INCIDENTS AT THE BATTLE OF MEANEE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8472, 24 January 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

INCIDENTS AT THE BATTLE OF MEA NEE.

Colonel Sir W. F. Butler has just published a life of Sir Charles Napier, the famous Indian officer. Wo give an extract from the account of the battle of Meanee —

Meanwhile the fight on the edge of the dry channel went on with a sameness of fierceness that makes its recital almost monotonous. In no modern battle that we read of is the actual shock of. opposing forces more than a question of a few minutes' duration. Here at Meanee it is a matter of hours. For upwards of three hours this red lino is lighting that mass of warriors at less than a dozen yards' distance, and often during the long conflict the interval between the combatants is not half as many feet. Over and over again heroic actions are performed in that limited area between the hosts that read like a page from some dim combat of Homeric legend. The commander of the Twenty-fifth Bombay Sepoys, Teesdale, seeing the press of foemen in front of his men to be more than his line can stand, spurs into the midst of the surging mass, and falls, hewing his enemies, to the last. But his spirit seems to have quitted his body only to enter into the three hundred men who have seen him fall, and the wavering line bears up again. So, too, when the Sepoy regiment next in line has to bear the brunt of the Beloochee charge, the commanding officer, Jackson, rides forward into the advancing enemy and goes down amid a whirl of swordblades, his last stroke crashing through a shield vainly raised to save its owner's life, and beats back the -Beloochee surge. M'Murdo of the Twenty-second, riding as staff-officer to the General, cannot resist the intoxication of such combats. Seeing a chief conspicuous alike by martial bearing and richness of apparel, he rides into the enemies' ranks and engages him in single combat. Before they can meet M'Murdo'g horse is killed, but the rider is quickly on his feet, and the combat begins. Both are dexterous swordsmen, and each seems to recognise in the other a foeman worthy of his steel ; but the Scottish clansman is stouter of sword than his Beloochee rival, and Jan Mahomet Khan roll? from his saddle to join the throng which momentarily grows denser on the sandy river-bed. Once or twice the old General is himself in the press of the fight. He is practically unarmed, because his right hand had been disabled a few days earlier by a blow which he had dealt a camel-driver who was maltreating his camel, and the Scindian's head being about fifty times harder than the General's hand, a dislocated wrist was the result. So intent is he on the larger battle that the men around him are scarcely noticed, and more than once his life is saved by a soldier or an officer interposing between him and an enemy intent on slaying the old chief, who sieems to him exactly what he — the guiding spirit of this storm of war. Thus Lieutenant Mars ton saves his General's life in front of the Twentyfifth Sepoys by springing between a Beloochee soldier and Napier's charger at the moment the enemy is about to strike. The blow cuts deep into the brass scales on Marston's shoulder, and the Beloochee goes down between the sword of the officer and the bayonet of a private who has run into the melee. Again he gets entangled in the press in front, and is in close peril when a sergeant of the Twenty-second saves him ; and as the old man emerges unscathed from the surf of shield and sword, the whole Twenty-second line shouts his name and greets him with a wild Irish cheer of rapture ringing high above the clash of battle. It is at this time that the drummer Delaney, who keeps everywhere on foot beside his General, performs the most conspicuous act of valour done during the day. In the midst of the melee he sees a mounted chief leading on his men. Delaney seizes a musket and bayonet, rushes upon the horseman, and Meer Wullee Mahomet Khan goes down in full sight of both armies, while the victor returns with the rich sword and shield of the Beloochee leader.

There are no revolvers yet, no breechloading arms, nothing but the sword for the officer and the flint musket and bayonet for the men ; and fighting means something more than shoving cartridges in at one end of a tube and blowing them out at the other, twenty to the minute, by the simple action of pulling a finger. "At Meanee," says M'Murdo, "the muskets of the men often ceased to go off, from the pans becoming clogged with powder, and then you would see soldiers, taking advantages of a momentary lull in the onslaught, wiping out the priming pans with a piece of rag, or fixing a new flint in the hammer." Sometimes these manifold inducements to old " brown Bess" to continue work have to be suspended in order to receive on levelled bayonets a wild Beloocheo rush, and then frequently could be seen the spectacle of men impaled upon the steel still hacking down the enemy they had been able to reach only in death. This desperate battle has continued for three hours, when for the first time the Beloochees show symptoms of defeat. The moment has in fact come which in every fight marks the turn of the tide of conflict, and quick as thought Napier seizes its arrival. His staff officers fly to the left carrying orders to the Scinde Horse and the Bengal Cavalry to penetrate at all hazards through the right of the enemy's line, and fall upon bis rear.