11 THE CITY OF THE DEAD Hodson’s plan for the capture of the King got off to an inauspicious start. As Maulvi Rajab Ali and Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh approached Hu- mayun’s Tomb, they were ambushed by a party of jihadis, and four of their escort of horsemen were badly wounded. They wheeled around and fled back towards Delhi; but coming across Hodson after a short distance they were persuaded to continue with their mission, since the attack ‘appeared to be the act of fanatics and not due to the King’s party’.1 On arrival, Hodson hid in some ruins, out of sight of the gate- way of the tomb, and sent in his understandably nervous 485/756 negotiators, Rajab Ali and Ilahe Bakhsh. They were attended by a small armed escort of fifteen men from Hodson’s Horse, led by a Sikh risaldar (cavalry commander) named Sirdar Man Singh. Hod- son gave orders that the maulvi was to direct the negotiations. He was instructed to pass straight through the large and unstable rabble of refugees, shahzadas (princes), courtiers, hangers-on and jihadis who had taken shelter within the walls of the garden tomb. When he reached Zafar, he was ‘to say to the King that if he came out quietly and gave himself up, I [Hodson] would ensure his safety, but if he ventured to leave the tomb, I had command of the entrance and would shoot him and his attendants without mercy’. For two agonising hours nothing happened. Hodson was just about to assume that his envoys had been murdered when, after a long delay, the Risaldar came to say that King was coming. Presently Mirza Ilahee Buksh and the Maulvee ap- peared escorting the King’s Palanquin, closely followed by that of the Begum [accompanied by her son Mirza Jawan Bakht and her father Mirza Quli Khan] with their attend- ants and a host of the fugitives from the palace and city. The Palanquins stopped and a message was sent to me that the King wished to hear from my own lips that his life would be spared. I rode up to the spot, seizing the opportunity to interpose my men between the King’s immediate party and the crowd pressing behind, the appearance of which was threatening. I dismounted for a moment and reassured the King and the Begum (both of whom were evidently much agitated and frightened) by the promise that his life would be spared, provided no attempt was made at a rescue.2 486/756 In addition to guaranteeing Zafar’s life, Hodson promised the King that he would not be subject to ‘dishonour (be-izzat) or any per- sonal indignity’.3 I then remounted and in sufficiently loud tone to be heard by the crowd repeated the words, adding a command to my men to shoot the first person who attempted to move. I then desired Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh and Maulvi Rajab Ali to proceed with the Palanquins as soon as they were a suffi- cient distance from the crowd.4 The journey through the no-man’s-land towards Delhi seemed to Hodson to take for ever. As he told a colleague, ‘the slow shuffling pace of the [palanquin] bearers, their continual changing of their shoulders, and the pressing on of the crowd,’ kept the atmosphere edgy and tense. But the cavalry sawars rode close to the King’s pa- lanquin, and no attempt at a rescue was made. As the party neared the walls of the city, the crowd of stragglers slowly thinned until by the time they got to the Lahore Gate, Hodson’s sawars found they were alone with their captives.5 The guard at the gate asked who Hodson had within the palanquin, to which he replied, ‘only the King of Delhi’. They then passed down Chandni Chowk, and into the Fort, as Zafar returned to his ancestral palace no longer Em- peror, but now prisoner. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare. One British surgeon described ‘an old man with an anxious expression on his thin face’ being carried through the litter of his ransacked palace. ‘His countenance gave no signs of cruelty,’ wrote the surgeon, ‘but appeared mild.’6 Hodson handed his prize over to Charles Saun- ders, the successor to Hervey Greathed as head of the civil admin- istration of Delhi, and then went to report his coup to General Wilson. 487/756 To Hodson’s surprise and disappointment, Wilson did not seem especially pleased by the news of the King’s capture: ‘Well I am glad you have got him,’ was all he said. ‘I never expected to see either of you again.’7 According to Fred Maisey, who was also in the room at the time, the old general was actually ‘in the most tre- mendous rage at the king being brought in alive … it seemed to me that the news was far from welcome, which made me doubt all along the assertion [by Hodson] that General Wilson had guaran- teed the King’s life’.8 General Wilson later strongly denied that he had ever done so, and there is good reason to believe him, for both the civil and military authorities in Delhi had received strict and specific instructions from Canning in Calcutta not to offer any terms to the Mughals save that of unconditional surrender. That afternoon, Zafar was taken to Zinat Mahal’s haveli in Lal Kuan, where to add to his sufferings he was given the charmless and aggressive Kendal Coghill as a guard: ‘I had the satisfaction of receiving the “King of Hindoostan” as a prisoner,’ Coghill wrote to his brother the following day, ‘and immediately placed him safe with a double sentry over him. It wasn’t a manly thing to do, but I couldn’t help calling him a pig and other appropriate epithets, and to ask him about our families. I would have shot him dead if he had only looked up, the brute, and gave the sentries orders that if he tried to stir to drop [i.e. shoot] him.’9 The following morning Hodson persuaded Wilson to sanction a second expedition to Humayun’s Tomb. This time the object was to pick up Mirzas Mughal, Khizr Sultan and Abu Bakr, the three princes who had commanded the Mughal 488/756 forces during the Uprising, and whose presence in the tomb had now been confirmed by Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh.*10 As before, Wilson made it a condition that he should not be bothered by the prison- ers, and as no guarantees of the princes’ lives had ever been dis- cussed, Hodson interpreted his General’s orders as he wished. Hodson rode out with an escort of 100 sawars at eight in the morning, accompanied as before by his negotiators Maulvi Rajab Ali and Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh. Again, Hodson and his two British deputies halted outside the entrance to the tomb complex, and sent in the two Indians to negotiate. According to Lieutenant MacDow- ell, who left the only record of what happened, ‘We sent in to say that the princes must give themselves up unconditionally, or take the consequences.’ A long half hour elapsed, when a messenger came out to say that the princes wished to know if their lives would be promised if they came out. ‘Unconditional surrender’ was the answer. Again we waited. It was a most anxious time. We dared not take them by force, all would have been lost, and we doubted their coming. We heard the shouts of the fanatics [jihadis] begging the princes to lead them on against us, and we had only one hundred men and were six miles from Delhi. … There were about three thousand Mus- salman followers [in the walled tomb garden]. In a suburb close by [Nizamuddin], about three thousand more, all armed; so it was a ticklish bit of work … At length imagining that sooner or later they must be taken, the princes resolved to give themselves up uncondi- tionally, fancying, I suppose, that as we had spared the King, we would spare them. So a messenger was sent to say they were coming. We sent ten men to meet them, and by Hodson’s orders, I drew the troops up across the road, ready to receive them and shoot them at once if there was 489/756 any attempt at a rescue. Soon they appeared, in a small ‘Rath’ or Hindustanee cart, drawn by bullocks, with five troopers on each side. Behind them thronged about two or three thousand (I am not exaggerating) Mussalmans. We met them and at once Hodson and I rode up, leaving the men a little in the rear. They bowed as we came up, and Hodson, bowing, ordered the driver to move on. Hodson told the sawars to hurry the princes along the road, while MacDowell and his troopers formed up between the crowd and the princes, advancing slowly towards the courtiers and attendants, forcing them back into the garden of the tomb. Hodson and myself (I stuck to him throughout) with four men, [then] rode up the steps [and] through the arch, when he called out to the rabble to lay down their arms. There was a murmur. He reiterated the command and (God knows why, I can never understand it) they commenced do- ing so … What we wanted was to gain time to get the princes away, for we could have done nothing had they attacked us … There we stayed for two hours collecting their arms, and I assure you I thought every moment they would rush on us.