FOR KING AND FLAG.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 17 April 1914, Page 7

FOR KING AND FLAG.

THE FIGHT FOR THE RIDGE. The story of the Indian Mutiny bristles with deeds of valour in all its pages ; but it xholds no chapter which sets the pulses beating more rapidly or kindles ■ the eyes of the Briton with greater pride than that which tells how a mere handful of heroes kept the flag of Empire flying on the Ridge outside Delhi for three months, until they stormed her gates and scaled her walls to plant their flag on the palace of the Grand Moguls. Never in the world's history has man embarked on a more mad enterprise ; never has man's daring been crowned by a more brilliant success. Picture India's ancient and sacred capital, closely guarded on one side by the wide waters of the Jumna River ; girdled by six miles of stonewalls, rearing their massive bulk to a height of twenty-four feet, and flanked by a ditch eight jards broad and almost as many in depth ; 'the walls knotted with bastions, on which 114 heavy guns stood ready to launch their thunderbolts. Within this impregnable g.irdle swarmed a dense population fired with rage against the British Raj, and full of the lust of blood ; with 40,000 Sepoys inflamed :with the first successes of the Mutiny a few days earlier. Outside the grim circle of walls, a pitiful a rmy of 3,000 British soldiers, mostly natives, scattered over the Ridge—a low mound, barely sixty feet high, which stretches its oblique length for two miles, from the Jumna bank to a point some 1,200 yards from the hostile walls—and in its centre the British flag flashing an impudent defiance from the flagstaff tower— such was the scene of one of the most thrilling acts in the drama of the Mutiny, at a time when the whole of Northern India was aflame with revolt. The fate of our Empire hung on the valour of 38,000 British soldiers, scattered among a population of 180 millions, roused to a frenzy of fanatical resolve to wipe them off the face of the earth. A STROKE OF GENIUS. It was Sir John Lawrence, that man of cool, clever brain and masterful will, who planned this stroke of military genius—to keep, from the outbreak of the Mutiny, a bayonet pointed at its very breast, the City of j the Great Mogul ; and it was, to uuote Canning, "through Mm that Delhi fell, and the knell of the Mutiny was sounded." Never did men start with higher courage on a more hopeless adventure than the microscopic army whicb left Kurnal on the 24th May, 1857, to lay siege to India's chief stronghold, whose soldiers alone .outnumbered them fourteen to one. All told, its .numbers were 2,400 infantry and 600 cavalry, with 22 field-guns.' And before they had marched many days, under a sun whose hot breath seared their lungs, they had a taste of the almost superhuman task before them. The Sepoys swarmed in their thousands through the Delhi gates to intercept their advance, and the battle raged fiercely for hours before the rebels were driven back to their walls leaving a thousand men and 13 guns • behind them. Such was the spirit i that animated Bernard's soldiers I that the very sick in the hospital left their beds to share the fighting ; and "many quite unfit to waU insis- \ ted upon accompanying the attacking column, imploring, the companions not to mention they were ill for j fear they should not be allowed to ; take part in the fight." j When day dawned after this night | of carnage, the British flag was } flaunting defiance from the Ridge— j a stern harbinger of defeat and retribution for the rebels who scoffed ' and jeered at it from Delhi's walls. The following day the besiegers were recruited by a small body of Law- J rence's famous Guides — stalwart, fierce Afghans and sturdy little Ghoorkas ; every man a born fighter, as was proved when, at the close of the siege, only one out of every four of them answered the roll-call ! Hot work was awaiting Lawrence's men ; for scarcely had they set foot on the Ridge when the rebels flung themselves on it in thousands. The battle raged its fiercest round Hindu Rao's house, which commanded the Ridge, the Sepoys fighting with the fierceness of demons, flinging themselves in waves of fury against the solid lines of the enemy ; flung back, { only to advance again over the bod- ! ies of their slain. "It was -as if hell [ itself had been let loose." Backt- j ward and forward the red tide of battle swayed, until at the crucial moment the cavalry of the newly-ar- | rived Guides were flung at the rebels, j scattered them like chaff before a tornado, and swept them back to the very walls of Delhi. But although the handful of British soldiers held their Ridge against all assaults, their guns could make no impression on the walls that frowned so grimly at them. Their num'bers were dwindling daily, while each day brought many streams of recruits to the enemy. Twice an attack on the city was planned ; twice it failed to mature—"someone had blundered," though the soldiers to a man were burning to leap' on Delhi and to settle the business once for , all at the point of the sword. THE INVINCIBLE BRITISH. The night of June 19th was one long inferno of fighting, the darkness rent by a myriad points of flame, the ceaseless crackle of musketry, the boom of cannon, the fierce shouts of men in a frenzy of conflict. Again and again the Lancers and the Guides : charged ; again and again the Sepoys '. surged back to the attack in over- 1 whelming numbers. Guns were cap- 1 tured and recaptured : over all its 1

two miles of length the Ridpe waa strewn with the dead and dying. At one critical moment, when the tide of battle seemed to have turned decisively against the defenders, Hope Grant collected a few men antd dashed furiously into the black sea of the enemy. A few seconds later, while his sword was cleaving a pathway for him, his horse stumbled and fell, shot through the head, and he found himself in a vortex of Sepoys, struggling, to -give him the coup de grace. "I made sure it w?.s all up with me," he said, when telling the story, "when T heard a voice above me, 'Take my horse, sahib ; it's your only chance !' It was my orderly, a fine, tall Sowar, who had seen me fall. I refused his offer, but. struggling to my feet, took a firm hold of his horse's tail, and in a trice was dragged clear of the melee. The Sowar undoubtedly saved my life ; but he was furious when I offered to reward him." On June 23rd, the centenary of Plassy, the Sepoys made an attack of the utmost fury. For eight hours the struggle raged .with a fierceness greater than ever, for on that day the rebels had determined onca for' all to crush the British power. The; heat was terrific, the glare blinding, and, to add to the horrors, the combatants were shrouded in a pall of suffocating smoke, through which' they could see only a few yards.' Never had Sepoys been known to' fight as they fought that day. "No%t men," Lord Roberts said, "eoulclf have fought better. They charged the Rifles, the Guides, and the Goorkhas. again and again." But when the\ last shot was fired, and they beat a.-* crestfallen retreat they left 1,600 o£deid and wounded to tell the tale of. British invincibility. An heroic deed was performed a fev; days later by an Irishman named" Reegan. The rebels had -succeeded in. planting a battery outside the walls, : which was doing deadly execution on the British pickets, and it became necessary to silence it. Soon after midnight a small force of infantry and cavalry stole down the slope,an 1 made its stealthy way undetected, under the. cloak of darkness, almost to the very muzzle of the guns. A hasty challenge from a startled Sepoy was answered by a blaze of musketry. A moment later the attackers swept into the battery, but not before two of the guns had ploughed a way through them. A third gunner was on the point of firing when Reegan rushed up the earthwork, under the muzzle of th~ gun and amid a hurricane of shot"; and swordthrusts, and drove his bayonet through the artilleryman at the very moment when his port-fire was ovgr the touch-hole. Before this adventure ended, 250 Sepoys lay dead on the ground, while the' British losses were one man killed and a hundred wounded. On the day following this daring enterprise, drums were beaten and flags flying in welcome to a strong reinforcement under the command of John Nicholson, the finest soldier in all India, at sight of w}«:->m men at the point of death raised themselves to give a last cheer. His presence infused new life and hope into the besiegers,sadly weakened by losses, and dispirited by treachery. Cholera was now stalking in their midst anc claiming its victims in hundreds. Never did man appear more oppor tunely. Our Empire in India ,was trembling in the balance. Archdale Wilson, who had succeeded to the command on Barnard's death, had almost decided to abandon the siege. Had he done so not only would India have been lost, but the tragedy of the .Khyber Pass would almost certainly have been repeated on a larger scale on the plains of Hindustan. It was the arrival of Nicholson with his famous "Movable Column" that turned the scale when it was falling to irretrievable disaster. But, still, for a time, the fate ol our gallant army hung in the balance. The siege train had started from Umballa, with its 15 powerful guns and 18,000 rounds of ammunition to breach the walls of Delhi ; but an overwhelming force of mutineers had also started to intercept it. This was Nicholson's opportunity. Setting out with 2,000 soldiers and a battery of field-guns through a deluge of rain, and over a country converted into an almost unbroken morass he overtook the enemy at Nujutgurh after a terrible mareh of twelve hours. "No other man in. India," an officer said, , "would have taken that column to Nujutgtirh. An artillery officer told me that at one time the water was over his horse's back, and he thought they could not possibly get out of their difficulties. But he looked ahead, and saw Nichols on'r. great form riding steadily on, as if nothing was the matter. The enemy, to the number of 6,000, were strongly entrenched in a girdle of swamps, and behind a deep and swift river. But Nicholson, loading his men to within twenty yards of the rebels' guns, swept, through them as irresistibly as an avalanche, scattered them to the four winds, ana drove them to the very walls of Delhi killing and wounding 800 at the cost of only 60 of his soldiers. This feat, one of the most daring and brilliant in the story of war, saved the siege-train and doomed Delhi. A few days later the 24-p-und- cers, pushed up to within a <=tor.«' s - throw of the vails, were hurling hurricanes of shells at them aird breaking dov n their stout defences ; one breach was Iriven through t.feom «,f ter atvotber, and on September 13th the waj wad s t last ciear for tbe as-sault-that miracle- of mrui ' ontcr . prise and r-emism, <*hir* carried the British flag from the Ria ee tn , ba palace of the Oar>d Mos^i. a *>d <*»ve the Mutiny i-c rteath SitMi