Sahib (49 page)

The attack on a fortress of any size usually called for a ritual as arcane as the war dance of a tribe of South Sea islanders, and mirrored the techniques of siegecraft developed in late-seventeenth-century Europe. First, the attacker would try to mask the fortress, cutting it off from communications with the outside. This was more
easily said than done in India, where fortresses were often vast and attacking armies small: at Delhi, for example, the British had no chance of encircling the city, and were hard-pressed to maintain their position on the ridge. A camp would be constructed for the besiegers, and artillery and engineer parks would be established to contain the specialist equipment required. A battering train of heavy pieces would be summoned from a major arsenal such as Allahabad, and once it reached the camp operations could begin in earnest.

The chief engineer would advise the commander on the favoured approach and, working under cover of darkness, the attackers would establish a ‘first parallel’ of trenches opposite the point of attack. Zigzag saps would then be driven ever-closer to the walls, until another parallel could be dug: the process was then repeated to give a third parallel. Guns were emplaced to suppress the fire of the defence, and eventually breaching batteries were established so that heavy guns could engage the main wall. While these heavy guns chipped away at the masonry, trying to establish a long groove or cannelure at the wall’s base which would eventually bring the whole mass down into the ditch, mortars lobbed explosive shells (called bombs) into the body of the place, hoping to set off one of the defenders’ ammunition magazines.

Although all this work went on under the direction of engineers, the real burden of the siege fell on the infantry, who furnished endless working parties to dig trenches, shift earth, and fill the wicker gabions which protected the fronts of batteries. Once practicable breaches had been established, the governor might be given a last chance to surrender. If he refused, then the attackers would attempt to storm the breaches, spearheading their assault with volunteers or picked troops – the ‘forlorn hope’ – and possibly mounting diversionary attacks elsewhere.

John Clark Kennedy watched the siege train arrive before Multan in 1848:

Such a curious sight! First came the escort and the twenty-four pounders each drawn by twenty magnificent bullocks with an elephant behind each one. This put down its head and gave the gun a shove whenever they got to a steep place. In the rear came the smaller guns and mortars; then the stores, and finally
the ammunitions camels carrying thousands of rounds of ammunition on their backs.
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Clark Kennedy was witnessing the end of a difficult journey, for hauling a siege train along Indian roads was no easy business, as Charles Callwell discovered in 1879:

The armament of the battery consisted of a couple of muzzle-loading 40-pounders, each of which was drawn ordinarily by two elephants with a spare elephant kept handy to hook in on occasion, and of a couple of 6.3-inch howitzers, each of which was drawn by a team of sixteen bullocks – or
‘bhails’
in native parlance. A couple of sixteen-
bhail
teams were also kept in reserve, that were intended to be attached to the 40-pounders in case of the battery going into action against the enemy; for elephants are intelligent animals, and entertain a strong objection to the ping of a bullet, and they are consequently prone to quit the battlefield in haste when the affray begins; they are, moreover, somewhat difficult to conceal while fighting is in progress. Besides the guns and howitzers, the battery has its limbered ammunition wagons, drawn by
bhails … 
Even when this imposing caravan was properly closed up in column of route on a level road, it of necessity extended several hundred yards from head to tail. When it had been elongated by those accidents and hitches that are inseparable from the progress of a chain of vehicles which is making a progress through a difficult country, the caravan extended for miles.

The journey was accomplished thanks in part to the ‘frenzy of forcible exhortation’ supplied by the battery commander, whose language, ‘English at times, Hindustani at times, more often a queer mixture of both tongues, positively seemed to lift guns and howitzers and tumbrils along the worst parts of the road. The gunners were charmed with his originality of expression.’

Even at this stage of the British army’s history, a siege battery on parade presented a splendid sight, with the elephants caparisoned in red and their mahouts with crimson and blue turbans. Most of the bullocks were cream-coloured, ‘or else black and white piebalds, they also included a proportion of russet and of buff specimens in their ranks’.
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Rudyard Kipling caught that portentous moment
when the site of the breaching batteries was close, the enemy’s roundshot skipped about, and the elephants were unhooked for the bullock teams to replace them:

Then we come into action and tug the guns again, –

Make way there, way, for the twenty yoke,

Of the Forty-Pounder train!
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There was something very Indian about the bullocks, so patient and enduring as they heaved the guns forward the final few yards, staying calm as roundshot carried off their yokemates, and leaning into their harness for the last haul.

At Multan, when the attackers were ready to proceed in September 1848, they formed up in parade order, fired a royal salute and formally demanded the surrender of the place in the name of Her Majesty Queen Victoria and her ally Maharaja Duleep Singh. Mulraj’s men were unimpressed, and replied with long-range roundshot which narrowly missed Major General Whish, the British commander. It tuned out to be a false start, for the city was too strong, and the attacking force too weak, for the dance to continue for the moment. ‘Our chief engineer,’ reported an officer,

had found the place much stronger than any of us had expected and we have not enough infantry to man the many working parties which are necessary. Most of the men have not been to bed for nights! So the general decided that he must raise the siege. The guns are now being withdrawn from the trenches and the whole force is moving round to the Western side of the city in order to maintain our communications with Bombay.
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The Sikhs tried to exploit the British withdrawal, but were roughly handled. Corporal John Ryder of the 32nd recalled the vicious hand-to-hand battle:

The fighting here was awful. What with the rolls of musketry, the clash of arms, and the shrieks, cries and groans of the wounded and dying, all was a dreadful scene of confusion. In one place might be seen men in their last death-struggle, grappling each other by the throat; while others were engaged hand to hand with the deadly weapon, the bayonet, thrusting
it through each other’s bodies, or blowing out each other’s brains – blood, brains, skin, skulls and flesh, all being dashed in our faces.
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Resuming the siege in early December, Whish was better prepared, and on the 27th he took the suburbs, which enabled him to establish breaching batteries to engage the citadel. There were thirteen large mortars in position that night; two 24-pounders, six 18-pounders and four heavy howitzers were added on the 29th, and another five heavy mortars followed on the 30th. The main Sikh magazine was blown up by a mortar bomb on the morning of the 30th, and most of the guns on the ramparts were silenced by direct hits, leaving British gunners free to work on the walls. Private Waterfield of the 32nd broke off from digging trenches to look at one of the batteries:

I visited the Sailor’s Battery. It was as good as a comic farce to stay there for a time to watch their proceedings. They were the drollest lot of men I ever met with: their quaint expressions and disregard of danger made them the favourites of the army. I remember the first morning they came to Multan they pitched their tent the wrong side out, after letting it fall several times. They were some of them without shoes, and very indifferently clad, but a lighter hearted lot of fellows never fired a gun. They belonged to the Indian Navy, and their firing was as good as that of the land artillery … I also witnessed the death of one of the artillery men. A shot from the enemy struck the top gabions, bounced off and hit the poor fellow on the chest, causing instant death. He had just fired a gun, and stood chatting and joking with his comrades. Such it was!
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There were two practicable breaches on 2nd January, and Whish gave orders for the storming to take place in the early hours of the 3rd. His right ‘Bengal’ column, under Brigadier Markham, was headed by HM’s 32nd, backed by 49th and 79th BNI, and his left ‘Bombay’ column, under Brigadier Stalker, was led by the 1st Bombay European Fusiliers, followed by 4th and 19th BoNI. HM’s 60th Rifles were to support the assault with their fire. The three companies of
Bombay Fusiliers, constituting the storming party of the left column, had a straightforward time, as one officer reported:

I found the men lying under some cover from the fire of the walls. At the word of command they sprang up and, advancing at the double, reached the breach. The batteries stopped firing. A British cheer and the men started scrambling up the ruined masonry. The enemy in their part, having discharged their muskets, met them at the top with drawn tulwars. Our men were forced to contend every inch. The struggle lasted about 20 minutes. Then we saw a Union Jack, planted by a sergeant of the Fusiliers planted at the top.
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The breach assaulted by the storming party of the right column (two companies of the 32nd under Captain James Carmichael Smyth of the grenadier company) was only in the outer wall, and when the attackers reached the top they found the main wall intact behind it. Private Waterfield saw Smyth wounded:

Our gallant leader … received a heavy blow on the back of the head; the blood gushed forth from the wound. I told him he was wounded and he replied ‘It’s of no consequence!’ but I could tell by his looks he was suffering greatly.

Seeing the way ahead blocked, Markham, the column commander, at once led his men to the other breach, where the attackers had already made good progress. Lieutenant Henry Daly was with the fusiliers, and getting up the breach reminded him of:

the ascent of Vesuvius. We did not climb this unmolested, and thick and hot the balls fell amongst us, but not a man was killed and strangely few wounded. When Leith commenced the descent a volley from below was essayed, but they were too eager to fire and it passed overhead … A few shots were fired on our side, but both sides relied on the steel. Leith’s long cavalry sword, such as no one but a stout man could wield, was smashed to pieces near the hilt. He himself received a couple of sword cuts in the left arm, and a ball through his right shoulder, and was taken to the rear.

Colour Sergeant John Bennet of the fusiliers soon stuck the Union Jack at the top of the breach: in recommending Bennet for reward,
the brigade commander noted that ‘the colour and staff are riddled with balls’.
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Even when the attackers were through the breach, the fighting went on, as John Clark Kennedy reported in a letter home:

Many Sikhs had built themselves into their homes with bricks and mortar. You remember Charles King, a capital officer and a powerful man? At the head of his column he encountered a Sikh who gave him a cut on his hand with his sword. He immediately closed with him, got him by the throat and drove his sword through him to the hilt. Markham broke his sword in a Sikh’s body and then floored him with his fists. Many officers and men were engaged in this way and the number of blades broken testifies to the mediocrity of our sword cutlery. I could fill my paper twice over with minor events of this kind … 

Private Waterfield recorded how: ‘Our brave Captain held out to the last; he fell in the street, having fainted from loss of blood.’ The 32nd’s Lieutenant Colonel Richard Pattoun was upwards of sixty. Leaving for the campaign he had bade such a tender farewell to his wife that even private soldiers remarked upon it. At Maltan he had been:

Amongst foremost, cutting his way sword in hand … I saw our Colonel’s body; it lay under, or rather about a dozen of the enemy, in a small square yard, in front of some half-dozen huts. It was maimed in several places; his wrist was nearly cut off and on one side of his head was a deep cut. A musket-ball had passed through his body. He looked noble, even in death. The whole regiment lamented his loss.
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The same principles of attack applied at Seringapatam in 1799. Operations were hampered by the fact that the fortress was cleverly sited, at the confluence of the North and South Cauvery Rivers, and this prevented breaching batteries from being pushed quite as far forward as would have been ideal, and impeded the final assault. On 21 April the attackers seized vital ground just south-west of the confluence, and on the 26th they silenced the fire of Tipu’s guns on the ramparts opposite them. The two assaulting columns were led
by Major General David Baird, who had spent some time as a prisoner of Tipu’s and had a point to make. The assault splashed through the shallow river on the afternoon of 4 May, and although there was a brief check when the attackers met intact inner defences just inside the breach, soon they were deep inside the town fighting against a defence which quickly unravelled. Tipu himself died fighting, possibly finished off by a musket shot to the temple at short range, fired by a British soldier who admired the jewel in his turban.

Not all assaults were crowned with success. When Lord Lake besieged Bhurtpore in early 1805 he made slow progress. The walls were breached, but could only be approached across wet ditches. John Shipp, recently promoted to sergeant in the 22nd Foot, had resolved ‘to make a name for myself in the field’, and volunteered for the ‘forlorn hope’. The first two assaults were repulsed with loss, and Shipp was in hospital with a head wound when another unsuccessful attack was mounted. He led the fourth attempt across ground already strewn with the human debris of three failed attacks, and: