I love the Lord, because my voice And prayers He did hear. I, while I live, will call on Him, Who bow'd to me His ear.
And thus he plunged into the Secundrabâgh quoting the next verse at every shot fired from his rifle and at each thrust given by his bayonet:
I'll of salvation take the cup, On God's name will I call; I'll pay my vows now to the Lord Before His people all.
It was generally reported in the company that Quaker Wallace single-handed killed twenty men, and one wonders at this, remembering that he took no comrade with him and did not follow Sir Colin's rule of "fighting in threes," but whenever he saw an enemy he "went for" him! I may here remark that the case of Wallace proved that, in a fight like the Secundrabâgh where the enemy is met hand to hand and foot to foot, the way to escape death is to brave it. Of course Wallace might have been shot from a distance, and in that respect he only ran an even chance with the others; but wherever he rushed with his bayonet, the enemy did their utmost to give him a wide berth.
By the time the bayonet had done its work of retribution, the throats of our men were hoarse with shouting "Cawnpore! you bloody murderers!" The taste of the powder (those were the days when the muzzle-loading cartridges had to be bitten with the teeth) made men almost mad with thirst; and with the sun high over head, and being fresh from England, with our feather bonnets, red coats, and heavy kilts, we felt the heat intensely.
In the centre of the inner court of the Secundrabâgh there was a large _peepul_[18] tree with a very bushy top, round the foot of which were set a number of jars full of cool water. When the slaughter was almost over, many of our men went under the tree for the sake of its shade, and to quench their burning thirst with a draught of the cool water from the jars. A number however lay dead under this tree, both of the Fifty-Third and Ninety-Third, and the many bodies lying in that particular spot attracted the notice of Captain Dawson. After having carefully examined the wounds, he noticed that in every case the men had evidently been shot from above. He thereupon stepped out from beneath the tree, and called to Quaker Wallace to look up if he could see any one in the top of the tree, because all the dead under it had apparently been shot from above. Wallace had his rifle loaded, and stepping back he carefully scanned the top of the tree. He almost immediately called out, "I see him, sir!" and cocking his rifle he repeated aloud,