The Devil's abroad in false Vellore

Always, one thing leads to another. I am researching obscure forms of rapid messaging in pre-telegraph environments. From that start, I end up, of course, in India at the time of the Great Mutiny in 1857 and the mystifying, and still not understood, appearance of bread loafs, chapatis, passed from village to village. It was a sign of something but that something was not understood by the British or the villagers at the time.

From the Great Mutiny, I end up with the predecessor Vellore Mutiny in 1806. Interesting in its own right.

From there, I reach an account of one of the survivors, Amelia Farrer, Lady Fancourt who wrote An Account Of the Mutiny at Vellore, by the Lady of Sir John Fancourt, the Commandant, who was killed there July 9th, 1806 in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 14 June 1842, p. 2. Incredible the lives and stories of just a couple of centuries ago.

At this moment, I gave up all for lost. I opened my dressing-room table drawer, and took out my husband's miniature, which I tied, and hid under my habit, and determined not to lose it but in death. I had secured his watch some time before, to ascertain the hour. I had hardly secured this much valued remembrance of my husband, before I heard a noise in the hall, adjoining my bed room. I moved softly to the door, and looking through the key-hole, discovered two sepoys knocking a chest of drawers to pieces. I was struck with horror, knowing their next visit would be to my apartments. My children, and the female servants were at the time lying on a mat, just before a door which opened into the back verandah, and which, at the commencement of the mutiny, seemed the safest place, – as shots were fired at the windows, we were obliged to remove as far as possible from them. I whispered to my Ayhal, that the sepoys were in the hall, and told her to move from the door. She took the children under the bed, and also begged of me to go there with them. I had no time to reply, before the door we had just left, was burst open. I got under the bed, and was no sooner there, than several shots were fired into the room; but, although the door was then open, no body entered. I took up a bullet which fell close upon me, under the bed. The children were screaming with terror, at the firing, and I expected our last hour was come, but willing to make one effort to save my babes, I got from my hiding place, fled into a small adjoining room, off the back stair-case.

And from there, I came across a poem about Vellore by one of my favorite poets, Sir Henry Newbolt. Very much a poet of the Empire, and a good one at that with many memorable poems and lines. Gillespie, his Vellore effort, is not, in my opinion, among the good ones but you can see the sentiment. Sir Rollo Gillespie was the commanding officer of the relieving force who rescued the few survivors. Another day, a few more nuggets of accidental knowledge.

Gillespie
by Sir Henry Newbolt

Riding at dawn, riding alone,
Gillespie left the town behind;
Before he turned by the Westward road
A horseman crossed him, staggering blind.

'The Devil's abroad in false Vellore,
The Devil that stabs by night,' he said,
'Women and children, rank and file,
Dying and dead, dying and dead.'

Without a word, without a groan,
Sudden and swift Gillespie turned,
The blood roared in his ears like fire,
Like fire the road beneath him burned.

He thundered back to Arcot gate,
He thundered up through Arcot town,
Before he thought a second thought
In the barrack yard he lighted down.

'Trumpeter, sound for the Light Dragoons,
Sound to saddle and spur,' he said;
'He that is ready may ride with me,
And he that can may ride ahead.'

Fierce and fain, fierce and fain,
Behind him went the troopers grim,
They rode as ride the Light Dragoons
But never a man could ride with him.

Their rowels ripped their horses' sides,
Their hearts were red with a deeper goad,
But ever alone before them all
Gillespie rode, Gillespie rode.

Alone he came to false Vellore,
The walls were lined, the gates were barred;
Alone he walked where the bullets bit,
And called above to the Sergeant's Guard.

'Sergeant, Sergeant, over the gate,
Where are your officers all?' he said;
Heavily came the Sergeant's voice,
'There are two living and forty dead.'

'A rope, a rope,' Gillespie cried :
They bound their belts to serve his need.
There was not a rebel behind the wall
But laid his barrel and drew his bead.

There was not a rebel among them all
But pulled his trigger and cursed his aim,
For lightly swung and rightly swung
Over the gate Gillespie came.

He dressed the line, he led the charge,
They swept the wall like a stream in spate,
And roaring over the roar they heard
The galloper guns that burst the gate.

Fierce and fain, fierce and fain,
The troopers rode the reeking flight:
The very stones remember still
The end of them that stab by night.

They've kept the tale a hundred years,
They'll keep the tale a hundred more:
Riding at dawn, riding alone,
Gillespie came to false Vellore.