Volunteering in India/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
The descent upon Banse was effected — to use a vulgar phrase — by a dodge in our route, which, although edging on, as it were, towards that town, seemed to lead away from it, as well as from our actual destination. No doubt this “dodge” was meant to draw the rebels off the scent; but they were not fools, and proved themselves, in not being caught napping, quite as wideawake as ourselves.
As we approached Banse dawn was breaking, heralded by the blush of the morning star visible on the horizon, and giving sufficient light to enable the outline of the town to be traced by our sleepy eyes; and as we scanned the place through the grey atmospheric film of early morn, no indications to show that the rebels had possession of it could be discerned anywhere. Presently, however, villagers appeared upon the scene, and enlightened us with news to the effect that the insurgents had abandoned the neighbourhood only but a few hours ago, and that Banse was quite deserted; and so on entering we found it. Not an inhabitant had tarried in the ill-fated town to witness its general wreck. All had fled, taking such goods and chattels as they could in the hurry of flight conveniently carry away with them, and leaving the remainder to the tender mercies of any one.
By this precipitate retreat of the rebels from Banse, it was consoling to anticipate another encounter with them in the open field, and also satisfactory to find the inhabitants restored to their homes, without their having suffered from our guns.
The population of this town was said to be well-affected to the Government, and from the fact of their having been instrumental in saving some unfortunate European refugees from being massacred, it was but fair to acknowledge them as good and loyal subjects. Besides, on the present occasion, further proof in support of their genuine loyalty was shown by their returning to the town shortly after we had entered it, and supplying us with such refreshments as they themselves possessed, or could obtain from their neighbours.
One man particularly was indefatigable in his attentions to the members of our picket posted in the suburbs of the town; and so marked was his hospitality that we were naturally led to show him some civility in return. By-and-bye this man, finding that we were not quite so closely allied to his Satanic Majesty as the rebels thought us, became exceedingly communicative, and related many adventures that had befallen him; but nothing interested us so much as his story connected with a subject applicable to the events now under notice, and therefore I allow it to appear in these pages.
Sunker Tewāre (that was his name), though seemingly a man over sixty years of age, and with a frame enfeebled from inability to sustain manual labour, still retained that dignified demeanour characteristic of the high-caste Rajput soldier.
Sitting in the midst of us he said, in a voice broken by emotion — by genuine emotion: “I was formeriy a Sepoy in the Bengal Army, but wounds and frost-bites having incapacitated me for military service since the Afghan War in 1840, I am a pensioner of that army. I deplore the deeds of blood by which India has been polluted.” And here finishing this prefatory flourish, he related to us so voluminous a narrative concerning the origin of the Mutiny, that I have not the space within the limits allotted to these brief chapters to more than summarily compress into a small compass a true translation of it; and I would ask the reader to bear in mind, as he peruses the story, that it is from the mouth of a bona-fide Sepoy, who, had he been in the ranks of the Bengal Army during the days of the Mutiny, himself would have become — by his own showing — a mutineer, like his brethren at that moment in arms against us.
The history of the Indian Mutiny in all its phases, and from every point of view, has been written until a host of uninformed people imagine the subject to be completely worn out, and well-nigh threadbare. But is it so? In reply I venture to say the subject is almost as inexhaustible to-day, as it was upwards of thirty years ago; and so it will continue, until every man. who passed through that memorable epoch shall himself have passed away from the world. For there are thousands (Europeans and natives combined) still living who have a separate experience of their own to relate, and whose reminiscences would shed new light on yet untold incidents, or rather tragedies, of those eventful days. I need hardly add that I allude only to those men — like ourselves — upon whom the thunderbolt of the Mutiny fell, and not to those who subsequently aided in its suppression.
In fact, the stage on which that tragical catastrophe occurred was so vast in extent, and the actors on it so prodigious in numbers, that even at this distance of time numberless episodes of the Mutiny — all more or less laden with agonising sorrow — are unknown, and, alas! many never will be known; for hundreds of our unfortunate countrymen, who could have described harrowing and heart-rending scenes, perished; and their sad fate is understood only so far that to this day their unburied bones are strewn in remote jungles, or lie bleaching on many of the forlorn plains of Upper India.
And in corroboration of these cursory remarks, Sunker Tewāre’s story would probably have passed into oblivion, had not we met him through the merest chance. As he told it, so I now proceed to tell it, although clothed in my own matter-of-fact words, as embodied in the following chapter.