by G. A. Henty
Two or three days later a messenger arrived from Mr. Saunders, with a letter to Charlie. In this he expressed his great satisfaction at the defeat Murari Reo had received; a defeat which would, for some time, keep him quiet, and so relieve the strain upon the English. Affairs had, he said, since the departure of Clive for England, been going badly. Dupleix had received large reinforcements, and the English had suffered several reverses. Mr. Saunders begged him to assure the rajah of the respect and friendship of England, and to give him the promise that, if he should be driven from his capital, he would be received with all honor at Madras, and should be reinstated in his dominions, with much added territory, when the English were again in a position to take the field in force, and to settle their long feud with the French.
Ten days later, they heard that the army of the nizam, of fifteen thousand troops, with eight hundred French under Bussy, were marching against them; and that the horsemen of Murari Reo were devastating the villages near the frontier. A council of war was held. Charlie would fain have fought in the open again, believing that his trained troops, flushed with their recent victory, would be a match even for the army of the nizam. But the rajah and the rest of the council, alarmed at the presence of the French troops, who had hitherto proved invincible against vastly superior forces of natives, shrank from such a course; and it was decided that they should content themselves with the defence of the town and castle.
Orders were accordingly issued that the old men, the women, and children should at once leave the town; and, under guard of one battalion of troops, take refuge in an almost impregnable hill fort some miles away. One battalion was placed in garrison in the castle. The other three, with the irregulars, took post in the town, whence they could, if necessary, retreat into the castle.
The day following the removal of the noncombatants the enemy appeared, coming down the valley, having marched over the hills; while the Mahratta cavalry again poured up from below.
Charlie had taken the command of the town, as it was against this that the efforts of the enemy would be first directed. It was an imposing sight, as the army of the nizam wound down the valley; the great masses of men with their gay flags, the elephants with the gold embroidery of their trappings glistening in the sun, the bands of horsemen careering here and there, the lines of artillery drawn by bullocks; and, less picturesque but far more menacing, the dark body of French infantry, who formed the nucleus and heart of the whole. The camp was pitched just out of range of the guns of the fort, and soon line after line of tents, gay with the flags that floated above them, rose across the valley.
Charlie had mounted to the castle, the better to observe the movements of the enemy, and he presently saw a small body of horsemen ride out of the camp, and mount the hillside across the valley. A glass showed that some of these were native officers, while others were in the dark uniform of the French.
"I have no doubt," Charlie said to the rajah, "that is the nizam himself, with Bussy, gone up to reconnoitre the position. I wonder how he likes the look of it. I wish we could have turfed the battery above, and the newly stripped land. We might, in that case, have given them a pleasant surprise. As it is, they are hardly likely to begin by an attack along the slopes in the rear of the town, and you will see that they will commence the attack at the farther face of the town. The battery above cannot aid us in our defence there; and although the castle may help, it will only be by a direct fire. If they try to carry the place by a coup de main, I think we can beat them off, but they must succeed by regular approaches.
"We must inflict as much loss as we can, and then fall back. However, it will be sometime before that comes."
The next morning, Charlie found that the enemy had, during the night, erected three batteries on the slopes facing the north wall of the town, that farthest removed from the castle. They at once opened fire, and the guns on the walls facing them replied, while those on the castle hurled their shot over the town into the enemy's battery. For three days, the artillery fire was kept up without intermission. The guns on the wall were too weak to silence the batteries of the besiegers, although these were much annoyed by the fire from the fort, which dismounted four of their guns, and blew up one of their magazines. Several times the town was set on fire by the shell from the French mortars; but Charlie had organized the irregulars into bands with buckets, and these succeeded in extinguishing the flames before they spread.
Seeing that the mud wall of the town was crumbling rapidly before the besiegers' fire, Charlie set his troops to work, and levelled every house within fifty yards of it, and with the stones and beams formed barricades across the end of the streets beyond. Many of the guns from other portions of the walls were removed, and placed on these barricades. The ends of the houses were loopholed, and all was prepared for a desperate defence.
Charlie's experience at Arcot stood him in good stead, and he imitated the measures taken by Clive at that place. When these defences were completed, he raised a second line of barricades some distance further back; and here, when the assault was expected, he placed one of his battalions, with orders that, if the inner line of entrenchments was carried, they should allow all the defenders of that post to pass through, and then resist until the town was completely evacuated, when they were to fall back upon the fort. He had, however, little fear that his position would be taken at the first assault.
Upon the evening of the third day, the besiegers' fire had done its work, and a gap in the wall some eighty yards wide was formed. The garrison were ordered to hold themselves in readiness, and a strict watch was set.
Towards morning, a distant hum in the nizam's camp proclaimed that the troops were mustering for the assault. The besiegers' guns had continued their fire all night, to prevent working parties from placing obstacles in the breach. As the first shades of daylight appeared the fire ceased, and a great column of men poured forward to the assault.
The few remaining guns upon the end wall opened upon them, as did the infantry who lined the parapet, while the guns in the castle at once joined in. The mighty column, however, composed of the troops of the nizam, pressed forward, poured over the fragments of the wall, and entered the clear space behind it.
Then, from housetop and loophole, and from the walls on either side, a concentrated fire of musketry was poured upon them, while twelve guns, four on each barricade, swept them with grape. The head of the column withered away under the fire, long lines were swept through the crowded mass; and, after a minute or two's wild firing at their concealed foes, the troops of the nizam, appalled and shattered by the tremendous fire, broke and fled.
The instant they had cleared the breach, the guns of the besiegers again opened furiously upon it, to check any sortie which the besieged might attempt.
An hour later, the besiegers hoisted a white flag, and requested to be allowed to bury their dead, and remove their wounded. This Charlie agreed to, with the proviso that these should be carried by his own men beyond the breach, as he did not wish that the enemy should have an opportunity of examining the internal defences. The task occupied some time, as more than five hundred dead and dying lay scattered in the open space.
During the rest of the day, the enemy showed no signs of resuming the assault. During the night they could be heard hard at work, and although a brisk fire was kept up to hinder them, Charlie found that they had pushed trenches, from the batteries, a considerable distance round each corner of the town.
For four days the besiegers worked vigorously, harassed as they were by the guns of the fort, and by those of the battery high up on the hillside, which were now able to take in flank the works across the upper angle of the town. At the end of that time, they had erected and armed two batteries, which at daylight opened upon the walls which formed the flanks of the clear space behind the breach. Although suffering heavily from the fire of the besieged, and losing many men, these batteries kept up their fire unceasingly, night and day, until great gaps had been made in the walls, and Cha
rlie was obliged to withdraw his troops from them, behind the line of barricades.
During this time the fire of the batteries in front had been unceasing, and had destroyed most of the houses which formed the connecting line between the barricades. Each night, however, the besieged worked to repair damages, and to fill up the gaps thus formed with piles of stones and beams, so that, by the end of the fourth day after the repulse of the first assault, a line of barricades stretched across the line of defence.
The enemy, this time, prepared to attack by daylight, and early in the morning the whole army of the nizam marched to the assault. Heedless of the fire of the castle, they formed up in a long line of heavy masses, along the slope. One huge column moved forward against the main breach, two advanced obliquely towards the great gaps in the walls on either side. The latter columns were each headed by bodies of French troops.
In vain the guns of the fort, aided by those of the battery on the hill, swept them. The columns advanced without a check until they entered the breaches. Then a line of fire swept along the crest of the barricade from end to end, and the cannon of the besieged roared out. Pressed by the mass from behind, the columns advanced, torn and rent by the fire, and at last gained the foot of the barricade.
Here, those in front strove desperately to climb up the great mound of rubbish, while those behind covered them with a storm of bullets aimed at its summit. More than once the troops of the rajah, rushing down the embankment, drove back the struggling masses, but so heavily did they suffer from the fire, when they thus exposed themselves, that Charlie forbade them to repeat the attempt. He knew that there was safety behind, and was unwilling that his brave fellows should throw away their lives.
In the centre of the position the native troops, although they several times climbed some distance up the barricade, were yet unable to make way. But the French troops at the flanks were steadily forcing their way up. Many had climbed up by the ruins of the wall, and from its top were firing down on the defenders of the barricade. Inch by inch they won their way up the barricade, already thickly covered with dead; and then Charlie, seeing that his men were beginning to waver, gave the signal.
The long blast of a trumpet was heard even above the tremendous din. In an instant the barricades were deserted, and the defenders rushed into the houses. The partition walls between these on the lower floors had already been knocked down, and without suffering from the heavy fire which the assailants opened, as soon as they gained the crest of the barricade, the defenders retreated along these covered ways until in rear of the second line of defence.
This was held by the battalion placed there, until the whole of the defenders of the town had left it, by the gate leading up to the fort. Then Charlie withdrew this battalion also, and the town remained in the hands of the enemy; who had lost, Charlie reckoned, fully fifteen hundred men in the assault.
During the fight Tim and the faithful Hossein, now fully recovered and promoted to the rank of an officer, had remained close beside him; and were, with him, the last to leave the town.
The instant the evacuation was complete, the guns of the hill battery opened upon the town; and a tremendous fire of musketry was poured upon it from every point of the castle which commanded it; while the guns, which from their lofty elevation, could not be depressed sufficiently to bear upon the town, directed their fire upon the bodies of troops still beyond the walls. The enemy had captured the town, indeed, but its possession aided them but little in their assault upon the fort. The only advantage it gave them, would have been that it would have enabled them to attack the lower gate of the fort, protected by its outer wall from the fire of the hill battery. Charlie had, however, perceived that this would be the case, and had planted a number of mines under the wall at this point. These were exploded when the defenders of the town entered the fort, and a hundred yards of the wall were thus destroyed; leaving the space, across which the enemy must advance to the attack of the gate, exposed to the fire of the hill battery, as well as of the numerous guns of the fort bearing upon it.
Two days passed without any further operations on the part of the enemy; and then Bussy, seeing that nothing whatever could be done towards assaulting the fortress, so long as the battery remained in the hands of the besieged, determined to make a desperate effort to carry it, ignorant of its immense strength. At night, therefore, he ordered two bodies of men, each fifteen hundred strong, to mount the hillside, far to the right and left of the town; to move along at the foot of the wall of rock, and to carry the battery by storm at daybreak.
Charlie, believing that such an attempt would be made, had upon the day following the fall of the town taken his post there, and had ordered a most vigilant watch to be kept up, each night; placing sentries some hundred yards away, on either side, to give warning of the approach of an enemy.
Towards daybreak on the third morning a shot upon the left, followed a few seconds later by one on the right, told that the enemy were approaching. A minute or two afterwards the sentries ran in, climbed from the ditch by ladders which had been placed there for the purpose, and, hauling these up after them, were soon in the battery, with the news that large bodies of the enemy were approaching on either flank. Scarcely were the garrison at their posts, when the French were seen approaching. At once they broke into a run, and, gallantly led, dashed across the space of cleared rock, in spite of the heavy fire of musketry and grape.
When they came, however, to the edge of the deep gulf in the solid rock, they paused. They had had no idea of meeting with such an obstacle as this. It was easy enough to leap down, but impossible to climb up the steep face, ten feet high, in front of them; and which, in the dim light, could be plainly seen. It was, however, impossible for those in front to pause. Pressed upon by those behind, who did not know what was stopping them, large numbers were compelled to jump into the trench, where they found themselves unable either to advance or retreat.
By this time, every gun on the upper side of the castle had opened on the assailing columns, taking them in flank, while the fire of the battery was continued without a moment's intermission. Bussy himself, who was commanding one of the columns, pushed his way through his struggling soldiers to the edge of the trench; when, seeing the impossibility of scaling the sides, unprovided as he was with scaling ladders, he gave the orders to retreat; and the columns, harassed by the flanking fire of the guns of the castle, and pursued by that of the battery, retreated, having lost some hundreds of their number; besides a hundred and fifty of their best men, prisoners in the deep trench around the battery.
These were summoned to surrender; and, resistance being impossible, they at once laid down their arms. Ladders were lowered to them, and they were marched as prisoners to the fort.
The next morning, when the defenders of the fortress looked over the valley, the great camp was gone. The nizam and Bussy, despairing of the possibility of carrying the position, at once so enormously strong by nature, and so gallantly defended, had raised the siege; which had cost them over two thousand of their best soldiers, including two hundred French killed and prisoners, and retreated to the plateau of the Deccan.
The exultation of the rajah and his troops was unbounded. They felt that, now and henceforth, they were safe from another invasion; and the rajah saw that, in the future, he should be able to gain greatly increased territory, as the ally of the English. His gratitude to Charlie was unbounded, and he literally loaded him with costly presents.
Three weeks later, a letter was received by the latter from Mr. Saunders, congratulating him upon the inestimable service which he had rendered, and appointing him to the rank of captain in the Company's service. Now that the rajah would be able to protect himself, should any future assault be made upon him--an event most unlikely to happen, as Bussy and the nizam would be unwilling to risk a repetition of a defeat, which had already so greatly injured their prestige--he had better return to Madras, where, as Mr. Saunders said, the services of so capable an officer were g
reatly needed. He warned him, however, to be careful in the extreme how he made his way back, as the country was in a most disturbed state, the Mahratta bands being everywhere out plundering and burning.
Subsequent information, that the Mahrattas were swarming in the plains below, determined Charlie to accept an offer which the rajah made him; that he should, under a strong escort, cross the mountains, and make his way to a port on the west coast, in the state of a friendly rajah, where he would be able to take ship and coast round to Madras. The rajah promised to send Charlie's horses and other presents down to Madras, when an opportunity should offer; and Charlie, accompanied by the four Sepoys, all of whom had been promoted to the rank of officers; by Tim Kelly and Hossein, who would not separate himself a moment from his side, started from Ambur, with an escort of thirty horsemen.
The rajah was quite affected at the parting; and the army, which he had formed and organized, paraded before him for the last time, and then shouted their farewell.
Charlie himself, although glad to return among his countrymen, from whom he had been nearly two years separated, was yet sorry to leave the many friends he had made. His position was now a very different one from that which he held when he left Madras. Then he was a newly made lieutenant, who had distinguished himself, indeed, under Clive, but who was as yet unknown save to his commander, and who was as poor as when he had landed, eighteen months before, in India. Now he had gained a name for himself, and his successful defence of Ambur had been of immense service to the Company. He was, too, a wealthy man; for the presents in money, alone, of the rajah, had amounted to over twenty-five thousand pounds; a sum which, in these days, may appear extraordinary, but which was small to that frequently bestowed, by wealthy native princes, upon British officers who had done them a good service. Clive himself, after his short campaign, had returned to England with a far larger sum.
For several days, the party rode through the hills without incident; and on the fifth day they saw, stretched at their feet, a rich flat country dotted with villages, beyond which extended the long blue line of the sea. The distance was greater than Charlie imagined, and 'twas only after two days' long ride that he reached Calicut, where he was received with great honor by the rajah, to whom the leader of the escort brought letters of introduction from the Rajah of Ambur.