Indian Mutiny and Beyond

by Robert Shebbeare VC (retail) (epub)

  For two hours we kept an anxious eye towards the jungle and the camp, looking frequently up and down the road, for it was impossible to forget that we were in a position of great peril. The mutineers might at any moment mount our spare horses and ride out to attack us, or they might cut off our young comrades, if they should meet them before we had time to warn them of the danger to which they were exposed. But they appeared fully occupied in camp, for at intervals sounds of great uproar reached us, with the occasional report of a musket, as if some obnoxious person had been shot down. Presently, too, I saw clouds of smoke ascending. I was glad to see this, for I could tell that they were burning our tents, and immediately after there was a great explosion of ammunition. This explosion, whether the result of accident or design, would at once prevent them from operation immediately in rear of our army, and there seemed to me then to be only two courses left for them — either to return to Umballa and join the 5th NI, which I thought not very likely, or to march to Delhi; and I argued, that by destroying the tents and ammunition, their object was to advance to Delhi by a circuitous route, so as to avoid all chance of a collision with our troops. In this case they would naturally destroy the tents, which they could not take on without encumbering their march; and of ammunition they would find abundance in the Delhi magazine.

  At sunset I addressed the officers. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘we have done our duty by our comrades and must now do our duty by our commander-in-chief. We must join him as soon as we can, and let him know the possibility of having an enemy in his rear. My plan is to go at a foot’s pace all night, so as to reach the vicinity of Delhi by daybreak, when we must find out where our camp is and be guided by circumstances.’

  We started accordingly, not in a very happy frame of mind, but glad enough to have escaped so far with our lives. We were mortified exceedingly at the failure of our endeavours to keep the regiment together and preserve it from the crime of mutiny. We had certainly done our best, but it was nevertheless inexpressibly annoying to have failed, even while we were forced to acknowledge that from the first the task which we had undertaken was hopeless.

  In the meantime we were still harassed by many uncertainties and perplexities, and there were several important questions which we were unable to solve. Where would we find the camp? Was the country about Delhi as ill-disposed as it was about Rohtuck? And that was very bad indeed. Mr Lock, the collector of Rohtuck, accompanied me to Paneeput; and shortly after our arrival at Rohtuck, on sending to some of his villages for the arrears of revenue, the people replied that they would pay it when they saw our power re-established. Let it be borne in mind that the people of this part of the country had cut off some of our stragglers and intercepted our posts, and that from this district came numbers of our irregular cavalry soldiers, who were one and all thoroughly disaffected.

  We kept on all night at a moderate pace, stopping only towards morning to get a drink of water at a village. It was a large place, and the people crowded around us, anxious to know whence we came and who we were. I told them that we were going to Delhi and that our regiment was close behind. They were civil enough, gave us water to drink, and told us some gentlemen had just passed through.

  About three in the morning we heard a horseman coming along. Who could it be? We drew up and challenged. It was a sowar (trooper) from Hodson’s Horse with a letter for the Colonel.

  I read the note by the light of a cigar vehemently smoked by one of the officers. It was to the effect that our troops had met the rebels at Budlee ka Serai, on the morning of the 8th, had beaten them, captured their guns, driven them from their positions on the ridge above the cantonment into Delhi, and that the camp was pitched in the cantonments. So now we were all right. We knew exactly where to find the camp, and what to do. And, above all, it was cheering to hear that the rebels had been beaten. So we rode on with lighter hearts. At daybreak we reached a village not far from Delhi, and were going through it, when the head man came out with some of the villagers and warned us that the rebels had possession of the bridge on the canal on that road, but he would send two men to show us the way round by another bridge, which would bring us to camp by the Kurnaul road. We were very thankful for this; the men guided us safely, and a little after 9 am I dismounted at Sir H. Barnard’s tent. (S)

  Walker’s version of the events of the last afternoon at Rohtuck is puzzlingly different from Seaton’s:

  On June 8th, in the afternoon, five of us, the junior officers of the regiment, went out shooting, and were just about to return to camp when we met some of the bandsmen, who were escaping from it. They told us that the corps had mutinied and murdered all the officers, and that a company was coming out to hunt us up. We met others who corroborated the report. We youngsters were well up in the topography of the Rohtuck district, having studied the map well. After a few minutes consultation we made for the Delhi road, determining to ride along it towards the camp, hoping to pick up some of the other officers. To our delight we found them all on the road unhurt, except the sergeant-major, who had been shot through the arm. All the officers except Lieut-Colonel R. Drought had got their horses; Doctor Keates had even brought away his dogcart, in which he had for some days kept his valuables. The sergeant-major was seated on the dogcart, his arm having been bound up.

  After a few minutes’ delay, during which the colonel was in conversation with some of the men who had remained faithful to us, we five juniors started on our ride to join the Delhi Field Force. We soon got on ahead of all the others, delighted at the idea of our emancipation, and eager to get on. The road was fearfully dusty, for not a drop of rain had fallen for months, and the heat was intense. We were soon begrimed with dust and parched with thirst, as were our horses, although we had not ridden them fast. The inhabitants of the villages which were on the roadside as we passed freely expressed their hatred of us, and after passing one village we had a shot fired at us. (W)

  According to Walker, he and the other four young officers then had a very adventurous journey on their way to Delhi, and were deliberately given wrong directions by one of the villagers which put them into the path of a body of mutineers, which they managed, however, to evade. Later, at another fork in the road, they were told by a man in a bungalow nearby that they should on no account go right, or they would run into a band of rebels. After their previous experience, they thought that they should go against his advice, but, as it turned out, he had been telling the truth, and they promptly ran into the rebels he had warned them about!

  In the morning they arrived at Delhi.

  Soon after entering the camp we met the General, Sir Henry Barnard. Being the senior of the party, I went up to him and reported the mutiny of the regiment, and the safety, we hoped, of all the other officers. The General replied that he never expected to see one of us again, and expressed his joy at our escape. We went straight to the tents of the 1st Fusiliers, where we were enthusiastically received, and right hospitably treated. (W)

  I went in to make my report, and found him at breakfast with his staff, perfectly acquainted with the mutiny of the 60th, but surprised to see me. This struck me as very extraordinary, but it was soon explained. When the regiment mutinied, some servants ran out into the jungle and warned our young comrades, whom we believed lost, telling them that the sepoys had mutinied, with the addition of some dreadful story of our having been murdered. On being thus alarmed they had taken to their horses, and had cut into the road to Delhi some two or three miles ahead of us. Towards morning, whilst they were drinking water at the village where we subsequently stopped, they saw us coming, and believing us to be sepoys mounted on our horses in chase of them, they galloped off, burst through the rebel picket in possession of the bridge above-mentioned, wheeled sharp off to the left, and got into camp, where they told the tale of the mutiny of the 60th, their wonderful escape, and our sad fate. (S)

  Notes

  1 Walker, Colonel, T.N., Through the Mutiny. Reminiscences of 30 Years Active Service and Sport in Ind
ia (1854—66), Gibbings and Co., London, 1907.

  2 Seaton, Major General Sir Thomas, KCB, From Cadet to Colonel. The Record of a Life of Active Service, Hurst and Blackett, London, 1866.

  3 State Papers, I. 278. In David, The Indian Mutiny, 1857.

  Chapter Three

  THE SIEGE OF DELHI, JUNE—SEPTEMBER, 1857

  When, on 11 June, Robert Shebbeare arrived at the British camp outside Delhi, the city had been in rebel hands for a month, having been overwhelmed by the insurgents on 11 May; many soldiers, together with their wives and children, had been massacred. The British camp to the north-west had been taken over by the mutineers and the remnants of the British garrison had escaped as best they could (see David, 2002, Chapter 9, for a good account).

  On 7 June the two elements of the Delhi Field Force (one under General Sir Henry Barnard, from Ambala; the other commanded by Brigadier Archdale Wilson, from Meerut) had met at Alipore, not far from Delhi, and together they defeated a large concentration of rebel troops at Badli-ki-Serai on the 8th. After driving the enemy from the ridge overlooking the city, they took up positions at various points along it, which were to be the focus of constant attack for the next three months.

  Continuation of letter of 11th July, to his mother:

  Brigadier Showers, who commands the first brigade, asked me to act as his orderly officer (a sort of aide-de-camp) and I was very glad to accept his offer. I served under him for three days and in one smart action on the heights I could not but admire his extreme coolness and steadiness under fire. I should have liked to remain with him very much but was offered the acting appointment of 2nd in command of the Guide Corps and the Brigadier advised me to accept it. Indeed, it was too good an offer to refuse. It is a wonderful regiment composed of eight companies of infantry and three troops of cavalry. The men are from all countries. One company of Peshawar, another from the country between Peshawar and Cabool and then a company of Sikhs and another from Nepaul (Ghoorkhas) and they are armed with rifles and dressed in dust-coloured clothes. The natives call us the Khakee Pultan or Dusty Regiment from the colour of the uniform. They are capital men and do their work most pluckily, adding every day to their former fame. The present commandant, Hodson, is an old friend of mine and we get on very well together. He takes the cavalry and I command the infantry in the field. The men are getting to know me now and we shall get on very well together. I can speak to the Sikhs in their own language and, if I remain with them long, I shall pick up Pooshtoo from the Cabool people, I doubt not.

  We have had several very sharp engagements and lost a very large number of men. For three days we have been more quiet. I can’t tell when there is a chance of Delhi falling; we have so small a number of men that it appears to be thought imprudent to attack. They attack us on the heights every two or three days, but are of course always repulsed with great loss. On the 10th June we drove them back to within 250 yards of the Cabool Gate, into which they retired in a great disorder. As I escaped from camp without any servants or traps I am not very well furnished with clothes, but I manage to get on wonderfully well and I am very happy. Pray imagine my dress, for I cannot send a sketch of it. A straw hat of this shape, covered with a turban of dust-coloured loose kind of cloth of the same colour, and lower were garments of the same prevailing hue, met by leather shooting gaiters. This, with a native sword, a water bottle and a haversack completed my working costume. I hope to send you a sketch some day.

  We are always quartered at Hindoo Rao’s house on the heights opposite the city. We have a very good room which we share with such officers of the Royal Rifles as may be on picket. They are a nice set of fellows, thorough gentlemen, and we get on capitally together. Our men and the riflemen are very fond of being together and always address one another as ‘Brudder’. They can’t understand one another but have long conversations, each talking in his own language, and by the help of signs and gesticulations they get on satisfactorily to both parties, if we may judge by the hearty laughs and slaps on the shoulder with which they wind up.

  Pray address me in future as 2nd in Command Guide Corps, Delhi Field Force.

  Robert H. Shebbeare

  Robert Shebbeare was appointed second in command of the Guide Corps, which had a legendary reputation for courage throughout the army in India, on 13 June.

  The Guides and Goorkhas were adept in skirmishing; their being on our side was one of the hundred chances which saved us from utter destruction. Trained in danger from infancy, among the robber tribes of his frontier, the Afghan soldier was more than a match for the Poorbeah. The name of Patan (Pathan) or Conquerer, which is given in India to the native of Cabool and his descendants, was a proof of his superiority.1

  ‘Too much cannot be said in praise of the Guides Corps. Of native regiments they are second to none. Their services on the Peshawar frontier, and in various parts of the Punjaub, has gained them a well-earned reputation in India.’2

  The Guide Corps was formed in 1846, and the uniform, described with amusement by Robert Shebbeare, was introduced by Hodson in 1847, on the recommendation of Sir Henry Lawrence, as being a much more suitable dress for fighting than those worn by other native regiments. The latter were often clothed in European-style clothing, quite unsuitable to the climate and their own traditions of dress, which caused a good deal of rancour amongst the sepoys.

  William Hodson (1821—58), like Nicholson, was a person of great ability who attracted admiration from some and aroused antipathy in others. He was educated at Rugby under Arnold and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1844. Finding himself prone to headaches brought on by close work he decided to join the HEIC army and went out to India in 1845, where he had connections to a number of people of influence. He managed from the start to get himself noticed and into places where the action was; his forthright and lucid opinions about the state of the army, and a capacity to get a lot of work done efficiently, soon brought him to the attention of his superiors. Through the patronage of Henry Lawrence he was appointed second-in-command of the newly formed Guide Corps, and distinguished himself as a fearless and thinking soldier with a capacity to inspire his men. After a spell of civil duties, which was considered to be part of the career path of ambitious soldiers, he returned to the Guides as Commandant, over the heads of several officers more senior to him. This, together with a tendency to be overzealous in pushing through his ideas, seems to have made him many enemies, some of whom plotted against him; he was brought before a court of enquiry in 1855 for irregularities in the regimental accounts for which he was eventually exonerated, but which at the time threatened to end his career.

  At the outbreak of the mutiny his undoubted talents were soon put to good use again and in May 1857, General Anson, the C-in-C, asked him to raise a regiment of irregular cavalry, which came to be known as Hodson’s Horse, and also to be in charge of the Intelligence Department of the Delhi Field Force. He was constantly in the thick of the fighting during the siege of Delhi and afterwards, with a small force, went out to capture, first the King of Delhi, and then his sons, whom he personally executed. With his regiment he was involved in numerous mopping-up operations and was killed during the successful recapture of Lucknow on 11 March 1858. For further reading, see Hodson, G.H., Twelve Years of a Soldier’s Life in India: Being Extracts from the Letters of the Late Major W.S.R. Hodson, London, 1859.

  ‘Hodson rejected the tight scarlet uniform of the regulars in favour of baggy smocks and pyjama trousers. And to make the Guides “invisible in a land of dust” these were treated with a dye from a local dwarf palm to produce a yellow-green colour, known in Hindustani as “khaki”, or “dust-coloured”.’3

  On 13 May 1857, the Guides had been ordered to help suppress the mutineers who had taken over in Delhi and Captain Daly, in Hodsen’s absence in Kandahar, marched the Guides from Hoti Mardan to join the Delhi Field Force. On the way they were delayed by action from rebels at Karnal and other places but managed to get to Delhi on
9 June, having covered a distance of 580 miles in twenty-six days.4

  Before they had had time to pitch their tents they were almost immediately in a fierce action in which all the officers received wounds.

  Camp before Delhi, July 25th, 1857

  My dearest mother,

  The mail leaves for England tomorrow and I must write a few lines as you will probably see my name amongst the wounded. I am thankful to be able to tell you that although I was struck by three bullets my wounds are very slight, so much so that although only eleven days have elapsed since I was hit I hope to go on duty again tomorrow. One ball hit me on the right side, another almost simultaneously on the muscle of the right arm and a third about five minutes after on the right arm above the wrist.

  We are still before Delhi with the small force originally assembled, so that we are unable to attack the place, but manage to beat back the mutineers on every occasion, sometimes to the very walls of the city. They have attacked the right of our position near Hindoo Rao’s place twenty-two times! I have been present in nearly every engagement. The weather is very unfavourable for a standing camp as it rains heavily every two or three days. However, we live when on duty at the Rao’s house and are well sheltered. Since I have been on the sick list I have been living with some officers of the 60th Royal Rifles who were old acquaintances and who have been very kind to me. I have been very fortunate in getting appointed 2nd in command of a new Sikh cavalry regiment raised by Hodson, 1st Fusiliers, an old friend, and in getting my old chum Baker into the same. As I am only acting in the Guides I am glad to have this appointment to fall back upon when the officer whose place I hold rejoins. However, Daly, who commands them, tells me not to give up the Guides on any account as it will be better for me to remain with them. He said that he was not at liberty to tell me why but he ‘knew it was the best thing I could do’. He also said he thought I should get command of a regiment after the present campaign and that he would do his best to get it for me. So you will see that I am a lucky fellow.