When we reached the force Captain Halliburton, 78th Highlanders (afterwards killed in Lucknow), took charge of the wounded with his company. We lost our way in the city, and were led by a guide, who showed us the way to the Residency into the enemy's battery, where we suffered considerable loss. After this we wandered about the suburbs of the city, under an awful cannonading and shelling from the opposite side of the River Goomtee, being fired at from loopholes in the houses of the streets when we entered them, from which parties of natives, clothed in white, often issued. We took refuge in the Mote-Mahul, as it was too late at night to advance further. The Mote-Mahul is a square courtyard with sheds round it, and two large gateway entrances. This was crowded with soldiers, camp followers, and camels, so that you could scarcely move. I had Captain Havelock and Lieutenant Woodhouse (right arm afterwards amputated), 84th Regiment, with me under the shed. The firing during the night was deafening, and gongs were sounding the hour, and we knew not how far the Residency was. Some who had been with the main body said the 78th were all killed, and they could not tell what had become of the rest of the force. At daylight the next day Brigadier Cooper gave us some tea, as we had taken nothing since leaving Alum Bagh early the morning before. Our men then commenced making loopholes in the wall of the shed to shoot the enemy on the other side, and I heard them told not to make too many or they would be shooting some of us, and soon afterwards Brigadier Cooper was shot through one of them, and fell over me. I often had to cross a gateway that was being raked up by bullets, to dress the wounded of both the artillery and my own men, against the remonstrances of my apothecary, Mr. de Soura, and others.
I then volunteered to attempt to get the wounded into the Residency, and was told by Captain Halliburton, if I succeeded, to tell General Outram to send him reinforcements or they would all be killed and the guns lost. I soon came across Colonel Campbell, wounded in the leg (afterwards amputated in Lucknow, and he died), and I got one of his men to carry him on his back (who would have been recommended for the V.C. if he could have been found, but he was supposed to have been killed). I then wandered on, and had to cross a shallow stream under fire of the guns of the extensive Palace of the Kaiser Bagh, where the enemy were said to have 20,000 men. I was then hailed by an European sentry at the gate of a very high wall, which I had the unpleasant feeling was the Kaiser Bagh, and that I was on the wrong road, but to my great relief he told me it led to the Residency, and that I must keep well under the wall on the way to it, to avoid the firing that was going on. On arriving at the Residency I delivered my message to General Havelock, who congratulated me on my escape, as I was reported killed.