rushed to the breach near the Kashmír bastion, and in a few seconds gained the crest of the glacis. Upon them there the whole fire of the rebels seemed to be concentrated. So fierce was it that for ten minutes it was impossible to let down the ladders. At last they let down two, and down these the officers led their men. Once in the ditch, to mount the escarp and scramble up the breach was the work of a few seconds. There the rebels, who had been so bold up to that point, did not await them. They could not stand the hand-to-hand encounter, but fell back on the second line. The breach at this point was won.
Simultaneously the second column, its engineers in front, pressed forward towards the breach in the Water bastion, whilst the storming party, carrying the ladders, moved to the appointed spot, and though exposed to a tremendous fire, which made great execution in their ranks, let down their ladders and carried the breach; their supports, by mistake, rushed to the counterscarp of the curtain, slid into the ditch, climbed the breach, and won the rampart. The mistake was a fortunate one, for although the actual storming party had been reduced by the fire concentrated upon it in its advance to twenty-five, the supports entering into a vital point of the defences, where an attack had not been anticipated, paralysed the rebels. Jones promptly seized the situation to clear the ramparts as far as the Kábul gate, on the summit of which he planted the column flag, carried that day by Private Andrew Laughnan of the 61st.[1]
Meanwhile, the forlorn hope, composed of the two officers and their following, whose names are given in a preceding page, had advanced straight on to the Kashmír gate, in the face of a very heavy fire. Arrived
- ↑ This flag was subsequently, the 1st of January 1877, presented by Sir William Jones to Her Majesty.
