, from the fog burst out the discharge of two heavy
guns, which the enemy had mounted on a bastion flanking the ditch. The
shouts of the officers, and the firing of the men, indicated precisely
the position of the column. The grapeshot tore through it, and
twenty-two of the English troops fell dead and wounded. Immediately
afterwards another discharge followed, and the column, broken and
confused, bewildered by the dense fog, and dismayed by the fire of
these unseen guns, fell back.

Clive now determined to push on to the main road, which he knew
crossed the fields half a mile in front of him. The country was,
however, here laid out in rice fields, each inclosed by banks and
ditches. Over these banks it was impossible to drag the guns, and the
sailors could only get them along by descending into the ditches, and
using these as roads. The labour was prodigious, and the men, fatigued
and harassed by this battle in darkness, and by the fire from the
unseen guns which the enemy continued to pour in their direction from
either flank, began to lose heart.

Happily, however, the fog began to lift. The flanks of the columns
were covered by bodies of troops, thrown out on either side, and after
more than an hour's hard work, and abandoning two of the guns which
had broken down, Clive reached the main road, again formed his men in
column, and advanced towards the city.

The odds were overwhelmingly against him. There were guns, infantry,
and cavalry, both in front and behind them. The column pressed on, in
spite of the heavy fire, crossed the ditch, and attacked a strong body
of the enemy drawn up on the opposite side. While it did so, a great
force of the nabob's cavalry swept down on the rear, and for a moment
captured the guns. Ensign Yorke, of the 39th Foot, faced the rear
company about, and made a gallant charge upon the horsemen, drove them
back, and recaptured the guns.

Clive's whole army was now across the ditch, and it was open to him
either to carry out his original plan of attacking Omichund's garden,
or of marching forward into the fort of Calcutta. Seeing that his men
were fatigued, and worn out with six hours of labour and marching
under the most difficult circumstances, he took the latter
alternative, entered Calcutta, and then, following the stream, marched
back to the camp he had left in the morning.

His loss amounted to thirty-nine Europeans killed, and eighteen
Sepoys; eighty-two Europeans wounded, and