Up Among the Pandies

A LEONAUR SPECIAL PUBLICATION TO MARK THE 150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY

An outstanding account of the campaign for the fall of Lucknow

This curiously titled book-for it still bears its original appellation-suggests a light hearted view of the experience of warfare. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Leonaur constantly seeks to publish unusual and interesting books of military history, but this book is remarkable on several counts. Firstly, it is a fine account of the final stages of the Indian Mutiny told from the perspective of a young British officer who was actively engaged on the campaign and a participant in many engagements. It has not been available for many years and its republication now is made all the more fitting in this, the 150th anniversary year of the Indian Mutiny itself. It is much more. In researching the Leonaur commemorative book Mutiny: 1857, Up Among the Pandies came to the notice of Leonaur's editors. It revealed itself to be a remarkable work of authorship irrespective of its subject matter. Majendie brings to his writing a fabulous talent for close observation of the detail of events, conversations and the sights he was witnessing that puts this book belongs in a class above the usual military memoir. It is an account of warfare and the experience of war that misses nothing. The reader will see the avenging British Army on campaign, the dust in the morning light and the sweat of exertion running down the faces of its men. The voice of the common soldier is reported without editing for Victorian niceties and combat is described in savage and realistic clarity-including the frequent perfunctory executions in all their ghastly variety. This is a vital book of war as fought by the British Army of the mid-nineteenth century, but in truth it is also an essential book of war that will enthral military historians and general readers alike.

We watch the little bit of gold showing above the horizon, and growing into a great, glowing, fiery orb, which we know, ere long, will dart out such brazen heat and scorching rays that existence anywhere but in the shade will be impracticable.
We watch the dark masses of troops and guns (who have hitherto been, to our eye, only as huge, shapeless masses of darkness moving mechanically onward) becoming defined and clear by slow degrees, until at last the men’s faces become apparent, and you are able once again to behold private John Smith in all his glory as he trudges along, puffing away merrily at his short, black cutty, filled with the nastiest tobacco in the world, in an overpowering state of heat, perspiration, and dust. <br>
It is wonderful how dusty everyone seems to have become in that hour or so before dawn, but so it is: in the wrinkles of the men’s coats, on their beards and whiskers, and down the junction of their cheeks and noses—about their firelocks—in your horses’ ears and your own, and on his smooth, sleek skin—upon the bullocks, yokes—upon the elephants’ broad backs—thickly over the heavy guns, from muzzle to breach, in the crevices of their mouldings and carvings, over the carriages, and upon every chain and handspike, ring and bolt—as thickly, too, upon the field pieces, and taking the shine out of the harness—wherever, in fact, a grain of sand or dust can cling there will that grain be found, reducing man and beast, and wood and iron, to a sort of neutral, gritty grey.<br>
It is wonderful, too, how with sunrise all sleepiness vanishes; often have I found in a night’s march, when I have rolled and lolled about on my horse with very drowsiness the long night through, and would have given all my worldly possessions for a nap—when I have in sheer despair wound the mane round my fingers, and then resigned myself to Morpheus, and the safety of my neck to chance—when, on a short halt being called, I have thrown myself off my horse on to the soft dusty road, and dropping off to sleep before my foot was well out the stirrup have slept with all my might and main until “Attention!” was called, or in case that failed to awaken me, until a good-natured sergeant coming up roused me with “They’re a moving off, sir”—invariably on these occasions, when I have been thus overpowered with sleep, have I found that immediately the sun appears, long before it gets hot, does all that drowsiness vanish, and you feel almost supernaturally wide awake—the first few rays as they sparkle and gleam upon you seem to drive away every wink and blink from your eyelids, and leave you with that sort of sleepless, weary Wandering Jew marche-marche-toujours-marche sensation which is scarcely more agreeable than the previous one of extreme somnolence.<br><br><br>
After advancing thus for some three-quarters of a mile, we find ourselves at the entrance of a dense jungle occupied by the enemy; the skirmishers are checked for a moment; we bring our guns into action, and bang! go half a dozen shells, whistling and crashing through the trees and long high grass, bursting inside with a loud report, and scouring the wood effectually; this precautionary measure enables us again to push on.<br>
“Hark forward !” and away we go, the little Riflemen dashing into the high vegetation, followed by the rest of the column, and pop! bang! crack! crack! with now and again the ping of an inimical bullet, soon tell us that the enemy are about.
It is strange work this jungle fighting, where you know nothing of what is going on around you; where, for aught you know, sly gentlemen behind bushes may have their fingers upon the trigger which, once touched, would send you tumbling from your horse, a corpse; where foes and friends, Highlanders, Riflemen, and Sikhs, alike are lost to view among the trees, and of whose whereabouts you can only form an idea from the sharp and constant firing which is going on.<br>
Hush! There is a breaking and rustling of the leaves; and look, a Sepoy in full flight dashes wildly across your path; but, even as he goes, the barrel of an Enfield is covering him—bang! a sharp, quick report—a whistling of a bullet—and now he is down, rolling a confused and bloody mass in the dust and dirt—a few convulsive struggles—a little clutching at the grass which is beneath him, and which his blood, as it wells forth, is fast dying a dark red—a low moan or two, perchance, and all is over.