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The killing of British civilians and the supposed rapes of British women luridly reported in the home press were used to justify British vengeance. William Hodson, a vicar’s flaxen-haired son, part scholar fluent in Persian, Latin, Greek and Hindi, part butcher enthused by killing with sword and his favourite weapon, hog spear, formed an Anglo-Sikh militia, Hodson’s Horse, who prided themselves on their butchery. ‘I never let my men take prisoners,’ Hodson said, ‘but shoot them at once.’ An Anglo-Irish brigadier, John Nicholson, was dining with fellow officers when he learned of the rebellion. ‘Mutiny’s like smallpox,’ he said. ‘It spreads quickly and must be crushed as quickly as possible.’ Nicholson, ‘a commanding presence, six foot two inches in height, with a long black beard and dark grey eyes with black pupils that would dilate like a tiger’s’, hardened by wars against the Sikhs and Afghans (during which he found the mutilated body of his brother with its genitalia stuffed in its mouth), formed a ‘strong movable column’ of British regulars and Punjabi auxiliaries and started to hunt rebels. He proposed ‘flaying alive, impalement or burning’ for ‘murderers and dishonourers of our women’, boasting, ‘I’d inflict the most excruciating tortures I could think of with a perfectly easy conscience.’ After hunting down rebels in Peshawar, he hanged the chefs who had tried to poison British officers, saying as he entered the mess, ‘Sorry, gentlemen, to have kept you waiting for your dinner, but I’ve been hanging your cooks.’

Nicholson and Hodson headed for Delhi. In September, they joined the British forces camped on the ridge above Delhi, skirmishing with the rebels but paralysed by the vacillations of their inept colonel, Archdale Wilson. Nicholson, always accompanied by his giant Punjabi bodyguard who stood behind him at meals and slept across his doorway, had become a legend. When, thanks to his aggressive tactics, reinforcements fought their way through, the British stormed the city. In the fighting, Nicholson was shot, still outraged by the dithering colonel, waving his pistol: ‘Thank God I have the strength yet to shoot him, if necessary.’ It wasn’t. Nicholson died as the emperor and his sons retreated to Humayoun’s Tomb.

Hodson galloped with his Sikh horsemen through a hostile Delhi, forcing 2,000 rebels to surrender, then surrounded the tomb and demanded Zafar’s surrender. Taking Zafar prisoner on promise of his life, Hodson returned next day for the surrender of the prince Mirza, his brother and son. As they were conveyed in a bullock cart into Delhi, Hodson stopped and, drawing his Colt, shot all three dead, stripping them, removing their swords and signet rings, then hanging up the naked bodies at Khooni Darwaza, Blood Gate. ‘I can’t help but be pleased with the warm congratulations I received for my success in destroying the enemies of our race,’ he wrote. Most of the emperor’s sixteen sons were killed. ‘I disposed of the principal members of the house of Timur the Tartar,’ boasted Hodson. ‘I’m not cruel, but I did enjoy the opportunity of ridding the earth of these wretches.’

In November, the British retook Kanpur and in March 1858 relieved Lucknow, where, under fire from the Sikandar Bagh stronghold, troops bellowing ‘Kanpur! You murderers!’ slaughtered 2,000 rebels, their bodies piled ‘in a heap as high as my head’, recalled a future field marshal, Frederick Roberts. ‘A heaving, surging mass of dead and dying inextricably entangled.’ When British troops discovered the bodies of murdered civilians, they went berserk, raping women, sewing Muslim sepoys into pigskins before execution, having Hindu Brahmins killed by Dalits (once known as Untouchables, the oppressed stratum below the four castes). Ten thousand Indians were killed at Kanpur and Lucknow. Hodson, under investigation for corruption, was killed storming the begum’s palace; the begum escaped.^*

After Jhansi had been retaken with a massacre of women and children, Lakshmi Bai rode to Gwalior to make a final stand. In June, the British attacked. Sporting a cavalry uniform, she was wounded and unhorsed by a British sabre, then, as she fired her pistol, shot dead. At home, the British public thirsted for blood; hundreds of thousands of Indians were killed before Canning halted the bloodletting. Mocked as ‘Clemency’ Canning, he now assumed direct control from the EIC, ruling India as the first viceroy in tandem with a secretary of state for India. Victoria became queen of India and the viceregal relationship with princely rulers was promoted in majestic durbars, ceremonies presided over by imperial proconsuls.^*