Page:The Sikhs (Gordon).djvu/259

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UNDER THE BRITISH CROWN.
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third of this number being Sikhs, mostly trained warriors, the most valuable of them all. Never had the Punjab been so quiet. The border Pathans and the Sikhs had now, far from home, their fill of fighting, and freely they shed their blood for us.

While the battle was raging at Delhi the indomitable Havelock was fighting his way into Lucknow to relieve the beleaguered garrison there, a regiment of Sikhs forming part of his small devoted band. He effected this five days after Delhi fell. Sikhs from various mutinied Hindustani corps in Oudh had joined the little British force in the Residency and took their part in the famous defence. In far Bengal, Sikhs with our English troops were at the same time fighting against great odds, and the fine defence of a house at Arrah by some fifty of them with a few English civilians against vastly superior numbers of mutineers earned a special record for conspicuous gallantry. Even Sikh political exiles in Bengal aided our Government. Wherever the Sikhs were,