A STORMING PARTY. 107 "She did rise, in splendid effulgence, over one of the highest. bastions of the fort we were about to storm; and we could see, by her light, spears on the ramparts as thick as plants in a newset forest. We were now and then saluted with a solitary gun from the fort, to let us know they were not asleep; blue-lights were seen burning on their ramparts, and they occasionally indulged us with a rocket or two, which played beautifully in the air. "The soldiers, seeing I was a spirited youth, and a competitor with them for glory, gave me a few salutary hints, especially an 'old veteran' of the 76th Foot, who had been then fighting about twenty years in the East. Among the hints he gave me were these Ist. Never to pass a man lying down, or supposed to be dead, without giving him the point of the bayonet or sword; for it was a common trick of theirs to lay themselves down on your approach, and then to watch the opportunity of cutting you down. 2nd. Whenever I saw a rocket, or shell, fall near me, to get as close to it as possible, and lay myself flat on my face. This was undoubtedly very excellent advice; but I soon got tired of killing dead men, and lying down every time I saw a rocket; the having neglected to do which, on one occasion, however, nearly cost me my life." The storming party was composed of about seven hundred men, Europeans and natives, under the command of Colonel Ball, "a brave old hero, but so feeble that he was obliged to be pushed up the track of glory." The two flank companies of Shipp's regiment headed the column. Sergeant Bury, of the Grenadiers, was to lead the way, but being wounded at the outset, he had to retire for a time, and John volunteered for this post of honour. There was honour and danger enough. Between the batteries and the breach, the enemy had thrown up an intrenchment so as to bring a cross fire to bear upon the assailants, who were soon in the thick of it. Fortunately, the guns of the fort were pointed too high, and most of the shots passed over their heads, as they were fighting their way through the intrenchments. Here, Captain Lindsay, of the Light Company, was twice wounded, but would not turn back. John himself was nearly done for so early in the fray. With three or four of his comrades he had turned aside to spike a gun, and was in the act of feeling for the touch-hole, when it went off, and the con cussion threw him on his back into the trench, where the swarthy artilleryman who had made shift to fire it in the mêlée would have cut him to pieces, if a grenadier had not shot the fellow down. Regaining his feet, our sergeant pressed on under a fire which, if properly directed, must have annihilated the whole party. Fifty or sixty paces from the breach he was again knocked over and stunned by a matchlock ball in the head. When he came to himself a little, he was borne on in the throng of men, running in a stooping posture, to avoid the balls which hailed down upon them, along with stones, logs, stinkpots, bundles of burning straw, spears, cold shot and other missiles of a desperate enemy. The wonder is how any man could pass alive through such a deadly storm. But on they went, and at last planted the British flag upon the summit of the breach. The work, however, was not yet over. They had gained the walls, but the fort was full of narrow streets, still occupied by the defenders, who kept up their resistance from loopholed houses. It was necessary to take these streets, one by one, defended as they were by guns, here and there raking their whole length; and the fight became one of confused and indecisive encounters, though the English tried to keep together, afraid of firing on one another in the narrow intricacies of the place. At one time, Sergeant Shipp helped to rescue his captain, exhausted by wounds, and on the point of being overpowered by five or six natives. "At midnight I again met Captain Lindsay clearing one of the streets, when he asked me how I felt myself. I complained of a wound in my side, but said that I could find no hole; but this was not a time for talking." Then John made a prize. In one of the larger streets his party encountered a body of the enemy escorting some person of rank in an open palanquin. They soon stopped this procession, and set to poking into the palanquin with their bayonets, whereupon the occupant, "a tremendous fat Zemindar, roared out most lustily, and began to show fight." He fired a matchlock, the ball of which went through John's coat ; so when this great man and his attendants had been disposed of, our hero thought himself entitled to take possession of the gun that had so nearly cost him his life. It was a curious weapon, a barrel about two feet long, with a round handle, having at KILLED AND WOUNDED. 109 one end a hatchet, at the other a hook. This instrument he would have presented to the commander-in-chief, who refused the gift, but bought it of him for two hundred rupees. About three o'clock in the morning, completely tired out, as he well might be, John rested under the gable-end of a building, and began to take stock of his injuries. The supposed wound on his side puzzled rather than alarmed him. There was a black swollen mark, edged with red streaks, which could only be explained as caused by the wind of a cannon-ball that must have passed between his arm and his body without his noticing it in the excitement of the fight. The wound in the head was a more serious one, and after being so long exposed to the night air, it gave the doctors reason to shake their heads when they came to examine him; but with youth and a good constitution on his side, he soon began to get over it. The slaughter among the enemy was great, but thanks, no doubt, to their clumsy arms, the English had many wounded, yet few killed in proportion. Five companies of Sepoys which had recently deserted in a body from the British service, were found drawn up outside of the fort, with ordered arms, making no show of fight, and crying out, "Englishmen, Englishmen, pray do not kill us; for God's sake do not kill us!" But little mercy was shown to their fears rather than their penitence. Orders had been given to grant them no quarter, and most of them were shot. Such was our hero's first, though by no means his last, experience of a storm, the most thrilling and deadly ordeal of modern warfare. The fort he had helped to take formed only an outwork of the town and the main fortifications, which, however, the enemy now gave up, without waiting for further proof of English valour. VI. LORD LAKE'S next step was to lay siege to Bhurtpore, a formidable fortification, eight miles in circumference, enclosed by a wide deep moat and walls of earth interwoven with the trunks of enormous trees. It was scientifically fortified, and the guns were served by French artillerymen or natives trained by them. Besides the garrison within, Holkar's host of cavalry lay under the walls, committing every cruelty upon such unfortunate stragglers as fell into their hands. An Indian army is attended * by an immense tail of followers-grooms, grass-cutters, sutlers, jugglers, and so on; and many of these people would from day to day be sent back into the English camp with their noses, ears, or hands cut off. Such notable work being on hand, John Shipp felt obliged to "nurse himself a little," that he might not lose the chance of taking part in it. His ambition this time was nothing less than to lead the forlorn hope; and the general accepted his offer, with the promise of a commission if he should escape the perilous ordeal. The youth's idea of "nursing himself" seems peculiar. A few days after being nearly killed at Deig we find him lounging about among the advanced piquets before Bhurtpore, watching with keen professional interest the preparations for the siege and the continual skirmishes with Holkar's cavalry. He tells us how he had nearly paid dear for this amusement of an invalid. He had ridden forward to try to get a shot at "a fellow who was showing off his horsemanship," when all at once he became aware that his fast pony had carried him a long way in advance of the piquets, and several Pindarees were cutting off his retreat, with the most mischievous intentions. There was nothing for it but to dash through them. Luckily for him, his comrades, observing the state of affairs, and having a six-pounder handy, fired a long shot at the Pindarees, which fell close to the party, covering them with dust, whereupon John took advantage of their consternation to make his way safe back, and "never ventured so far from home again." After such a tonic experience, he seems to have considered himself quite convalescent. "On the 1st day of January, 1805, we broke ground against this strong fortress and town. I was again on the working party, my wound being nearly closed. We halted near a wood, * "It will appear scarcely credible to the general reader, when he is informed that to every fighting-man in an Indian army, there are at least ten camp-followers. The majority of these live by plundering the adjacent villages round the camp and on the march; robbing every hut and field within ten miles round. There is no possibility of checking them, or preventing these abuses. Amongst these fellows are thieves of every descrip; tion, and the most notorious are jugglers. They commence their nocturnal pilferings in a state of nudity, oiling themselves all over to prevent their being held if caught; they then creep on their hands and feet like dogs, and frequently imitate them in barking and howling, as well as most other animals, more particularly goats, sheep, and asses."-Shipp's Memoirs. OPENING THE TRENCHES. III and a party having been sent on to reconnoitre, we at last pitched upon a place, and commenced our nocturnal labours. We had not been at work ten minutes, when they heard our working-tools, and commenced a most terrific cannonade. We were ordered to desist, and to lie down behind the earth we had thrown up, which, fortunately for us, was of a sufficient thickness to be musket-ball proof, or we must have suffered dreadfully, for their little rough iron balls flew about as thick as bees. The cannon-shot were generally high: some that fell short, rolled, and were brought up by our little mound of defence. They kept it up gloriously for half an hour, conceiving that we intended to take them by surprise; but, from the reports of this fortress containing 100,000 soldiers, and the enormous sum of nineteen crore of rupees, our orders were to approach it by a regular siege. I fear I shall be thought rather tedious in relating the disastrous events at this place; but we must take the gall with the honey. The firing having ceased, except at intervals, we recommenced our labours; and glad indeed were we to set blood again on the move. The night was bitterly cold, and the ground damp; but we kept ourselves in exercise with our work, and by daylight we had completed our trenches and four-gun breaching battery within five hundred yards of the town wall. The moment the day dawned, our night's work was observed. The fort was again in a blaze, flags were hoisted, the parapet of the town wall was one general mass of spears and little flags, as far as the eye could reach; and the heads of soldiers studded the ramparts with variegated colours their turbans being generally of the most prominent dyes-red, yellow, and pink. Such shouting, roaring of cannon, whistling of shot, grumbling of rockets, and waving of flags and spears, made me reflect for a moment on the folly of having ever sold my 'leathers' to participate in such a scene; but this thought was soon buried in the shouts of defiance from our trenches. We did not show hands, as we had none to spare; but as we were of course anxious to see what kind of a place this said Bhurtpore was, we took every opportunity of peeping, whenever we saw a gun fired, crying out 'Shot,' which was a signal to bob our heads. On the firing subsiding in the slightest degree, we continued our work, and at length completed our batteries and magazines, and widened our trenches to seven feet, leaving just sufficient room to pass and repass, so as to |