The skirmishers quickly cleared the mounds, and the Sikhs and the Highlanders went forward at a run to the bridge. It was held with fierce courage by the enemy. A sleet of shot swept along its entire length. It seemed to be barred as by a thousand dancing points of flame—the flash of musketry and the red flames of the great guns.
As Sikhs and Highlanders, however, pressed sternly forward, they heard behind them the tramp of many feet and the clatter of wheels. It was Peel with his sailors bringing up a 24-pounder. They came up at a run, the blue-jackets “tailing on” to the ropes, and clutching with eager hands the spokes of the wheels. The gun was swung round on the very bridge itself, and sent its grape hurtling into the ranks of the Sepoys on the further side. Sikhs and Highlanders kindled to flame at the sight of that daring act. With a shout they ran past the gun, and across the bridge; some leaped into the canal, splashed through its waters and clambered up the further bank. The bridge was carried! A battery of field artillery came up at the gallop, thundered across its shaking planks, and, swinging round, opened fire on the tents of the Gwalior contingent, while the two brigades pressed eagerly forward on the broken enemy.
Forbes-Mitchell, who fought that day in the ranks of the 93rd, gives a very picturesque description of the combat. Campbell, who was almost as fond of making speeches as Havelock, and understood perfectly how to stir the blood of his men, gave a brief address to the 93rd before launching the turning movement. He gave the Highlanders one somewhat quaint warning. There was a huge accumulation of rum, Campbell said, in the enemy’s camp; it had been drugged, he added, by the enemy, and no man must touch it. “But, 93rd!” he said, “I trust you! Leave that rum alone!”
As a matter of fact, when the men swept with a rush across the canal, they found the rum against which Sir Colin had warned them standing—great casks with their heads knocked out for the convenience of intending drunkards—in front of the enemy’s camp, with their infantry drawn up in columns behind them. “There is no doubt,” says Forbes-Mitchell, “that the enemy expected the British would break their ranks when they saw the rum, and make a rush for it, and they made careful and tempting provision for that contingency.” That expectation forms a somewhat severe commentary on the thirsty character the British private had won for himself in India!