After Cawnpore

June: 1857

Fourteen, all told, no more, Pack'd close within the door Of that old idol-shrine: And at them, as they stand, And from that English band, The leaden shower went out, and Death proclaim'd them Mine! Fourteen against an army; they, no more, Had 'scaped Cawnpore.

With each quick volley-flash The bullets ping and plash: Yet, though the tropic noon With furnace-fury broke The sulphur-curling smoke, Scarr'd, sear'd, thirst-silenced, hunger-faint, they stood: And soon A dusky wall,--death sheltering life,--uprose Against their foes.

Behind them now is cast The horror of the past; The fort that was no fort, The deep dark-heaving flood Of foes that broke in blood On our devoted camp, victims of fiendish sport; From that last huddling refuge lured to fly, --And help so nigh!

Down toward the reedy shore That fated remnant pour, Had Fear and Death beside; And other spectres yet Of darker vision flit,-- Old unforgotten wrongs, the harshness and the pride Of that imperial race which sway'd the land By sheer command!

O little hands that strain A mother's hand in vain With terror vague and vast:-- Parch'd eyes that cannot shed One tear upon the head, A young child's head, too bright for such fell death to blast! Ah! sadder captive train ne'er filed to doom Through vengeful Rome!

From Ganges' reedy shore The death-boats they unmoor, Stack'd high with hopeless hearts; A slowly-drifting freight Through the red jaws of Fate, Death-blazing banks between, and flame-wing'd arrow-darts:-- Till down the holy stream those cargoes pour Their flame and gore.

In feral order slow The slaughter-barges go, Martyrs of heathen scorn: While, saved from flood and fire To glut the tyrant's ire, The quick and dead in one, from their red shambles borne, Maiden and child, in that dark grave they throw, Our well of woe!

Ah spot on which we gaze Through Time's all-softening haze, In peace, on them at peace And taken home to God! --O whether 'neath the sod, Or sea, or desert sand, what care,--if that release From this dim shadow-land, through pathways dim, Bear us to Him!

But those fourteen, the while, Wrapt in the present, smile On their grim baffled foe; Till o'er the wall he heaps The fuel-pile, and steeps With all that burns and blasts;--and now, perforce, they go Hack'd down and thinn'd, beyond that temple-door But Seven,--no more.

O Elements at strife With this poor human life, Stern laws of Nature fair! By flame constrain'd to fly The treacherous stream they try,-- And those dark Ganges waves suck down the souls they bear!-- Ah, crowning anguish! Dawn of hope in sight; Then, final night!

And now, Four heads, no more, Life's flotsam flung ashore, They lie:--But not as they Who o'er a dreadful past The heart's-ease sigh may cast! Too worn! too tried!--their lives but given them as a prey! Whilst all seems now a dream, a nought of nought, For which they fought!

--O stout Fourteen, who bled O'erwhelm'd, not vanquished! In those dark days of blood How many dared, and died, And others at their side Fresh heroes, sprang,--a race that cannot be subdued! --Like them who pass'd Death's vale, and lived;--the Four Saved from Cawnpore!

The English garrison at Cawnpore, with a large number of sick, women, and children, were besieged in their hastily made and weak earthworks by Nana Sahib from June 6 to June 25, 1857. Compelled to surrender, under promise of safe convoy down the Ganges, on the 27th they were massacred by musketry from the banks; the thatch of the river-boats being also fired. The survivors were murdered and thrown into the well upon Havelock's approach on July 15.

One boat managed to escape unburnt on June 27. It was chased through the 28th and 29th, by which time the crowd on board was reduced to fourteen men, one of whom, Mowbray-Thomson, has left a narrative equally striking from its vividness and its modesty. Seven escaped from the small temple in which they defended themselves; four only finally survived to tell the story.

A dusky wall; 'After a little time they stood behind a rampart of black and bloody corpses, and fired, with comparative security, over this bulwark:' (Kaye: Sepoy War: B. V: ch. ii).