Amongst the Sepoys within the Residency, again, as the few weeks grew into months and no relief came, there spread a conviction that the fate of the sahibs was sealed, and there were many desertions. Sixteen went off in a body one night, headed by a Eurasian with the very British name of “Jones.” They left the post they held open to the enemy, and scribbled on the walls in several places the explanation, “Because we have no opium.” Jones and his fellow-deserters, it is not unsatisfactory to know, were shot by the Sepoys. One of the ugly features of the siege was that several European renegades—amongst them at least one Englishman—were fighting on the side of the mutineers. Rees says that at the battle of Chinhut a European—“a handsome-looking man, well built, fair, about twenty-five years of age, with light moustache, and wearing the undress uniform of a European cavalry officer”—headed a cavalry charge on the men of the 32nd. He might have been a Russian, but was vehemently suspected of being an Englishman, who had forsaken both his faith and his race. His name was even whispered, and Rees adds that he was of good family. Two of his cousins were fighting valiantly in the Residency against the rebels, a third was wounded at Agra, a fourth held a high military appointment. Yet this apostate was recognised laying a gun against the Residency! His shrift would have been particularly short had he fallen into British hands. The British privates in the Residency, too, were kindled to a yet higher temperature of wrath by hearing the bands of the Sepoy regiments playing—as if in irony—“God save the Queen” under the shelter of the ruined buildings that came almost up to the line of the British entrenchments. But on the whole the average Briton is apt to be grimly cheerful when a good fight is in progress, and even this dreadful siege was not without its humours. Thus Rees tells how, on the night of July 26, the men of his post were spreading themselves out in the chorus of “Cheer, Boys, cheer,” with the utmost strength of their voices, when an alarm was given at the front. They dashed out, and, with the unfinished syllables of that chorus yet on their lips, found themselves in the tumult and fury of a desperate assault. After the fight was over they returned and finished their interrupted song! Innes, again, relates how, when a long mine of the enemy had been seized, and two officers were exploring its darkness, they heard the earth fall in behind them. One of the two, famous for his resonant laugh, shouted with a burst of merriment, “What fun! They are cutting us off,” and turned round gaily to charge on his foes!