The first Greenhill book about the Indian mutiny is They Fight Like Devils: Stories from Lucknow during the Great Mutiny, 1857-1858. This new book, by American author D. A. Kinsley, tells the story of the siege in the words of the men who were there. Based on eyewitness accounts by survivors, this remarkable book brings the dramatic story of the siege to life and reveals the horror of the Great Mutiny. An example is: “The pandemonium in the Secunder Bagh was hellish in the extreme: blood-spattered and smoke-stained Europeans and Punjabees trampling over the dead and dying, whose screams and groans mingled with the grunts and curses of those who stabbed and clubbed and cut them down with the continuous sounds of hacking and bashing and jabbing, and with the constant shrill of the bagpipes. There was no escape for the desperate masses of the enemy, who were driven and hunted from one place to another - in and out of rooms, up and down stairs - relentlessly pursued and losing their footing on marble steps and floors slippery with their own blood. With their backs to the walls, some threw down their arms and begged for mercy, clutching in despair at the weapons that pierced them; while others stoically and scornfully faced certain death; but most fiercely defended themselves, hurling their bayoneted muskets at us and then flinging themselves upon us with their tulwars and struggling (even when dying on the ground) to strike again. Our rage was so great that we actually bent and twisted our bayonets by the fury of our thrusts when pinning the shrieking wretches against the walls, two or three at a time, and all the while the officers urged the men on with shouts of ‘Remember Cawnpore!’ But though many a man uttered ‘God forgive me!’ as he drove his bayonet home, nothing could restrain men infuriated by the thought of that slaughtered garrison. Shuttered windows were smashed open, bolted doors battered down, and hand grenades tossed into rooms crowded with fugitives who rushed out onto the points of our swords and bayonets when they attempted to escape the fires started by these explosives, their clothes ablaze, their bodies maimed, they rushed out hacking blindly - some with their swords in both hands, other guarding their heads with their shields - only to be forced back, into the flames. Into the towers and onto the ramparts and roofs the pursued rushed, only to be hunted down with a vengeance and pitched dead and dying into the courtyard upon the heaps there writhing and simmering in the midday sun - those on top being moved up and down by the laboured breathing of those suffocating below - from which fumed the fragrance of crushed flowers and the stench of sweat and blood and excreta, and of burning flesh and hair and clothing.” This is just one example of the remarkable content of They Fight Like Devils. D. A. Kinsley has written highly regarded biographies of Captain Sir Richard Burton and General Lord Clive. His two-volume biography of George Custer, Favor the Bold (1967-68), earned a Certificate of Merit from Cambridge University for “outstanding contributions to American and British history and literature”. Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 106 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com