which had gradually been broken up to meet the demands of the
assaulting force, until the 4th Punjab Infantry alone remained to
represent it.

While what I have just described was taking place, I myself was with
General Wilson. Edwin Johnson and I, being no longer required with the
breaching batteries, had been ordered to return to our staff duties,
and we accordingly joined the General at Ludlow Castle, where he
arrived shortly before the assaulting columns moved from the cover of
the Kudsiabagh.

Wilson watched the assault from the top of the house, and when he was
satisfied that it had proved successful, he rode through the Kashmir
gate to the church, where he remained for the rest of the day.

He was ill and tired out, and as the day wore on and he received
discouraging reports, he became more and more anxious and depressed.
He heard of Reid's failure, and of Reid himself having been severely
wounded; then came the disastrous news that Nicholson had fallen, and
a report (happily false) that Hope Grant and Tombs were both killed.
All this greatly agitated and distressed the General, until at last he
began seriously to consider the advisability of leaving the city and
falling back on the Ridge.

I was ordered to go and find out the truth of these reports, and to
ascertain exactly what had happened to No. 4 column and the Cavalry on
our right.

Just after starting on my errand, while riding through the Kashmir
gate, I observed by the side of the road a doolie, without bearers,
and with evidently a wounded man inside. I dismounted to see if I
could be of any use to the occupant, when I found, to my grief and
consternation, that it was John Nicholson, with death written on his
face. He told me that the bearers had put the doolie down and gone off
to plunder; that he was in great pain, and wished to be taken to the
hospital. He was lying on his back, no wound was visible, and but for
the pallor of his face, always colourless, there was no sign of the
agony he must have been enduring. On my expressing a hope that he was
not seriously wounded, he said: 'I am dying; there is no chance for
me.' The sight of that great man lying helpless and on the point of
death was almost more than I could bear. Other men had daily died
around me, friends and comrades had been killed beside me, but I never
felt as I felt then--to lose Nicholson seemed to me at that moment to
lose everything.

I searched about for the doolie-bearers