With Clive in India; Or, The Beginnings of an Empire by G. A. Henty (lightest ebook reader TXT) 📗

able to inflict a crushing defeat upon the invaders, who would be so disheartened, thereby, that they would be little likely to renew the attack.

Two bodies of troops, each three hundred strong, were sent down to the gorge, with orders to remain in hiding among the heights, to allow the invading army to pass unmolested, and then to inflict the greatest possible loss upon them, as they returned. These were under the command of another of Charlie's lieutenants, who received orders from him to erect breastworks of rock on the slopes above the entrance to the gorge, after the enemy had passed on; and to line these with a portion of his men, who should pour a heavy fire into the enemy as they came down the valley; while the rest were to line the heights above the gorge, and to roll down rocks upon those who passed through the fire of their comrades.

The uniforms were served out to the soldiers, and Charlie surveyed, with pride, the five battalions of trained troops which, with twelve guns, marched down into the valley and took up their post beyond it, at a point which he had carefully chosen, where the guns of the castle would be able to play upon an advancing body of troops. A body of trained artillerymen were told off for this service, and the last-raised levies were posted in the castle and on the walls of the town.

The position was so chosen that the flanks of the line rested on the slopes on either side. These were broken by inclosures and gardens; into which, on either side, half a battalion was thrown forward, so as to deliver a flanking fire upon an enemy advancing against the centre. Across the valley, two hundred yards in front of the position, the stream which watered it made a sharp turn, running for some distance directly across it, and several small canals for the irrigation of the fields rendered the ground wet and swampy. Across the line occupied by his troops, a breastwork had been thrown up, and in front of this rows of sharp-pointed stakes had been stuck in the ground. Altogether, the position was a formidable one.

An hour or two after the position so carefully prepared had been taken up, large bodies of Mahratta horse were seen dashing up the valley, and smoke rising from several points showed that they had begun their usual work, of plundering and destroying the villages on their way. A few discharges from the field pieces—those in the castle had been ordered to be silent until the raising of a white flag gave them the signal to open fire—checked the advance of the horsemen, and these waited until their infantry should arrive.

The force of Murari Reo was, at that time, the most formidable of any purely native army of Southern India. Recruited from desperadoes from all the Mahratta tribes, well disciplined by its leader, it had more than once fought, without defeat, against bodies of Europeans; while it had, in all cases, obtained easy victories over other native armies.

Presently the horsemen opened, and a compact body of three thousand Mahratta infantry, accompanied by an equal number of the irregulars of the rajah's brother, advanced to the attack; while the cavalry at their sides swept down upon the flanks of the rajah's position, and thirty pieces of artillery opened fire.

Not a shot was fired in return, Charlie ordering his men to lie down behind the breastworks, until they received the word of command to show themselves. The Mahratta horsemen, compelled by the bends of the stream to keep near the foot of the slopes, came forward in gallant style; until suddenly, from every wall and every clump of bushes on the slopes above them, a tremendous fire of musketry broke out, while the twelve field guns, six of which were posted on either side of Charlie's centre, poured a destructive fire into them. So deadly was the rain of iron and lead that the Mahratta horsemen instantly drew bridle and, leaving the ground strewn with their dead, galloped back.

By this time the infantry, covered by the fire of their artillery, had reached the stream. This was waist deep, and the banks were some two feet above its level. As they scrambled up after crossing it, from the line of embankment in front of them a tremendous fire was opened. Although mowed down in scores, the seasoned warriors of the Mahratta chief, cheered on by his voice as, recklessly exposing himself, he rode among them, pressed forward. Ever increasing numbers gained a footing across the stream, those in front keeping up a heavy fire at the breastwork, whose face was ploughed by their cannon shot.

As they advanced the guns of the castle opened fire, not upon those in front, for these were too near the line of entrenchment, but upon the struggling mass still crossing the stream, into which a ceaseless fire of musketry was poured from the slopes on their flanks. Still the Mahratta infantry struggled bravely on, until within a few yards of the entrenchments. Then, suddenly, with a mighty shout, the rajah's troops leaped to their feet, poured a volley from the crest of the breastwork into the enemy; and then, with fixed bayonets, flung themselves upon them.

The effect was decisive. The Mahrattas had, at the commencement of the fight, scarcely outnumbered the troops of the rajah in front of them, and had derived but little assistance from the levies of their ally; who, indeed, had contented themselves with keeping up a fire upon the defenders of the slopes. They had already suffered very severely, and the charge made upon them, along the whole line, was irresistible.

Before the bayonets crossed they broke and fled, hotly pursued by the troops of the rajah. These, in accordance with Charlie's orders, did not scatter, but kept in a close line, four deep, which advanced, pouring tremendous volleys into their foe.

In vain did Murari Reo endeavour to rally his men. His infantry, all order lost, fled at the top of their speed, their flight covered by their cavalry, who sacrificed themselves in two or three brilliant charges, right up to the line of pursuers, although suffering terribly from the withering volleys poured into their ranks.

The troops were now formed into heavy columns, and these rapidly marched down the valley, after their flying enemy. An hour later, the sound of heavy firing was heard in front, and at redoubled speed the troops pressed onward. When they arrived, however, at the gorge, they found that the last of the fugitives had passed through. The ground in front was strewn with dead and dying, for as the mass of fugitives had arrived at the gorge, the infantry from above had opened fire upon them. Several times the frightened throng had recoiled, but at last, impelled by the greater fear of their pursuers behind, they had dashed forward through the fire, only to fall in hundreds in the gorge, crushed beneath the rain of rocks showered down upon them from above.

Chapter 14: The Siege Of Ambur.

The victory was a complete and decisive one. A thousand of the best troops of Murari Reo had fallen, besides some hundreds of their irregular allies, whose loss was incurred almost wholly at the gorge in the retreat. The rajah was in the highest state of delight at the splendid result, obtained by the European training of his troops; and these, proud of their victory over such formidable opponents, were full of enthusiasm for their young English leader. The rejoicings in Ambur that night were great, and all felt confident that the danger was at an end.

"What think you," the rajah said to Charlie, as, the long feast at an end, they sat together in the divan, smoking their narghileys, "will be the result, when the news of the defeat of Murari Reo reaches Hyderabad?"

"It is difficult to say," Charlie replied. "It is possible, of course, that it may be considered that it is better to leave you in peace; but, upon the other hand, it may be that they will consider that you are so formidable a power, that it is absolutely necessary to crush you at once, rather than to give you the chance of joining against them, in the war which must sooner or later take place between them and the English. In that case, it will be a very different affair from that which we have had today.

"Still, I should send off a messenger tomorrow, to acquaint the nizam with the defeat you inflicted upon the Mahrattas who have invaded you, to assure him again of your loyalty, and to beg him to lay his authority upon Murari Reo, not to renew the attack."

Ten days later a messenger arrived from the nizam, ordering the rajah to repair, at once, to Hyderabad, to explain his conduct. The latter sent back a message of humble excuses, saying that his health was so injured, by the excitement of recent events, that he was unable to travel; but that, when he recovered, he would journey to Hyderabad to lay his respects at the feet of the nizam.

Two or three days later a messenger arrived from Mr. Saunders, with a letter to Charlie. In this he expressed his great satisfaction at the defeat Murari Reo had received; a defeat which would, for some time, keep him quiet, and so relieve the strain upon the English. Affairs had, he said, since the departure of Clive for England, been going badly. Dupleix had received large reinforcements, and the English had suffered several reverses. Mr. Saunders begged him to assure the rajah of the respect and friendship of England, and to give him the promise that, if he should be driven from his capital, he would be received with all honor at Madras, and should be reinstated in his dominions, with much added territory, when the English were again in a position to take the field in force, and to settle their long feud with the French.

Ten days later, they heard that the army of the nizam, of fifteen thousand troops, with eight hundred French under Bussy, were marching against them; and that the horsemen of Murari Reo were devastating the villages near the frontier. A council of war was held. Charlie would fain have fought in the open again, believing that his trained troops, flushed with their recent victory, would be a match even for the army of the nizam. But the rajah and the rest of the council, alarmed at the presence of the French troops, who had hitherto proved invincible against vastly superior forces of natives, shrank from such a course; and it was decided that they should content themselves with the defence of the town and castle.

Orders were accordingly issued that the old men, the women, and children should at once leave the town; and, under guard of one battalion of troops, take refuge in an almost impregnable hill fort some miles away. One battalion was placed in garrison in the castle. The other three, with the irregulars, took post in the town, whence they could, if necessary, retreat into the castle.

The day following the removal of the noncombatants the enemy appeared, coming down the valley, having marched over the hills; while the Mahratta cavalry again poured up from below.

Charlie had taken the command of the town, as it was against this that the efforts of the enemy would be first directed. It was an imposing sight, as the army of the nizam wound down the valley; the great masses of men with their gay flags, the elephants with the gold embroidery of their trappings glistening in the sun, the bands of horsemen careering here and there, the lines of artillery drawn by bullocks; and, less picturesque but far more menacing, the dark body of French infantry, who formed the nucleus and heart of the whole. The camp was pitched just out of range of the guns of the fort, and soon line after line of tents, gay with the flags that floated above them, rose across the valley.

Charlie had mounted to the castle, the better to observe the movements of the enemy, and he presently saw a small body of horsemen ride out of the camp, and mount the hillside across the valley. A glass showed that some of these were native officers, while others were in the dark uniform of the French.

"I have no doubt," Charlie said to the rajah, "that is the nizam himself, with Bussy, gone up to reconnoitre the position. I wonder how he likes the look of it. I wish we could have turfed the battery above, and the newly stripped land. We might, in that case, have given them a pleasant surprise. As it is, they are hardly likely to begin by an attack along the slopes in the rear of the town, and you will see that they will commence the attack at the farther face of the town. The battery above cannot