In one body, the officers and civilians left Nowgong. The sowar orderlies, after a quick salute, galloped off to the lines, and only 100 sepoys deigned to follow Kirke out of the station.
Mishap is a strange bedfellow – the sergeant major was too fat for Mr. Smalley’s buggy and promptly it broke at the wheel axel; an old camel carriage was brought up but the camels, reticent at best, proved impossible to coax and the carriage remained stuck, prompting the two ladies to scramble into Dr. Mawe’s buggy, each with a child on their lap. Then, barely 300 yards down the road, a round shot of grapeshot was fired at the party, perhaps deliberately misaimed as no one was hurt.

Dr. Mawe led the party. Their goal was Chhatarpur but Dr. Mawe missed the road, leading the party towards Garawli. As mistakes go, it was a providential one. The sepoys who had watched them leave would later concentrate their energies on seeking the party out in that direction. Fortunately, it was a dark night, the moon was late rising and the sepoys were still busy in Nowgong with plundering the station, firing the officer’s bungalows, releasing the prisoners from the goal and generally otherwise occupied to give any active chase thus missing to see the party had turned off from that road and taken another.
Not that they would have found them. The party managed to miss the Chhatarpur road again, ending up before long at the banks of a lake. Lieutenant Jackson promptly roused a boatman who was in his service to show them the way. Under his able guidance, the bedraggled party arrived at daybreak in Chhatarpur. The Rani of Chhatarpur welcomed the party warmly. She, like the other rajas in the area, had been threatened not to give the fugitives any shelter or service, but she, ruling for her son, did not take any notice of the messages. Under her kindly attention, the party remained safe for two days. That isn’t to say the sepoys were not looking for them. A grenadier of the 12th rode out to Chhatarpur on Lieutenant Becher’s horse, no less and ascertained they were indeed there. Others were scouring the countryside; the chase was still on.
On the 11th in the afternoon, Scot and the party were startled by gunfire from the direction of Nowgong – it turned out to be a salute ere the mutineers commenced their march. A few loyal sepoys used this as a way to get to their officers – turning off the road, they hastened to Chhatarpur. By the 12th, all that was left of the 12th BNI was four native officers, five havildars and seventy-eight sepoys. The 100 that had left with Kirke on the 10th had dwindled to 30. Some Christian bandsmen of the 12th and their wives managed their escape and sought out the Rani of Chhatarpur. Of the artillery, only a Christian bugler and a private came out of Nowgong. The rest had mutinied.
The next day, Major Kirke ordered Captain Scot to return to Nowgong to see the state of things. Second-Lieutenant Townsend volunteered to go along. That night, they rode back to the station to be met by a horrible scene of ruin and plunder. Scot commiserated that the only thing remaining of his household was a quantity of tea, which he found lying on the road. At the Mess House, they found everything had been destroyed – not a dish or a glass had been left unshattered; the furniture had been smashed, even the billiard table had been broken up for its iron and brass. All that was left was a quantity of stores, including a fair amount of wine and spirits, but the brandy was gone. Gathering up what they could of the stores, they continued their melancholy ride.

Not a single thatched bungalow had been left unburnt, and only three small houses were still standing. The men of the 12th had been quite thorough in their rampage – the bungalow of the sergeant major was a smouldering ruin, and they had blown up their own magazine and set fire to their lines, but they had left their bazaar untouched. Much of the rest of the town had been torched, and one house was still on fire. The Rani of Chhatarpur had ordered a guard of her own force to protect Nowgong, but they had been somewhat negligent in their work, and as Scot could now see, there was very little point in staying much longer.
His final stop was the regimental hospital, where he found a sepoy “in the last stage of sickness, left there to starve or be killed by dogs and an old bedridden woman, mother of an invalided naick and grandmother of a sepoy musician, who had left her uncared for to march with the rebels.” Leaving the two invalids in the care of kindly local official, Scot pressed the man with some money for their care and turned his back on Nowgong. The station had passed into the hands of the Chhadarpur Rani.
After a quick dinner, the men pushed on to Lugasi and the fort of its benevolent raja, where, to their surprise, they found Major Kirke. Unfortunately, it was hardly the Major Kirke who had but lately sent them to Nowgong.
His health had been failing, and now from want of tea, and wine and beer, he was quite gone. He told me that he had found the Sepoys preparing to shoot him on the march, but when I met the others, they told me that in a sudden fit of terror, he had dashed off from them. He was a brave man naturally, but he had become quite incapable, from anxiety and fatigue, and the want of his usual support, as to diet, &c. He passed the night there, imagining all sorts of horrible deeds were being meditated by the Rajah. The Major, the poor man, passed the night in great alarm, telling us we were going to be shot in the next minute, actually spelling the words, lest the unlettered attendants should understand.
The Raja, however, had no design on their lives and treated the men with every kindness. The next morning, with the major in tow, the men set off to a place called Sturnuggur, where they hoped to meet up with the rest of the party and the remnant of the corps.
They had barely travelled five miles when a message was received from the Raja of Lugasi that the sepoys had been overheard, plotting to kill them all. This led Scot to believe that the last men who had joined them from Nowgong were, in fact, mutineers, just waiting for a chance to massacre their officers, prompting Scot to change direction. They halted around noon near a village under some trees and made a repast of some wine and cheese they had taken from the remains of the mess in Nowgong and waited for sunset. Shortly before setting off, another message came from the Lugasi Raja that stated most clearly, the party they were trying to catch up with had been attacked.
Not wanting to lose any more time, they set off at once to the domains of the powerful Chirkaru Raja. He also wrote a quick note to Captain Ewart, in the hope he was still alive, to make all haste to Chirkaru with the rest of the party. Scot intended, with the help of the Chirkaru Raja, to disarm the sepoys who had joined them last from Nowgong. This letter was destroyed by the messenger, which proved to be most providential.

Early in the morning on the 15th, they reached the dominions of the Chirkaru Raja; their escort refused to move any further and Towsend, Kirke, and Scot had to proceed alone. They had been told by the Lugasi Raja to seek out the protection of Chirkaru and that of Mr. Carne, the Collector at Mahoba, who had taken the habit of sleeping under his protection, proceeding out of doors only during daylight.
To their disappointment, when they arrived, Mr. Carne was not there, and they had to wait until the Raja saw fit to admit them. He sent them to a “ fine but dirty house, on the edge of a lake..” and they were told to mind they were not seen. His minister, however, for fear the rebels would punish the Raja, asked them to leave. This was not the Raja’s orders – he countermanded his minister and provided that they stayed quiet, they could remain in the house. A few servants were sent to attend to them, a little food was given, and a guard was placed over the door. During the short time they were allowed to stay, Scot managed to get his horse shoed and some clothes made up; at sunset, they were sent off in a carriage with four horses and a guard.
They reached Mahoba safely and found the party at Mr. Carne’s house. There had been additions to it – all the bandsmen and their families had escaped Nowgong, a Sergeant Kirchoff and his wife and a Mr. Sturt had made their way from Jhansi. As for the sepoys of whom Scot had imagined every treachery, they were anything but mutinous.
I was told, when I joined, that the Sepoys had been much disconcerted at my absence and that of the Major. They knew that the Major had gone off through fear of them and understood that he was somewhat deranged, but they feared that I suspected them too. The men were fond of Kirke, and one of the native officers, seeing that he was not quite right in his mind, quietly told three or four of the men not to lose sight of him. The Major, noticing that they kept by him, thought that they meant to shoot him. The men could hardly be made to march on towards Mahoba under Ewart, wishing rather to go in search of the Major, and a story had come in that we had been murdered, which greatly distressed them, some of them actually weeping. They were, however, quieted and very glad when we joined them again.
The kindly Lugasi Raja had sent off his messages to Scot in best faith; little did he know that his very own retainers had lied to him. The party under Ewart had not been attacked, and likewise, the sepoys were not plotting to murder anyone. Quite contrary – all the officers found them more polite and considerate than they had ever been before. Mr Carne, who put the party up in his house, was facing troubles of his own: no one would follow his orders, and he had given control of his district to the Chhadarpur Rani as a means of keeping some order. On the 17th it was quite clear that remaining in Mahoba was fruitless and they would have to move on.
The idea was to push on to Banda and then onto Allahabad, but on the 16th, they were informed that Banda was preparing for a siege; the next day, the depressing news reached Scot that the troops in Banda had mutinied and massacred their officers. So, with Banda out of the question, they decided to proceed to the Fort of Chunar via Callingur. The route took them away from the rebels who the sepoys were most anxious to avoid – if confronted by their erstwhile brethren, they might be forced to join them – and thus, they were most grateful for the change of direction. Major Kirke had, in the meantime, agreed to leave everything up to Scot.
They had no tents, and supplies were limited to what Scot and Townsend had scavenged from Nowgong. They had a cartload of wine and other sundry items and some of the tea Scot had found scattered behind his house. They had 12 hackeries, one alone for the remains of the mess, and the rest for the women and children (some 40 in number) and for anyone who could not walk. There was no way to keep them together no matter how hard Scot tried, and the line extended for more than a mile. If attacked, there would be no way to protect them. Mr. Carne had borrowed 100 rupees from the Chirkaru Raja, and the money reached them at their next stop, a village called Banda Johwpur.