Letters

Others now entered Cawnpore.
John Sherer and his companion, Mr Bews, and a trooper from Barrow’s men as an escort entered the city – to their surprise, they met a man with a small kettle drum who, without orders, placed himself in front of their horses and proclaimed in a loud voice, the return of the former rulers. He continued to beat the drum and repeat in a sonorous voice, the words,

Khalq-e-Khuda Malik-e-Company Bahadur Hakim-e-Sahiban al-Shan!

until Sherer and Bews arrived at the police station. Here they dismounted and ascended to the upper floor. where they found themselves mobbed by well-wishers, many of them Bengalis who had been in the employ of the Europeans, as clerks and writers. The crowd was quick to profess their delight at the return of the English – but they admitted the soldiers terrified them, and the mere idea of the retaliation they feared was enough to send many of them into hysterics. The innocent would be confounded with the guilty and, as such, threw themselves at Sherer’s mercy. Caught off guard, Sherer and Bews quickly came up with a plan. Addressing the crowd, they said, as far as they knew, no such punishment had been executed as yet – but if they wanted to prove themselves loyal, the best they could do was offer themselves up for work, whatever it may be. Sherer also offered to sign placards that they could then place on the gates and doors of their homes. A few of the writers quickly brought paper, another pen and ink, chairs and a table and under Sherer’s direction wrote out notes in this fashion:
“This house belongs to one Mukherjee, a very loyal subject. Please not to molest,” until everyone had received their placards. Sherer personally signed all of them, a sort of talisman that he hoped, “excellent Thomas Aitkens” would find so reassuring, that he would have no reason to take his anger out on the occupants of the house. As it was, Havelock ordered that none of the soldiers would be permitted to enter the city, and Sherer’s talismans, for what they were worth, were never put to a practical test, rude or otherwise. For now, Sherer represented, as civil magistrate, the entire government of the East India Company in Cawnpore – he would, over the next few months, have the thankless job of restoring a destroyed city to some semblance of order.
Meanwhile, Sir Henry Havelock, on the 18th of July, considered that while the Nana was beaten, he was by no means gone and could, if he wanted to, make an unwelcome return. As such, he moved the bulk of his small force to the north-western point of the cantonment, near Nawabganj, to defend the line of the Grand Trunk Road. Although strategically, this could have been viewed as an error as it took him well out of the city, but it also kept his men away from the temptation of the liquor shops and, above all, looting, which was being extensively carried out all over Cawnpore. A detachment had been sent to Bithur to ascertain the position and found the palace not only abandoned but crammed with plunder, much of which they attempted to bring back to Cawnpore.
The position at Nawabgunj, interposed between Bithur and Cawnpore, covered the city and its resources in the rear, with the Ganges on the right and the canal on the left, while a network of ravines in front extended all the way down to the river. If the Nana planned to make his appearance, Havelock hoped he could meet him before any surprises were forthcoming. Havelock was also determined, now that cholera and dysentery made their appearance in his new camp, to keep his men as far away as possible from the freely available liquor in Cawnpore, considering that intemperance not only made his army less able to work but aggravated the symptoms of the disease. He issued orders for the Commissariat department to buy up with no delay all the wine, beer and spirits Cawnpore had to offer and explained his reasoning to Sir Patrick Grant in a telegram.
“It will thus be guarded by a few men. If it remained in Cawnpore, it would require half my force to keep it from being drunk up by the other half, and I should scarcely have a sober soldier in camp.”
He also took the most stringent measures to prevent plundering.
“A victorious army can with difficulty be restrained from the licence of depredation; but in the present instance, the spoliation of the natives assumed a meritorious character in the eyes of the European troops. They were exasperated beyond bounds by the perfidious and brutal massacre of their fellow – countrymen and women, and they considered the plunder of the town in which these atrocities had been perpetrated an act of righteous retribution; but the General was determined to subdue this propensity, not only among his European troops, but more especially among the Sikh soldiers, the most adroit and inveterate plunderers in India.”
He appointed Lieutenant Moreland of the 1st Madras Fusiliers to the position of Provost-Marshal with full power to inflict the punishment of death on any European or Indian, Sikh or otherwise, engaged in the act of looting, and he formed the order in words even the dullest Thomas Aitkens would understand.

“The marauding in this camp exceeds the disorders which supervened on the short-lived triumph of the miscreant Nana Sahib. A Provost-Marshal has been appointed, with special instructions to hang up, in their uniform, all British soldiers that plunder. This shall not be an idle threat. Commanding officers have received the most distinct warning on the subject.”

If this was not clear enough, an NCO interpreted the orders he had been given in his own unique way.
“We have here a Provost-Sergeant and his Staff here now, and they would hang any European if they found him plundering, or give him a dozen on the spot if they caught him half-a-mile from his camp.”

Unfortunately, Havelock was unable to stop the indiscriminate hanging of civilians at Cawnpore in the first few days of his arrival. The men had taken the news of the slaughter at the Bibighar, as was expected, very badly. They had expected to be saviours and now they were the army that had arrived too late. Fury was running rife in the camp as each successive group went on their macabre sight-seeing tour of Cawnpore – to Wheeler’s pathetic entrenchment, the Sati Chaura Ghat and the infamous Bibighar and Maude, out strolling with a companion came across the horrid sight of 14 men hanging from the branches of a neem tree. The hangman had been deliberately slovenly in his work and the men were slowly strangling to death. When Maude asked him if this cruelty was really necessary, the man replied, “Well, I don’t know sir, I ain’t heard no complaints.” As for Havelock, he ordered all the prisoners taken on the 16th of July to be tried by court-martial and hanged.