At the same time came a call from Mr. Le
Bas, the magistrate, strongly backed by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, to turn
aside in order to burn a mutinous village. Greatly demurring at any
delay in reaching his main objective, the demand was so urgent that Daly
felt bound to comply with it. His compliance cost him small loss, but
the delay cost the British cause the help of the Guides at the battle of
Budlika-Serai. Though too late for that fight, however, they were in
time for many another before the walls of Delhi.
The moral effect of the arrival of the Guides in Delhi was perhaps in
some measure greater even than the actual fighting strength thus brought
into line. The fame of the march from the far distant frontier, the fine
physique and martial bearing of soldiers drawn from warlike tribes new
to the eyes of their British comrades, the encouraging and enheartening
effect of the arrival of reinforcements however small, all tended to
give the approach of the travel-stained Guides a high significance. Some
such thought perhaps intuitively occurred to all; and every soldier who
could claim to be off duty rushed to the dusty road-side, and hoarsely
cheered the gallant fellows who had overcome so much to reach the side
of their British comrades, hard set to uphold the great Empire of Clive
and Warren Hastings. It is interesting, at this distance of time, to
find recorded the impression of an eye-witness who was amongst those who
watched and cheered as the Guides, after a last thirty mile march,
strode manfully into the camp at Delhi, on this, the morning of the 9th
of June, 1857.
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