At 10 a.m., after marching eighteen miles, with the sun beginning to beat down on the column, Lake ordered a halt for breakfast beside a marshy lake on the banks of the Hindan. Tents were erected, boots were removed, fires lit and the sepoys began to cook their parathas. The general sent a dram around his officers.
Quite suddenly there was a series of bright flashes and the thunder crash of heavy artillery, ‘shattering not only the tranquillity of the day but the eardrums of men closest to the guns … The accompanying pressure wave generated by the explosive muzzle-blasts, which flattened the obstructing grass, was immediately followed by other, unnatural and far more eerie auditory sensations that played upon deafened ears. Grape shot tore and chain shot scythed through the grass with a shearing sound which was followed by a metallic clatter or muffled thuds depending on whether the projectiles struck equipment or the flesh of men and horses.’
It was a massacre. Among the many casualties was Pester, who was hit by some of the first volleys: ‘A grapeshot passed through the housing of my pistols, and shattered the stock of one of them, and I felt my horse stagger under me; another grape had grazed his side and lodged under the skin; a third went through him. It entered at his near quarter and passed out at the other. He staggered and fell onto me.’
Chaos broke out, but the Marathas remained at their defensive position on the raised ground, failing to advance and scatter the terrified Company sepoys. This gave Lake time to rally his men. Deciding to lure Bourquien off his strong position, Lake gave the order for the infantry to fall back in a feint, and they did so, between two wings of cavalry who lay hidden behind the tall grass. The Marathas took the bait and rushed forward, only to find themselves caught in a pincer movement. The Company infantry then turned and advanced methodically forward with bayonets, supported by the galloper guns. ‘We drove them into the Yamuna,’ wrote the badly bruised Pester, ‘and hundreds of them were destroyed in endeavouring to cross it.’
The Flying Artillery was up, and the river appeared boiling by the fire of grape kept up on those of the enemy who had taken to the river. It was literally, for a time, a stream of blood, and presented such a scene as at another period would freeze a man’s very soul. When this was past, we faced about, and returned to the field of battle to collect our wounded men and officers …
There the scene was truly shocking … About thirty surgeons were absolutely covered in blood, performing operations on the unfortunate soldiers who had had their legs and arms shattered in the action, and death in every shape seemed to preside in this assembly of human misery. Their exclamations were enough to pierce the hardest heart. Numbers were fainting, and even dying under the operation; others bore the pain with as much fortitude as they could … In one corner of the tent stood a pile of legs and arms, from which the boots and clothes of many were not yet stripped off.
That night, five French commanders gave themselves up, and Lord Lake wrote to tell Wellesley what had passed. He added: ‘Your Lordship will perceive that our loss has been very great … under as heavy a fire as I have ever been witness to …’ Later he expanded on the bravery and skill shown by his Maratha opponents. ‘Their battalions are uncommonly well appointed,’ he wrote, ‘have a most numerous artillery, as well served as they possibly can be.’
All the sepoys of the enemy behaved exceedingly well, the gunners standing to their guns until killed by the bayonet … I was never in so severe a business in my life, and I pray to God I may never be in such a situation again. Their army is better appointed than ours; no expense is spared, and they have three times the number of men to a gun we have. These fellows fought like devils, or rather heroes, and had we not made a disposition for attack in a style that we should have done against the most formidable army we could have been opposed to, I verily believe, from the position they had taken, we might have failed.
Terrible as it was, the Battle of Delhi was the last time British troops faced French officers in South Asia, ending more than a century of rivalry which had caused so much bloodshed, mostly of non-Europeans, across the subcontinent. It also brought to a close Hindustan’s unhappy century of being fought over, and plundered, by rival armies. As Khair ud-Din put it shortly afterwards, ‘the country is now flourishing and at peace. The deer lies down with the leopard, the fish with the shark, the pigeon with the hawk, and the sparrow with the eagle.’ mKhair ud-Din was, of course, writing to flatter his British patrons, but there was a measure of truth in what he wrote: in comparison with the horrors of the last century – ‘the Great Anarchy’ – the next fifty years would be remembered as ‘the Golden Calm’.
Most importantly, the Battle of Delhi decided the future fate of India. The Marathas were the last indigenous Indian power that was militarily capable of defeating the Company and driving it out of South Asia.