Our engineer now gave up this side of the fort as perfectly hopeless, and we went more to the eastward, breaching a prominent bastion; but the whole fort was so constructed that one part protected the others; and therefore, wherever we breached we were sure of a destructive cross-fire. From our melancholy failures, our poor fellows became disheartened; scarcely a man had escaped without being wounded, and the sad recollection of their poor comrades that were left behind in a mutilated state, was the constant topic of conversation. Our mortification was greatly increased by seeing our men's clothing paraded on the ramparts, and worn by the miscreants in the fort. However, we still lived in the fond hope that our next effort would prove more successful.
I could again go abroad, although my wound was by no means healed. It was now truly distressing to enter our men's tents, where, but a month before, the merry joke went round, and mirth and hilarity prevailed. Naught but gloomy faces, and even them but few, were to be seen: some had lost brothers; others, dear comrades; Captain Lindsay had lost his leg; Lieutenant Creswell had been cut to pieces; and every other officer was wounded. Our loss in killed and wounded in the two assaults, in our two companies alone, was nearly the one half of the total number.
After the storm, our breaching-guns were again sent to the park to be re-bushed. This was a seasonable pause to enable us to recruit our shattered frames and spirits; but it also gave the enemy an opportunity of repairing and reinforcing every point of attack.
On the 18th of February things began to wear a more enlivening appearance. The breached bastion seemed to bow its haughty head to our roaring guns, and the 20th was talked of as the day for storming it. Our last disastrous repulse was scarcely eradicated from our minds; the massacre of our brave comrades was still alive in our memories; but the fond hope of retaliation--I do not mean in cutting up a poor defenceless creature, not a single instance of which can, in the long course of our wars, be brought against the Company's army--spirited us up, and we looked forward to the time when we might drag the garments of our murdered comrades from the backs of the vaunting foe. They were now daily and hourly exhibiting to our view the number of muskets they had taken; our ammunition which had fallen into their hands was now turned against ourselves; as also our cannon-shot, which they had picked out of the two old breaches. We again possessed our wonted spirits and cheerfulness, and made preparation to retrieve the British character. The patient conduct and intrepid gallantry of our officers and soldiers when in the hour of their utmost distress, from repeated defeats, did not pass unnoticed by the enemy; and it is not improbable that the resolution and heroism then displayed by the troops were the means of facilitating that long friendship which afterwards subsisted between the rajah of Bhurtpore and the Company.