Before continuing my narrative, I wish to draw particular attention to a circumstance which, so far as I know, has been overlooked by every historian of the Mutiny. This is the fact that as I was at the time informed, the military authorities, in view of the lengthening days and the increasing heat of the season, had caused, on May 10th, 1857, the evening church parade to take place half an hour later than formerly. In my firm belief, this change saved us from an awful catastrophe. In those days British troops attended divine service practically unarmed, for they did not take with them their rifles or carbines and ammunition. Their only weapons were their side-arms. The mutineers were, of course, unaware of this change. They broke into revolt half an hour too soon. Had they waited till the 60th Rifles were securely gathered into the church, what could have prevented them from overpowering the small guards over the rifles and the guns, and utterly destroying the defenceless crowd of soldiers penned, like sheep, within four walls. Providence befriended us. When the first scouts of the cavalry came galloping down to the European lines, they found the white soldiers falling into their places on parade. Once the alarm was given, all attempt at surprise was out of the question, and the hope of achieving an easy massacre was changed into fear of the awful retribution which they thought the European troops, now on the alert, would not fail speedily to exact. This fear altered all their plans, and hastened their flight to Delhi, so graphically described by Sir John Kaye; but, alas! no swift retribution followed.

The European troops, 1,500 strong, were paralysed by the irresolution of their chief. Had the gallant Hearsey or Sidney Cotton occupied Hewett's place at Meerut, it is safe to say that, in spite of the wings which fear lent to the mutineers on their flight to Delhi, few of them would ever have reached that haven of their hopes. The shrapnel of the artillery and the swords of the Carabineers would have annihilated them. It is true that Generals Hewett and Archdale Wilson, late in the evening, moved the troops over the open plain of the infantry parade-ground and that they caused a few rounds to be fired, in the dark, at some belated stragglers of the cavalry, which said rounds, by the way, nearly killed an officer, Lieutenant Galloway, of my regiment, who had taken refuge in an out-house in the line of fire; but General Hewett, instead of even then detaching the Carabineers and a battery of horse artillery in pursuit of the flying mutineers, acted on the ill-starred advice of his Brigadier to withdraw the whole force to the European lines. No greater mistake from any point of view was ever committed.

There can be no doubt that the offer of Captain Rosser, of the 6th Dragoon Guards, to take a squadron and a couple of guns in pursuit, was really made and declined; for it was well known and much discussed at the time. It is true that intimation of this offer never reached the Colonel Commanding the Regiment; but it is equally certain that somebody blundered in not taking immediate steps to bring it to the notice of Colonel Custance. The prompt punishment which even such a small body could have inflicted would have been of the utmost value as a lesson both to the rebels and to the faint-hearted among ourselves; but the opportunity was wilfully thrown away; and the magnificent brigade of British troops of all arms, which afterwards covered itself with glory at the Hindun Nuddee, at Delhi, at Lucknow, and wherever its members met the enemy, was marched back to Meerut, and condemned for a period to the humiliating rÔle of passive inaction.

Difficult as it is to understand, and impossible to excuse the motives which paralysed the nerves of General Hewett, it can only be hoped that all our officers have laid to heart the lesson so frequently learned in the great school of the Sepoy Mutiny that, in dealing with an Oriental enemy, l'audace! et toujours l'audace is not only the most soldierlike but the surest road to success. "Strike promptly and strike hard" should be their motto. Over and over again have small bodies of Englishmen, under the most desperate circumstances, and against the most fearful odds, by acting on this maxim, "plucked the flower safely from the nettle danger." When the day comes, as come it will, that we Englishmen will once more have to fight for the preservation of our Indian Empire, the issue will only be doubtful if timid and irresolute counsels prevent us from putting forth the whole of our strength at the first serious symptoms of internal disaffection or external menace.

During the next few days the Meerut garrison lay inert. Far from undertaking any distant reconnaisances or making any active efforts to restore to quiet the surrounding districts, not even was punishment inflicted on the city or the bazars, which had poured forth their swarms of murderers and robbers on the night of the 10th. A few individual marauders were, it is true, caught and hanged; but there retributive measures ceased. Native houses, choked with plunder, were left unsearched, and their occupants were allowed unmolested to swagger about in the sight of all men, and to boast among themselves of the shame and havoc they had wrought on the "Feringhi."

Our women and children and unarmed civilian refugees were given shelter in the "Dumdama," an often-described walled enclosure. The Generals and their staffs and many other officers took refuge in a barrack, over which a guard was duly mounted. Piquets, inlying and outlying, were told off; and every precaution was taken to prevent the cantonments being rushed by the "budmashes" of the "Burra Bazar" or the Goojars of the neighbouring villages!

As a comic element is never absent from the most tragic events, I may interpolate here a little story anent Colonel Blank. That gallant officer rejoiced in a long and scanty moustache, which up to the moment of the Mutiny had retained the glossy black of youth. A few days afterwards, an officer who met me asked me if I had observed the terrible effect which late events had evidently wrought on the Colonel. "Poor fellow!" said he, "his hair has turned perfectly white!" My irreverent laughter amazed and shocked him. He little knew that the blanching of the old gentleman's moustache was due to his not having had the time or the presence of mind to bring with him in his hurried flight from the mutineers his trusty bottle of hair-dye.

A very few nights after the Generals and other officers had taken up their quarters in the barrack already mentioned, they suffered from a scare which, if it did not whiten their hair, might easily have proved a very serious matter to its innocent cause. This was how it happened. It must be premised that a row of beds lined each wall of the long barrack-room, each bed containing a General, a staff, or at the least a field officer, every one of whom reposed his head on a pillow under which lay a revolver, while his sword was either resting on a chair beside him or hanging on the wall. Outside was a guard of British soldiers, and in the immediate vicinity were some fifteen or sixteen hundred more. Altogether as secure and well-guarded a dormitory as it is possible to conceive, and one in which the most timid and nerve-shaken creature might placidly entrust himself to the arms of Morpheus. Not so, thought one of its warrior occupants. Were there not three Hindu punkah-coolies in the verandah, and were not all their lives at the mercy of these miscreants? It behoved one at least to remain on the alert, and, with a watchful eye on the coolie toiling at the punkah rope at one end of the room, to safeguard the lives of all the careless sleepers. He should be that one! So, ostentatiously snoring, and pretending to be wrapped in slumber, he devoted himself to his task. A couple of hours passed without incident; but at last his vigilance was justified and rewarded. The ruffian at the rope who, while there remained a chance that any of his proposed victims might be still awake, had pulled with steady cadence the heavy punkahs, now began to simulate slumber, and at intervals to cease pulling. Evidently this was a deep and artful ruse to discover if the cessation of the fanning breeze might, peradventure, rouse any of the sleepers; but none of them stirred. The moment for action had clearly arrived. So the blood-thirsty coolie coughed a smothered cough once or twice as a signal to his two confederates in the verandah; but as no response came, he prepared to go and personally warn them. As a precautionary measure, however, he noiselessly laid down the rope, and, approaching the nearest sleepers, bent over them to satisfy himself that they were really unconscious. As he repeated this performance over our watchful friend, whose hair was now standing on end with horror, he found himself suddenly clutched in the embrace of a pair of arms nerved with the strength of panic fear, while loud shouts of "I've got him! I've got him!" echoed through the room. Breathless with excitement, the bold captor told his thrilling tale, and demanded that the three villains should be led to instant execution. He laughed to scorn the plausible story of his captive, to the effect that he had been left at the punkah rope longer than his rightful turn, that he had coughed to attract the attention of his "budlee" or relieving coolie, that on this signal failing he had then determined to go and fetch him; but dur ki maree, "the fear of being beaten," had induced him to make sure, before doing so, that none of the "sahibs" was likely to jump up, and, more Anglo-Indico, chastise him. Fortunately for the wretched coolie his explanation was accepted, not without much laughter, and he escaped the gallows; but nothing could ever convince his gallant captor that he had not by his courage and presence of mind averted a dreadful massacre.

It is really difficult to exaggerate the demoralisation which at that period seemed to overcome the nerves of certain of the more weak-kneed among us. Every native was to their excited imagination a "Pandy." My own faithful bearer, Sheodeen, owed to the natty twist of his turban and the martial way in which he habitually curled up his moustaches, a very close interview with the hangman. He was, during my absence, arrested, and would undoubtedly have been given a short shrift if an officer who knew him had not sent for me in hot haste. My earnest advice to him after that grim experience was to roll his "puggrie" anyhow, to take the curl out of his moustaches, to drop his jaunty swaggering gait, and generally to look as mean and dirty as possible.

On the night of the 11th an adventure happened to myself, which at the time I was rather shy of mentioning, but which I may now relate. I had taken it on myself to do a little patrolling on my own account; and as I was starting from near the main gate of the "Dumdama," I came across a Eurasian Trumpeter named Murray, of my own regiment. As he was mounted I asked him to accompany me. This he did. We had not gone far before we saw, indistinctly, through the dusk, what appeared to be a small group of the rebels, cautiously creeping towards where a tree, growing close to the wall, gave them a fair chance of successfully scaling it. "Will you stick by me, Murray, and charge them?" I whispered. "That I will, sir," replied he: "I will stand by you to the last drop of my blood." So, drawing our swords, and moving quietly forward for a few yards, we suddenly clapped spurs to our horses and charged—to the bewilderment and complete demoralisation of a speckled cow, over whose body we narrowly escaped "coming to grief," and who, as soon as she could recover her senses, dashed off into the darkness. "Never mind, Murray," said I. "It might have been the Pandies, you know. We'll just say nothing about this—yet a while." Poor fellow! he was killed not many days afterwards, bravely fighting, at the Hindun Nuddee.

On the evening of the 15th May the native Sappers and Miners from Roorkee marched into Meerut. Next afternoon it so happened that a small party of the faithful remnant of the 3rd Light Cavalry, which was about to proceed under my command to the support of the civil authorities in a neighbouring station, was paraded, mounted, for the General's inspection, close to the barrack where he had taken up his quarters, when I heard the report of a single shot, rapidly followed by two or three more, from the direction of the Sapper Camp; and presently saw that a scene of confusion and uproar was going on there. A rumour reached me—how I do not remember—that the Sappers had mutinied, had killed Alfred Light, the artillery officer who afterwards became so distinguished, and were about to fly into the jungle. Naturally I lost no time in dismounting and running in to the barrack to inform General Hewett, whom I found in the dishabille of shirt and pyjamas.

While I was making my report to the bewildered General, Brigadier Archdale Wilson pushed up to us, buckling on his sword-belt, and ordered me to mount at once and follow the Sappers and keep them in sight till he could come up with some of the Carabineers and guns. By this time the Sappers, who, I firmly believe, had at first no intention whatever of mutinying, but had been seized by sudden panic through groundless fear of an attack by the European troops, were swarming in flight over the plain, some in uniform, some in native clothes, but all armed with their muskets.

The shot which I had heard had been fired, as I subsequently learnt, by an Afghan, and had killed the Commanding Officer, Major Fraser. The action of this one man compromised all his comrades. However loyally disposed they might have been, they must have felt that now appearances were so fatally against them that no quarter could be hoped for from the enraged European troops who surrounded them; and that instant flight offered the only slender chance of escape from destruction.

As my little party galloped after them I was stopped by an artillery officer, evidently senior in rank to myself, who ordered me to halt and asked me where I was going. I told him that the Brigadier-General had ordered me to follow the Sappers who had mutinied and killed Alfred Light. "That is hardly possible," he said, "seeing that I am Alfred Light. These Sappers are not mutinying at all, but are going with permission to destroy a neighbouring village of budmashes. You stop where you are. I will take the responsibility." Taken quite aback by all this, I was still remonstrating with him when the Brigadier-General rode up, furious with me for having halted, and ordered me on again. I was glad to leave Alfred Light to settle the question of my delay with him, and dashed on in pursuit. Soon we overtook about fifty men, who took refuge in a grove of trees surrounded by a wall; and there I kept guard over them till the arrival of the Brigadier-General with a squadron of Carabineers and some guns. A few rounds were fired into the grove, but without much effect, and then dismounted Carabineers and a number of officers skirmished into it, and pursued the Sappers from tree to tree. The poor fellows fought with the energy of despair. No quarter was given, and all were destroyed, except two who were made prisoners by myself, and who, I believe, were afterwards retained in the service, and proved perfectly loyal.

At the close of this affair I noticed a man who had retreated through the grove and had taken refuge behind a low wall on its further side, from which shelter he betrayed himself by firing at us.

As I rode round the outside of the enclosure on its left and got in line with him, a Trooper of the Carabineers appeared at the opposite end of the wall, and we both came down on him at full gallop. The Sapper jumped to his feet and fixed his bayonet. We reached him almost at the same moment. As the Trooper lifted his sword to deliver a swinging cut the Sapper charged him with his bayonet and transfixed him through the breast, with a sickening ripping sound which still haunts my ears, while my straining sword arm failed by an inch to reach and lift the bayonet. Before he could withdraw the bayonet I had run him through the body. The uplifted arm of the Carabineer dropped, the sword slipped from his grasp, he reeled for a moment on his saddle, and then fell to the ground dead.

A correspondent wrote to the Pioneer:—"The Carabineer who was killed just outside Meerut in the Sapper Affair was a Trooper, named Frederick Kingsford, who rode an untrained horse, which became unsteady at the time of charging the rebel. He was the first man killed in action in the Mutiny, although many Europeans had fallen before that day."

It was late in the evening when we returned to cantonments. The destination of my small party, which was to have started next morning into the district, was unexpectedly changed.

A message had been received by General Hewett from a party of fugitives from Delhi, who were wandering about in the jungles near that place, and who implored that help should be sent to them. When I heard of this I felt that women and children could not possibly be left to their fate among the rebels without at least an effort being made to save them; so I went to General Hewett and offered to attempt the rescue with twenty-five men of the remnant of my regiment. He asked if I was in earnest, and told me that the fugitives had not got far from Delhi, and that he had considered it hopeless to send a succouring party. The letter, which was written in the French language, had been thrown under a table, whence I saw it picked up. The General then gave me permission, and on the forenoon of the 17th my party started. On our way out of Meerut we met Lieutenant Hugh Gough of our regiment (now Sir H. Gough, V.C., K.C.B., commanding the Lahore Division). He told me that he had just heard of my having volunteered for this duty, and that he could not let me go alone. So he galloped back to get his arms, and thus, in this most gallant and self-sacrificing manner, came with me on an errand which both of us felt pretty sure was to be our last. We rode all day, expecting every moment our men to turn on us and bolt to Delhi. The temptation must have been very sore to them; for they had witnessed the extreme demoralisation which the Mutiny had caused in Meerut; but providentially they remained staunch. Only once did we meet with a show of opposition at a large village, but most fortunately we thought it probable that the inhabitants were alarmed at our French-grey uniforms, and took us for a party of mutineers on the prowl. So Gough and I halted the men and rode on alone. The sight of our white faces re-assured the villagers, and our explanations calmed them.

Late in the evening we arrived at the village of Hirchinpore, where we had ascertained from people in the fields that the fugitives were to be found. Again our light-grey uniforms caused alarm and confusion. The gate of a walled enclosure was shut in our faces, and it was with great difficulty that we got those inside to believe that we were friends. At last, on our promising to leave the men outside, Gough and I were admitted; and we rode in, not without suspicion that we might ourselves have fallen into a trap. We found a very dark old gentleman called Cohen, the zemindar of the village, an Orientalised Jew I think, seated in the doorway with a gun in his hand, evidently determined in case of treachery to sell his life dearly. The fugitives of whom we were in search had in despair stowed themselves away in various hiding places, and when they appeared presented a pitiable spectacle from the effects of the hardships they had undergone. All that night we had to remain there while Cohen's people collected carts to convey the women and children. If one of our men or one of the villagers had bolted and carried to Delhi the news of what a haul could be made at Hirchinpore, two or three hours would have sealed our fate. But again Providence befriended us, and early next morning our little caravan started for Meerut, where we safely arrived that night, and I had the joy of once more seeing my Sister, of whom I could not bear to take leave when I started, and who had been in ignorance of my having gone till I was miles on my way. The following are the names of the ladies and gentlemen who composed the party of fugitives:—

Very glad was I to turn in that might with the prospect of a good rest, but I had not been asleep very long before the late Major Sanford, then a Lieutenant in my old regiment, and one of the most gallant gentlemen that ever buckled on a sword-belt, came and woke me up and told me that he had volunteered to carry despatches from General Hewett to the Commander-in-Chief at Umballa vi Kurnal, and that he wanted me to escort him with my little faithful party. Of course I agreed, and went off to our lines, where the already tired men willingly consented to undertake the fresh and still more fatiguing and possibly more dangerous journey. Their horses were, however, quite knocked up, so I asked and obtained permission to select for them twenty-five of the partially-broken remounts of the Carabineers.

Early in the morning we paraded in the lightest of light marching order, the young horses vigorously resenting being so unceremoniously pressed into the ranks before passing through Riding School. For the first few miles there was not much order in our little column. The half-broken troopers rearing, buck-jumping and plunging about, had it pretty much their own way; but before night they were quiet enough. All day we marched, and all night, and all next day, halting for an hour or so at a time, when a wayside well enabled us to water the horses. We requisitioned feeds of grain for them and of chuppatis for ourselves as we went along, duly giving receipts for them. En route we made a long detour off the road to a district where we had been ordered to go in search of baggage-camels, which we were to have seized if we had found them; but they had departed. On the second day we met the late gallant Major (then Lieutenant) Hodson who, escorted by a party of the Jhind Horse, had started on his ride to Meerut with despatches from General Anson to General Hewett, and who was to return with despatches from the latter to Army Head-Quarters. So unexpected was this meeting that at first each party took the other for "moofsids," as we used in those days to designate the rebels; but we soon discovered our mistake. Hodson was naturally much relieved to find that the road in front of him was open, though doubtless disappointed that his errand was forestalled. The reader, who has read of Hodson's famous ride to Meerut, and who has not to this moment ever heard that it was anticipated by others, will probably be surprised by this narration, but nevertheless it is simply true. The credit of carrying the first despatches from Meerut to Umballa is due to the late Major Sanford, who, to me and to all who knew him, was a type of all that is most noble and brave and modest; but alas! his memory is buried in our hearts. The world has heard little of him.

In the evening we arrived at Kurnal, having traversed in less than thirty-six hours more than ninety miles: for the straight road between Meerut and Kurnal is seventy-six, and our fruitless detour after the camels took us many more miles. Sanford at once went on by dÂk to Umballa and delivered his despatches to General Anson. He eventually got command of the cavalry of the guide corps before Delhi, and retained it till the close of the siege.

My small party was not then sent back to Meerut, but moved down towards Delhi with the advanced body of troops, making itself useful in collecting supplies and scouting. On the road we succeeded in capturing several miscreants who had committed murderous outrages on our unfortunate countrymen and women while trying to effect their escape from Delhi. They were given the benefit of a fair trial; and those who were found guilty were duly hanged. One of these wretches who had been tried and sentenced one afternoon was subsequently confined till sunset—the usual hour for executions—in the guard tent of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, which happened on that occasion to contain another tenant, an Irish soldier who had been drinking, "not wisely but too well." When the Provost Marshal's party came in the evening for the condemned criminal they found him in a sorry plight. The half-sober Irishman begged that they would not take him away. "Bedad," said he, "he has been the most divarting companion I iver had." The "divarsion" had been perhaps a little one-sided.

One evening, shortly before the force reached Alipore, I was suddenly ordered to take my party back to Meerut vi Bagput, for the General expected an engagement, and evidently felt uncertain as to whether my men were to be trusted under such trying circumstances as an actual fight against their old comrades. Previously to this poor General Anson had died, worn out by anxiety and fatigue, and General Barnard was in command. Accompanied by the Adjutant-General, Colonel Chester, and by his Interpreter, Captain Howell, he inspected my little party on parade, and after praising its conduct in the highest terms, informed us that he would give each native member of it a step of substantive rank for each of the two expeditions in which they had shared. He then told them that in a short time he expected to engage the rebels, and that, though he had no doubt of their loyalty, he was unwilling to take them into action against men who so lately had been their comrades, of their own race and religions, and that therefore he had decided to send them back to Meerut. The whole of them implored to be allowed to remain and to prove their loyalty in the field; but the General was not to be turned from his decision. He was evidently much moved, and for a moment I hoped that he was wavering; but presently he turned away; and with deep disappointment I felt that there was nothing for it but to turn our horses' heads to the east and make for the ferry at Bagput. Before General Barnard could carry out his promise he fell a victim to cholera. Colonel Chester was killed in action, and Captain Howell also died—I think from that scourge of the camp—cholera. Thus was left on my shoulders the whole onus of securing to my men the fulfilment of the General's promise—a task in which, after much trouble and delay, I was happily eventually successful.

To march off the ground and out of camp no preparations were needed, for we were without camp equipage of any kind whatever. It must be remembered that all this took place in the middle of the hot weather, before the rains; so that it was no hardship to sleep in the open air on the ground beside our horses, who also required no blankets. Except our horses, their saddles and bridles and our arms, and the clothes on our backs, we possessed literally nothing in the world.

It was not long, therefore, before we had put a good distance between ourselves and our late comrades. When dawn broke we found ourselves debouching from a grove of trees on to a plain, at the further side of which was the river and the bridge-of-boats with the village of Bagput on the opposite bank; but to our horror the bridge was occupied by a strong body of apparently rebel troops, whom our appearance threw into sudden commotion. We could see infantry rapidly falling in, troopers mounting in hot haste, and camels and elephants rushing to the bridge, flying from our expected onslaught. Scant time was there to decide on a course of action. With our tired horses escape from so strong a body of cavalry was hopeless. Nothing was left but to charge the bridge and trust to luck and the rapidity of our attack to disconcert the enemy, and enable some at least of us to get through with whole skins. These were the days of drilling by "threes;" but as I judged that there would be room for four men abreast on the bridge, I formed my party as quickly as possible into what would now be called a column of sections of fours, and moved down the slope on to the plain at a gallop, increasing our pace as we approached the bridge. To my delight and surprise the enemy seemed quite demoralised and in confusion, and I was beginning to feel sure of a successful rush through them, when I was startled by the apparition of a white face peering at me from behind a mass of stones, and the shout of an English voice yelling at me to halt. Never was man more relieved and pleased to be out of a frightful scrape. In another second I had halted my party and had ridden across the bridge and was talking to ——, an officer who informed me that he had been sent with a strong body of the Raja of Jhind's troops to occupy the bridge and hold it till further orders; but he said that he was not going to stay any longer. The place was a great deal too near Delhi and too liable to sudden attack to please him, and the fright he had got from the sudden appearance of my small party had put the finishing touch to his resolution. He said that our French-grey uniforms and the swiftness of our attack had convinced him that we were the advanced party of a large body of the enemy, and he had given himself up for lost. At any rate he had had enough of Bagput and meant to be off at once. In vain I implored him to defer his departure till the evening, pointing out that my horses were quite done up, and that we would be obliged to stop there for some hours to rest and feed. Nothing would move him, and there and then he marched off, bag and baggage, and left us to our own devices. We could plainly hear the guns of a fight, which must have been that at the Hindun Nuddee; and, tired as we were, rest was impossible. In the afternoon we moved on, and next morning marched into Meerut without further misadventure.