by G. A. Henty
Chapter 14: The Siege Of Ambur.
The victory was a complete and decisive one. A thousand of the besttroops of Murari Reo had fallen, besides some hundreds of theirirregular allies, whose loss was incurred almost wholly at the gorgein the retreat. The rajah was in the highest state of delight at thesplendid result, obtained by the European training of his troops; andthese, proud of their victory over such formidable opponents, werefull of enthusiasm for their young English leader. The rejoicings inAmbur that night were great, and all felt confident that the dangerwas at an end.
"What think you," the rajah said to Charlie, as, the long feast at anend, they sat together in the divan, smoking their narghileys, "willbe the result, when the news of the defeat of Murari Reo reachesHyderabad?"
"It is difficult to say," Charlie replied. "It is possible, of course,that it may be considered that it is better to leave you in peace;but, upon the other hand, it may be that they will consider that youare so formidable a power, that it is absolutely necessary to crushyou at once, rather than to give you the chance of joining againstthem, in the war which must sooner or later take place between themand the English. In that case, it will be a very different affair fromthat which we have had today.
"Still, I should send off a messenger tomorrow, to acquaint the nizamwith the defeat you inflicted upon the Mahrattas who have invaded you,to assure him again of your loyalty, and to beg him to lay hisauthority upon Murari Reo, not to renew the attack."
Ten days later a messenger arrived from the nizam, ordering the rajahto repair, at once, to Hyderabad, to explain his conduct. The lattersent back a message of humble excuses, saying that his health was soinjured, by the excitement of recent events, that he was unable totravel; but that, when he recovered, he would journey to Hyderabad tolay his respects at the feet of the nizam.
Two or three days later a messenger arrived from Mr. Saunders, with aletter to Charlie. In this he expressed his great satisfaction at thedefeat Murari Reo had received; a defeat which would, for some time,keep him quiet, and so relieve the strain upon the English. Affairshad, he said, since the departure of Clive for England, been goingbadly. Dupleix had received large reinforcements, and the English hadsuffered several reverses. Mr. Saunders begged him to assure the rajahof the respect and friendship of England, and to give him the promisethat, if he should be driven from his capital, he would be receivedwith all honor at Madras, and should be reinstated in his dominions,with much added territory, when the English were again in a positionto take the field in force, and to settle their long feud with theFrench.
Ten days later, they heard that the army of the nizam, of fifteenthousand troops, with eight hundred French under Bussy, were marchingagainst them; and that the horsemen of Murari Reo were devastating thevillages near the frontier. A council of war was held. Charlie wouldfain have fought in the open again, believing that his trained troops,flushed with their recent victory, would be a match even for the armyof the nizam. But the rajah and the rest of the council, alarmed atthe presence of the French troops, who had hitherto proved invincibleagainst vastly superior forces of natives, shrank from such a course;and it was decided that they should content themselves with thedefence of the town and castle.
Orders were accordingly issued that the old men, the women, andchildren should at once leave the town; and, under guard of onebattalion of troops, take refuge in an almost impregnable hill fortsome miles away. One battalion was placed in garrison in the castle.The other three, with the irregulars, took post in the town, whencethey 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 theMahratta cavalry again poured up from below.
Charlie had taken the command of the town, as it was against this thatthe efforts of the enemy would be first directed. It was an imposingsight, as the army of the nizam wound down the valley; the greatmasses of men with their gay flags, the elephants with the goldembroidery of their trappings glistening in the sun, the bands ofhorsemen careering here and there, the lines of artillery drawn bybullocks; and, less picturesque but far more menacing, the dark bodyof French infantry, who formed the nucleus and heart of the whole. Thecamp was pitched just out of range of the guns of the fort, and soonline 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 movementsof the enemy, and he presently saw a small body of horsemen ride outof the camp, and mount the hillside across the valley. A glass showedthat some of these were native officers, while others were in the darkuniform of the French.
"I have no doubt," Charlie said to the rajah, "that is the nizamhimself, with Bussy, gone up to reconnoitre the position. I wonder howhe likes the look of it. I wish we could have turfed the batteryabove, and the newly stripped land. We might, in that case, have giventhem a pleasant surprise. As it is, they are hardly likely to begin byan attack along the slopes in the rear of the town, and you will seethat they will commence the attack at the farther face of the town.The battery above cannot aid us in our defence there; and although thecastle may help, it will only be by a direct fire. If they try tocarry the place by a coup de main, I think we can beat them off, butthey 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 thetown, that farthest removed from the castle. They at once opened fire,and the guns on the walls facing them replied, while those on thecastle hurled their shot over the town into the enemy's battery. Forthree days, the artillery fire was kept up without intermission. Theguns on the wall were too weak to silence the batteries of thebesiegers, although these were much annoyed by the fire from the fort,which dismounted four of their guns, and blew up one of theirmagazines. Several times the town was set on fire by the shell fromthe French mortars; but Charlie had organized the irregulars intobands with buckets, and these succeeded in extinguishing the flamesbefore they spread.
Seeing that the mud wall of the town was crumbling rapidly before thebesiegers' fire, Charlie set his troops to work, and levelled everyhouse within fifty yards of it, and with the stones and beams formedbarricades across the end of the streets beyond. Many of the guns fromother portions of the walls were removed, and placed on thesebarricades. The ends of the houses were loopholed, and all wasprepared for a desperate defence.
Charlie's experience at Arcot stood him in good stead, and he imitatedthe measures taken by Clive at that place. When these defences werecompleted, he raised a second line of barricades some distance furtherback; and here, when the assault was expected, he placed one of hisbattalions, with orders that, if the inner line of entrenchments wascarried, they should allow all the defenders of that post to passthrough, and then resist until the town was completely evacuated, whenthey were to fall back upon the fort. He had, however, little fearthat his position would be taken at the first assault.
Upon the evening of the third day, the besiegers' fire had done itswork, and a gap in the wall some eighty yards wide was formed. Thegarrison were ordered to hold themselves in readiness, and a strictwatch was set.
Towards morning, a distant hum in the nizam's camp proclaimed that thetroops were mustering for the assault. The besiegers' guns hadcontinued their fire all night, to prevent working parties fromplacing obstacles in the breach. As the first shades of daylightappeared the fire ceased, and a great column of men poured forward tothe assault.
The few remaining guns upon the end wall opened upon them, as did theinfantry who lined the parapet, while the guns in the castle at oncejoined in. The mighty column, however, composed of the troops of thenizam, pressed forward, poured over the fragments of the wall, andentered the clear space behind it.
Then, from housetop and loophole, and fr
om the walls on either side, aconcentrated fire of musketry was poured upon them, while twelve guns,four on each barricade, swept them with grape. The head of the columnwithered away under the fire, long lines were swept through thecrowded mass; and, after a minute or two's wild firing at theirconcealed foes, the troops of the nizam, appalled and shattered by thetremendous fire, broke and fled.
The instant they had cleared the breach, the guns of the besiegersagain opened furiously upon it, to check any sortie which the besiegedmight attempt.
An hour later, the besiegers hoisted a white flag, and requested to beallowed to bury their dead, and remove their wounded. This Charlieagreed to, with the proviso that these should be carried by his ownmen beyond the breach, as he did not wish that the enemy should havean opportunity of examining the internal defences. The task occupiedsome time, as more than five hundred dead and dying lay scattered inthe open space.
During the rest of the day, the enemy showed no signs of resuming theassault. During the night they could be heard hard at work, andalthough a brisk fire was kept up to hinder them, Charlie found thatthey had pushed trenches, from the batteries, a considerable distanceround each corner of the town.
For four days the besiegers worked vigorously, harassed as they wereby the guns of the fort, and by those of the battery high up on thehillside, which were now able to take in flank the works across theupper angle of the town. At the end of that time, they had erected andarmed two batteries, which at daylight opened upon the walls whichformed the flanks of the clear space behind the breach. Althoughsuffering heavily from the fire of the besieged, and losing many men,these batteries kept up their fire unceasingly, night and day, untilgreat gaps had been made in the walls, and Charlie was obliged towithdraw his troops from them, behind the line of barricades.
During this time the fire of the batteries in front had beenunceasing, and had destroyed most of the houses which formed theconnecting line between the barricades. Each night, however, thebesieged worked to repair damages, and to fill up the gaps thus formedwith piles of stones and beams, so that, by the end of the fourth dayafter the repulse of the first assault, a line of barricades stretchedacross the line of defence.
The enemy, this time, prepared to attack by daylight, and early in themorning the whole army of the nizam marched to the assault. Heedlessof the fire of the castle, they formed up in a long line of heavymasses, along the slope. One huge column moved forward against themain breach, two advanced obliquely towards the great gaps in thewalls on either side. The latter columns were each headed by bodies ofFrench troops.
In vain the guns of the fort, aided by those of the battery on thehill, swept them. The columns advanced without a check until theyentered the breaches. Then a line of fire swept along the crest of thebarricade from end to end, and the cannon of the besieged roared out.Pressed by the mass from behind, the columns advanced, torn and rentby the fire, and at last gained the foot of the barricade.
Here, those in front strove desperately to climb up the great mound ofrubbish, while those behind covered them with a storm of bullets aimedat its summit. More than once the troops of the rajah, rushing downthe embankment, drove back the struggling masses, but so heavily didthey suffer from the fire, when they thus exposed themselves, thatCharlie forbade them to repeat the attempt. He knew that there wassafety behind, and was unwilling that his brave fellows should throwaway their lives.
In the centre of the position the native troops, although they severaltimes climbed some distance up the barricade, were yet unable to makeway. But the French troops at the flanks were steadily forcing theirway up. Many had climbed up by the ruins of the wall, and from its topwere firing down on the defenders of the barricade. Inch by inch theywon their way up the barricade, already thickly covered with dead; andthen Charlie, seeing that his men were beginning to waver, gave thesignal.
The long blast of a trumpet was heard even above the tremendous din.In an instant the barricades were deserted, and the defenders rushedinto the houses. The partition walls between these on the lower floorshad already been knocked down, and without suffering from the heavyfire which the assailants opened, as soon as they gained the crest ofthe barricade, the defenders retreated along these covered ways untilin rear of the second line of defence.
This was held by the battalion placed there, until the whole of thedefenders of the town had left it, by the gate leading up to the fort.Then Charlie withdrew this battalion also, and the town remained inthe hands of the enemy; who had lost, Charlie reckoned, fully fifteenhundred men in the assault.
During the fight Tim and the faithful Hossein, now fully recovered andpromoted to the rank of an officer, had remained close beside him; andwere, with him, the last to leave the town.
The instant the evacuation was complete, the guns of the hill batteryopened upon the town; and a tremendous fire of musketry was pouredupon it from every point of the castle which commanded it; while theguns, which from their lofty elevation, could not be depressedsufficiently to bear upon the town, directed their fire upon thebodies of troops still beyond the walls. The enemy had captured thetown, indeed, but its possession aided them but little in theirassault upon the fort. The only advantage it gave them, would havebeen that it would have enabled them to attack the lower gate of thefort, protected by its outer wall from the fire of the hill battery.Charlie had, however, perceived that this would be the case, and hadplanted a number of mines under the wall at this point. These wereexploded when the defenders of the town entered the fort, and ahundred yards of the wall were thus destroyed; leaving the space,across which the enemy must advance to the attack of the gate, exposedto the fire of the hill battery, as well as of the numerous guns ofthe fort bearing upon it.
Two days passed without any further operations on the part of theenemy; and then Bussy, seeing that nothing whatever could be donetowards assaulting the fortress, so long as the battery remained inthe hands of the besieged, determined to make a desperate effort tocarry it, ignorant of its immense strength. At night, therefore, heordered two bodies of men, each fifteen hundred strong, to mount thehillside, far to the right and left of the town; to move along at thefoot of the wall of rock, and to carry the battery by storm atdaybreak.
Charlie, believing that such an attempt would be made, had upon theday following the fall of the town taken his post there, and hadordered a most vigilant watch to be kept up, each night; placingsentries some hundred yards away, on either side, to give warning ofthe approach of an enemy.
Towards daybreak on the third morning a shot upon the left, followed afew seconds later by one on the right, told that the enemy wereapproaching. A minute or two afterwards the sentries ran in, climbedfrom the ditch by ladders which had been placed there for the purpose,and, hauling these up after them, were soon in the battery, with thenews that large bodies of the enemy were approaching on either flank.Scarcely were the garrison at their posts, when the French were seenapproaching. At once they broke into a run, and, gallantly led, dashedacross the space of cleared rock, in spite of the heavy fire ofmusketry and grape.
When they came, however, to the edge of the deep gulf in the solidrock, they paused. They had had no idea of meeting with such anobstacle as this. It was easy enough to leap down, but impossible toclimb up the steep face, ten feet high, in front of them; and which,in the dim light, could be plainly seen. It was, however, impossiblefor those in front to pause. Pressed upon by those behind, who did notknow what was stopping them, large numbers were compelled to jump intothe trench, where they found themselves unable either to advance orretreat.
By this time, every gun on the upper side of the castle had opened onthe assailing columns, taking them in flank, while the fire of thebattery was continued without a moment's intermission. Bussy himself,who was commanding one of the columns, pushed his way through hisstruggling soldiers to the edge of the trench; when, seeing theimpossibility of scaling the sides, unprovided as he was with scalingladders, he gave the orders to retreat; and the columns, harassed
bythe flanking fire of the guns of the castle, and pursued by that ofthe battery, retreated, having lost some hundreds of their number;besides a hundred and fifty of their best men, prisoners in the deeptrench around the battery.
These were summoned to surrender; and, resistance being impossible,they at once laid down their arms. Ladders were lowered to them, andthey were marched as prisoners to the fort.
The next morning, when the defenders of the fortress looked over thevalley, the great camp was gone. The nizam and Bussy, despairing ofthe possibility of carrying the position, at once so enormously strongby nature, and so gallantly defended, had raised the siege; which hadcost them over two thousand of their best soldiers, including twohundred French killed and prisoners, and retreated to the plateau ofthe Deccan.
The exultation of the rajah and his troops was unbounded. They feltthat, now and henceforth, they were safe from another invasion; andthe rajah saw that, in the future, he should be able to gain greatlyincreased territory, as the ally of the English. His gratitude toCharlie was unbounded, and he literally loaded him with costlypresents.
Three weeks later, a letter was received by the latter from Mr.Saunders, congratulating him upon the inestimable service which he hadrendered, and appointing him to the rank of captain in the Company'sservice. Now that the rajah would be able to protect himself, shouldany 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 adefeat, which had already so greatly injured their prestige--he hadbetter return to Madras, where, as Mr. Saunders said, the services ofso capable an officer were greatly needed. He warned him, however, tobe careful in the extreme how he made his way back, as the country wasin a most disturbed state, the Mahratta bands being everywhere outplundering and burning.
Subsequent information, that the Mahrattas were swarming in the plainsbelow, determined Charlie to accept an offer which the rajah made him;that he should, under a strong escort, cross the mountains, and makehis 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. Therajah promised to send Charlie's horses and other presents down toMadras, when an opportunity should offer; and Charlie, accompanied bythe four Sepoys, all of whom had been promoted to the rank ofofficers; by Tim Kelly and Hossein, who would not separate himself amoment from his side, started from Ambur, with an escort of thirtyhorsemen.
The rajah was quite affected at the parting; and the army, which hehad formed and organized, paraded before him for the last time, andthen shouted their farewell.
Charlie himself, although glad to return among his countrymen, fromwhom he had been nearly two years separated, was yet sorry to leavethe many friends he had made. His position was now a very differentone from that which he held when he left Madras. Then he was a newlymade lieutenant, who had distinguished himself, indeed, under Clive,but who was as yet unknown save to his commander, and who was as pooras when he had landed, eighteen months before, in India. Now he hadgained a name for himself, and his successful defence of Ambur hadbeen of immense service to the Company. He was, too, a wealthy man;for the presents in money, alone, of the rajah, had amounted to overtwenty-five thousand pounds; a sum which, in these days, may appearextraordinary, but which was small to that frequently bestowed, bywealthy native princes, upon British officers who had done them a goodservice. Clive himself, after his short campaign, had returned toEngland 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 flatcountry dotted with villages, beyond which extended the long blue lineof the sea. The distance was greater than Charlie imagined, and 'twasonly after two days' long ride that he reached Calicut, where he wasreceived with great honor by the rajah, to whom the leader of theescort brought letters of introduction from the Rajah of Ambur.
For four days Charlie remained as his guest, and then took a passagein a large native vessel, bound for Ceylon, whence he would have nodifficulty in obtaining passage to Madras.
These native ships are very high out of water, rising considerablytowards the stem and stern, and in form they somewhat resemble theChinese junk; but are without the superabundance of grotesquepainting, carving, and gilding which distinguish the latter. The rajahaccompanied Charlie to the shore, and a salute was fired, by hisfollowers, in honor of the departure of the guest.
The weather was lovely, and the clumsy craft, with all sail set, wassoon running down the coast. When they had sailed some hours fromCalicut, from behind a headland, four vessels suddenly made theirappearance. They were lower in the water, and much less clumsy inappearance than the ordinary native craft, and were propelled not onlyby their sails, but by a number of oars on each side.
No sooner did the captain and crew of the ship behold these vessels,than they raised a cry of terror and despair. The captain, who waspart owner of the craft, ran up and down the deck like one possessed,and the sailors seemed scarcely less terrified.
"What on earth is the matter?" Charlie exclaimed. "What vessels arethose, and why are you afraid of them?"
"Tulagi Angria! Tulagi Angria!" the captain cried, and the crew tookup the refrain.
The name that they uttered fully accounted for their terror.