Back, again, to Forbes-Mitchell

I must say that there is a certain charm to life in the slow lane! Wearing only my bathers with none of the accoutrements of modern life; money, cell-phones, watches, keys, even - if I may - underwear; lying in the sand on a deserted beach, the water lapping away at ones heels, the only sound being the surf and the occasional bird, one wonders why we keep running!

No. That's not from Forbes-Mitchell. That's me returning from the beach after watching a really strange cricket match yesterday. I guess the cricketing world is upset and angry (c.f. this article in The Guardian) but let's face it, cricket would not be cricket without its eccentric moments!

Anyway, back to Forbes-Mitchell for a moment. Dalrymple, in The Last Mughal, makes the case (amongst the many cases that he makes) that the Mutiny was more broad-based than is generally accepted and that the muslims received the brunt of the retribution. Forbes-Mitchell provides some support for both views. Clearly the mutineers were very committed to their cause. Both Forbes-Mitchell, as well as Forrest (the reference is somewhere in a post below this one) comment on how the mutineers fought, often to the last man. But, as Forbes-Mitchell says, sometimes the last man was a woman. He describes an incident that took place after the British had taken the Secundrabagh (an enclosed garden on the way to the Lucknow Residency). "In the centre of the inner court ... there was a large pipal tree with a very bushy top, round the foot of which were set a number of jars full of cool water. .." {He reports that many men went to the tree because of the shade and the water and that there were many bodies under the tree.] [The many bodies "attracted the notice of Captain Dawson. ... he noticed that in every case the men had evidently been shot from above." A British soldier named Wallace shot down the person sitting in the tree. "down fell a body dressed in a tight-fitting red jacket and tight-fitting rose-coloured silk trousers; and the breast of the jacket bursting open with the fall, showed that the wearer was a woman."

In another place, reporting on the assault on the Shah Najaf, the British recover the colours, drums, etc of the Seventy-First Native Infantry and the Eleventh Oudh Irregulars. The mutineers had kept their British organization intact. Amongst the bodies they found that over fify men "were found to have furlougs, or leave certificates, signed by their former commanding officer in their pockets, showing that they had been on leave when their regiment mutinied and had rejoined their colours to fight against us." Not just opportunistic rebels these.

About the Muslims. Forbes-Mitchell says (page 39) ".. I formed the opinion that the pampered high-caste Hindu sepoys had far more to do with the Mutiny and the cowardly murders of women and children, than the Muhammadans, although the latter still bear most of the blame." FM generalizes this from a single incident (where an apparent meditating yogi turns into a killing terrorist type guy).