One of
the officers, Colonel Neville Chamberlain, was assigned to the command of
what was called the "Movable Column," or chief army of pursuit.

Roberts was made one of his staff officers--"the most wonderful piece of
good fortune that could come to me," he says. Shortly afterward,
Chamberlain was made Adjutant General to the Army before Delhi, and then
came orders for all the artillery officers to join in this attack.
Roberts was to see active service at last.

He found himself under fire at Delhi for the first time on June 30, 1857.
While it was only a skirmish it was a lively one while it lasted.

With some 1,100 men and a dozen guns, Major Coke went on an expedition
against a troublesome group of rebels, and Roberts accompanied him as a
staff officer. When the enemy appeared the only way to reach them in
time was by crossing a swamp. Another troop of rebels unexpectedly
appeared in force, but were put to rout.

A few days later, a similar skirmish occurred, which for a time looked
more serious. Roberts was posted across a road with a squad of men and
two guns. The enemy attacked them with a cross-fire. How he and his
band escaped is a mystery.

During their enforced retreat, Roberts felt a stinging sensation in his
back, but managed to keep going. It was found afterwards that his life
had been saved by the slipping of his knapsack down from his shoulders.
This had been penetrated by a bullet, which had entered his body close to
his spine. Its force had been broken, but the wound was still so severe
as to lay him up for several weeks.

The almost superhuman difficulties which lay in the path of this handful
of Englishmen scattered throughout India, are summed up in a letter by
another officer, Hodson, as follows:

"The whole country is a steaming bog. I keep my health wonderfully,
thank God! in spite of heat, hard work and exposure; and the men bear up
like Britons. We all feel that the Government ought to allow every
officer and man before Delhi to count every month spent here as a year of
service in India. There is much that is disappointing and disgusting to
a man who feels that more might have been done, but I comfort myself with
the thought that history will do justice to the constancy and fortitude
of the handful of Englishmen who have for so many weeks--months, I may
say--of desperate weather, amid the greatest toil and hardship, resisted
and finally defeated the worst and most strenuous exe