The Mutiny of 1857, and the Siege
had been ready and armed on the previous night, but the embrasures required adjustment, which caused the delay. Some Hght mortars had been brought down to positions near by to lend their assistance, and to harass the enemy. And now the roar of fifty guns and mortars, great and small, filled the air. Some formed a breach in the curtain near the Water Bastion, others a breach near the Cashmere Bastion, others again, with the mortars, besides harassing the enemy with shells, tore away the musketry parapet all along the walls from the Water Bastion to beyond the Cashmere Gate, so that the stormers or the exploding party should not be exposed to the fire of men under cover. On the right the guns still pounded away at the Mori Bastion,
and the enemy contributed their share to the din by constant fire from their enfilading battery outside the Cabul Gate, which did considerable execution as the shot crashed into our batteries from a flank.
For two days and two nights (during which salvos were fired every fifteen minutes) this went on, until our gunners and the cavalrymen who assisted them were nearly exhausted, for reliefs were not to be obtained. Come what might, the assault should not be delayed a day longer than could be helped, if the breaches were at all289
