१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

THE FIGHT IN DELHI
vengeance on the poor innocent bhishtis (water-carriers)
and other Indians in their service, by actually cutting them
down to death in cold blood!” ⁴ And yet it was these
bhishtis and others who had kept the English army in
fighting condition! But the English were worsted still
more terribly in the attack of the 14th of July. For, on
this day, the brave Chamberlain was shot dead by a Sepoy.
“The first warrior in our camp, the first in fame, the first
in honour! Woeful the day when our Chamberlain was
carried back to the camp wounded mortally!—” such is
the language with which the English historians express
the fullness of their grief at this their national loss.
Thus, the 15th of July passed off and still the proud towers
of Delhi were carrying their flags and banners, resplendent
in the rays of the sun, proclaiming to the world that the
city had now become the abode of Freedom! At last,
Reed himself resigned and retired to the Himalayan hills
to avoid a sure death! This was the third commander of
the English forces. Two were put into the grave; the
third could survive simply by resigning the charge—still
Delhi could not be taken! The chiefs of the staff, Quar-
termaster-General Becher and Adjutant-General Chamber-
lain were laid down in the camp expecting their death
every moment—still Delhi could not be taken! Nay,
even the question of self-defence is getting more and more
hopeless by the constant and harassing attacks of the
Revolutionaries who numbered, by now, more than
twenty thousand! Even if the Revolutionaries lost more
men in the encounters, yet the English could reap ab-
4. “It is related that, in the absence of tangible enemies, some
of our soldiery, who turned out on this occasion, butchered a number
of unoffending camp-followers, servants, and others who were hud-
dling together, in vague alarm, near the Christian church-yard. No
loyalty, no fidelity, no patient good service on the part of these good
people could extinguish, for a moment, the fierce hatred which
possessed our white soldiers against all who wore the dusky livery
of the East.”—Kaye and Malleson’s Indian Mutiny, Vol. II, p. 438.
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