[Footnote 44: Names of artillery officers killed: Brig.-General Strangways, Major Townsend; Captains Oldfield, Fitzroy, Childers, Dew, A. Gordon, and Snow; Lieutenants Cockerell, Walsham, Luce, Mitchell, and Asst.-Commissary Hayter.] CHAPTER XII THE INDIAN MUTINY In the early part of 1857 I was stationed at Cork Harbour in command of a few men on Spike Island, a period of tranquillity after all the anxieties of the great Crimean war. The tranquillity, however, was not destined to last very long. One day towards the end of May I crossed the harbour to call on a gentleman in the neighbourhood who had just returned from Cork, and on my asking if there was any news, he said that a remarkable telegram had been received from India that a native regiment at Meerut had killed its English officers and was marching on Delhi. That was the first news of the great Mutiny. It also stated that the natives in parts of India were passing chew-patties from village to village. What was a chew-patty? Nobody could tell us. It turned out to be a sort of pancake; but why the natives should specially pass round pancakes, and presumably eat them, as a signal of rebellion no one could explain. Week after week the news became more serious, and troops of all arms were sent off in large numbers round the Cape. Towards the end of July, being in London, I received information that the Duke of Cambridge had appointed me Assistant Adjutant-General of the batteries of Royal Artillery, then on their voyage; and about the middle of August I left _viâ_ Egypt. There was, of course, no Suez canal in those days, and the railway from Alexandria only went as far as Cairo.