Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/326

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294
The Batteries are completed.

a party were to take sandbags to the top, cut them, and smother the fire with the sand. But the attempt, under the concentrated fire of the rebels, involved almost certain death. Lockhart nobly thought that the occasion was one to justify the risk. Calling for volunteers, he jumped on the parapet, followed by six or seven Gurkhás, and set himself to the task. The enemy's fire immediately redoubled. Two of the Gurkhás were shot dead. Lockhart rolled over the parapet, with a shot through his jaw, but the survivors persevered, and by incredible exertions succeeded in extinguishing the fire.

Meanwhile No. 2 battery had been traced, also on the evening of the 7th, in front of Ludlow Castle, 500 yards from the Kashmír gate. This, too, was divided into two sections, at a distance from each other of 200 yards. They were both directed against the Kashmír bastion, and intended to silence its fire, to knock away the parapet to the right and the left that gave cover to its defenders, and to open a breach for the stormers. Before dawn of the 11th it had been completed and armed, and was then unmasked. Major Campbell commanded the left section, the right was first entrusted to Major Kaye, transferred to it from the ignited left section of No 1; but on that officer being wounded, on the 11th, it was placed in the capable hands of Major Edwin Johnson.

The third battery required in its construction a large amount of skill and daring. It was traced, under the directions of Captain Medley of the engineers, within 160 yards of the Water bastion. This battery was finished and armed by the night of the 11th.

A fourth battery, commanded by the gallant Tombs for four heavy mortars, was traced in the Kudsiyá Bágh. It was completed on the 11th, ready to open fire when its fire might be required.