till. Sometimes two or
three would bolt at once; one or two would drop at each volley, and go
rolling, limp and shapeless down the slope, until they were all down,
and there would be a wait for the next lot. An old sepoy lying near me
declared as each man dropped that it was his particular rifle whose aim
had been so accurate, until Borradaile called him sharply to order, and
told him to attend to business. Presently a crowd of men appeared higher
up on the same spur, and someone called out that they were Levies. Just
then one of them dropped on his knee and fired in our direction, there
was a volley back, and the men disappeared again.

Oldham had now managed, with ropes and the scaling ladders, to get down
on to the ledge below, so calling to Moberly to bring along his company,
I dived down, followed by Gammer Sing and then Moberly, and one or two
men of the Sappers followed him, and we, thinking the whole company was
coming, went scrambling down to the bottom. We slid down the ropes on to
the ladders, and from them on to the ledge, followed it a bit along the
cliff, and then down a shale and debris slope to the stream, across that
and up the other side. Scrambling on all fours up the opposite side, I
heard Oldham, who was ahead of me, shout back that the company wasn't
following. I yelled, "Run up a sangar, and we can hold on till they
come," and finished my scramble up to the top.

Then we took a look round to see how things stood.

Devil a sign of the company coming down the rope was there, and the
Pioneers seemed to have disappeared too.

Then we numbered our party--three British officers, my orderly, and
eleven Sappers, the latter armed with Snider carbines only; my orderly
was the only one with a bayonet. There was a low ridge in front of us
hiding the enemy's sangars, so we lined this with the Sappers, till we
could see what the game was. We now saw the Pioneers moving down the
nullah towards the river, while at the same time the Levies showed on
the ridge and took possession of the sangar. We were all right, I saw,
so I gave the order to advance--keeping along the edge of the nullah so
as to get at the sangars. Of course just my luck that as we started to
advance, the buckle of my chuplie broke; there was no time to mend it,
so I shoved it into my haversack, and went along with one bare foot;
luckily the ground was not very stony.

As soon as we topped the swell of the ground, we saw the enemy bolting
in