur actors in the Ninety-Third. Under fire he was just as cool and collected as if he had been enacting the part of Bailie Nicol Jarvie in _Rob Roy_.

In the force defending the Shah Nujeef, in addition to the regular army, there was a large body of archers on the walls, armed with bows and arrows which they discharged with great force and precision, and on White raising his head above the wall an arrow was shot right into his feather bonnet. Inside of the wire cage of his bonnet, however, he had placed his forage cap, folded up, and instead of pa.s.sing right through, the arrow stuck in the folds of the forage cap, and "Dan," as he was called, coolly pulled out the arrow, paraphrasing a quotation from Sir Walter Scott's _Legend of Montrose_, where Dugald Dalgetty and Ra.n.a.ld MacEagh made their escape from the castle of McCallum More. Looking at the arrow, "My conscience!" said White, "bows and arrows! bows and arrows! Have we got Robin Hood and Little John back again? Bows and arrows! My conscience, the sight has not been seen in civilised war for nearly two hundred years. Bows and arrows! And why not weavers' beams as in the days of Goliath? Ah! that Daniel White should be able to tell in the Saut Market of Glasgow that he had seen men fight with bows and arrows in the days of Enfield rifles! Well, well, Jack Pandy, since bows and arrows are the words, here's at you!" and with that he raised his feather bonnet on the point of his bayonet above the top of the wall, and immediately another arrow pierced it through, while a dozen more whizzed past a little wide of the mark.

Just then one poor fellow of the Ninety-Third, named Penny, of No. 2 company, raising his head for an instant a little above the wall, got an arrow right through his brain, the shaft projecting more than a foot out at the back of his head. As the poor lad fell dead at our feet, Sergeant White remarked, "Boys, this is no joke; we must pay them off."

We all loaded and capped, and pushing up our feather bonnets again, a whole shower of arrows went past or through them. Up we sprang and returned a well-aimed volley from our rifles at point-blank distance, and more than half-a-dozen of the enemy went down. But one unfortunate man of the regiment, named Montgomery, of No. 6 company, exposed himself a little too long to watch the effect of our volley, and before he could get down into shelter again an arrow was sent right through his heart, pa.s.sing clean through his body and falling on the ground a few yards behind him. He leaped about six feet straight up in the air, and fell stone dead. White could not resist making another quotation, but this time it was from the old English ballad of _Chevy Chase_.

He had a bow bent in his hand Made of a trusty tree, An arrow of a cloth-yard long Up to the head drew he.

Against Sir Hugh Montgomerie So right his shaft he set, The grey goose wing that was thereon In his heart's blood was wet.

Readers who have never been under the excitement of a fight like this which I describe, may think that such coolness is an exaggeration. It is not so. Remember the men of whom I write had stood in the "Thin Red Line" of Balaclava without wavering, and had made up their minds to die where they stood, if need be; men who had been for days and nights under shot and sh.e.l.l in the trenches of Sebastopol. If familiarity breeds contempt, continual exposure to danger breeds coolness, and, I may say, selfishness too; where all are exposed to equal danger little sympathy is, for the time being at least, displayed for the unlucky ones "knocked on the head," to use the common expression in the ranks for those who are killed. Besides, Sergeant Daniel White was an exceptionally cool man, and looked on every incident with the eye of an actor.

By this time the sun was getting low, a heavy cloud of smoke hung over the field, and every flash of the guns and rifles could be clearly seen.

The enemy in hundreds were visible on the ramparts, yelling like demons, brandishing their swords in one hand and burning torches in the other, shouting at us to "Come on!" But little impression had been made on the solid masonry walls. Brigadier Hope and his aide-de-camp were rolling on the ground together, the horses of both shot dead; and the same sh.e.l.l which had done this mischief exploded one of our ammunition waggons, killing and wounding several men. Altogether the position looked black and critical when Major Barnston and his battalion of detachments were ordered to storm. This battalion of detachments was a body made up of almost every corps in the service,--at least as far as the regiments forming the expedition to China were concerned--and men belonging to the different corps which had entered the Residency with Generals Havelock and Outram. It also comprised some men who had been left (through sickness or wounds) at Allahabad and Cawnpore, and some of the Ninetieth Regiment which had been intercepted at Singapore on their way to China, under Captain (now General Lord) Wolseley. However, although a made-up battalion, they advanced bravely to the breach, and I think their leader, Major Barnston, was killed, and the command devolved on Captain Wolseley. He made a most determined attempt to get into the place, but there were no scaling-ladders, and the wall was still almost twenty feet high. During the heavy cannonade the masonry had fallen down in flakes on the outside, but still leaving an inner wall standing almost perpendicular, and in attempting to climb up this the men were raked with a perfect hail of missiles--grenades and round-shot hurled from wall-pieces, arrows and brickbats, burning torches of rags and cotton saturated with oil--even boiling water was dashed on them! In the midst of the smoke the breach would have made a very good representation of Pandemonium. There were scores of men armed with great burning torches just like what one may see in the sham fights of the _Mohurrum_, only these men were in earnest, shouting "_Allah Akbar!_" "_Deen! Deen!_" and "_Jai Kali ma ki!_"[20]

The stormers were driven back, leaving many dead and wounded under the wall. At this juncture Sir Colin called on Brigadier Hope to form up the Ninety-Third for a final attempt. Sir Colin, again addressing us, said that he had not intended to call on us to storm more positions that day, but that the building in our front must be carried before dark, and the Ninety-Third must do it, and he would lead us himself, saying again: "Remember, men, the lives at stake inside the Residency are those of women and children, and they must be rescued." A reply burst from the ranks: "Ay, ay, Sir Colin! we stood by you at Balaklava, and will stand by you here; but you must not expose yourself so much as you are doing.

We can be replaced, but you can't. You must remain behind; we can lead ourselves."

By that time the battalion of detachments had cleared the front, and the enemy were still yelling to us to "Come on," and piling up missiles to give us a warm reception. Captain Peel had meanwhile brought his infernal machine, known as a rocket battery, to the front, and sent a volley of rockets through the crowd on the ramparts around the breach.

Just at that moment Sergeant John Paton of my company came running down the ravine that separated the Kuddum Russool from the Shah Nujeef, completely out of breath through exertion, but just able to tell Brigadier Hope that he had gone up the ravine at the moment the battalion of detachments had been ordered to storm, and had discovered a breach in the north-east corner of the rampart next to the river Goomtee. It appears that our shot and sh.e.l.l had gone over the first breach, and had blown out the wall on the other side in this particular spot. Paton told how he had climbed up to the top of the ramparts without difficulty, and seen right inside the place as the whole defending force had been called forward to repulse the a.s.sault in front.

Captain Dawson and his company were at once called out, and while the others opened fire on the breach in front of them, we dashed down the ravine, Sergeant Paton showing the way. As soon as the enemy saw that the breach behind had been discovered, and that their well-defended position was no longer tenable, they fled like sheep through the back gate next to the Goomtee and another in the direction of the Motee Munzil.[21] If No. 7 company had got in behind them and cut off their retreat by the back gate, it would have been Secundrabagh over again! As it was, by the time we got over the breach we were able to catch only about a score of the fugitives, who were promptly bayoneted; the rest fled pell-mell into the Goomtee, and it was then too dark to see to use the rifle with effect on the flying ma.s.ses. However, by the great pools of blood inside, and the number of dead floating in the river, they had plainly suffered heavily, and the well-contested position of the Shah Nujeef was ours.

By this time Sir Colin and those of his staff remaining alive or unwounded were inside the position, and the front gate thrown open. A hearty cheer was given for the Commander-in-Chief, as he called the officers round him to give instructions for the disposition of the force for the night. As it was Captain Dawson and his company who had scaled the breach, to them was a.s.signed the honour of holding the Shah Nujeef, which was now one of the princ.i.p.al positions to protect the retreat from the Residency. And thus ended the terrible 16th of November, 1857.

In the taking of the Secundrabagh all the subaltern officers of my company were wounded, namely, Lieutenants E. Welch and S. E. Wood, and Ensign F. R. M'Namara. The only officer therefore with the company in the Shah Nujeef was Captain Dawson. Sergeant Findlay, as already mentioned, had been taken over as hospital-a.s.sistant, and another sergeant named Wood was either sick or wounded, I forget which, and Corporals M'Kenzie and Mitch.e.l.l (a namesake of mine, belonging to Balmoral) were killed. It thus fell to my lot as the non-commissioned officer on duty to go round with Captain Dawson to post the sentries.

Mr. Kavanagh, who was officiating as a volunteer staff-officer, accompanied us to point out the direction of the strongest positions of the enemy, and the likely points from which any attempts would be made to recapture our position during the night. During the absence of the captain the command of the company devolved on Colour-Sergeant David Morton, of "Tobacco Soup" fame, and he was instructed to see that none of the enemy were still lurking in the rooms surrounding the mosque of the Shah Nujeef, while the captain was going round the ramparts placing the sentries for the protection of our position.

As soon as the sentries were posted on the ramparts and regular reliefs told off, arrangements were made among the sergeants and corporals to patrol at regular intervals from sentry to sentry to see that all were alert. This was the more necessary as the men were completely worn out and fatigued by long marches and heavy fighting, and in fact had not once had their belts off for a week previous, while all the time carrying double ammunition on half-empty stomachs. Every precaution had therefore to be taken that the sentries should not go to sleep, and it fell to me as the corporal on duty to patrol the first two hours of the night, from eight o'clock till ten. The remainder of the company bivouacked around the piled arms, which were arranged carefully loaded and capped with bayonets fixed, ready for instant action should an attack be made on our position. After the great heat of the day the nights by contrast felt bitterly cold. There was a stack of dry wood in the centre of the grounds from which the men kindled a large fire near the piled arms, and arranged themselves around it, rolled in their greatcoats but fully accoutred, ready to stand to arms at the least alarm.

In writing these reminiscences it is far from my wish to make them an autobiography. My intention is rather to relate the actions of others than recount what I did myself; but an adventure happened to me in the Shah Nujeef which gave me such a nervous fright that to this day I often dream of it. I have forgotten to state that when the force advanced from the Alumbagh each man carried his greatcoat rolled into what was then known in our regiment as the "Crimean roll," with ends strapped together across the right shoulder just over the ammunition pouch-belt, so that it did not interfere with the free use of the rifle, but rather formed a protection across the chest. As it turned out many men owed their lives to the fact that bullets became spent in pa.s.sing through the rolled greatcoats before reaching a vital part. Now it happened that in the heat of the fight in the Secundrabagh my greatcoat was cut right through where the two ends were fastened together, by the stroke of a keen-edged _tulwar_ which was intended to cut me across the shoulder, and as it was very warm at the time from the heat of the mid-day sun combined with the excitement of the fight, I was rather glad than otherwise to be rid of the greatcoat; and when the fight was over, it did not occur to me to appropriate another one in its place from one of my dead comrades. But by ten o'clock at night there was a considerable difference in the temperature from ten in the morning, and when it came to my turn to be relieved from patrol duty and to lie down for a sleep, I felt the cold wet gra.s.s anything but comfortable, and missed my greatcoat to wrap round my knees; for the kilt is not the most suitable dress imaginable for a bivouac, without greatcoat or plaid, on a cold, dewy November night in Upper India; with a raw north wind the climate of Lucknow feels uncommonly cold at night in November, especially when contrasted with the heat of the day. I have already mentioned that the sun had set before we entered the Shah Nujeef, the surrounding enclosure of which contained a number of small rooms round the inside of the walls, arranged after the manner of the ordinary Indian native travellers' _serais_. The Shah Nujeef, it must be remembered, was the tomb of Ghazee-ood-deen Hyder, the first king of Oude, and consequently a place of Mahommedan pilgrimage, and the small rooms round the four walls of the square were for the accommodation of pilgrims. These rooms had been turned into quarters by the enemy, and, in their hurry to escape, many of them had left their lamps burning, consisting of the ordinary _chirags_[22] placed in small niches in the walls, leaving also their evening meal of _chupatties_ in small piles ready cooked, and the curry and _dhal_[23] boiling on the fires. Many of the lamps were still burning when my turn of duty was over, and as I felt the want of a greatcoat badly, I asked the colour-sergeant of the company (the captain being fast asleep) for permission to go out of the gate to where our dead were collected near the Secundrabagh to get another one. This Colour-Sergeant Morton refused, stating that before going to sleep the captain had given strict orders that except those on sentry no man was to leave his post on any pretence whatever. I had therefore to try to make the best of my position, but although dead tired and wearied out I felt too uncomfortable to go to sleep, and getting up it struck me that some of the sepoys in their hurried departure might have left their greatcoats or blankets behind them. With this hope I went into one of the rooms where a lamp was burning, took it off its shelf, and shading the flame with my hand walked to the door of the great domed tomb, or mosque, which was only about twenty or thirty yards from where the arms were piled and the men lying round the still burning fire. I peered into the dark vault, not knowing that it was a king's tomb, but could see nothing, so I advanced slowly, holding the _chirag_ high over my head and looking cautiously around for fear of surprise from a concealed enemy, till I was near the centre of the great vault, where my progress was obstructed by a big black heap about four or five feet high, which felt to my feet as if I were walking among loose sand. I lowered the lamp to see what it was, and immediately discovered that I was standing up to the ankles in _loose gunpowder_! About forty cwt. of it lay in a great heap in front of my nose, while a glance to my left showed me a range of twenty to thirty barrels also full of powder, and on the right over a hundred 8-inch sh.e.l.ls, all loaded with the fuses fixed, while spare fuses and slow matches and port-fires in profusion lay heaped beside the sh.e.l.ls.

By this time my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness of the mosque, and I took in my position and my danger at a glance. Here I was up to my knees in powder,--in the very bowels of a magazine with a naked light! My hair literally stood on end; I felt the skin of my head lifting my feather bonnet off my scalp; my knees knocked together, and despite the chilly night air the cold perspiration burst out all over me and ran down my face and legs. I had neither cloth nor handkerchief in my pocket, and there was not a moment to be lost, as already the overhanging wick of the _chirag_ was threatening to shed its smouldering red tip into the live magazine at my feet with consequences too frightful to contemplate. Quick as thought I put my left hand under the down-dropping flame, and clasped it with a grasp of determination; holding it firmly I slowly turned to the door, and walked out with my knees knocking one against the other! Fear had so overcome all other feeling that I am confident I never felt the least pain from grasping the burning wick till after I was outside the building and once again in the open air; but when I opened my hand I felt the smart acutely enough.

I poured the oil out of the lamp into the burnt hand, and kneeling down thanked G.o.d for having saved myself and all the men lying around me from horrible destruction. I then got up and, staggering rather than walking to the place where Captain Dawson was sleeping, and shaking him by the shoulder till he awoke, I told him of my discovery and the fright I had got.

At first he either did not believe me, or did not comprehend the danger.

"Bah! Corporal Mitch.e.l.l," was all his answer, "you have woke up out of your sleep, and have got frightened at a shadow," for my heart was still thumping against my ribs worse than it was when I first discovered my danger, and my voice was trembling. I turned my smarting hand to the light of the fire and showed the captain how it was scorched; and then, feeling my pride hurt at being told I had got frightened at a shadow, I said: "Sir, you're not a Highlander or you would know the Gaelic proverb '_The heart of one who can look death in the face will not start at a shadow_,' and you, sir, can yourself bear witness that I have not shirked to look death in the face more than once since daylight this morning." He replied, "Pardon me, I did not mean that; but calm yourself and explain what it is that has frightened you." I then told him that I had gone into the mosque with a naked lamp burning, and had found it half full of loose gunpowder piled in a great heap on the floor and a large number of loaded sh.e.l.ls. "Are you sure you're not dreaming from the excitement of this terrible day?" said the captain. With that I looked down to my feet and my gaiters, which were still covered with blood from the slaughter in the Secundrabagh; the wet gra.s.s had softened it again, and on this the powder was sticking nearly an inch thick. I sc.r.a.ped some of it off, throwing it into the fire, and said, "There is positive proof for you that I'm not dreaming, nor my vision a shadow!"

On that the captain became almost as alarmed as I was, and a sentry was posted near the door of the mosque to prevent any one from entering it.

The sleeping men were aroused, and the fire smothered out with as great care as possible, using for the purpose several earthen _ghurrahs_, or jars of water, which the enemy had left under the trees near where we were lying.

When all was over, Colour-Sergeant Morton coolly proposed to the captain to place me under arrest for having left the pile of arms after he, the colour-sergeant, had refused to give me leave. To this proposal Captain Dawson replied: "If any one deserves to be put under arrest it is you yourself, Sergeant Morton, for not having explored the mosque and discovered the gunpowder while Corporal Mitch.e.l.l and I were posting the sentries; and if this neglect comes to the notice of either Colonel Hay or the Commander-in-Chief, both you and I are likely to hear more about it; so the less you say about the matter the better!" This ended the discussion and my adventure, and at the time I was glad to hear nothing more about it, but I have sometimes since thought that if the part I acted in this crisis had come to the knowledge of either Colonel Hay or Sir Colin Campbell, my burnt hand would have brought me something more than a proposal to place me under arrest, and take my corporal's stripes from me! Be that as it may, I got a fright that I have never forgotten, and, as already mentioned, even to this day I often dream of it, and wake up with a sudden start, the cold perspiration in great beads on my face, as I think I see again the huge black heap of powder in front of me.

After a sentry had been posted on the mosque and the fire put out, a gla.s.s lantern was discovered in one of the rooms, and Captain Dawson and I, with an escort of three or four men, made the circuit of the walls, searching every room. I remember one of the escort was James Wilson, the same man who wished to bayonet the Hindoo _jogie_ in the village who afterwards shot poor Captain Mayne as told in my fourth chapter. As Wilson was peering into one of the rooms, a concealed sepoy struck him over the head with his _tulwar_, but the feather bonnet saved his scalp as it had saved many more that day, and Captain Dawson being armed with a pair of double-barrelled pistols, put a bullet through the sepoy before he had time to make another cut at Wilson. In the same room I found a good cotton quilt which I promptly annexed to replace my lost greatcoat.

After all was quiet, the men rolled off to sleep again, and wrapping round my legs my newly-acquired quilt, which was lined with silk and had evidently belonged to a rebel officer, I too lay down and tried to sleep. My nerves were however too much shaken, and the pain of my burnt hand kept me awake, so I lay and listened to the men sleeping around me; and what a night that was! Had I the descriptive powers of a Tennyson or a Scott I might draw a picture of it, but as it is I can only very faintly attempt to make my readers imagine what it was like. The horrible scenes through which the men had pa.s.sed during the day had told with terrible effect on their nervous systems, and the struggles,--eye to eye, foot to foot, and steel to steel--with death in the Secundrabagh, were fought over again by most of the men in their sleep, oaths and shouts of defiance often curiously intermingled with prayers.

One man would be lying calmly sleeping and commence muttering something inaudible, and then break out into a fierce battle-cry of "Cawnpore, you b.l.o.o.d.y murderer!"; another would shout "Charge! give them the bayonet!"; and a third, "Keep together, boys, don't fire; forward, forward; if we are to die, let us die like men!" Then I would hear one muttering, "Oh, mother, forgive me, and I'll never leave you again!"; while his comrade would half rise up, wave his hand, and call, "There they are! Fire low, give them the bayonet! Remember Cawnpore!" And so it was throughout that memorable night inside the Shah Nujeef; and I have no doubt but it was the same with the men holding the other posts. The pain of my burnt hand and the terrible fright I had got kept me awake, and I lay and listened till nearly daybreak; but at length completely worn out, I, too, dosed off into a disturbed slumber, and I suppose I must have behaved in much the same way as those I had been listening to, for I dreamed of blood and battle, and then my mind would wander to scenes on Dee and Don side, and to the Braemar and Lonach gathering, and from that the scene would suddenly change, and I was a little boy again, kneeling beside my mother, saying my evening-hymn. Verily that night convinced me that Campbell's _Soldier's Dream_ is no mere fiction, but must have been written or dictated from actual experience by one who had pa.s.sed through such another day of excitement and danger as that of the 16th of November, 1857.

My dreams were rudely broken into by the crash of a round-shot through the top of the tree under which I was lying, and I jumped up repeating aloud the seventh verse of the ninety-first Psalm, Scotch version:

A thousand at thy side shall fall, On thy right hand shall lie Ten thousand dead; yet unto thee It shall not once come nigh.

Captain Dawson and the sergeants of the company had been astir long before, and a party of ordnance-lascars from the ammunition park and several warrant-officers of the Ordnance-Department were busy removing the gunpowder from the tomb of the Shah Nujeef. Over sixty _maunds_[24]