RUSHING A SEPOY CAMP.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 224, 18 December 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

RUSHING A SEPOY CAMP.

A DEED OF DARING

After tho great uprising of 1859 had been crushed and tho rebel armies, as bodies that could etand in the battle array hod beeen shattered. Many of tho mutineers forming into small bands, betook themselves to the jungle and bogan as brigands to plunder the inhabitants of the surrounding district. These men were generally old soldiers, or at least came out of a warlike family trained to tho use of arms, and wore able to overawe the peaceful traders and cultivators, sometimes even venturing, when they had a fair chance, to fall upon Europeans who were not in sufficient numbers to resist effetively. The usual means for the repression of crime had becomo more or less paralysed in those days after tho throes of war and disturbances which tho country had goco through, and in some districts it was possible for great outrages to be committed for a time almost with impunity. One of tho maurauding gangs of which wc speak had long infested the Barseah district, and had always contrived to esoape from the parties sent to scaroh after it.

Among those vho had suffered from its depredations was a village Patel, Chummum Singh by name, and he, his loyalty intensified by a sconce of personal loss, had given all the information about it in his power to the Government authorities, who were slowly regaining their grasp of the outlying districts and bringing them under law and order. Tho report that the Patel had given irnformation reached the brigands, and they resolved to be avenged. They raided Patel'« village and, securing him and some of his family, boro ti.em off as captives to the rectss of the jungle, thero to be victims of Oriental rancour,

111 would it have fared with the unfortunate Patel if a young English officer, theu doing duty with a regiment of cavalry, bad not suddenly, while on tho march to join his corpes, arrived in the district. Fatigued as he was with a long day's journey he no sooner heard of the outrage that had seen committed than ho made up his mind to interveno and give the brigands a lesson. All the forpo he could collect to follow him oonsisted of a Duffadar and four sowars of lri-t old regiment and a naiok arid six sepoys of the Bareillykvy, but he was a man who recked not of the odds against him when he Biw a opportunity of doing good service, aud ho started at once, as night was falling, to pursue the mauraudtrs.

For nigh 12 miles he followed tho direction they had takou withmt falling in with them, for, though they knew not that their avenger was on their track, they bad travelled far to seclude themselves in recesses unknown to any but their comradis. At last, in the darkening woodland, tho young Engli-h officer saw the ghro of a distant firo. He was convinced that ho had found the objrets of his pursuit, and, leaving tho horses of his party in charge of three of the soways, be ad* vanced into the jungle with the Duffudar and the othfr sowar. The Bareilly men lost heart, and took no foward part in the desperate enterprise. Foward, for three miles, be crept through dense vegetation, silently making his way so that no alarm should bo given to the robbers, At length he looked upon tho bivouac whose fire had betrayed itp position, There lay tho biiganda, while fivo of their number kept wateh over their captives. The English officer had only two native soldiers on whom he could depend, while opposed to him were 70 well-armed and desperate outlaws. Evon with the advantages of a surprise, few men would have dared to encounter suoh odds, but tho young Englishman was one of those few. The small party fired a volley, and followed it by a rush into tho bivouac. Their daring was greatly rewarded. Believing that that they must have been attacked by forraidablo numbers, the startled robbers broke and fled, leaving behind them their arms, theii plunder, and their captive Chummum Singh. Thus did one bravo man, with two equally gallant followers, disperse and render harmless a band of 70 rebels iu ono of their chosen biding places. Thus did ho save from torture and death a loyal fellow subjici, and restore order and safety to a large district of our Indian Empire. His name has been so much a part of England's military history in later wars, that this, among other exploits of bis youth, is now scarcely temembered, but ho still sert'es his country as Sir Evelyn Wood, the Quarter-master-Gencral. —Cassell's Magazine for October,