This timely information decided Havelock to attempt a turning movement. He halted long enough to allow his men to have their dinners, then 'remembering,' as he said, 'old Frederic at Leuthen,' he advanced, covered by his cavalry, until he reached a point where a line of groves, on his right, promised to cover a flanking movement in that direction. This point was within half-a-mile of the forking of the roads. Directing Barrow to move straight on, accompanied, to deceive the rebels, by a company of the Madras Fusiliers, in skirmishing order, on either side of the road, he marched with the bulk of the force to his right, covered by the groves spoken of. The enemy, meanwhile, believing that in the horse and foot in front of them they beheld the heads of the British columns, opened a concentrated fire on the fork. This lasted the time it took the main body to march half-a-mile. Havelock's leafy screen then failed him, and the rebels discovered to their surprise that their left flank had been all but turned, and they at once changed, as best they could, the direction of their fire. The English general, however, recognising that the turning movement was not completed, withheld all reply to the shot and shell, which soon came whizzing about him, until he had reached a point at a right angle to the enemy's position. He then wheeled into line and advanced against it.
The occasion was one which permitted a general to defy the rules which chain down pedants. Havelock had abandoned his baggage, his communication with Allahábád, and he had placed his army between his enemy and the mighty Ganges, at the full swell of her power. In taking each of these steps he deliberately broke the rules of war. But never was there a clearer proof given that such rules are not made to bind, and never will bind, a man of
