It is not for Europeans
in India to pray that their flight be not in the winter."
In the first days of June the aged general, Sir Hugh Wheeler commanding
the forces at Cawnpore, was deserted by his native troops; then he moved
out of the fort and into an exposed patch of open flat ground and built a
four-foot mud wall around it. He had with him a few hundred white
soldiers and officers, and apparently more women and children than
soldiers. He was short of provisions, short of arms, short of
ammunition, short of military wisdom, short of everything but courage and
devotion to duty. The defense of that open lot through twenty-one days
and nights of hunger, thirst, Indian heat, and a never-ceasing storm of
bullets, bombs, and cannon-balls--a defense conducted, not by the aged
and infirm general, but by a young officer named Moore--is one of the
most heroic episodes in history. When at last the Nana found it
impossible to conquer these starving men and women with powder and ball,
he resorted to treachery, and that succeeded. He agreed to supply them
with food and send them to Allahabad in boats.
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