Massacre at Cawnpore Read online

  Havelock was delighted; his tired troops had acquitted themselves magnificently in their first major engagement. Brasyer’s Sikhs, of whom initially there had been some doubt, had fought like tigers beside their British comrades; the Enfield rifle had proved its superiority, in both range and accuracy, over the rebels’ Brown Bess muskets, and the young recruits in the ranks of the Fusiliers had come gallantly through their baptism of fire. For Captain Francis Maude’s splendid gunners—many of whom were grey-haired pensioners, who had not thought to see action again— no praise could be too high. They had crowned their achievements by shooting down the enemy commander’s elephant, to send its arrogant rider flying, in undignified haste, for cover … an example swiftly followed by the sepoys who witnessed his fall.

  In an Order of the Day, dated 13th July, General Havelock thanked his soldiers for their arduous exertions, permitted them 24 hours of rest and gave the town of Futtehpore over to sack. He himself spent most of the day in earnest prayer. The following day, they marched fifteen miles to Kallaypore; at 3 a.m. on 15th July the column was again on the road. The fortified village of Aong was taken after a stiff, two-hour battle in which, to the dismay of the entire force, the gallant Renaud was wounded in the leg—a wound which caused his death when the limb had subsequently to be amputated.

  The next obstacle was the Panda Nudi River, seventy yards wide and swollen to an unfordable torrent by the recent heavy rains. A cavalry reconnaissance revealed the enemy to be rallying in considerable force at the only bridge, six miles ahead, which they were reported to be attempting to blow up with mines. Aware that, if they succeeded in destroying the bridge, his progress to Cawnpore would be indefinitely retarded, Havelock called on his sorely tried troops for a fresh effort. Exhausted by a five-hour march and a severe action fought under an almost vertical sun, the men had been preparing to break their long fast and were getting what rest they could, squatting over their cooking fires, but they sprang up at the word of command, their meal abandoned, and plodded grimly on … some of them even managing to cheer their tough little general, as he rode past.

  After a two-hour march, the advance guard came round a bend in the road and, emerging from the cover afforded by groves of mango trees, came in sight of the bridge, its triple-arched span still intact. The rebels had two heavy-calibre guns mounted on the approach to the bridge and several accurately thrown 24-pounder shot crashed into the head of the column, killing some gun-bullocks and wounding a number of men, as Havelock and his staff galloped up to reconnoiter. The bridge was at the apex of a bend in the river, which curved towards the advancing British column, and the enemy were well dug in on the opposite bank, with strong bodies of horse in reserve. Maude suggested enveloping the enemy battery with cannon fire from right, left and centre and, whilst he was getting his guns into position, Havelock deployed his infantry along the bank, lying down in their ranks. Close to the stream, Maude’s guns unlimbered and put the rebel battery out of action with a deadly concentric fire.

  The mine exploded prematurely and ineffectively and, seeing this, Havelock called on the infantry to advance. Covered by Enfield riflemen who lined the bank, the right wing of the Fusiliers carried the bridge with their bayonets and captured both guns. With the river finally behind them and the rebels in retreat, the weary soldiers once more flung themselves on the ground, too spent now even to eat the food they had earlier been compelled to cram into their haversacks untasted. But Cawnpore was only sixteen miles ahead and the whisper passed from man to man that a spy had brought word that more than two hundred British women and children were alive and being held captive by the Nana. The news was received in stunned silence and, after hearing it, not a man, British or Sikh, complained of hunger or fatigue …

  Alex had wakened to the thunder of the guns late that afternoon, his body refreshed but his memory wiped clean. He could tell General Havelock nothing; a dark curtain shrouded the events of the past month and, try as he might, he could not pierce it. Following an attack on the baggage train, which had been driven off by the hospital sergeant of the 78th and those of the sick and wounded who could stand, Alex had been filled with a strange restlessness. He brushed aside the surgeon’s advice and insisted on returning to duty and Captain Lousada Barrow—like himself, a former deputy commissioner in Oudh—welcomed him to the thin ranks of the Volunteer Cavalry, which was composed of planters, civil officials and unemployed officers. With his heavily bandaged head, his emaciated, deeply sunburnt body and his borrowed horse, he was not, he recognised cynically, a recruit anyone else was likely to welcome … but Barrow was glad of any man who could ride and he brought the Volunteers’ combined strength up to nineteen.

  He slept on the bare ground with the rest of the men, his horse tethered beside him, and again dreamed with nostalgic happiness of Emmy and the golden days when they had first taken up residence together in Adjodhabad. The skirl of pipes roused him and to the tune of “Hey, Johnny Cope” he gulped down a draught of porter and swung himself into the saddle. In bright moonlight, the force lined up and General Havelock addressed them. He confirmed the rumour they had heard concerning the two hundred British women and children who were being held in Cawnpore, as prisoners of the Nana and then, white head bared and his hand on his sword, he cried in ringing tones, “By God’s help, we shall save them—or every man of us die in the attempt! I am trying you sorely, men, but I know the stuff you are made of. Think of our women and tender infants in the power of those devils incarnate!”

  The wild cheers of a thousand men greeted his words.

  “Come on, my boys!” Lousada Barrow urged grimly. “Let’s have at ’em!”

  The Volunteers trotted down the road ahead of the column and Maude’s guns jolted after them, with the 78th’s six pipers putting a spring into the Highlanders’ step with “Pibroch o’Donuil Dhu.” By sunrise, the column was in sight of the village of Maharajpore and one of Barrow’s volunteer cavalrymen, Lieutenant Richard Birch, brought in two of General Havelock’s spies, who intimated that they had important information for the general. The column halted and, while the men breakfasted from their haversacks, Havelock interrogated the spies who, with extraordinary courage and devotion, had travelled from Cawnpore in the guise of sepoys of the Nana’s army. Acting on their report of the enemy’s depositions, Havelock ordered a flanking movement to the right, under cover of a tall line of mango trees. This move would uncover his baggage train and his line of communication with his base, the general was well aware—it was the same strategy that Frederick the Great had employed at Leuthen a century before. To mask it and in the hope of deceiving the Nana, General Havelock sent Barrow’s Volunteers straight ahead, to draw their fire and cause the rebel gunners to reveal themselves. Then, in the full heat of mid-day, with the sun blazing down on them with terrible ferocity, he led his main body across the swampy fields and, as he did so, heard the first gun open on Barrow’s tiny band of horsemen.

  “Steady does it, my boys!” Lousada Barrow exhorted them. “There’ll be no turning back for us. Walk march.” To Alex, who was riding beside him, he added with a wry grin, “We’re expendable.”

  In Cawnpore, as the thunder of the British guns came inexorably nearer, the Nana Sahib trembled, and reproached the men he had once so extravagantly praised for their courage and devotion.

  His generals and his advisers had lost much of their arrogance now. Azimullah obviously had little stomach for the coming battle; Tantia Topi had had his elephant blasted from under him by Maude’s guns at Futtehpore, whilst yielding his own; Teeka Singh had twice led his cavalry in humiliating retreat and Jwala Pershad’s tactics had failed to match or even to counter those of the British general, whose contemptible little force was carrying all before it, despite its forced marches in appalling conditions … conditions in which, normally, European troops did not and could not fight. The Moulvi of Fyzabad alone remained confident of the final outcome and it was he who advised the abandonment of Cawnpore, to enable the Nana’
s army to regroup north of the city, where reinforcements from Oudh were marching to join them.

  “I have vowed that I will take my own life, rather than yield Cawnpore to the British,” the Nana objected.

  “The impression can be given and rumours spread abroad that you have done so,” the Moulvi assured him. He added, his voice cold, “We should leave no witnesses behind, Nana Sahib … no one who might tell the feringhi soldiers of what occurred at the Suttee Chowra Ghat, to fill their hearts with vengeful hatred for you. Order the captives killed, for your own safety.”

  The Nana looked at the faces of those grouped about him and they met his gaze stonily. “They could be used as hostages,” he suggested.

  “Their presence here will serve only to hasten the British advance,” Azimullah asserted. “They will let nothing stand in their way if they believe their women and babes are alive and awaiting rescue. Already they fight like devils and, from here to Allahabad, the trees are hung with corpses of those on whom they have taken savage vengeance.”

  “We dare not free those women,” Bala Bhat, the Nana’s elder brother, stated with conviction. He rose. “We must return to the field of battle. Shall I give the order for the captives to be silenced?”

  The Nana’s puffy face paled but, after a brief hesitation, he inclined his head. “So be it, my brother. Bid the guards shoot them.” As an afterthought, he went on, “Order also that the babus and all who can speak and write English have their right hands, tongues and noses cut off. They too must be silenced.”

  “I will attend to it,” the self-styled governor of Cawnpore promised. Wincing from the pain of the bullet wound he had received at the Panda Nudi Bridge, he summoned his escort and left the hotel, two servants running breathlessly beside his carriage, holding a scarlet umbrella above his head.

  Late that afternoon, the 15th July, the serving maid, Hosainee Khanurn, whispered to one of the captives in the Bibigarh the warning that their execution had been ordered by the Nana. The poor captives had been in their prison now for eighteen days and the sound of Havelock’s guns had revived the hope that, at last, rescue was at hand. Weeping, some of them called to the jemadar of their guard, Yusef Khan, to ask him if the Nana had indeed ordered that they must die, but he denied it. The girl, he admitted, had brought such an order, but he and his men had refused to obey it.

  “You have nothing to fear at our hands,” he assured them. “But so that we do not incur the Nana Sahib’s wrath, we will fire a few musket-balls into the roof and walls.”

  The sepoys duly did so and the frightened women thanked them tearfully. But Hosainee had vanished and, still apprehensive, some of the women tore strips from their dresses and petticoats, with which they attempted to secure the door of their prison. Then, clasping their children to them, they waited, praying that the British relief force would reach them before Hosainee’s return.

  At five o’clock, the girl reappeared and there were several men with her. Two were Hindu peasants of low caste, two Mohammedan butchers, in stained white robes; the fifth wore the scarlet uniform of the Nana’s bodyguard, and Hosainee addressed him as Savur Khan. He ordered the jemadar to march his guard outside the compound and, when this had been done, two other men— one a sowar in the service of the Moulvi of Fyzabad—took their places in front of the door. At a nod from Savur Khan, both men put their shoulders to it and burst the pathetic wisps of cloth which held it shut against them.

  “All know the Nana Sahib’s command,” Savur Khan reminded them. “It must be obeyed. None may be spared.”

  Armed with tulwars and meat cleavers, the men followed him into the shadowed room …

  It was dark when they finally emerged and the heart-rending cries and shrieks, which had issued from behind the shuttered windows of the Bibigarh since they had entered it, faded at length into a deathly silence. Savur Khan flung his tulwar from him, shattered at the hilt, and barred the door. The building remained closed all that night and none approached within sight or sound of it.

  Next day a party of low-caste jullads—men normally employed in the extermination of dogs—were sent to remove the bodies of the slain and cast them into a well on the far side of the compound. A few women and one or two stunned and helpless children, who had survived the previous evening’s slaughter, were dragged out and ruthlessly butchered or flung—still living— among the dead now piled high in the well. The jullads stripped and plundered the bodies before dismembering them and, their ghastly work done, they slunk away like jackals, each man clutching his share of looted jewels and clothing, to vanish amongst the city’s sewers.

  The Nana did not enquire as to the fate of his captives. The treasure he had amassed during his brief, forty-day reign was loaded hastily on to elephants and into bullock carts and when the battle was over, he fled to his palace at Bithur before the British troops re-entered Cawnpore. Five thousand rebels followed him and few were deceived when a boat, purporting to contain their leader, doused its lamps and vanished abruptly into the waters of the Ganges, close to the Bithur bank.

  It had been a bitter battle, fought with tenacious courage all through the heat of the day against an army of eight thousand rebels, who had fiercely contested each village and each mile of the way. Spurred on by the thought of the women and children—those poor sufferers, who had endured so much and whose lives must, at any sacrifice, be saved—the Highlanders of the 78th, led by their pipers, hurled themselves at the enemy’s entrenched positions, the sun glinting on the bright steel of their ferociously jabbing bayonets. The riflemen of the 64th flattened themselves to the ground, then rose, as one man, to advance firing; the 84th, with memories of comrades who had defended the Cawnpore entrenchment, took guns at bayonet point and neither they, nor the Sikhs who fought beside them, gave quarter to any gunner who had the temerity to stand by his gun. In their famous blue caps and “dirty” shirts, the young Fusiliers fought grimly … they had Renaud, their commander, to avenge and they had bought, in blood, the right to call themselves veterans.

  And always the order was “Forward!” Shells burst and round-shot and grape thinned the advancing ranks; a 24-pounder held them, until it was blown up by Maude’s guns from the flank; then a howitzer from the enemy centre ranged on the charging 78th, forcing them to take cover behind a causeway carrying the road.

  Havelock himself rallied them, his sword held high above his head as a storm of shot and shell fell about him. “Another charge like that wins the day, 78th!” he told them and the red-coated line re-formed at his bidding and stormed the howitzer’s emplacement, their pipes keening above the noise of battle and the shouts and oaths of the weary, sweating Highlanders.

  The rebels started to fall back, covered by their cavalry and in vain Lousada Barrow begged Havelock to allow his Volunteer Horse to charge them. Permission was finally given by the general’s chief of staff, Major Stuart Beatson, laid low by an attack of cholera but watching the battle from a doolie, and the nineteen volunteers spurred forward joyously, Alex with them. Two hundred and fifty yards from the massed rebel cavalry, Barrow rose in his stirrup and shouted to them to charge.

  “Give points, boys! Damn cuts and guards!”

  Reminded suddenly of the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava, Alex felt his heart lift. Thus had the Dragoons charged the might of the whole Russian cavalry division, their sabres in the “straight arm engage” and held with rock-like steadiness, so that the speed and momentum of their advance had carried them through … and the odds were not greater now. His reins lying loose on his horse’s sweat-streaked neck and his sabre in his single hand, he galloped straight at the ranks of the white-robed rebel horsemen, riding knee-to-knee with a yelling civilian clerk on one side and young Richard Birch on the other. They crashed into the enemy line, sending it reeling. Only when the sowars were in retreat and four of their horses had fallen beneath them did Barrow yell to them to re-form and retire. They did so, for the loss of one killed, and three slightly wounded.

 
The general himself cantered to meet them. “Gentlemen Volunteers,” he told them warmly, “I am proud to command you!”

  At length it was over. The Nana’s army had made its last stand, the sepoys falling back to where a giant 24-pounder cannon blocked the road to Cawnpore, and they glimpsed Bala Bhat some distance to the rear, watching the battle from his elephant. With casualties mounting and only eight hundred men in line, his own horse shot under him, General Havelock showed his mettle. Mounted on a borrowed hack, he sent his son to replace the colonel of the 64th, who had collapsed from heatstroke. The regiment, under a terrible hail of shot from the great gun and with no mounted officer to lead them, was in danger of breaking ranks but the little general himself trotted across to them. Facing the line of desperate, exhausted soldiers, he gave his orders with a smile.

  “The longer you look at it, men, the less you will like it. Rise up! The Brigade will advance, left battalion leading.”

  They had obeyed him, running forward, flinging themselves to the ground when the gun and its supporting howitzer spoke, then charging on again in the wake of the general’s son, leaving their dead and wounded behind them, to fire a shattering volley and then leap, with plunging bayonets, into the mob of cringing gunners.

  Maude’s battery completed the victory, lashing the fleeing rebels with vicious salvoes of grape.