The Death of Lieutenant Proctor

Protecting the women and children proved to be the undoing of Lieutenant Archibald Proctor. When the mutiny started, Proctor was in his bungalow with his wife and Mrs Gilbert, the wife of an absent officer. He had initially planned to ride off with his wife on horseback, but he felt obliged to stay back with Mrs Gilbert, who could not ride as she had just given birth, and her servants refused to give her her carriage. Proctor’s servants hid them as best they could in the bearer’s hut. All night, little party – Proctor, his wife, Mrs Gilbert, her child and a nurse, lay crouched up in a dark corner, but as day broke, they were discovered.
A sepoy came in first, and after extracting what little money they had to bribe the rest, he said, and to help them escape. He then told them the sepoys had made a vow that the women and children would not be hurt. When the sepoy left, Mrs Proctor endeavoured to hide her husband under a counterpane and then lay herself down over him. It was the best she could do, but it was not enough. Soon after, eight sepoys came in and searched the hut. They brought with them chapatis and water and told the women not to be afraid. They did not want to touch them. Mrs Proctor recalled, “A dread natural calm came over. I could have done anything then. I spoke to them all quietly, ate and drank what they brought, and then I was not afraid. They asked me who I was. I told them, and they said at once, ‘Where is your Sahib?’ I said, ‘Oh! If only you could tell me, I should be so happy.’ ‘Where is he?’ Ah, they knew too well. “
After two or three hours of the most agonising suspense, Mrs Gilbert and the nurse were taken out of the hut. Mrs Proctor continued to sit, quite still. “Dreadful men came in and said get up and go out. ‘ They came quite close to me with their muskets. I said, ‘Don’t kill me, what will you do with my sahib if you find him?’ ‘Kill him,’ was the reply at the same time, telling me to rise. I knew not what I did as I went out, only one thought alone possessed me that they were going to kill him!” Outside, the compound was full of sepoys loading their muskets. Mrs Proctor, in turn, threatened, pleaded, begged and promised everything she could, but it was all in vain. The sepoys laughed at the crying woman – one of them took her by the hand and led her away. “I heard shots – I turned and saw him running some 40 yards, without being hit. I could look no longer, and just as I turned away, they said ‘fallen’ (Gera)…Oh, that awful moment.”
Lieutenant Proctor had taken his last chance – as his wife left the hut, he threw off the covering and ran with as much speed as he could, followed by the bullets of his men. He managed to reach a low mud bank, but there, unbeknownst to him, a sowar stood with his tulwar unsheathed. A bullet struck Proctor in the leg, and as he scrambled to make it to the bank, the sowar raised his tulwar and struck the lieutenant across the head and face. With a sigh, Proctor fell to the ground, dead. The next day, three of his servants buried his body in the graveyard by the church.
Mrs Proctor and Mrs Gilbert, along with the nurse and child, were taken from the lines of the 2nd Regiment. A few moments later, the men of Proctor’s regiment came and insisted that the ladies come to their lines; they were now responsible for the widow. They ordered a carriage to be got ready for the women and said they could take it and go wherever they pleased. Into the carriage the sepoys put not just Mrs Proctor and Mrs Gilbert, her child, and the nurse, but Ruth Coopland, Mrs Kirke and her son, Mrs Raikes, Mrs Blake and Mrs Campbell, the former “Belle of Gwalior”, who had been so admired, not just for her beauty but for her small, delicate feet that looked so pretty in native shoes. The faithful Mirza drove the carriage, and two sepoys ran alongside as far as the town. The ladies would now have to make their way to Agra – their first call would be at the gates of Scindia’s palace, but the guard roughly told them he would not see them – as it transpired, he was never told they were there.

Mrs. Hawkins and Mrs. Stewart

The next time Ruth Coopland saw Mrs Hawkins was in Agra. She had with her only three of her children and sad little Charlotte Stewart. The tale she had to tell is perhaps one of the most shocking of the mutiny in Gwalior, for from the loyal artillery, there was no sign.
This became clear as soon as the ladies arrived in their lines. Instead of the protection which had been promised, the ladies were taken to a hut where they found Captain Hawkins, and they stayed the remainder of the night. In the morning, the fury of the sepoys was in no way spent – they rushed into the hut and shot Captain Hawkins; the same bullet killed Mrs Jane Stewart, who was clinging to his arm. They then killed the nurse, who, as she fell, crushed the little Hawkins baby beneath her. A blow from a tulwar killed Mrs Stewart’s two-year-old son, Robert Walter, and one of Mrs Hawkins’s boys. Mrs Stewart’s quick-thinking bearer concealed the four remaining children, including Charlotte Stewart, on the roof of the hut before the enraged sepoys noticed that two of them were boys.
With their anger spent, the sepoys stood around, merely gloating. The Stewart’s bearer kept hold of the children, hiding the little boys behind him. Mrs Hawkins, still barely able to move, begged the sepoys for some water. When they refused, she managed (she had given birth not 48 hours earlier) to crawl down to the river to get some water for the children – a sepoy, kindlier than the rest, helped her. No one seemed inclined to offer the party any more harm.
Through the Stewarts’ loyal bearer, Mrs Hawkins managed to get a note to Colonel Filose (one of the Filose brothers who were sons of a famous French officer who had, in the old days, trained the Maratha troops. Ever since, a Filose had always commanded the Raja’s personal troops. The colonel wasted no time in sending a cart for Mrs Hawkins and the children and, through his great personal influence, ensured they reached Scindia’s palace unharmed.
Captain William Stewart lay all Sunday night concealed in another hut, wounded but not mortally. The faithful bearer attended him and even managed to get him some milk and water. In the morning, the poor captain asked after his wife – the sepoys told him she was killed, but neglected to mention his daughter was still alive. He looked at the men and said, now that his wife was dead, he no longer cared to live, and they could do as they wished. The sepoys took him out of the hut to the stables where the elephants were kept, propped him up against a wall, and shot him.
Little Charlotte Stewart was saved by the bearer who accompanied her to Agra Fort. Here she remained in the care of kind friends of her late parents – but she never smiled and from being the merriest child Ruth had known in Gwalior, she had turned into a mere ghost of her former self, a melancholy, grave little waif who clung to the bearer who had saved her life – the man never left her side and was the only one she would allow near her. One day, upon seeing Mrs Blake in the fort, she asked her if she had any photographs of Gwalior.