In Times of Peril extract

Chapter 2: Mutiny and Massacre

April to May 1857

The punishment handed out to the 34th and 19th Native Infantry regiments was foolish; it turned out to be an ineffectual lesson and proved counter-productive. Rumbles of disaffection flew from nearly every station throughout Bengal and the northwest provinces. At Agra, Ambala and other places arson became frequent; letters calling on the sepoys to revolt were frequently intercepted, while at Lucknow serious disturbances occurred and Sir Henry Lawrence, Commissioner for Awadh (Oude), disarmed the 7th NI Regiment.
  So the month of April passed, and as it went on the feeling of disquiet and danger grew deeper and more general. It was like the anxious time preceding a thunderstorm – the clouds were gathering, but how or when the tempest would burst none could say. Many Europeans still maintained stoutly that there was no danger whatever, and that the whole thing would blow over, but men with wives and families were inclined to take a more sombre view.
  In 1857 the British formed a tiny portion of India’s population, isolated among the natives, outnumbered by a thousand to one. Any man would be forgiven for feeling helpless to assist those he loved in the event of an uprising of the people in the face of such odds. The soldiers without family ties took things more lightly, excited by the whiff of danger and strong in the youthful belief that they would always get through somehow – but the men with wives and children in India had every reason to be anxious, very very anxious.

The conflagration erupted far from Calcutta, in the northwest at Meerut. The military cantonment here was substantial in size, and for once there was an almost equal number of British soldiers alongside their native counterparts: about 2,350 native infantry and cavalry and just over 2,000 white soldiers, with twelve British-manned artillery pieces.
  The British command was well aware of the unrest swelling over the Enfield cartridge issue, but in spite of it Lieutenant-Colonel Carmichael-Smyth, commanding the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, ordered ninety sowars – the cavalry equivalent of sepoys – to parade for firing drill on the 24th of April 1857. All except for five refused to touch the cartridges issued to them, in spite of the fact that they were of the old pattern which they were familiar with.
  On the following day, the entire cantonment was paraded to watch the degrading and jailing of the eighty-five sowars for mutiny. After the court-martial they were sentenced to terms of imprisonment, their badges and medals – records of long and faithful service in the past – were ripped from their uniforms. Then they were taken away shackled in irons. By the end of the month the native contingents were verging on open rebellion.
  By the end of the first week in May there were loud mutterings from the ranks and white officers were scowled at. To the Indian troops who had witnessed the trial, the disgraced men were heroes – martyrs sacrificing themselves for their religious beliefs. They were all aware of the secret messages proclaiming an uprising to come at the month’s end, but suddenly they could not wait. Tomorrow was Sunday and the white sahibs would go unarmed to church. It was an opportunity not to be missed.
  At seven pm on Sunday, the 10th of May, the church bells finished their clangour and the doors shut on the European congregation. Immediately, the men of the 3rd Bengal, brandishing their swords, attacked the gaol and freed their comrades. Meanwhile, the 11th and 20th Native Infantry fell into their ranks and confronted their commander, Colonel Finnis and his sergeant, neither of whom had attended the church service. For some time, the colonel attempted to calm the men’s nerves, but as dark began to fall, the sepoys’ patience broke – there was a flash of muskets from the ranks, and the mutiny claimed its first white victim as Colonel Finnis fell dead.
  If it had been competently commanded, the ample British force would have been more than sufficient to have crushed the native troops and stopped the spores of mutiny spreading to other stations. Unfortunately, Major-General Hewitt was an elderly time server, lacking all energy. He dithered in a state of indecision as all hell broke loose around him. Geography was also against the British troops. Meerut’s cantonments were almost five miles in length by two and the British barracks stood at almost opposite ends from those of the native regiments. These two factors paralysed the British response to the situation.
  Delays only escalated the violence. The sepoys shot their officers, murdered all the women and children, and the white inhabitants whose bungalows were situated at their end of the cantonment. The miserable white residents were dragged from their hiding-places, chased along the streets and barbarously mutilated before being slain. After setting fire to the whole of this quarter of Meerut, the native regiments formed up and marched off towards their cultural capital Delhi, unchecked by the stunned British soldiers.

Even at this late date an urgent despatch to the officer commanding at Delhi might have saved the lives of hundreds of Englishmen and women, but nothing was done. The Meerut troops made a few meaningless and uncertain movements, then marched back to their barracks. No one came forward to take the lead. So the white troops of Meerut remained stationary in battle array all night and the substantial European population of Delhi was left to its fate.
  The Meerut mutineers, marching all night, covered the thirty-two miles to Delhi and arrived outside the walls after sun-up at eight. Surprisingly, the ancient capital of India, centre of Hindu and Muslim aspiration and where Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the Mughal emperor, and his family resided, was left entirely to the guard of native troops; not a single British regiment was garrisoned there. However, as the major commercial centre of the vast province, Delhi held a large European population of bankers, merchants, missionaries, civilian administrators, and officers of the native infantry and artillery regiments, including all their families.
  As at all other Indian towns, the great bulk of the whites lived in cantonments outside the walls, and had it not been for this, no one would have escaped the slaughter that commenced as soon as the sowars of the 3rd Light Cavalry rode into the town from Meerut. The resident 54th NI, which had hastily marched out to meet them, fraternised at once and, standing quietly by, looked on while their subedars were savagely butchered by the cavalrymen. No native officers were allowed to stand in the mutineers’ way unless they swiftly declared loyalty. Then began a scene of murder and atrocity yet without parallel, in which the city streets literally ran with rivers of blood.
  With the exception of some half-dozen, who in one way or other managed to escape, the whole of Delhi’s white population inside the city walls was slain under circumstances of the most horrible and revolting cruelty. Those living in the cantonments outside the city fared somewhat better. Some were killed, but the greater part made their escape, and although many were murdered on the way, either by villagers or by gangs of mutineers, the majority reached Meerut or Aliwal.
  The victims of the Delhi massacre did not die entirely unavenged. Inside the city walls the immense magazine containing vast stores of powder, cartridges and weaponry remained in British hands. It was vital to deny the arsenal to the mutineers. Two lieutenants and six non-commissioned officers bravely defended the magazine against a mass attack while taking turns to lay powder trails as fuses. After a spirited fight, with two badly wounded and the Indian mutineers breaching their barricades, the British soldiers fired the powder trails, and in another instant a tremendous explosion mushroomed up, so huge it shook all Delhi and covered the city with a pall of oily black smoke.
  Between 1,500 and 2,000 mutineers and town rabble were either atomised in the blast or crushed to a pulp under the magazine’s falling masonry, while amazingly four of the British defenders survived the explosion and made their retreat in the confusion through a small sally port on the riverside.
  The mutineers, driven to a blind fury by this misfortune, ran to the Red Fort – the emperor’s palace – and demanded Bahadur instantly execute those European officers, women and children who had sought refuge under his protection. Some were spared but many were handed over to the rebellious sepoys, who dragged them screaming into the elegant courtyard, there to be slaughtered one after the other like cattle.

Although reports of the general state of unrest alarmed those at rural Sandynugghur, no one feared anything as appalling as the incidents at Meerut and Delhi, news of which had not yet reached them. In the native troops’ barracks there was a truculent spirit of insubordination, but none of the white officers doubted that they could dampen things down. And so things went on as usual, and the garden parties and the drives, and the friendly evening visiting continued just as the week before.
  It was at one of these pleasant gatherings towards the end of the week that the blow fell. Most of the officers of the station, their wives, and the two or three civilians had collected at Major Warrener’s. The windows stood open, through which wafted the strains of a piano duet played by the girls. Five or six other ladies were in the drawing-room and about the same number of officers stood or sat by them, some four or five others lounged on the veranda enjoying their cheroots. When the sepoy subedar came up the walk the servants in their white coats, moving noiselessly about, were about to serve the guests with iced lemonade or a glass of wine.
  ‘What is it?’ asked Major Warrener, who was one of the group seated on the veranda.
  ‘Dispatch for the colonel, sahib.’
Colonel Renwick, seated next to the major, held out his hand for the message as Warrener turned to one of the servants. ‘Boy, bring a candle,’ he ordered. The servant quickly obeyed and the colonel opened the envelope and glanced at the contents, then uttered an exclamation which was half a groan, half a cry.
  ‘Good heavens! What’s the matter, colonel?’
Renwick looked again at the note and read haltingly: ‘The native troops at Meerut have mutinied, have murdered their officers and all the European men, women and children they could find, and are marching on Delhi. Look after your regiment.’
  A low grunt broke from the major. He had half expected this, but it was still awful news, and for a moment the two men sat half-stunned at the extent of the calamity, while the tinkle of music and merry talk came in through the open doors to mock their ears.
  ‘Let’s take a walk in the compound,’ said the colonel to Major Warrener, ‘where no one can hear us. You others stay here and don’t say a word.’
For half an hour the two officers ambled up and down the garden. There could be no doubt about the truth of the news, for it was an official telegram from the adjutant at Meerut.
  ‘With no white forces there, Delhi will fall into the mutineers’ hands and become a centre, and the revolt will spread like wildfire all over India. What was the general at Meerut thinking? What were our men up to? It’s as inexplicable as it’s terrible. Is there anything to be done, major, do you think?’
  But Major Warrener could think of nothing. The native soldiers at present knew nothing of the news, but the tidings would reach them in two or three days, for news in India spread from village to village and town to town with almost incredible speed, and Meerut was only a hundred and fifty miles away.
  ‘Had we better tell them inside?’ the major asked.
  ‘No,’ answered the colonel, ‘let them be happy for tonight – they’ll know the worst tomorrow. As they’re breaking up, ask all the officers to come round to the mess. I’ll meet them there, and we can talk the matter over, but let the ladies have one more quiet night.’ For the tenth time, he sighed deeply: ‘They’ll want all their strength and bravery for what’s to come.’
  Clearing their brows, the two officers returned to the house, listened to the music and joined in the small-talk until ten o’clock struck and every one got up to go. So ended the last happy evening at Sandynugghur.
  The next morning brought the news of the rising at Delhi, but it was not until two days later that letters giving any details of these terrible events arrived, and the grim and gruesome details known.
  The Warreners listened with drawn expressions as their father told them the awful story.
  ‘There’s nothing to be done, I suppose, father?’ Ned prompted gently.
  ‘No, my boy. We must wait now and see what happens. At the moment the regiment seems to be loyal, and the men have even volunteered to march against the mutineers. The colonel believes them, so do some of the others…’
Ned and Dick glanced at each other, sensing their father’s hesitation. ‘But you don’t, father?’ Dick asked.
  The major grimaced as he carefully thought out his answer. ‘No, I don’t. It may be that the men mean what they say right now, but we know that chapatis and emissaries have been sent, and every fresh rising will be an incentive to further disobedience.’
  Kate spoke up hopefully: ‘But surely these men won’t want to harm us?’
‘It’s no use hiding the truth, dear. We’re standing on a loaded mine which may explode at any moment. I’ve been thinking – indeed for the last week I’ve done little else – what’s best to do. If the mutiny breaks out at night or at any time when we’re not on parade, we’ve agreed that all the whites will make at once for Thompson’s house. It’s the strongest of the residences and then we’ll sell our lives as dearly as we may.
  ‘If it happens when we’re on parade, a fight by the rest of the residents would be useless. There are only six civilians, with you two boys – yes, Ned, sorry but we have counted you – making eight. I doubt most of you could make it to Thompson’s house in time; and if you all did, your number would be too small to defend it. That just leaves getting away as the only option. The rising will most likely take place on parade. The residents have agreed that every day from now they will make an excuse to have their traps or carriages ready at the door at that hour so that they can get out at the sound of the first shot fired.’
  ‘But what about you, father?’ Kate asked.
  ‘My dear,’ said her father, ‘I’ll be on duty and as long as a fraction of the regiment remains loyal, I’ll be with it. If the whole regiment breaks up and attacks us, those who don’t fall at the first volley will be justified in trying to save their lives. The colonel, the adjutant and myself are mounted officers, and two or three of the others will have their dogcarts brought up to the officers’ mess, as they often do. If there’s a mutiny on parade, the unmounted officers will make for them, and those of us on horseback will cover their retreat.’
  ‘But will the road to Meerut be open, uncle?’ Rose asked after a pause, for the danger seemed so strange and terrible that she felt stupefied by it and concerned that the others seemed so calm.
  ‘Not likely. There are three garrison towns between us, and they will probably have mutinied too. The only thing is to keep to the road for the first ten or twelve miles, and then take to the woods, and make your way on foot. I’ve spoken to Saba this morning. We can trust her – she nursed all of you, and has lived under my roof ever since. She will get two dresses of Muslim country women. In those only the eyes are visible, whereas the Hindu dress won’t conceal you. I’ve also asked her to get me two sets of men’s clothing, one, such as a young Muslim zamindar wears, the other, as his retainer. Appearing as a local land-owner, you should get by at a distance.
  ‘When Saba gets them to you keep the bundles in the dining-room cupboard so they’re ready to hand.’ Warrener stared sternly at his two sons. ‘Remember my instructions are absolute. If by day, escape in the trap at the first alarm. If the trap’s not available, escape at once on foot. If you hear the enemy is close, hide till nightfall in that thick clump of bushes in the corner of the compound, then make for that copse of trees, and try to find your way to Meerut.
  ‘I hope I’ll be with you, or that I might join you on the road. But in any case, it will relieve me greatly that you know exactly what to do. If I had to return here to look for you, I’d only bring the sepoys after me, and your chance of escape would be gone. So I rely on you to follow my instructions to the letter.’
  ‘Yes, father,’ Ned and Dick intoned in sombre unison.
  ‘I have an extra pair of revolvers,’ the major added, ‘and I’ll give one to each of you boys. Carry them always, but hide them under your coats. It would be a good idea for you to practise with them, but make sure you’re well away from the station so the shots won’t be heard by the sepoys.’
  ‘Can you give Rose and me a pistol each, too, father?’ Kate asked quietly. Her cousin gave Kate an alarmed glance at this suggestion, but kept her own counsel.
  Major Warrener kissed his daughter and niece tenderly.
 ‘I’ve a pair of small double-barrelled pistols; you can each have one,’ he answered with a deep sigh.
  That afternoon the young Warreners and their cousin walked out some distance from the cantonment, fixed a target to a tree and practised pistol shooting for an hour. Any passer-by ignorant of the circumstances would have wondered at the expressions on the faces of these young people, engaged, apparently, in the amusement of pistol practice – there were no smiles, no laughing when the ball went wide of the mark, no triumphant shout at a successful shot. Their faces were set, pale and serious.
  Each loaded in silence, took up stance and aimed steadily, the boys with an angry eye and frowning brow, as if each time they were firing at a deadly foe, the girls just as earnestly – even Rose after the first few terrifying shots – and without any of the nervousness or timidity natural in handling firearms for the first time. Each day the exercise was repeated, and after a week all four of them could hit a piece of paper six inches square, at a distance of ten yards.

During this time captains Dunlop and Manners spent their whole time, when not on duty, at the Warreners’. There was no disguising Dunlop’s feelings for Kate and Manners’ for Rose. Due to the anxiety and peril, no formal engagements were made: the young people understood each other, and Major Warrener gave his tacit approval. All of them hoped that when the dreaded moment came they would be together and share the same fate, whatever it was. But they all knew that at the first signs of mutiny it would be the officers’ duty to run to the barracks and attempt to quell it, even if that meant facing certain death. The young officers’ buggies now stood all day in the Warrener compound, with the patient syces squatting nearby, or chatting with the servants, while the major’s horses were saddled and ready in the stables.
  After Meerut and Delhi, all the pretence of confidence came to an end and there were no more of the entertainments and happy get-togethers in which Sandynugghur’s white population had previously enjoyed. The atmosphere affected people differently.
  As usual when extreme danger threatens, the various temperaments of people came strongly into relief. The pretty young wife of the doctor, nearly wild with alarm, could not stay at home alone, and instead passed the day going from house to house of her female friends. She received plenty of advice and example from her companions, but little comfort.
  The colonel’s wife was as brave as any man in the station. She did not share her husband’s opinion that the regiment would remain faithful, but she was calm, self-possessed and ready for the worst.
  ‘It’s no use crying, my dear,’ she said to the doctor’s wife. ‘Our husbands have enough to worry about without us fussing around. Death, after all, can only come once, and it’s better to die with those we love than to be separated.’
The women of Sandynugghur were pale and quiet. They shook hands with a pressure which meant much, lips quivered and tears might drop when they spoke of children at home, but this was not often, and day after day they bore the terrible strain with that heroic fortitude which was to characterise English women in India during the awful period of the mutiny.
  Ten days after the news of the rising at Delhi, Major Warrener told his family, on his return from parade, that the regiment had again declared its loyalty, and had offered to march against the mutineers.
  ‘I’m glad of it,’ he said, ‘because it looks as if for the moment, at least, they’ve not made up their minds to mutiny, and I’ll be able to go to mess this evening with a lighter heart to celebrate the colonel’s birthday.’
In the meantime Saba had faithfully carried out her commission to get hold of the clothing, and had added to the bundles a bottle containing a brown juice extracted from berries to stain the boys’ skin a darker colour to help the disguise.

The time for the mess-dinner was eight sharp and the young Warreners had finished their evening meal before their father set off, wishing them well in his absence. For an hour and a half they sat and read by the light of oil lamps, and occasionally talked.
  As the officers entered the mess they put aside their swords and pistols, as usual, but instead of leaving them in the anteroom they were brought into the main mess hall, some stacked in a corner, others against the wall behind them. Dunlop and Manners seated themselves either side of the major at the corner nearest the French window that had been chosen for the a break out if the worst should happen.
  ‘There’s a truculent look about some of the servants’ faces I dislike,’ the major murmured.
  ‘They swore only this morning to remain loyal,’ Dunlop pointed out, while giving uneasy glances around the room.
The birthday dinner went off without incident until the colonel rose and gave The Queen. As the gathered officers rose for the toast, as if at a prearranged signal there was a sudden trampling on the veranda outside, and at every window appeared a crowd of sepoys, all armed to the teeth.

‘It’s time for tea,’ Kate said, consulting her watch, and she rang the little summons bell that sat on the table. Usually the response was almost instantaneous but she waited two minutes, and then rang sharply twice.
There was still no reply.
  ‘He must be asleep,’ she said, ‘or out of hearing, but it’s odd that none of the others are answering!’
Dick went out to the veranda, but came in again in a minute or two. ‘There’s no one there, Kate, and I don’t hear any servants about anywhere.’
  They looked at each other, concern apparent in each stare. Had the servants left in a hurry together? Did they know that something was about to happen?
  ‘Girls!’ Ned barked abruptly, ‘put your dark shawls round you. It may be nothing, but it’s better to be prepared. Get the bundles out. Dick, put a bottle of wine in your pocket and get me one, and let’s all fill our pockets with biscuits.’
Silently and quietly the others did as he told them.
  ‘There’s the big biscuit-tin full,’ Ned said when they had filled their pockets, ‘let’s empty it into that napkin and tie it up. Now, wait while I have a look in the stables.’ He returned a couple of minutes later. ‘The horses are unharnessed and I can’t see anyone. Ah, is that Saba?’
  The old nurse had been napping in her favourite spot outside the door of her young mistresses’ room, and now entered the drawing-room. Dick confronted her: ‘What’s the matter, Saba? All the servants are gone!’
  The old nurse shook her head. ‘Bad news. No one tell Saba.’
  ‘Now, get ready to leave,’ Ned begged the nurse, who had said that she would accompany them, to go into the villages to buy food. ‘Dick, come with me – we’ll harness one of the horses to the big trap.’

As some officers made for their weapons, the major yelled: ‘There’s no time for that – to the window for your lives!’ and without stopping to get his sword, dashed at the sepoys crowding their chosen exit, Dunlop and Manners close on his heels.
  Compared with the Indian sepoys, they were all big men, and their weight with the impetus of their desperate charge was too much. They burst through the sepoy ranks, four or five deep, as if they had been reeds. The mutineers gave a yell of rage and astonishment as they went down like ninepins, only recovering their wits as the officers’ heels disappeared in the gloom. But any chase was abandoned as musket fire broke out all around the mess.

They were leaving the room when they heard the distant pop of a gun shot. As if it were the signal, in a second the night air rang with more reports, shouts and screams. The boys leapt back into the room and caught up the bundles.
  ‘Quick, for your lives, girls! Some of them are not fifty yards off! To the bushes! Come on, Saba!’
  ‘Saba do more good here,’ the old nurse said, and seated herself quietly on the veranda, stubbornly refusing to move any further.
  Ned stood indecisively on the steps as the others vanished into the darkness. ‘Saba, please—’
  ‘Go! Edward sahib, go now, fast. They won’t hurt me. Go on!’ She waved urgently, shooing him out.
Ned turned abruptly and ran out into the compound. It was only sixty feet to the bushes they had marked as the best place to hide and, as he pushed among them and crouched down, there came the sound of rushing feet and a band of sepoys, led by a platoon jemadar, rushed up to the veranda from the back.
  ‘Now,’ the jemadar shouted, ‘look in the house! Kill the boys, but keep the women – they’re too pretty to hurt yet, and I want some fun with them later.’
After two minutes – in which time furniture was upset, curtains pulled down and chests ransacked – shouts of frustration proclaimed that the house was empty of whites. The jemadar shouted to his men: ‘Search the compound! The pigs can’t be far off. Some of you run out to the plain – they can’t have got a hundred yards away. Otherwise the guards out there would have caught them.’
  The old nurse rose to her feet just as the sepoys shoved their way to the nearest door. ‘It is no use your searching,’ Saba told the jemadar, ‘they have been gone more than an hour.’
  ‘Gone an hour!’ shouted the enraged jemadar, ‘who warned them of the uprising?’
  ‘I told them,’ Saba said steadily. ‘Saba was true to her salt.’
  A yell of collective rage came from the mutineers’ throats, and half a dozen bayonets slashed into the faithful old servant’s body. Without a word, she fell dead on the veranda, a victim of her loyalty to the children she had nursed.
  ‘Now,’ the jemadar said, ‘strip the place, carry off everything. Take the booty outside to be divided tomorrow, and then we’ll have a jolly blaze.’
It took them only five minutes to carry off all the portable articles from the bungalow; the furniture, as useless to the sepoys, was left behind, but everything else was soon cleared out, and then half a dozen torches set the bungalow’s fabric alight and the fire caught hold immediately. The flames ran quickly up the muslin curtains, caught the dry reeds of the tatties, licked up the bamboos which formed the top of the veranda and in five minutes the Warreners’ home was a sheet of flame.