Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/329

Rh sisted of 250 men of the 61st, under Lieutenant-Colonel Deacon; 450 men of the 4th Panjáb Infantry, under Captain Wilde; 300 men, Balúch battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Farquhar; 300 men of the Jhínd auxiliary force, under Lieutenant-Colonel Dunsford. To these were subsequently added 200 men of the 60th Rifles, under Lieutenant-Colonel John Jones of that regiment. This column was to support the first column. Its engineers were Ward and Thackeray.

In a work which professes to give merely a compendium of the story of the great Indian Mutiny space will not allow me to follow the several columns step by step. I must content myself with giving a summary of the tremendous conflict that followed. At three o'clock in the morning the columns of assault were drawn up. There was not a man amongst those who composed them who did not feel that upon the exertions of himself and his comrades depended the fate of India. There was a slight but inevitable delay; then, as day was dawning the columns advanced, and quietly took up the positions assigned them until signal to advance should be given. Meanwhile, an explosion party, consisting of Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, Sergeants Smith and Carmichael, Corporal Burgess, Bugler Hawthorne, and eight native sappers, covered by 100 men of the 60th Rifles, sped their way to the front to attach kegs of powder to, and blow up, the Kashmír gate. The bugle-sound from this point was to be the signal of success, and for the advance of the third column.

Nicholson, after one glance to see that the first and second columns were in position, gave the order just after daybreak to advance. The first column moved steadily forward at a walk, until it reached the further edge of the jungle; then the engineers and storming party