Their faith in them was extraordinary.

Even after half the Native army had mutinied and many officers had been murdered, those belonging to the remaining regiments could not believe that their own particular men could be guilty of treachery.
At Peshawar there was not the slightest suspicion of the extent to which the evil had spread, and we were quite thunderstruck when, on the evening of the 11th May, as we were sitting at mess, the telegraph signaller rushed in breathless with excitement, a telegram in his hand, which proved to be a message from Delhi 'to all stations in the Punjab,' conveying the startling intelligence that a very serious outbreak had occurred at Meerut the previous evening, that some of the troopers from there had already reached Delhi, that the Native soldiers at the latter place had joined the mutineers, and that many officers and residents at both stations had been killed.
Lieutenant-Colonel Davidson, commanding the 16th Irregular Cavalry, who happened to be dining at mess that evening, was the first to recover from the state of consternation into which we were thrown by the reading of this telegram.

He told us it was of the utmost importance that the Commissioner and the General should at once be put in possession of this astounding news, and at the same time impressed upon us the imperative necessity for keeping it secret.
Davidson then hurried off to the Commissioner, who with his deputy, Nicholson, lived within a stone's-throw of the mess.

Edwardes drove at once to the General's house, while Nicholson came to our mess.

He too pointed out to us the importance of preventing the news from getting about and of keeping it as long as possible from the Native soldiers.
We had at Peshawar three regiments of Native Cavalry and five of Native Infantry, not less than 5,000 men, while the strength of the two British regiments and the Artillery did not exceed 2,000.