27. Altogether thirty-one Europeans are known to have been murdered in the Meerut massacre, including the Dawson family, and Mrs Courtney and her three children (all mentioned by Flashman). The full list is given in the Records of the Intelligence Department of the N.W. Provinces, 1857, vol. ii, appendix. The circumstances of their deaths are horrifying enough — Surgeon Dawson was shot on his verandah, while Mrs Dawson was burned by thrown torches, and at least one pregnant woman, Mrs Captain Chambers, was murdered — but even so, greatly overstated reports of Meerut atrocities were circulated, including tales of sexual violation. It is worth quoting the statement of Sir William Muir, then head of the N.W. Intelligence Department, in a letter to Lord Canning (Agra, December 30, 1857), that several British witnesses at Meerut were confident that no rapes took place, and they believed that the atrocities, appalling as they were, had been exaggerated. It was alleged, for example, that Riding-Master Langdale's (not Langley's, as Flashman says) little daughter was tortured to death; she had, in fact, been killed by a tulwar blow while sleeping on her charpoy (see the Rev. T. C. Smith's letter, dated Meerut, December 16, 1857). This tendency of many British observers to be strictly fair and impartial, even in the highly emotional atmosphere of the Mutiny and its immediate aftermath, should not be seen as playing down the atrocities; they were merely concerned to correct the wilder stories, and give an honest account.
28. The mutiny and massacre at Jhansi took place exactly as Ilderim Khan described it. The mass murder of the 66 Britons (30 men, 16 women, and 20 children) was carried out in the Jokan Bagh on June 8, t857; the only details which Ilderim's narrative adds to historical record are the quoted remarks of the victims and their killers. It was the second largest massacre in the entire Mutiny, and in some ways the most cruel, although it has been overshadowed in popular infamy by Cawnpore. What is by no means certain is how far Rani Lakshmibai was responsible, if at alclass="underline" she protested her innocence afterwards and there is considerable doubt what her attitude was to Skene's three envoys before the Town Fort surrendered. (No record exists of the death of "Murray sahib" as described by Ilderim Khan, and the quotation that the Rani "had no concern with English swine", which is to be found in at least one other contemporary source, appears to rest on the evidence of a suspect Indian witness). It is possible that Lakshmibai was powerless to prevent either the mutiny or the massacre; on the other hand, there is no evidence that she tried to, and there is no doubt that soon afterwards she was most effectively in control of Jhansi, and capable of dealing with any threat to her sovereignty.
29. The quotation given by Flashman is the substance of the last letter which Wheeler sent out of Cawnpore after one of the most heroic defences in the history of war. Later events were to overshadow it, but it remains an epic of the Mutiny, for the conditions within the entrenchment, the figures of casualties, and even small details of the siege, were as Flashman describes them: for example, Bella Blair did die, John McKillop of the Civil Service did draw water under constant fire for a week before he was killed, and the reference to shooting horses for food, rather than riders, is authentic.
30. Azeemoolah Khan had been sent to London in 1854 by Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the Maharatta Peshawa, to petition against the disallowance of Nana's pension and title after his father's death. The petition failed, but Azeemoolah, by his own account, had immense success in his pursuit of London society women — a boast which did not endear him to W. H. Russell of The Times when the two met at Missirie's Hotel, Constantinople, in 1856, and subsequently in the Crimea. Apart from being a nobleman, Azeemoolah is also believed to have worked as a teacher and as a waiter. Nana Sahib, who had joined the rebellion on the outbreak at Cawnpore, was to become the most famous of the Mutiny leaders, but Tantia Tope, whom Flashman barely noticed, was to be a far greater menace in the field.
31. While Flashman's account of the council of war is new, it supports the known facts: Wheeler wanted to fight on, and his younger officers supported him; the older men wished to surrender for the sake of the women and children, and Wheeler finally agreed, although he was deeply suspicious of the rebels' good faith. Nana Sahib's offer of terms, in the words which Flashman gives, was brought to the entrenchment by Mrs Jacobs, described by one contemporary as an "aged lady".
32. Details of the massacre at Suttee Ghat are necessarily confused, but the broad facts are as narrated, and again many of Flashman's incidental memories are confirmed by other accounts. For example, Ewart was killed on the way to the ghat in a palankeen; Vibart's kit was carried and his wife escorted by rebels of his regiment; five loyal sepoys were murdered; Moore ("the real defender of Cawnpore") was killed in the water, shoving off. Some versions say that the thatch in the barges was fired before the shooting began, and one of Wheeler's servants, a nurse, said the general was killed on the shore, his head being cut off as he leaned from his stretcher; however, the probability is that he died in one of the boats. What appears to be in no doubt is the premeditated treachery of the attack; only one boat (Vibart's) escaped.
33. The reptiles which attacked the swimmers can hardly have been gavials, which feed exclusively on fish. True crocodiles have an overlapping fourth tooth.
34. The account of the escape down-river is true. This is independently confirmed by the narrative of Lieutenant Thomson, which describes the fire-arrows, the boat's grounding, the temple siege, escape to the shore, the boat's disappearance, crocodiles, etc. Apart from Flashman, there were four survivors — Thomson, Delafosse, Sullivan, and Murphy — who were eventually rescued by Diribijah Singh.
35. The massacre of women and children at Cawnpore was the most notorious atrocity of the Mutiny, and provoked the most notorious reprisal by General Neill. It has been suggested that Nana was not himself responsible, and that the massacre may have been in retaliation for the indiscriminate punishment which Neill's troops had visited earlier on Allahabad and on villages during their march to Cawnpore. Without in any way condoning Neill's behaviour, which has been justly condemned by historians, it is only fair to point out that there had been no element of retaliation in previous massacres by Indians, at Meerut, Jhansi, and Delhi. What is not in dispute is the effect which Cawnpore had on British opinion, or the fury it caused in the army — a curious echo of this even lingered on into the Second World War, when tattooists in Hogg Market, Calcutta, were still offering to imprint the arms of British recruits with the legend "Cawnpore Well".
36. Flashman does T. Henry Kavanaugh considerably less than justice. The big Irishman was undeniably eccentric — one Mutiny historian, Rice Holmes, has called him vain and self-important to the point of insanity — but his night journey to Campbell, in his ludicrous disguise, was an act of the most calculated courage. Possibly Flashman was nettled by the fact that other accounts of the exploit describe Kavanaugh's companion as an Indian; he may also have been unfavourably impressed by the somewhat immodest title of the book in which Kavanaugh described his adventure: How I Won the V.C. It tallies fairly closely, in general facts if not in spirit and interpretation, with Flashman's version. An excellent map of the scene of the journey is in Forrest, vol. ii.
37. Campbell has been much criticised by some military theoreticians for his caution, and for his (and Mansfield's) reluctance to shed lives — British and mutineer; Fortescue thinks this policy may even have helped to lengthen the Mutiny. It is not a view which Flashman could be expected to share. (See Fortescue, vol. xiii.)