Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/194

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168
Life in the Intrenchment.

through the air and bursting, often doing mischief. Another source of misery was caused by the stench arising from the dead horses, and, what was even worse, by the myriads of flies they collected. Still the garrison bore up without a murmur. There was not a man who was not a hero. Hillersden, the Collector, who had negotiated the treaty with Náná Sáhib, fell dead at the feet of his wife, killed by a round-shot. She survived him but a few days. A round-shot likewise carried off the head of the General's son, Lieutenant Wheeler, as he lay wounded in the room occupied by his mother and the members of his family. Another round-shot mortally wounded Major Lindsay. He, too, was soon followed to the grave by his wife. Colonel Williams of the 56th was carried off by apoplexy, whilst his wife died from the effect of a wound which had completely disfigured her. Colonel Ewart of the 1st was disabled early in the siege. Captain Halliday was shot dead, whilst carrying some horse-soup for his famishing wife, midway between the intrenchments and the barracks. Mackillop, of whom I have spoken, and who, in his unselfish anxiety to contribute to the necessities of the suffering, had in the last week constituted himself captain of the well, was mortally wounded at his post. Death was very near him, yet in his last moments he begged a bystander to carry the water he had drawn to the lady to whom it had been promised. Nobly, indeed, did the sons of the island-heart of the British Empire do their duty.

In not one single respect did they fail. They succeeded to the very last in holding the outposts formed of the unfinished barracks, which, if the position of besieger and besieged had been reversed, they would not have permitted their enemy to retain for a single day. The officers who commanded the small detachments which