Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/609

Book XII but ordered the whole to preserve their next fire; which Lorrain coming on almost at a run, received at the distance of 50 yards in their front and on both their flanks; it fell heavy, and brought down many, but did not stop the column. In an instant the two regiments were mingled at the push of bayonet; those of Coote's opposite the front of the column were immediately borne down, but the rest, far the greatest part, fell on the flanks, when every man fought only for himself, and in a minute the ground was spread with dead and wounded, and Lorrain having just before suffered from the reserved fire of Coote's, broke, and ran in disorder to regain the camp. Colonel Coote ordered his regiment to be restored to order before they pursued, and rode himself to see the state of the rest of the line. As he was passing on, a shot from one of the guns with Draper's regiment, struck a tumbril in the retrenched tank on the left of Lally's, where the marines were posted, and the explosion blew up 80 men, many of whom, with the chevalier Poete, were killed dead, and most of the others mortally hurt. All who were near, and had escaped the danger, fled in the first impulse of terror out of the retrenchment, and ran to gain the camp by the rear of Lally's, and were joined in the way by the 400 Sepoys at the tank behind, who, although they had suffered nothing, likewise abandoned their post. Colonel Coote on the explosion, sent orders by his aid de camp Captain Izer, to Major Brereton, to advance with the whole of Draper's regiment, and take possession of the retrenched tank before the enemy recovered the confusion which he judged the explosion must have caused; as in this situation they would command, under cover, the flank of Lally's regiment. The ground on which Draper's was standing opposite to Lally's when the order came, obliged them, in order to prevent Lally's from enfilading, or flanking them as coming down, to file off by the right. Mr. Bussy, who commanded on this wing, had before endeavoured to rally the fugitives, of whom he had recovered 50 or 60, and adding to them two platoons of Lally's, led and posted them in the tank, and then returned to support them with the regiment. But Brereton's files kept wheeling at a distance, and moving at the quickest pace, suffered little from their fire, and coming upon the