John Nicholson Part 5

It was now generally realised that the task of forcing a pa.s.sage through the lane was hopeless, or at least inadvisable, for the present. Nicholson, however, would not concede this. Every inch of ground gained in Delhi that day was worth untold gold, and he determined that no effort should be spared to win the Lah.o.r.e Gate.

Placing himself at the head of his men, he called on them for another charge, for one last brave attempt.

If there was one man whom the Fusiliers would have followed to death, it was Nicholson. At his summons they ran on again, some of them actually reeling from the terrific strain they had undergone.

Springing out into the mouth of the lane, Nicholson waved his sword above his head and went forward. The soldiers advanced some paces, wavered, re-formed, and wavered again as the sepoys' guns belched forth flame and death. Then, as they paused hesitating, the fateful moment came. Some yards ahead of the soldiers stood Nicholson, facing his men as he called to them angrily to "come on." Suddenly a sepoy leaned out of the window of a house close by and pointed his musket at the tall, commanding figure beneath him. There was a flash, and on the instant Nicholson fell with a bullet in his back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A sepoy leaned out . . . and pointed his musket at the tall figure beneath him."]

Even then, lying mortally wounded, the dying lion refused to allow himself to be borne to the rear. "Carry the lane first," he ordered; but Colonel Graydon, who went to his a.s.sistance, persuaded him to let a bearer party lift him to one side. Thence, a little later, he was taken to a hospital tent to have his wound attended to. It was at this juncture that a young staff-officer, who is now Lord Roberts, found Nicholson in a dhoolie by the roadside just within the Cashmere Gate.

The stricken hero had been deserted by the native bearers and left to his fate!

Through Roberts' efforts a fresh party of bearers was obtained, and Nicholson was carried tenderly to the nearest field hospital. He was seen to be in great pain, besides being much exhausted from loss of blood, but hopes were entertained that his wound would not prove mortal. By the irony of fate, the occupant of another dhoolie, which was presently placed by his, turned out to be his brother Charles, whose arm had been shattered. The two had met again for the last time.

From the field hospital Nicholson was shortly after conveyed to the Ridge, where nothing was left undone that could ease his suffering.

Medical skill, however, was unavailing; he lingered until the 23rd of the month, and then pa.s.sed peacefully away.

Of Nicholson's last moments Neville Chamberlain, who was constantly by his bedside, has written in touching words. He himself had lost a devoted friend who could never be replaced. In the camp the news that Nicholson was gone was received with universal sorrow. It was felt that by his death the army on the Ridge had been suddenly deprived of the one strong man to whom everybody had instinctively turned for advice and encouragement, and who could least be spared. There was a sense of injustice, too. Delhi had fallen, but--John Nicholson, struck down in the hour of victory, was not there to share in the triumph.

The funeral of the dead hero took place on the following day. He was buried in a newly made cemetery not far from the Cashmere Gate and the breach through which he had led the storming party, a fitting spot truly for his resting-place. Among those who paid their last respects to him were the men of the Mooltani Horse, who had followed Nicholson from the Punjaub to Delhi. Their grief was unrestrained, sirdars and troopers mingling their tears as the body of their beloved "Nikalseyn sahib" was lowered into the grave.

Of the strange sect that had wors.h.i.+pped him as a G.o.d it is recorded that on Nicholson's death becoming known, the two head-men of the tribe committed suicide, declaring that life was no longer worth living. The rest, however, decided that their dead master would not have approved of such a course, and announced their resolve to wors.h.i.+p in future the G.o.d of whom he had often spoken to them; whereupon they went to Peshawur in a body and became Christians.

After Nicholson's death the tributes of praise accorded him were many and widespread. In every part of India and in Great Britain his early demise--he was but thirty-five--created a feeling of a national loss.

The _London Gazette_ soon afterwards announced that had he lived he would have been made a K.C.B.; while, for their part, the East India Company, in whose service he had laboured so well, marked their recognition of him by unanimously voting his mother a special grant of 500 pounds a year.

What more remains to be said? It is a fadeless memory that John Nicholson has left behind him. Soldier, administrator, and leader of men, he trod "the perfect ways of honour," and by his private as much as by his public life made himself a s.h.i.+ning ensample for all time.

Like Havelock, Henry and John Lawrence, Gordon, and many another soldier of high fame, Nicholson was a man of deep religious feeling.

For this his careful early training was largely responsible. He would not have enjoyed the Lawrences' intimate friends.h.i.+p had he not been the high-minded, pure-souled man he was; but if he bore "the white flower of a blameless life" himself, he never paraded his religion or forced his views upon others. It was enough for him to live cleanly and righteously, to follow the dictates of conscience in all his actions.

We may fittingly close this brief record of his glorious career by echoing the words of an eloquent speaker who thus eulogised "the Lion of the Punjaub"--

"He fell as a soldier would wish to fall, at the head of his gallant troops, with the shout of victory in his ear. Was not such a death worthy of such a life? And will not the Cabul Gate, where he fell, live in future British history as live those Heights of Abraham on which there fell, a century ago, another youthful general, the immortal Wolfe?"