That sangar was a death-trap to its garrison—­their only line of escape was across some open, shaley slopes within four hundred yards of our firing line, and the Levies were now working along the hill, and would catch them in the sangar if they didn’t clear out.  The result was like rabbit shooting You’d see a man jump from the sangar and bolt across the shale slope, slipping and scrambling as he went; then there would be a volley, and you’d see the dust fly all round him—­perhaps he’d drop, perhaps he wouldn’t; then there would be another volley, and you’d see him chuck forward amid a laugh from the sepoys, and he’d roll over and over till he’d fetch up against a rock and lie still.  Sometimes two or three would bolt at once; one or two would drop at each volley, and go rolling, limp and shapeless down the slope, until they were all down, and there would be a wait for the next lot.  An old sepoy lying near me declared as each man dropped that it was his particular rifle whose aim had been so accurate, until Borradaile called him sharply to order, and told him to attend to business.  Presently a crowd of men appeared higher up on the same spur, and someone called out that they were Levies.  Just then one of them dropped on his knee and fired in our direction, there was a volley back, and the men disappeared again.

Oldham had now managed, with ropes and the scaling ladders, to get down on to the ledge below, so calling to Moberly to bring along his company, I dived down, followed by Gammer Sing and then Moberly, and one or two men of the Sappers followed him, and we, thinking the whole company was coming, went scrambling down to the bottom.  We slid down the ropes on to the ladders, and from them on to the ledge, followed it a bit along the cliff, and then down a shale and debris slope to the stream, across that and up the other side.  Scrambling on all fours up the opposite side, I heard Oldham, who was ahead of me, shout back that the company wasn’t following.  I yelled, “Run up a sangar, and we can hold on till they come,” and finished my scramble up to the top.

Then we took a look round to see how things stood.

Devil a sign of the company coming down the rope was there, and the
Pioneers seemed to have disappeared too.

Then we numbered our party—­three British officers, my orderly, and eleven Sappers, the latter armed with Snider carbines only; my orderly was the only one with a bayonet.  There was a low ridge in front of us hiding the enemy’s sangars, so we lined this with the Sappers, till we could see what the game was.  We now saw the Pioneers moving down the nullah towards the river, while at the same time the Levies showed on the ridge and took possession of the sangar.  We were all right, I saw, so I gave the order to advance—­keeping along the edge of the nullah so as to get at the sangars.  Of course just my luck that as we started to advance, the buckle of my chuplie broke; there was no time to mend it, so I shoved it into my haversack, and went along with one bare foot; luckily the ground was not very stony.