How 1st Lt. Ian McKay protected his Company, killed his first men
and joined the Kurnal Brigade as the Acting Chief Engineer

He had been mapping along the eastern extremity of the Indus River and the southern entrance to the Shipki Pass which leads into China. This was my first long term assignment in command of a mapping party in the year 1857 when the Great Mutiny burst upon the British Raj. He were originally to stay out for 6 months in the field and draw supplies from the Army Commissary Command at Simla. When the news reached Simla of the mutiny, we were immediately recalled and given orders to move south to Ambala to join with the Commander-In-Chief of the Simla Command, General Anson.

We immediately broke our camp, hid all but the most portable of our equipment and supplies and moved south under the cover of darkness. The man about whom we are speaking, joined my small company along the Great Trunk Road about 10 miles south of Simla. He was in the hands of a dozen or so Pandies and they were torturing him in their beastly way, when my company and I came upon them. He immediately attacked the Pandies from the furze around the clearing, where they were, and drove them off. Knowing that they probably would return in force I gave orders to unbind their prisoner and bring him with us. We made up a makeshift dhoolie and set off with the wounded man being carried by four Indian jawans who were with the company. We marched the rest of the night toward Ambala and made camp at dawn in a patch of thicket on a hill just above a small stream, 100 yards or so from the Trunk Road.

The company rested, but I put out a heavy guard, in case the Pandies found us and my havildar and I took turn about on watch. The Frenchman, for he said he was of French ancestry, ate a little biscuit dipped in wine and dropped into a fretful sleep. His hands and head had been burnt by the Pandies, but at least he would be able to walk come nightfall. During that day we sighted three groups of Pandies moving up and down the road, but they did not see us. My havildar had done an excellent job in concealing our departure from the road. At dusk we made arrangements to slip out on the road and continue our journey. Just as we were about to move out, we were attacked by a group of Pandies, mostly local badmashes armed mostly with jezails but some had more modern arms. There was little coordination or thought to the attack, and I later thanked the good Lord that no British trained mutineers were in the group. We exchanged fire and with the havildar holding the main line of our defense, I took five jawans and moved quietly to the right, to flank their position. We were successful and succeeded in breaking the back of the attack. Seven of the attackers were killed, three were seriously wounded, and four were captured. Then began the hardest job that I ever had to do. The dead were no problem, and they were covered hastily with brush. The wounded were not able to walk, and were very weak, so I staked them out away from the road, as I knew that if I let them go they would bring others down on us. The four captured fellows were asked if they would give their parole not to notify others of our presence, and they sneered at me and the havildar calling us feringhee pigs and laughing at us as they detailed what their friends would do to us. The havildar and my jawans looked to me in fear and askance as to what we should do. I didn't really know what to do, but I know that staying there was tantamount to a death sentence, and I was determined to get my men and I to Ambala all in one piece. We had sustained no injuries in the attack. So I decided to execute the four badmashes. Once having made that decision, I killed the four with my pistol. The havildar looked at me in awe, but did nor demur when I directed that the four bodies be hidden with brush as the others had been. The Frenchman, however, was another matter. He immediately upon my action began abusing me in the worst way, calling me murderer and other assorted names.. We finally had to gag him, tie his hands and bring him along at the end of a rope. Late the next day by dint of forced march the company was inside the British lines at Ambala.

I turned over the Frenchman to the civilian police for confinement until something could be done for him, and then I reported myself and my company to General Anson. He was extremely glad to see me, as he had been in telegraph communication with the Governor General in Calcutta and with Sir Henry Lawrence in the Punjab, and he had been ordered to gather all loyal troops and proceed south to Delhi. Mine was the only force of engineers to have reached him, and as soon as they had rested they were to be put to work readying a makeshift Engineering train to accompany his force on their way South. reported about the Frenchman and about the four Pandies that I had shot. General Anson looked at me steadily for nearly a minute, without speaking, and then asked in a very soft voice, if in my opinion the engineering company would have arrived intact without that action. I thought for a moment, and although I felt sick at what I had done, my reply was a firm no. General Anson then told me to put it all in my report, and then begin to scavenge an Engineering Train from the available stores at Ambala.

I completed my report, handed it to the Brigade Major and hurled myself and my company into my duties. Within five days the force, now called the Kurnal Brigade, advanced to Kurnal, where General Anson was stricken with a fatal case of cholera. General Sir Harry Barnard was appointed to command in after General Anson's death, and immediately moved upon Delhi. As the only engineer officer present, I was appointed Chief Engineer, acting and placed in charge of gathering transport for the Brigade. There was very little transport available and the engineering company worked around the clock to identify and procure every wagon, cart, piece of harness or draft animal in the area, bring it to the temporary transport yard, for strengthening and repair before making it available to the Brigade Commissariat to use as necessary.

The command was notified that the 60th Rifles and two squadrons of the 6th Dragoons coming from Meerut under Brigadier Archdale Wilson crossed the Hindan River and inflicted a heavy defeat on a force of mutineers which had been sent from Delhi to oppose the crossing. General Barnard was joined by the Meerut Force at Baghpat. Together they launched a specific attack against the mutineers which was most successful and drove the enemy back into the gates of Delhi.

Almost immediately General Barnard decided to launch an attack on the walled city of Delhi itself, without the benefit of a reserve. You can imagine that during this period I was fully engaged as the acting Chief Engineer. The Army was still frightfully bereft of transport. Some additional engineers had arrived, but no senior officer, and I continued in my post. Now the attack on the city of Delhi was badly coordinated and planed and had to be called off. General Barnard after his repulse decided to await the arrival of a siege train and badly needed reinforcements.

It was at this point that I called upon General Barnard to explain to him about the shooting of the 4 Pandies. He listened to me, impatiently. and immediately upon finishing he told me that he had read my report, and thought that I had done properly in bringing it to General Anson's attention, but considering the situation that the British Raj now faced he said he would recommend me for a decoration and to forget about it, and continue to support him as I had done. The Frenchman, i t turned out , was part of a group of French Officers who had been sent to stir up the revolt in the beginning. He had been present at Cawnpore when the garrison with women and children had been massacred and had been escorted under guard and in chains to the French Authorities in Bombay, with the recommendation that he should be shot. I know that the Frenchman whose name was Pierre Ragnine, believed me to be a murderer and a fiend, and he could not have been very well disposed toward me after that forced march, gagged and tied and led (sometimes dragged) with a rope. However, the thought of that beastly animal standing with the Pandies as they slaughtered the innocents at Cawnpore makes the bile boil in my throat. What I did, which I am not proud of and which is always in the back of my mind, I did for my Company and my Queen. They were the enemy and although I am tortured by the cold-blooded murder of those four badmashes, I am as certain as I am that I will one day stand before God, that it was the only way to deal with the situation. I do not comfort myself with the approval of two General Officers , since i t was I and I d I one who can justify my action. I know that what I did was right, even though I will carry the deed with me the rest of my life.