cruelly raked.  Not a man wavered.  Hope Grant and four of his staff had their horses killed under them; two of them were wounded, and Hope Grant himself was hit by a spent shot.  In Tombs’s troop of Horse Artillery alone, 25 men out of 50 were wounded, and 17 horses either killed or wounded.  The 9th Lancers had 38 casualties amongst the men, and lost 71 horses.  ‘Nothing daunted,’ wrote Hope Grant, ’those gallant soldiers held their trying position with patient endurance; and on my praising them for their good behaviour, they declared their readiness to stand the fire as long as I chose.  The behaviour of the Native Cavalry,’ he added, ’was also admirable.  Nothing could be steadier; nothing could be more soldierlike than their bearing.’

The bold front shown by the Horse Artillery and Cavalry enabled No. 4 column to retire in an orderly manner behind Hindu Rao’s house, and also assisted the Kashmir Contingent in its retreat from the Idgah, where it was defeated with the loss of four guns.  The repulse of this column added considerably to our difficulties by freeing many hundreds to take part in the fight which was being fiercely carried on within the city.

Meanwhile the three assaulting columns had made good their lodgment on the walls.  The guns in the Kashmir and Water bastions had been turned so as to allow of their being used against the foe, and preparations were made for the next move.

Nicholson’s orders were to push his way to the Ajmir gate, by the road running inside the city wall, and to clear the ramparts and bastions as he went.  Jones was to make for the Kabul gate, and Campbell for the Jama Masjid.

These three columns reformed inside the Kashmir gate, from which point the first and second practically became one.  Nicholson, being accidentally separated from his own column for a short time, pushed on with Campbell’s past the church, in the direction of the Jama Masjid, while the amalgamated column under Jones’s leadership took the rampart route past the Kabul gate (on the top of which Jones had planted a British flag), capturing as they advanced all the guns they found on the ramparts, and receiving no check until the Burn bastion was reached by some of the more adventurous spirits.  Here the enemy, taking heart at seeing but a small number of opponents, made a stand.  They brought up a gun, and, occupying all the buildings on the south side of the rampart with Infantry, they poured forth such a heavy fire that a retirement to the Kabul gate had to be effected.

It was at this point that Nicholson rejoined his own column.  His haughty spirit could not brook the idea of a retirement; however slight the check might be, he knew that it would restore to the rebels the confidence of which our hitherto successful advance had deprived them, and, believing that there was nothing that brave men could not achieve, he determined to make a fresh attempt to seize the Burn bastion.