Escapes

Mrs Hennessey was sheltering Mrs Christison and her child, and Mrs Ferris, who had been sent to Gwalior by her husband from an outstation, with her children. Mrs Hennessey’s son, a very able lad of just 17, upon hearing the first shots, insisted the ladies leave the house immediately and protected not just them but his mother and his little sister all the way to Scindia’s palace. Mrs Christison and Mrs Ferris were barefoot and bonnetless, so determined had young Hennessey been, they did not even have time to put on their shoes.
The Meades’ house was fortunately located on the banks of the nullah. Mrs Murray, whose son had been buried that very morning, was seeking solace from her sister, Mrs Meade, so the two ladies were together once again when the mutiny broke out. They had just been planning to go to bed when the unmistakable sounds of gunfire caused them to grab their children, and with some servants following, they ran out and crossed the nullah at a point where the water, fortunately, was shallow. They hid in a small guardhouse where, after a few anxious hours, their husbands found them. Escorted by men of their own guard, they reached the palace without any difficulties. Here, they found Major Macpherson and his sister, Mrs Innes.
As for the other Europeans in Gwalior that fateful night, their accounts were no less harrowing; however, many had been affected their escape from the cantonments, like Mrs Meade and her sister, in the first ten minutes after the first shots were fired and would be protected by Scindia. However, they had given up for lost all those that had been left behind. From the palace, MacPherson and the others could see the bungalows in the cantonment burning and the sepoys scouring the banks of the river looking for fugitives. It seemed clear that no one else could have survived, and there was also nothing Scindia could do without enraging the people around him. Yet, unbeknownst to them, others had survived.
Dr Mackellar and Captain Ryves escaped, galloping off on their horses and hardly stopping until they reached Agra. Ryves had been sent from Nowgong to Jhansi and had escaped from his own men a few days earlier; he was not going to get caught off guard again.
Lieutenant Longueville Clarke, though wounded in the lines, managed to get away with Lieutenant Pierson. Pierson’s wife was protected by the sepoys, and they brought her to him, carrying her seven miles to the palace in an improvised stretcher made of horse cloth, which they slung between their muskets. The Piersons had been in Gwalior barely six weeks before the mutiny broke out, and he was serving as adjutant to Major Blake. It is possible that, as the men did not know him, they saw no reason to kill him or his wife.