Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/495

Book XI as well as on the small towers at each angle of the pagoda, were mounted guns, but old, and of little service; and scaffoldings of bamboos for small parties of musketry were raised along different parts of the wall within. There was, in the area without, a large choultry, with the back to the pagoda, about 200 yards from the gateway, but a little to the right. Near this choultry, as good cover, the troops threw up a ramp in the night, and early in the morning began to fire over it against the ravelin from their two twelve-pounders, which the enemy returned with all their means, but with little execution; only wounding Major Brereton slightly, and two or three of the gunners. By eight o'clock the earth of the ravelin appeared sufficiently beaten down, and the troops marched to the attack, led by Major Calliaud at the head of the grenadiers. Few of the defenders waited the assault hand to hand, but, after giving their fire, ran into the pagoda. The officers, stimulated by an intemperate rivality of danger, got first over the ravelin, and began, as the men came, to form them for the attack of the gateway, in the middle of which the enemy had laid a large old iron gun on logs of wood; and within were two lines of Sepoys disposed in an angle for the advantage of a cross-fire on the entrance. In a minute, 40 or 50 men, of whom much too many were officers, were crowded together within the ravelin, when the enemy fired their gun, which they had treble loaded with powder, and to the muzzle with musket-balls and bits of ragged iron. The excess of the explosion, and the thick black smoke which arose from it, gave the idea of a mine, nor was the effect much less. It killed eight men on the spot, and wounded ten. Of the killed were Captains Stewart and Bannatyne, Lieutenant Elliot and Ensign Hunter; of the wounded, Major Calliaud, Captain Vaughan dangerously, a Lieutenant and two Ensigns. Even most of those who were safe were so surprized by this havock, that they stood awhile before they formed again to the attack; during which, they luckily suffered very little from the musketry within. By this time, a party of Sepoys, led by Mahomed Issoof and Lieutenant Airy, had clambered over the opposite wall of the pagoda, and appeared in the rear of