The Last Mughal

by William Dalrymple

  The defenders eventually retreated back into the city, leaving Fitzgerald and myself standing close up to the gabions. We shook hands and parted, he down the right of the breach, and I along the parapet to the left, towards Kashmiri Gate. I never saw him again, he was killed by a discharge of grape inside the walls, immediately after I parted from him.4

  While running along the wall-walk, Barter heard a colossal explosion and, looking up, saw the Kashmiri Gate ‘blown into Delhi’. The assault plan had called for ten sappers and a bugler to place a large explosive charge immediately in front of the gate, and for the troops then to rush the gap thus opened. As the assault had started a little later than planned, and it was now broad daylight, this proved more difficult than it sounded on paper. When the signal for the assault was given, the defenders opened the wicket at the bottom of the gate and began firing directly at the sappers as they tried to carry the charge into place along the damaged bridge, only one beam of which now remained.5

  In the lead was the twenty-seven-year-old Philip Salkeld, who had been one of Edward Vibart’s companions in the escape from that same gate on the evening of 11 May, and who in the days of wandering that followed had honourably donated his shoes to Annie Forrest. Now he led the explosion party’s precarious charge over the remaining beam, holding the fuses that were intended to set off the powder. Four men followed carrying the explosive bag into place; seven others, including Salkeld, were supposed to nail it to the wooden door of the gate and set the fuses and slow matches than would detonate it.

  As Salkeld’s party neared the gate, the defenders opened fire at point blank range through the wicket and down from the loopholes. First one of the sappers, then a second and a third and a fourth were shot down as they tried to nail the powder to the door. Within a few seconds, all the party except three were either killed or severely wounded, while Salkeld was mortally injured with two terrible wounds. But one of the three survivors, Sergeant Smith, although also badly wounded, still managed to relight the extinguished fuse and throw himself under the bridge as the charge went off, blowing the right leaf of the double gates off its hinge. One of the other survivors was the bugler, Hawthorne, who sounded the advance from the shelter of the ditch, giving the signal for the British troops to charge and take the gate.6

  It was now a quarter to six. The troops of the third column had been lying flat, just inside Qudsia Bagh, out of range of the muskets, waiting impatiently for the bugle call. But such was the noise of musketry from the walls that Hawthorne’s first two bugle calls were not audible; only the third was faintly heard. One of those waiting for the sound was the angry and violent Anglo-Irish Protestant, Lieutenant Kendal Coghill, who had been dreaming dreams of vengeance and retribution for months up on the Ridge. Now, he wrote to his father, the moment had come, and ‘bloodthirsty and eager as I was for it, a species of wildness and madness came over me, knowing that the quicker the rush, the nearer the enemy, and earlier the revenge’.

  I took a firm bite of the pistol bullet in my mouth which was there to keep the mouth moist, and with a devil’s yell, I rushed from under cover. The musketry poured in like rain, and men kept falling on every side of me, but I thought my life charmed and they could not touch me. The curses, moans and execrations of the wounded and dying, cursing their fate at being left outside and not being able to revenge themselves, was pitiable in the extreme and they rolled and writhed in agony.

  We were to have stormed the left but the fire on the right was so heavy that all the ladder party there were shot down, so we … rushed to the right [to take their place]. After that I felt like a drunken man. I just remember putting my sword back and seizing the ladders and throwing them down into the ditch, but the ladders were only 8 feet and the ditch we found was 20 feet deep. In the excitement we dropped below and the ladders reached the berm on the other side, and up we rushed.

  The brutes fought till we regularly hacked and cut our way through them with sword and bayonet. Unfortunately the first thing my sword struck was the body of a colour sergeant of mine just along side of me on the next ladder who was shot and fell on my sword. But the next moment it was shivering through a Pandy, and then another. All order and formation was over and we cut and hacked wherever we could. I never thought of drawing my pistol, but poked, thrusted and hacked, till my arms were tired.7

  Ten minutes of desperate hand-to-hand fighting later, the gate and the main guard enclosure had fallen to the British, and the Union Jack fluttered above the archway.8 But even fiercer resistance was met a little farther down the street at Skinner’s haveli, opposite St James’s Church. This had been fortified by the Nasirabad troops, who had used it as their headquarters throughout the siege. Others had taken up position firing over the low churchyard wall of St James’s.9 Both parties now let loose such a storm of grape and musketry that they managed to kill many of the front ranks of the British before retiring – Sa’id Mubarak Shah thought maybe as many as three or four hundred British troops fell between the Kashmiri Gate and the Skinner haveli.10 But since all three of the British columns were now concentrating their fire at the house and the churchyard, the Nasirabad sepoys had no option but to retreat, taking their guns with them.

  Outside, in the open space facing St James’s Church, Nicholson now gathered the troops of the three columns.11 Realising, however, that much of his own column had already set off along the walls without him, and without wishing to pause to allow time for the rebels to regroup, Nicholson took what remained of his party and headed off westwards along the parapet. His aim was to catch up with his lost troops, and to capture the Kabul and Lahore gates as quickly as possible. There they would join up with the fourth column, under Major Reid, which was supposed to have fought its way down from Hindu Rao’s House, through the suburb of Kishenganj. In this way, according to Wilson’s plan, the British would gain control of the whole northern and western perimeter of the city by lunchtime.

  Theo, meanwhile, set off with the second column, largely made up of Gurkhas, whom he guided through the backstreets in the direction of the Jama Masjid. The third column made its way south-east towards the Red Fort by way of the Delhi College. As the troops set off, General Wilson came in from Ludlow Castle, from the roof of which he had watched the assault, and set up his headquarters in the wreck of Skinner’s gutted haveli. A canteen and field hospital were established nearby inside St James’s Church.

  It was at this point – just after seven in the morning – that things suddenly began to go badly wrong for the British. It had been presumed that getting within the walls was going to be the most difficult part of the assault, and this feat had now been achieved, with relatively low losses, and ahead of schedule. But it was the next stage – advancing through the streets – which was actually to prove far more costly. Once the British were known to be advancing on the Fort, it had been expected that the sepoys’ nerve would fail and they would sooner or later turn and flee. Not only did this not happen, but the rebel forces now counter-attacked and fought back with such astonishing force that they very nearly succeeded in driving the British out of the city and back up to the Ridge. Bakht Khan and Mirza Mughal had made their preparations well. As Fred Roberts succinctly put it, ‘from this time, we suffered severely’.12

  Charles Griffiths was with the column that was heading southwards towards the Fort. They had just begun to advance slowly through the gardens of the wrecked and looted Delhi College when they walked straight into an ambush. Suddenly,

  from every window and door, from loopholes in the buildings, and from the tops of the houses, a storm of musketry saluted us on every side, while every now and then, when passing the corner of a street, field guns loaded with grape discharged their contents into the column. Officers and men fell fast. This only served to exasperate the remainder … who after some severe skirmishing, cleared the gardens and houses of the rebels, and bayoneted all who were found there.

  So severe were their losses, however, that the column gave up any attem
pt to advance farther, and began to fortify the College as their front-line strongpoint.

  Theo’s column was drawn farther into the town before they found themselves cornered by the jihadis. Theo had been picking his way gingerly through the back lanes, losing men to snipers and occasional flurries of grapeshot. The streets were almost deserted, and initially they came across surprisingly little resistance. They passed nervously over Chandni Chowk, and advanced through an eerie silence as far as the north gate of the Jama Masjid.

  They had just realised that they had brought no powder charges to blow open the mosque gates, when in the silence the doors slowly opened of their own accord, and the massed jihadis waiting inside emerged screaming down the steps. According to Sa’id Mubarak Shah, the jihadis ‘hurled themselves upon the English who, overmatched, fell back with the loss of two guns’, and around forty dead.13 As the British retreated back into Chandni Chowk, the jihadis were supported by a field gun brought over from the Lahore Gate, which fired down the length of the bazaar and landed a shell directly ‘in the midst of the English column, killing and wounding upwards of fifty of them’.14

  The remains of Theo’s force lingered for half an hour in Chandni Chowk, trying to fend off the axes and swords of the jihadis, hoping that Griffiths’ column, which was now supposed to rendezvous with them, would come to their rescue. But when thirty minutes had passed, and it became clear that the other column had also run into trouble, the order was given to retreat to the Kashmiri Gate.15

  While this was happening, up on the city walls, Nicholson’s force had also found themselves in severe difficulties. During the taking of the Kashmiri Gate, the column had split up and Nicholson had lost most of his troops, as they had continued forwards along the walls without him. Richard Barter was one of these: he made his way gingerly, darting from arched recess to arched recess, along the base of the city walls. ‘Into these we used to rush every time we saw the port fires being put to the guns which we ran across every now and then raking down the road. When the storm of grape had flown past, and before they could be reloaded, we used to take them with a rush and bayonet and shoot the gunners.’ Every so often, Barter’s party would stop to attack houses containing sepoys, surprise and kill them all, and then continue on along the foot of the walls.16

  Others took a more careless approach to the danger. ‘On we rushed [along the parapet],’ wrote Lieutenant Arthur Moffat Lang in his diary, ‘shouting and cheering, while the grape and musketry from each bend, and from every street leading to our left, and from rampart and housetop, knocked down men and officers’.

  It was exciting to madness and I felt no feeling but to rush on: I only wondered how much longer I could go on unhit when the whole air seemed full of bullets … We took tower after tower, gun after gun, never stopping … We poured past the Kabul Gate and we went along until we nearly reached the Lahore; then a short check was given by a barricade with a gun firing grape from behind it. Brig Jones came up and called for the Engineer officer, and asked where the Kabul gate was … “Far behind,” I said. “We shall have the Lahore presently.” Alas he declared that his orders were to stop at the Kabul …

  As long as we rushed on cheering and never stopping, all went well. But the check was sad: the men crouching behind corners, and in the archways which support the ramparts, gradually nursed a panic. One by one they tried to get back: we stopped them and staved off the flight for half an hour, but at last out they all came, and sweeping back the officers, made for the Kabul Gate.17

  Grapeshot from the heavy guns massed on the Lahore Gate and the Burn Bastion, and manned by Bakht Khan’s Bareilly troops, was now sweeping the parapet and walls, and a full-scale retreat looked imminent. It was at this point that Nicholson appeared on the street below and tried to salvage the situation. Calling the terrified troops down to ground level and rallying them, he drew his sword and, despite the musketry and grapeshot, charged straight up the narrow street with the wall to his right and houses to the left, calling for the men to follow. Halfway up the street, he realised he was alone, and turned to call to the troops to support him. As he hesitated, still waving his sword in his hand, a sepoy sniper, probably on the Burn Bastion, fired down on him. The ball entered Nicholson’s chest, just below the exposed armpit. One of the other fusiliers who had belatedly come up, pointed out that he had been hit. ‘Yes, yes,’ replied Nicholson irritably, before sinking to the ground.18

  He was carried back to the Kabul Gate, where two doolie bearers were instructed to take him up to the field hospital on the Ridge. In the growing chaos, however, as the British assault stumbled to a halt, and as every one of the different columns fell back in disorder, the bearers abandoned the injured general by the side of the street. Some time later, Fred Roberts happened to be passing: ‘While riding through the Kashmir Gate,’ he wrote, ‘I observed by the side of the road a doolie without bearers, and evidently with a wounded man inside.’

  I dismounted to see if I could be of any use to the occupant, when I found to my grief and consternation, that it was [the dying] John Nicholson. He told me that the bearers had put the doolie down and gone off to plunder; that he was in great pain, and wished to be taken to the hospital. He was lying on his back, no wound visible, and but for the pallor on his face, always colourless, there was no sign of the agony he must have been enduring. On my expressing a hope that he was not seriously wounded, he said: ‘I am dying; there is no hope for me.’ The sight of that great man lying helpless and on the point of death was almost more than I could bear. Other men had daily died around me, friends and comrades had been killed beside me, but I never felt as I felt then – to lose Nicholson seemed to me at that moment to lose everything.19

  By noon, British spirits were sinking fast, as the exhilaration of having got inside the walls gave way to a growing realisation of the scale of the forces still ranged against them, and the strength of the rebels’ determination to resist them: ‘it was clear’, wrote a surprised Colonel George Bourchier, ‘that the enemy intended to dispute every street, foot by foot, with us’.20

  The British now had control of just over a quarter of the city, but that quarter had cost them the largest losses they had yet suffered. No one had anticipated anything approaching the scale of the casualties that the Field Force were now taking: nearly a third of those who lined up to assault the city at dawn were dead by sunset – a loss of around 1,100 men and 60 officers, including Annie Forrest’s sweetheart, Harry Gambier. Another casualty was Hervey Greathed, who had succumbed not to bullets but to cholera.

  By now the field hospital on the Ridge was a scene of indescribable horror. Padre Rotton moved from bed to bed, trying to comfort the dying while ‘surgeons and apothecaries [were] all busily engaged in operating. Almost every kind of amputation was performed: legs and arms, and even fingers, bloodless and shrivelled, no longer members of their respective bodies, lay carelessly on the ground’.21 In the wards, the bodies of the wounded lay piled up, two or three to a single charpoy. Edward Vibart was there too, still smarting from being kept in the reserve and deprived of the chance to take part in the storm:

  I above all others ought to have taken my place in the storming. But it was ordained by Providence that I should stop in camp and attend to the unfortunate wounded and dying men. Every minute poor fellows were brought in and I never witnessed such horrors. It made my heart ache to see those ghastly sights … I went to ask after our poor major who had had his leg amputated, and all I saw was his body sewn up in a blanket … The insurgents fought desperately. One of their batteries we were thrice repulsed from, and I believe we have not taken it yet.22

  Spirits were no higher in the British headquarters in Skinner’s House, where the full desperation of the situation was beginning to dawn on the headquarters staff. ‘About 12 I got some breakfast in the church,’ wrote Fred Roberts to his parents, ‘through which the round shot were coming pretty fast, and such a number of woebegone faces I think I have never seen before in my life’.


  Every column had been obliged to retreat. Our best officer by ten thousand times, poor Nicholson, I had just seen put in a doolie with death on his face, and … no one seemed fit for anything. All of the old officers were completely at their wits end. To make matters worse, whether designedly I know not, but the shops with beer and brandy had all been left open and several of our men got drunk, others could not find their Regiments, and all were done up with the hard work we had had for the previous 5 or 6 days …

  I dropped off to sleep, and notwithstanding all the noise, never awoke till sunset … [then] went around our positions. All the posts were in disorder. No rations had found their way into town. The poor devils of cook boys could not be persuaded to come in – the fire was so heavy from every corner. Europeans were drunk, and natives out plundering.23

  Hodson was horrified by the speed with which both the discipline and the morale of the army seemed to have collapsed. ‘For the first time in my life,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘I have lived to see English soldiers refuse repeatedly to follow their officers. The fact is that the troops are utterly demoralised by hard work and hard drink.’24 Worse still, General Wilson seemed to have lost all confidence in his assault, and was actively contemplating retreat. ‘Wilson is fairly broken down by fatigue and anxiety,’ wrote Hodson, ‘he cannot [even] stand on his legs.’25

  By mid-afternoon, still more alarming news still came in: the fourth column under Major Reid had not only failed to take the Lahore Gate, but after the Maharaja of Kashmir’s troops attached to Reid’s force had bolted, Reid had had to retreat back to Hindu Rao’s House in the face of a determined counter-attack under Bakht Khan and his Bareilly troops, ‘supported by a mass of ghazis from the Bareilly and Nimach camps’.26 Another section of the same brigade had also launched a spirited counter-attack at sunset within the walls of the Mori Bastion ‘in great numbers’, and continued to probe forwards during the night.27