During this morning's work I happened to come across a British soldier--I think of the 9th Lancers--who had been wounded, but not very seriously, though sufficiently to cripple him. He was lying patiently under a tree waiting for the hospital establishment to come up and find him; and when I asked if I could do anything for him, he said he was suffering agonies from thirst, and would give anything for a drink of water. "Would you prefer beer?" I asked. "Oh, Sir," he replied, "don't make game of me." His face was delightful to see when I lugged out of one of my holsters a pint bottle of "Bass" which I had stowed in it according to my invariable practice, and knocked off its head by sliding my sword against it. The grateful fellow tried hard to make me drink half of it; but I could not resist the temptation of watching him swallow it to the last drop. When I presented him with a better Manilla cheroot than he had probably ever smoked in his life before, he began, I really believe, to think he was dreaming, and that such strange luck could not be real.
Before the evening of the next day a huge canvas city had sprung up in rear of the Dilkhoosha Palace. "The Cabul scale equipment" had not been invented in those days; and even subalterns luxuriated in large, old-fashioned hill tents, ten or twelve feet square, while the British soldiers were lodged in roomy-double-poled affairs; so that an encampment took up a deal more room than would now be required. No wonder that Sir Colin's army of fighting men was hampered by a much larger one of helpless camp-followers, of which Dr. Russell, the famous war correspondent, thus wrote:--"Who really can bring before his mind's eye a train of baggage animals twenty-five miles long, a string of sixteen thousand camels, a siege-train park covering a space of four hundred by four hundred yards, with twelve thousand oxen attached to it, and a following of sixty thousand non-combatants."
Sir Colin Campbell lost no time in pushing on the siege, for it practically began on the 2nd March, the day that he reached the Dilkhoosha. I well remember watching with admiration the brilliant performance of the Naval Brigade, the blue jackets of the _Shannon_, under the heroic Captain Peel, as they pushed forward to a position in front of the Palace, where, on the open ground sloping downwards towards the Martinière, without a vestige of cover, they planted their guns, and commenced a fierce reply to the cannonade of the rebels from the huge defensive earthworks which they had thrown up on the south-east of the City. Our gallant old Chief was far too wise, however, to throw his whole weight against these terrible lines of defence till he had discounted their value by the simple yet effective device of a turning movement, that old-established favourite with all great commanders. To carry out this design Sir James Outram was sent across the Goomti, near Bibiapore, on the 6th of March, with a very strong force of all arms, which fought its way up the left bank of the river, driving the enemy before it, till, on the 9th, it had reached a position whence it successfully enfiladed the rebel lines of defence.