The heat was great, and as the soldiers were much distressed, having been under arms for ten hours, Coke halted the Infantry portion on the banks of the Western Jumna Canal instead of returning direct to camp.  While we were enjoying a much-needed rest we were unexpectedly attacked by some fresh troops (including about 800 Cavalry) which had hurried out from the city.  I was startled from a sound sleep by heavy firing, and saw the enemy advancing within a few hundred yards of our halting-place.  Coke formed his Infantry along the bank of the canal, and sent a mounted officer to recall the Cavalry and Artillery.  The enemy came on very boldly at first, but the steady fire of our Infantry kept them at bay, and when the guns arrived we had no difficulty in driving them off.  They left 80 dead on the field; we had on our side 3 killed and 23 wounded, besides losing several British soldiers from sunstroke.

Major Coke was much grieved by the loss in this engagement of a Native friend of his, a Chief of the Kohat border, by name Mir Mubarak Shah.  He was a grand specimen of a frontier Khan,[3] and on hearing that the 1st Punjab Infantry was ordered to Delhi expressed his determination to accompany it.  He got together a troop of eighty of his own followers, and leaving Kohat on the 1st June, overtook Coke at Kurnal on the 27th, a distance of nearly 600 miles.  A day or two afterwards Coke’s men were approached by the Hindustanis of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, and some Native officers of the 9th Irregulars, who tried to induce them to join in the rebellion.  Advances were made in the first instance to Mir Mubarak Shah and Mir Jaffir, the Subadar-Major of the 1st Punjab Infantry, who at once informed Coke of what was going on.  As soon as the regiment reached Delhi the matter was investigated, and the Native officers who had endeavoured to tamper with the men were identified, tried, and executed.

About noon on the 5th July we heard the woeful tidings that General Barnard was seized with cholera.  The army had never been free from that terrible scourge since the Commander-in-Chief fell a victim to it on the 26th May, and now it had attacked his successor, who was carried off after a few hours’ illness.  The feeling of sadness amongst the troops at the loss of their General was universal.  Throughout the six trying weeks he had been in command of the force he had never spared himself.  At work from morning till night in and about the trenches, he personally attended to every detail, and had won the respect and regard of all in camp.

Few Commanders were ever placed in a more difficult position than Barnard.  He arrived at Umballa when the Native troops, to whose characteristics and peculiarities (as I have already remarked) he was a complete stranger, were thoroughly disaffected, and within a week of his taking over the command of the Sirhind division the Mutiny broke out.  Without any previous knowledge of Indian warfare, he found himself in front of Delhi with a force altogether too weak to effect the object for which it was intended and without any of the appliances to ensure success; while those who did not realize the extreme risk involved never ceased clamouring at a delay which was unavoidable, and urging the General to undertake a task which was impossible.