They were a few thousands, swallowed up in an ocean of hostile populations.

It would take months to inform England and get help, but they did not falter or stop to count the odds, but with English resolution and English devotion they took up their task, and went stubbornly on with it, through good fortune and bad, and fought the most unpromising fight that one may read of in fiction or out of it, and won it thoroughly.
The Mutiny broke out so suddenly, and spread with such rapidity that there was but little time for occupants of weak outlying stations to escape to places of safety.

Attempts were made, of course, but they were attended by hardships as bitter as death in the few cases which were successful; for the heat ranged between 120 and 138 in the shade; the way led through hostile peoples, and food and water were hardly to be had.
For ladies and children accustomed to ease and comfort and plenty, such a journey must have been a cruel experience.

Sir G.O.

Trevelyan quotes an example: "This is what befell Mrs.M----, the wife of the surgeon at a certain station on the southern confines of the insurrection.