he horses were so unsteady
(several of them being wounded), that there was great difficulty in
limbering up, and I was helping the drivers to keep the horses quiet,
when I suddenly felt a tremendous blow on my back which made me faint
and sick, and I was afraid I should not be able to remain on my horse.
The powerless feeling, however, passed off, and I managed to stick
on until I got back to camp. I had been hit close to the spine by a
bullet, and the wound would probably have been fatal but for the fact
that a leather pouch for caps, which I usually wore in front near
my pistol, had somehow slipped round to the back; the bullet passed
through this before entering my body, and was thus prevented from
penetrating very deep.

The enemy followed us closely right up to our piquets, and but for the
steadiness of the retirement our casualties must have been even more
numerous than they were. As it was, they amounted to 15 men killed, 16
officers and 177 men wounded, and 2 men missing.

The enemy's loss was estimated at 1,000. For hours they were seen
carrying the dead in carts back to the city.

My wound, though comparatively slight, kept me on the sick-list for a
fortnight, and for more than a month I could not mount a horse or put
on a sword-belt. I was lucky in that my tent was pitched close to that
of John Campbell Brown, one of the medical officers attached to the
Artillery. He had served during the first Afghan war, with Sale's
force, at Jalalabad, and throughout both the campaigns in the Punjab,
and had made a great reputation for himself as an army surgeon. He
looked after me while I was laid up, and I could not have been in
better hands.

The Delhi Force was fortunate in its medical officers. Some of the
best in the army were attached to it, and all that was possible to be
done for the sick and wounded under the circumstances was done. But
the poor fellows had a bad time of it. A few of the worst cases were
accommodated in the two or three houses in the cantonment that had
escaped destruction, but the great majority had to put up with such
shelter from the burning heat and drenching rain as an ordinary
soldiers' tent could provide. Those who could bear the journey and
were not likely to be fit for duty for some time were sent away to
Meerut and Umballa; but even with the relief thus afforded, the
hospitals throughout the siege were terribly overcrowded. Anaesthetics
were freely used, but antiseptics were practi