It was the hot weather, the season of reduced duties and of leave. Archdale Wilson was absent from the station on 24 April and did not return till near the end of April. There were many other absentees. There was no officer above the substantive rank of captain with the 20th N.I. on the critical day. It would be rash to see in this state of affairs a serious aggravation of conditions in Meerut, but possibly it was not entirely without influence. In Wilson's absence Colonel Jones of the Carabiniers, wholly without Indian experience, commanded the station; but he went on leave when Wilson returned and Colonel Custance then took command of that regiment. There was no senior officer, except poor old Hewitt, with whom Carmichael-Smyth might have usefully conferred before issuing the orders which he did on 23 April.

Carmichael-Smyth himself went at the end of March to Hardwar, as president of a committee, to purchase remounts at the mela or fair. This broke up early because of cholera and he took short leave at Mussoorie. While there he heard of the first cases of incendiarism at Ambala, which followed the appearance there of the Enfield cartridges as the rifle-training progressed. He also met somebody who had fallen in with a party of sepoys proceeding on leave; this acquaintance told him that the havildār with the party had said, with reference to the Berhampore affair, the news of which had now got up-country, ‘I have been 36 years in the service and am a havildār, but I still would join in a mutiny and what is more I can tell you the whole army will mutiny’.