ortly
before the Peshawar troops reached Mardan.

[Footnote 1: The Head-Quarters of this regiment had been sent to
Mardan in place of the Guides.]

[Footnote 2: Now the 1st Bengal Infantry.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER X.
1857

Neville Chamberlain's presence of mind
--The command of the Column--Robert Montgomery
--Disarmament at Mian Mir
--A Drum-Head Court-Martial--Swift retribution

While I was employed in the Chief Commissioner's office at Rawal Pindi
it became known that the Mutineers intended to make their stand at
Delhi, and immediately urgent demands came from the Head-Quarters of
the army for troops to be sent from the Punjab. Sir John Lawrence
exerted himself to the uttermost, even to the extent of denuding his
own province to a somewhat dangerous degree, and the Guides and 1st
Punjab Infantry, which had been told off for the Movable Column, were
ordered instead to proceed to Delhi.

The Guides, a corps second to none in Her Majesty's Indian Army, was
commanded by Captain Daly,[1] and consisted of three troops of Cavalry
and six companies of Infantry. The regiment had got as far as Attock,
when it received the order to proceed to Delhi, and pushed on at once
by double marches. The 4th Sikhs, under Captain Rothney, and the 1st
Punjab Infantry, under Major Coke,[2] followed in quick succession,
and later on the following troops belonging to the Punjab Frontier
Force were despatched towards Delhi: a squadron of the 1st Punjab
Cavalry, under Lieutenant John Watson (my companion in Kashmir);
a squadron of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, under Lieutenant Charles
Nicholson[3] (John Nicholson's brother); a squadron of the 5th Punjab
Cavalry, under Lieutenant Younghusband; and the 2nd and 4th Punjab
Infantry, commanded respectively by Captains G. Green[4] and A.
Wilde.[5]

We (Brigadier Chamberlain and I) remained at Rawal Pindi until the
24th May to give our servants and horses time to reach Wazirabad, and
then started on a mail-cart for the latter place, which we reached
on the 27th. Lieutenant James Walker,[6] of the Bombay Engineers,
accompanied us as the Brigadier's orderly officer.

The Grand Trunk Road, which runs in a direct line from Calcutta to
Peshawar, was then in course of construction through the Punjab, and
in places was in rather an elementary condition. The drivers of the
mail-carts sent along their half-wild and entirely unbroken ponies at
racing speed, r