In Times of Peril eBook

That evening at dinner the Warreners met at the general’s table General Nicholson, whose chivalrous bravery placed him on a par with Outram, who was called the Bayard of the British army.  He was short of staff officers, and did not wish to weaken the fighting powers of the regiments of his division by drawing officers from them.  He therefore asked General Wilson to attach the Warreners to his personal staff.  This request was at once complied with.  Their new chief assured them that for the present he had no occasion for their services, and that they were at liberty to do as they pleased until the siege operations began in earnest.  The next few days were accordingly spent, as Dick said, in eating and talking.

Every regiment in camp was anxious to hear the tale of the siege of Lucknow, and of the Warreners’ personal experience in entering and leaving the besieged Residency; and accordingly they dined, lunched, or breakfasted by turns with every mess in camp.  They were indeed the heroes of the day; and the officers were much pleased at the simplicity with which these gallant lads told their adventures, and at the entire absence of any consciousness that they had done anything out of the way.  In fact, they rather regarded the whole business as two schoolboys might regard some adventure in which they had been engaged, Dick, in particular, regarding all their adventures, with the exception only of the sufferings of the garrison of Lucknow, in the light of an “immense lark.”

In the meantime, the troops were working day and night in the trenches and batteries, under the directions of the engineer officers; and every heart beat high with satisfaction that, after standing for months on the defensive, repelling continual attacks of enormously superior numbers, at last their turn had arrived, and that the day was at hand when the long-deferred vengeance was to fall upon the bloodstained city.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE STORMING OF DELHI.

On the morning of the 8th of September the battery, eight hundred yards from the Moree gate of Delhi, opened fire, and sent the first battering shot against the town which had for three months been besieged.  Hitherto, indeed, light shot, shell, and shrapnel had been fired at the gunners on the walls to keep down their fire, and the city and palace had been shelled by the mortar batteries; but not a shot had been fired with the object of injuring the walls or bringing the siege to an end.

For three months the besiegers had stood on the offensive, and the enemy not only held the city, but had erected very strong works in the open ground in front of the Lahore gate, and had free ingress and egress from the town at all points save from the gates on the north side, facing the British position on the Ridge.  During these three long months, however, the respective position of the parties had changed a good deal.