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Updated: May 25, 2025
Captain Christopher had, from the first arrival of the steamers at Mooltan, shown the usual willingness of his profession to co-operate with his brother officers on shore. On the night in question he had already once conducted some reinforcements to Colonel Pattoun's assistance, but the fighting at the outposts still raged with unabated fury. Another reinforcement came up, but had no guide.
Ahead of the troops from Mooltan went Lumsden and the Guides' cavalry, followed by Hodson with the Guides' infantry. The corps when re-united, before it joined Lord Gough, was deflected for the performance of a detached duty which brought it no little honour.
This victory of Dhurum Salah gained the besieging army a distance to the front of some eight or nine hundred yards, and brought them within battering distance of the city walls. Everybody expected that in a few hours Mooltan would be won, when the astounding news reached General Whish that Rajah Sher Singh and his whole army had gone over to the enemy.
"Then, if you'll excuse the liberty, I'll interdooce meself, in a manner of speaking." He touched his cap with a bob of mock humility. "I'm Bob Ford," he said, "come back out o' kingdom come so to say. Me as went down with the Mooltan safe dead five year gone. I come to see my wife." During this speech Thomas Simmons's jaw was dropping lower and lower.
Three years ago, I received orders to proceed from Kurâchee to Roree by the river route, for the purpose of joining the siege-train then assembling for the reduction of Mooltan. Subsequent events caused my final destination to be changed to Sukkur.
These two British officers, with the full consent and support of the Sikh Durbar, had been sent to Mooltan on special duty in connection with the voluntary abdication of Mulraj, which had been accepted by his suzeraine. The escort sent with the British officers was a strong one, and, if loyal, perfectly competent to deal with any disorders.
Never did a city present a more awful scene of retribution than did that of Mooltan. Scarcely a roof or wall which had not been penetrated by English shells; and whole houses, scorched and blackened by the bombardment, seemed about to fall over the corpses of their defenders.
One of the last acts of the victors was to disinter the bodies of Agnew and Anderson, and to carry them to an honoured resting-place on the summit of Moolraj's citadel, through the broad and sloping breach which had been made by the British guns in the walls of the rebellious fortress of Mooltan.
Moolraj, consequently, was allowed time to complete the defences of Mooltan, which he rendered very formidable. No sooner had Sir Frederick Currie, the resident at Lahore, received information that Moolraj had shut himself up in Mooltan, than he despatched General Whish, with a train of heavy siege-guns, to invest it.
Should he ever pass that fort again, he may perhaps regard it with greater interest after reading the stirring tale of how it was captured from the Sikhs by a handful of resolute men of the Guides. To tell this story we must be forgiven for forsaking strict chronology; for the incident here narrated took place while part of the corps was still engaged at the siege of Mooltan.
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