CHAPTER VII

THE SIEGE OF DEHLI — NICHOLSON ARRIVES
AFTER SUCCESSFULLY CONDUCTING OPERA¬
TIONS IN THE PANJAB—HIS CHARACTER-
MAJOR BAIRD SMITH—LIEUTENANT TAYLOR
—ASSAULT AND CAPTURE OF THE CITY-
DEATH OF GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON

BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON
rode into the British camp on August 12,
preceding the movable column, of which he had taken
over command on June 22^ when Neville Chamberlain
succeeded Colonel Chester as Adjutant-General.

Nicholson was undoubtedly the most remarkable of
those heroic men who became famous in the days of
our humiliation. He had spent five years in Bannu,
and as far back as i8S3 Lawrence had enjoined on
him the necessity of reporting Border raids; for, with
all his grand qualities, he did not write willingly even
on matters of duty. He was essentially an " out-of-
doors " man, and when, just before the Mutiny, he was
employed in the Peshawar district, a Native, expressing
his paramount influence, observed: " The sound of
his horse's hoofs is heard from Atak to the Khaibar." ^
During his first year in Bannu he was feared and dis¬
liked ; but this feeling passed away as his activity, his

^ Equivalent to, say, from Stirling to the Pass of Killiecrankie, 15 N.W.

of Dunkeld

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