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The 92d under Major White led the way, covered by the fire of a field battery and supported by the 5th Goorkhas and the 23d Pioneers. Springing out of a watercourse at the challenge of their leader, the Highlanders rushed across the open ground.
Sir Donald Stewart's proper front thus consisted of the field and horse-batteries with their supports, but since it was apparent that the greatest strength of the enemy was on the higher ground flanking his left, it behoved him to show a front in that direction also, and for this purpose he utilised Hughes' three infantry regiments, of which the 59th was on the right, the 2d Sikhs in the centre, and the 3d Goorkhas on the left.
They grumbled, and went to turn out their men a hundred English troops, let us say, two hundred Goorkhas, and about a hundred cavalry of the finest native cavalry in the world. When they were on the parade-ground, it was explained to them in whispers that they must set off at once across the hills to Bersund.
Captain Shafto, a very cautious man, was pursuing his researches; the Goorkhas were quartered in the upper Balla Hissar near the magazine shed, and the 67th occupied the Ameer's garden lower down.
Granadeers be very tall men under very tall bearskins, such as Fusilier regiments wear in cold weather. Thus, when a Granadeer bowed his head but a very little over his stock, the bearskin sloped and showed as though he grieved exceedingly. Now the Goorkhas wear flat, green caps 'I see, I see, said the Subadar-Major impatiently.
He brought them out of a dire strait by sheer skill, by that heartless grip of discipline which a true general exercises over his troops even at that critical moment when a common death seems to reduce all lives to an equal value. But in the thick of it the Goorkhas keen little Highlanders of the Indian army looked in vain for the fighting light in their leader's eyes.
Up to this point all had gone well, but the anti-foreign party began to raise obstructions, and, headed by Sund Fo, the conqueror of the Goorkhas, to advise the emperor not to receive the embassador, and to reject all his propositions.
Horrified, amused, and indignant, the Goorkhas beheld the retirement of the Fore and Aft with a running chorus of oaths and commentaries. "They run! The white men run! Colonel Sahib, may we also do a little running?" murmured Runbir Thappa, the Senior Jemadar. But the Colonel would have none of it. "Let the beggars be cut up a little," said he wrathfully. "Serves 'em right.
It seems that a chief, conspicuous from his glittering armour and steel head-piece, mounted on a powerful horse with an armed footman behind him, attracted the notice of the Goorkhas by the cool manner in which he rode up to within a distance of about eighty yards, delivered his fire, then galloped away out of gunshot to allow the gentleman "en croupe" to reload.
Seeing a disposition to waver, Colonel W. Jones, the Brigadier under Chamberlain, with great bravery placed himself in front on foot, and called on the soldiers, now a confused mass of Sikhs, Goorkhas, and Europeans, to charge and dislodge the enemy from the end of the lane.
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