by G. A. Henty
Chapter 8: The Grand Assault.
The 14th of November was a Mohammedan festival, and Riza Sahibdetermined to utilize the enthusiasm and fanatic zeal, which such anoccasion always excites among the followers of the Prophet, to makehis grand assault upon Arcot, and to attack at three o'clock in themorning. Every preparation was made on the preceding day, and fourstrong columns told off for the assault. Two of these were to attackby the breaches, the other two at the gates. Rafts were prepared toenable the party attacking by the new breach to cross the moat, whilethe columns advancing against the gates were to be preceded byelephants, who, with iron plates on their foreheads, were to chargeand batter down the gates.
Clive's spies brought him news of the intended assault, and atmidnight he learned full particulars as to the disposition of theenemy. His force was now reduced to eighty Europeans, and a hundredand twenty Sepoys. Every man was told off to his post, and then,sentries being posted to arouse them at the approach of the enemy, thelittle garrison lay down in their places, to get two or three hours'sleep before the expected attack.
At three o'clock, the firing of three shells from the mortars into thefort gave the signal for assault. The men leaped up and stood to theirarms, full of confidence in their ability to resist the attack. Soonthe shouts of the advancing columns testified to the equal confidenceand ardour of the assailants.
Not a sound was heard within the walls of the fort, until theelephants advanced towards the gates. Then suddenly a stream of fireleaped out from loophole and battlement. So well directed andcontinuous was the fire, that the elephants, dismayed at the outburstof fire and noise, and smarting from innumerable wounds, turned anddashed away, trampling in their flight multitudes of men in the densecolumns packed behind them. These, deprived of the means upon whichthey had relied to break in the gates, turned and retreated rapidly.
Scarcely less prolonged was the struggle at the breaches. At the firstbreach, a very strong force of the enemy marched resolutely forward.They were permitted, without a shot being fired at them, to cross thedry ditch, mount the shattered debris of the wall, and pour into theinterior of the fort. Forward they advanced until, without a check,they reached the first trench bristling with spikes.
Then, as they paused for a moment, from the breastwork in front ofthem, from the ramparts, and every spot which commanded the trench, astorm of musketry was poured on them; while the gunners swept thecrowded mass with grape, and bags of bullets. The effect wastremendous. Mowed down in heaps, the assailants recoiled; and then,without a moment's hesitation, turned and fled. Three times, stronglyreinforced, they advanced to the attack; but were each time repulsed,with severe slaughter.
Still less successful were those at the other breach. A great raft,capable of carrying seventy, conveyed the head of the storming partyacross the ditch; and they had just reached the foot of the breach,when Clive, who was himself at this point, turned two field piecesupon them, with deadly effect. The raft was upset and smashed, and thecolumn, deprived of its intended means of crossing the ditch, desistedfrom the attack.
Among those who had fallen, at the great breach, was the commander ofthe storming party; a man of great valour. Four hundred of hisfollowers had also been killed, and Riza Sahib, utterly disheartenedat his repulse at all points, decided not to renew the attack. He hadstill more than twenty men to each of the defenders; but the obstinacyof their resistance, and the moral effect produced by it upon histroops; the knowledge that the Mahratta horse were hovering in hisrear, and that Kilpatrick's little column was close at hand;determined him to raise the siege.
After the repulse of the assault, the heavy musketry fire from thehouses around the fort was continued. At two in the afternoon he askedfor two hours' truce, to bury the dead. This was granted, and on itsconclusion the musketry fire was resumed, and continued until two inthe morning. Then suddenly, it ceased. Under cover of the fire, RizaSahib had raised the siege, and retired with his army to Vellore.
On the morning of the 15th, Clive discovered that the enemy haddisappeared. The joy of the garrison was immense. Every man feltproud, and happy in the thought that he had taken his share in asiege, which would not only be memorable in English history till theend of time, but which had literally saved India to us. The littleband made the fort re-echo with their cheers, when the news came in.Caps were thrown high in the air, and the men indulged in everydemonstration of delight.
Clive was not a man to lose time. The men were at once formed up, andmarched into the abandoned camp of the enemy; where they found fourguns, four mortars, and a great quantity of ammunition. A cloud ofdust was seen approaching, and soon a mounted officer, riding forward,announced the arrival of Captain Kilpatrick's detachment.
Not a moment was lost, for Clive felt the importance of, at once,following up the blow inflicted by the repulse of the enemy. Threedays were spent, in continuous labour, in putting the fort of Arcotagain in a position of defence; and, leaving Kilpatrick in chargethere, he marched out with two hundred Europeans, seven hundredSepoys, and three guns, and attacked and took Timari, the little fortwhich before baffled him.
This done, he returned towards Arcot to await the arrival of athousand Mahratta horse, which Murari Reo had promised him. When thesearrived, however, they proved unwilling to accompany him. Upon theirway, they had fallen in with a portion of Riza Sahib's retreatingforce, and had been worsted in the attack; and as the chance ofplunder seemed small, while the prospect of hard blows was certain,the free-booting horsemen refused, absolutely, to join in the pursuitof the retreating enemy.
Just at this moment, the news came in that reinforcements fromPondicherry were marching to meet Riza Sahib at Arni, a placeseventeen miles south of Arcot, twenty south of Vellore. It was statedthat, with these reinforcements, a large sum of money was beingbrought, for the use of Riza Sahib's army. When the Mahrattas heardthe news, the chance of booty at once altered their intentions, andthey declared themselves ready to follow Clive. The greater portion ofthem, however, had dispersed, plundering over the country, and greatdelay was caused before they could be collected. When six hundred ofthem had been brought together, Clive determined to wait no longer,but started at once for Arni.
The delay enabled Riza Sahib, marching down from Vellore, to meet hisreinforcements; and when Clive, after a forced march of twenty miles,approached Arni, he found the enemy, composed of three hundred Frenchtroops, two thousand five hundred Sepoys, and two thousand horsemen,with four guns, drawn up before it. Seeing their immense superiorityin numbers, these advanced to the attack.
Clive determined to await them where he stood. The position was anadvantageous one. He occupied a space of open ground, some threehundred yards in width. On his right flank was a village, on the lefta grove of palm trees. In front of the ground he occupied were ricefields, which, it being the wet season, were very swampy, andaltogether impracticable for guns. These fields were crossed by acauseway which led to the village, but as it ran at an angle acrossthem, those advancing upon it were exposed to the fire of the Englishfront. Clive posted the Sepoys in the village, the Mahratta horsemenin the grove, and the two hundred English, with the guns, on theground between them.
The enemy advanced at once. His native cavalry, with some infantry,marched against the grove; while the French troops, with about fifteenhundred infantry, moved along the causeway against the village.
The fight began on the English left. There the Mahratta cavalry foughtbravely. Issuing from the palm grove, they made repeated chargesagainst the greatly superior forces of the enemy. But numbers told,and the Mahrattas, fighting fiercely, were driven back into the palmgrove; where they, with difficulty, maintained themselves.
In the meantime, the fight was going on at the centre. Clive openedfire with his guns on the long column marching, almost across hisfront, to attack the village. The enemy, finding themselves exposed toa fire which they were powerless to answer, quitted the causeway, andformed up in the rice fields fronting the English position. The guns,pro
tected only by a few Frenchmen and natives, remained on thecauseway.
Clive now despatched two of his guns, and fifty English, to aid thehard-pressed Mahrattas in the grove; and fifty others to the village,with orders to join the Sepoys there, to dash forward on to thecauseway, and charge the enemy's guns.
As the column issued from the village along the causeway, at a rapidpace, the French limbered up their guns and retired at a gallop. Theinfantry, dispirited at their disappearance, fell back across the ricefields; an example which their horsemen on their right, alreadydispirited by the loss which they were suffering, from thenewly-arrived English musketry and the discharges of the field pieces,followed without delay.
Clive at once ordered a pursuit. The Mahrattas were despatched afterthe enemy's cavalry, while he himself, with his infantry, advancedacross the causeway and pressed upon the main body. Three times theenemy made a stand, but each time failed to resist the impetuosity ofthe pursuers, and the night alone put a stop to the pursuit, by whichtime the enemy were completely routed.
The material loss had not been heavy, for but fifty French and ahundred and fifty natives were killed or wounded; but the army wasbroken up, the morale of the enemy completely destroyed; and it wasproved to all Southern India, which was anxiously watching thestruggle, that the English were, in the field of battle, superior totheir European rivals. This assurance alone had an immense effect. Itconfirmed, in their alliance with the English, many of the chiefswhose friendship had hitherto been lukewarm; and brought over manywaverers to our side.
In the fight, eight Sepoys and fifty of the Mahratta cavalry werekilled or disabled. The English did not lose a single man. Many ofRiza Sahib's soldiers came in, during the next few days, and enlistedin the British force. The Mahrattas captured the treasure, theprospect of which had induced them to join in the fight, and thegovernor of Arni agreed to hold the town for Muhammud Ali.
Clive moved on at once to Conjeveram, where thirty French troops andthree hundred Sepoys occupied the temple, a very strong building.Clive brought up two eighteen-pounders from Madras, and pounded thewalls; and the enemy, seeing that the place must fall, evacuated it inthe night, and retired to Pondicherry. North Arcot being nowcompletely in the power of the English, Clive returned to Madras; andthen sailed to Fort Saint David, to concert measures with Mr. Saundersfor the relief of Trichinopoli. This place still held out, thanksrather to the feebleness and indecision of Colonel Law, who commandedthe besiegers, than to any effort on the part of the defenders.
Governor Dupleix, at Pondicherry, had seen with surprise the result ofClive's dash upon Arcot. He had, however, perceived that theoperations there were wholly secondary, and that Trichinopoli wasstill the all-important point. The fall of that place would more thanneutralize Clive's successes at Arcot; and he, therefore, did notsuffer Clive's operations to distract his attention here. Strongreinforcements and a battering train were sent forward to thebesiegers; and, by repeated messages, he endeavoured to impress uponLaw and Chunda Sahib the necessity of pressing forward the capture ofTrichinopoli.
But Dupleix was unfortunate in his instruments. Law was alwayshesitating and doubting. Chunda Sahib, although clever to plan, wasweak in action; indecisive, at moments when it was most necessary thathe should be firm. So then, in spite of the entreaties of Dupleix, hehad detached a considerable force to besiege Clive. Dupleix, seeingthis, and hoping that Clive might be detained at Arcot long enough toallow of the siege of Trichinopoli being brought to a conclusion, hadsent the three hundred French soldiers to strengthen the force of RizaSahib.
He had still an overpowering force at Trichinopoli, Law having ninehundred trained French soldiers, a park of fifty guns, two thousandSepoys, and the army of Chunda Sahib, twenty thousand strong. InsideTrichinopoli were a few English soldiers under Captain Cope, and asmall body of troops of Muhammud Ali; while outside the walls, betweenthem and the besiegers, was the English force under Gingen, the menutterly dispirited, the officer without talent, resolution, orconfidence.
Before leaving the troops with which he had won the battle of Arni,Clive had expressed, to the two young writers, his high appreciationof their conduct during the siege of Arcot; and promised them that hewould make it a personal request, to the authorities at Fort SaintDavid, that they might be permanently transferred from the civil tothe military branch of the service; and such a request, made by him,was certain to be complied with. He strongly advised them to spendevery available moment of their time in the study of the nativelanguage; as, without that, they would be useless if appointed tocommand a body of Sepoys.
Delighted at the prospect, now open to them, of a permanent relieffrom the drudgery of a clerk's life in Madras, the young fellows werein the highest spirits; and Tim Kelly was scarcely less pleased, whenhe heard that Charlie was now likely to be always employed with him.The boys lost not a moment in sending down to Madras, to engage theservices of a native "moonshee" or teacher. They wrote to their friendJohnson, asking him to arrange terms with the man who understood mostEnglish, and to engage him to remain with them some time.
A few days later, Tim Kelly came in.
"Plase, yer honors, there's a little shrivelled atomy of a manoutside, as wants to spake wid ye. He looks for all the world like amonkey, wrapped up in white clothes, but he spakes English after afashion, and has brought this letter for you. The cratur scarce lookslike a human being, and I misdoubt me whether you had better let himin."
"Nonsense, Tim," Charlie said, opening the letter; "it's the moonsheewe are expecting, from Madras. He has come to teach us the nativelanguage."
"Moonshine, is it! By jabers, and it's a mighty poor compliment to themoon to call him so. And is it the language you're going to larn now?Shure, Mr. Charles, I wouldn't demane myself by larning the lingo ofthese black hathens. Isn't for them to larn the English, and mightypleased they ought to be, to get themselves to spake like Christians."
"But who's going to teach them, Tim?"
"Oh, they larn fast enough," said Tim. "You've only got to point to abottle of water, or to the fire, or whatever else you want, and swearat them, and they understand directly. I've tried it myself, over andover again."
"There, Tim, it's no use standing talking any longer. Bring in themoonshee."
From that moment, the little man had his permanent post in a corner ofthe boys' room; and, when they were not on duty, they were constantlyengaged in studying the language, writing down the names of everyobject they came across and getting it by heart, and learning everysentence, question, and answer which occurred to them as likely to beuseful.
As for Tim, he quite lost patience at this devotion to study on thepart of his master; who, he declared to his comrades, went on just asif he intended to become a nigger and a hathen himself.
"It's just awful to hear him, Corporal M'Bean, jabbering away in thatforeign talk, with that little black monkey moonshine. The littlecratur a-twisting his shrivelled fingers about, that looks as if thebones were coming through the skin. I wonder what the good father atBlarney, where I come from, you know, Corporal, would say to sichgoings on. Faith, then, and if he were here, I'd buy a bottle of holywater, and sprinkle it over the little hathen. I suspict he'd flystraight up the chimney, when it touched him."
"My opinion of you, Tim Kelly," the corporal, who was a graveScotchman, said; "is that you're just a fule. Your master is a braveyoung gentleman, and is a deal more sensible than most of them, whospend all their time in drinking wine and playing cards. A knowledgeof the language is most useful. What would you do, yourself, if youwere to marry a native woman, and couldn't speak to her afterwards."
"The saints defind us!" Tim exclaimed; "and what put such an idea inyer head, Corporal? It's nayther more nor less than an insult tosuppose that I, a dacent boy, and brought up under the teaching ofFather O'Shea, should marry a hathen black woman; and if you weren'tmy suparior officer, corporal, I'd tach ye better manners."
Fortunately, at this moment Charlie's voice was heard, shout
ing forhis servant; and Tim was therefore saved from the breach of the peace,which his indignation showed that he meditated.
December passed quietly; and then, in January, 1752, an insurrectionplanned by Dupleix broke out. The governor of Pondicherry had beensuffering keenly from disappointments; which, as time went on, and hisentreaties and commands to Law to attack Trichinopoli were answeredonly by excuses and reasons for delay, grew to despair; and heresolved upon making another effort to occupy the attention of the manin whom he already recognized a great rival, and to prevent his takingsteps for the relief of Trichinopoli. Law had over and over againassured him that, in the course of a very few weeks, that place wouldbe driven by famine to surrender; and, as soon as Clive arrived atFort Saint David, Dupleix set about taking steps which would againnecessitate his return to the north, and so give to Law the time whichhe asked for.
Supplies of money were sent to Riza Sahib, together with four hundredFrench soldiers. These marched suddenly upon Punemalli and capturedit, seized again the fortified temple of Conjeveram, and from thispoint threatened both Madras and Arcot.
Had this force possessed an active and determined commander, it couldundoubtedly have carried out Dupleix's instructions, captured Madras,and inflicted a terrible blow upon the English. Fortunately, it had nosuch head. It marched indeed against Madras, plundered and burnt thefactories, levied contributions, and obtained possession of everythingbut the fort; where the civilians, and the few men who constituted thegarrison, daily expected to be attacked, in which case the place musthave fallen. This, however, the enemy never even attempted, contentingthemselves with ravaging the place outside the walls of the fort.
The little garrison of Arcot, two hundred men in all, were astonishedat the news; that the province, which they had thought completelyconquered, was again in flames; that the road to Madras was cut, bythe occupation of Conjeveram by the French; and that Madras itselfwas, save the fort, in the hands of the enemy. The fort itself, theyknew, might easily be taken, as they were aware that it was defendedby only eighty men.
The change in the position was at once manifest, in the alteredattitude of the fickle population. The main body of the inhabitants ofSouthern India were Hindoos, who had for centuries been ruled byforeign masters. The Mohammedans from the north had been theirconquerors, and the countless wars which had taken place, to themsignified merely whether one family or another were to reign overthem. The sole desire was for peace and protection; and they,therefore, ever inclined towards the side which seemed strongest.Their sympathies were no stronger with their Mohammedan rulers thanwith the French or English, and they only hoped that whatever powerwas strongest might conquer; and that, after the hostilities wereover, their daily work might be conducted in peace, and their propertyand possessions be enjoyed in security. The capture and defence ofArcot, and the battle of Arni, had brought them to regard the Englishas their final victors; and the signs of deep and even servilerespect, which greeted the conquerors wherever they went, and whichabsolutely disgusted Charlie Marryat and his friend, were reallysincere marks of the welcome to masters who seemed able and willing tomaintain their rule over them.
With the news of the successes of Riza Sahib, all this changed. Thenatives no longer bent to the ground, as the English passed them inthe streets. The country people, who had flocked in with theirproducts to the markets, absented themselves altogether, and the wholepopulation prepared to welcome the French as their new masters.
In the fort, the utmost vigilance was observed. The garrison labouredto mend the breaches, and complete the preparations for defence.Provisions were again stored up, and they awaited anxiously news fromClive.
That enterprising officer was at Fort Saint David, busy in making hispreparations for a decisive campaign against the enemy roundTrichinopoli, when the news of the rising reached him. He wasexpecting a considerable number of fresh troops from England, as itwas in January that the majority of the reinforcements despatched bythe Company arrived in India; and Mr. Saunders had written toCalcutta, begging that a hundred men might be sent thence. These werenow, with the eighty men at Madras, and the two hundred at Arcot, allthe force that could be at his disposal, for at Fort Saint David therewas not a single available man.
With all the efforts that Clive, aided by the authorities, could make,it was not until the middle of February that he had completed hisarrangements. On the 9th, the hundred men arrived from Bengal, and,without the loss of a day, Clive started from Madras to form ajunction with the garrison from Arcot, who, leaving only a small forceto hold the fort, had moved down to meet him.