The date fixed for the final leap on Delhi was the 14th of September. Before that historic day arrived there was a week of anxious preparation. The siege-train, to whose assistance Nicholson had gone, as related in the previous chapter, came into camp safely, bringing with it eighteen guns, 24-pounders, 18-pounders, and howitzers. These were quickly placed in position in new batteries close to the walls of the city, and the thunder of their fire warned the mutineers that the siege had entered upon its last phase.

The initial work fell mostly to the engineers. Under the direction of Alexander Taylor, second in command to Baird-Smith, who was unfortunately on the sick list, they worked day and night constructing the breaching batteries and getting ready fascines, gabions, and scaling-ladders. Owing to the heavy musketry fire concentrated on them by the sepoys, the task was one which cost many valuable lives; but, like the true heroes they were, the engineers never flinched. As one after another was laid low, a comrade was ready to step forward and take the fallen man’s place.

Now was it that Medley, Greathed, Lang, and Home, among others, won fame for their daring reconnaissances of the enemy’s position. The big guns had battered down the Mori bastion, and made great breaches in the wall near the Cashmere Gate. It was important to ascertain the extent of these, so the four engineer officers named volunteered to make an examination. On the evening of the 13th of September, while it was still light, Lang stole out of the British camp, and coolly ran the gauntlet of the sepoy bullets to the very counterscarp of the ditch beneath the fortifications. He returned safely to report that the breaches were practicable.

To make more sure of the nature of the ground, Lang and Medley ventured out again after nightfall with a ladder and measuring-rod. They reached the great ditch, completed their examination of its depth and width, and were mounting to the breach itself when the alarmed sepoy sentries came running towards them. To stay meant almost certain death, so the two officers, with their escort of riflemen, made a dash for safety. Their figures were descried, however, and a volley of balls came whizzing about their ears as they bolted back. Elsewhere, at the Water bastion, Greathed and Home were similarly engaged, being able to announce that the breaches there were equally successful.

At last all was in readiness for the attack. To everyone’s gratification, the honour of leading the assault had been conferred on Nicholson. He was to head the first of the three columns placed under his command and to storm the breach near the Cashmere bastion. The second column directed its attention to the Water bastion, while the third was told off to follow the first after the Cashmere Gate had been blown up.

The story of how the gallant Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, with Sergeant Carmichael, Corporal Burgess, and others, blew up the Cashmere Gate and covered themselves with glory, cannot be given at length here. Abler pens than mine have described the brave deed with graphic detail, and I must refer the reader to their narratives. It is of Nicholson and his last glorious exploit that I have to tell.

His post of honour, as has been explained, was at the head of the first attacking column. While Home and Salkeld were carrying their powder bags to the Cashmere Gate, and while behind them N Column, under Campbell of the 52nd, waited like hounds in leash, Nicholson gave the signal to advance. The booming of the guns had ceased, the heavy shells from the 24- and 18-pounders having cleared once more the breaches which the mutineers had vainly attempted to repair. The way was open for the stormers to enter the doomed city.

In the mad rush that followed, the attacking party outdistanced the ladder-bearers. This caused a brief delay, during which the foremost files of the column were exposed to a fierce fire; but no one wavered. Very soon the ladders were brought, officers and men dropped down into the ditch, and away they all went, racing up the opposite slope and driving the sepoys before them.

Nicholson was still in the van. Leading his men, sword in hand, he swept resistlessly through the gaping breach and found himself inside the city. At the sight of the grim-faced, menacing troops who poured in after him, the rebels fell back confusedly. Little difficulty was experienced in fighting a way through the streets to the point where it had been arranged the three columns should meet. This was an open space by what was known as Skinner’s Church.

The juncture of the forces having been effected, Colonel Campbell’s column proceeded to push on to the centre of the city. The other two columns, merged practically into one, turned themselves towards the Lahore Gate, the capture of which was all-important. Here, in fact, was the key to Delhi.

According to the instructions issued, the Lahore Gate was to be carried at all costs. Little did the commander-in-chief anticipate what a terrible ordeal he had set his subordinates. As they pressed eagerly forward the troops followed the line of the ramparts and eventually cleared a path to the Cabul Gate. So far they had been successful. There now remained before them a narrow lane less than three hundred yards long and varying from ten yards to three feet in width. Through this passage they would have to win ere the gate could be reached.

What a “lane of death” it was to prove was speedily shown. At the far end the sepoys, flushed with the success that had attended their efforts in repelling the assault at this point, had mounted two guns, one covering the other and each protected by a bullet-proof screen. Above these towered the massive Burn bastion, into which some minutes later hundreds of mutineers poured. It seemed beyond the bounds of possibility that any force could make its way against such terrible odds. There were men, however, who were willing to try, and the advance began.

The 1st Bengal Fusiliers dashed forward at the signal and succeeded in capturing the first of the guns, but they got little farther. The fire directed upon them can only be described as murderous. Shot and shell dropped among the ranks thick and fast, inflicting heavy loss, and the remnant was obliged to fall back for the time. A second charge was made, but this too failed, leaving many another poor fellow stretched lifeless on the ground.

It was now generally realised that the task of forcing a passage through the lane was hopeless, or at least inadvisable, for the present. Nicholson, however, would not concede this. Every inch of ground gained in Delhi that day was worth untold gold, and he determined that no effort should be spared to win the Lahore Gate. Placing himself at the head of his men, he called on them for another charge, for one last brave attempt.

If there was one man whom the Fusiliers would have followed to death, it was Nicholson. At his summons they ran on again, some of them actually reeling from the terrific strain they had undergone. Springing out into the mouth of the lane, Nicholson waved his sword above his head and went forward. The soldiers advanced some paces, wavered, re-formed, and wavered again as the sepoys’ guns belched forth flame and death. Then, as they paused hesitating, the fateful moment came. Some yards ahead of the soldiers stood Nicholson, facing his men as he called to them angrily to “come on.” Suddenly a sepoy leaned out of the window of a house close by and pointed his musket at the tall, commanding figure beneath him. There was a flash, and on the instant Nicholson fell with a bullet in his back.

Even then, lying mortally wounded, the dying lion refused to allow himself to be borne to the rear. “Carry the lane first,” he ordered; but Colonel Graydon, who went to his assistance, persuaded him to let a bearer party lift him to one side. Thence, a little later, he was taken to a hospital tent to have his wound attended to. It was at this juncture that a young staff-officer, who is now Lord Roberts, found Nicholson in a dhoolie by the roadside just within the Cashmere Gate. The stricken hero had been deserted by the native bearers and left to his fate!

Through Roberts’ efforts a fresh party of bearers was obtained, and Nicholson was carried tenderly to the nearest field hospital. He was seen to be in great pain, besides being much exhausted from loss of blood, but hopes were entertained that his wound would not prove mortal. By the irony of fate, the occupant of another dhoolie, which was presently placed by his, turned out to be his brother Charles, whose arm had been shattered. The two had met again for the last time.

From the field hospital Nicholson was shortly after conveyed to the Ridge, where nothing was left undone that could ease his suffering. Medical skill, however, was unavailing; he lingered until the 23rd of the month, and then passed peacefully away.

Of Nicholson’s last moments Neville Chamberlain, who was constantly by his bedside, has written in touching words. He himself had lost a devoted friend who could never be replaced. In the camp the news that Nicholson was gone was received with universal sorrow. It was felt that by his death the army on the Ridge had been suddenly deprived of the one strong man to whom everybody had instinctively turned for advice and encouragement, and who could least be spared. There was a sense of injustice, too. Delhi had fallen, but John Nicholson, struck down in the hour of victory, was not there to share in the triumph.

The funeral of the dead hero took place on the following day. He was buried in a newly made cemetery not far from the Cashmere Gate and the breach through which he had led the storming party, a fitting spot truly for his resting-place. Among those who paid their last respects to him were the men of the Mooltani Horse, who had followed Nicholson from the Punjaub to Delhi. Their grief was unrestrained, sirdars and troopers mingling their tears as the body of their beloved “Nikalseyn sahib” was lowered into the grave.

Of the strange sect that had worshipped him as a god it is recorded that on Nicholson’s death becoming known, the two head-men of the tribe committed suicide, declaring that life was no longer worth living. The rest, however, decided that their dead master would not have approved of such a course, and announced their resolve to worship in future the God of whom he had often spoken to them; whereupon they went to Peshawur in a body and became Christians.

After Nicholson’s death the tributes of praise accorded him were many and widespread. In every part of India and in Great Britain his early demise he was but thirty-five created a feeling of a national loss. The London Gazette soon afterwards announced that had he lived he would have been made a K.C.B.; while, for their part, the East India Company, in whose service he had laboured so well, marked their recognition of him by unanimously voting his mother a special grant of 500 pounds a year.

What more remains to be said? It is a fadeless memory that John Nicholson has left behind him. Soldier, administrator, and leader of men, he trod “the perfect ways of honour,” and by his private as much as by his public life made himself a shining ensample for all time. Like Havelock, Henry and John Lawrence, Gordon, and many another soldier of high fame, Nicholson was a man of deep religious feeling. For this his careful early training was largely responsible. He would not have enjoyed the Lawrences’ intimate friendship had he not been the high-minded, pure-souled man he was; but if he bore “the white flower of a blameless life” himself, he never paraded his religion or forced his views upon others. It was enough for him to live cleanly and righteously, to follow the dictates of conscience in all his actions.

We may fittingly close this brief record of his glorious career by echoing the words of an eloquent speaker who thus eulogised the Lion of the Punjaub

“He fell as a soldier would wish to fall, at the head of his gallant troops, with the shout of victory in his ear. Was not such a death worthy of such a life? And will not the Cabul Gate, where he fell, live in future British history as live those Heights of Abraham on which there fell, a century ago, another youthful general, the immortal Wolfe?”