to which they are oblivious: it needs
more heroism to sit like sentries at the Horse Guards while balls are
flying thick around. By and by they were helped to hold their ground by
Captain Bourchier's battery of horse artillery. And not till they learnt
that the three storming columns had entered the city, and established
themselves there, did they fall back to their bivouac around Ludlow
Castle.

In the city the ramparts were in British hands, from the Kashmir gate to
the Kabul gate, and Colonel Campbell had pushed on across the Chandni
Chauk, and as far as the great mosque, which had been fortified. From it
and the surrounding houses a deadly fire was poured upon the British,
and Campbell, finding that the support he had expected from the other
columns was not forthcoming, fell back upon the Begam Bagh, a vast
walled garden, where he bivouacked.

Meanwhile, Nicholson had pressed on along the foot of the walls towards
the Kabul gate, where British colours now flew. The plan had been to
clear the ramparts as far westward as the Lahore gate, and Nicholson
expected that Major Reid's column would by this time have entered the
city there. Nothing daunted by Reid's failure, Nicholson determined to
push forward without this support.

Between the Kabul and the Lahore gates was the Burn bastion, the
strongest part of the defences, whence a galling fire was being kept up
both on the cavalry drawn up outside and on the infantry in the narrow
streets within. A narrow lane, three hundred yards long, and varying
from ten feet to three in width, ran between the Kabul gate and the
bastion, lined with mud huts on one side and on the other by the
ramparts. The rebels, taking heart at the one success they had achieved
in the repulse of the fourth column and the havoc wrought by the Burn
bastion, had come crowding back into the lane, the further end of which
they defended with two brass guns posted behind a bullet-proof screen.

Nicholson knew that his task would not be finished until the bastion was
taken. The enemy would exult if it remained even for a day in their
hands. So he called on the 1st Fusiliers to charge along the lane,
ordering the 75th to rush along the ramparts and carry the position
above. The men, tired as they were, gallantly responded. On they went,
reached the first gun, overwhelmed the gunners, then dashed on with a
cheer to the second. But ere they reached it a storm of
shot--musket-balls, grape, canister, round