The ignited bags of gunpowder drove the enemy out from their lair
to be promptly bayoneted. One soldier, using butt and bayonet and
shouting "Revenge for Hodson!", killed more than half of them
single-handed. In another doorway Lieutenant MacBean, Adjutant
of the Ninety-Third, a soldier who rose from the ranks to die a
Major-General, encountered eleven sepoys and killed them all with his
claymore, one after the other. With the advent of night opposition
for the most part ceased, although numbers of rebels were still in
hiding in the dark rooms. The troops bivouacked in the courts of
the palace under cover of strong guards. Horrible spectacles were
presented with the daylight of the 12th. Hundreds of bodies lay about
smouldering in the cotton clothing which had caught fire from the
exploding bags of gunpowder, and the stench of burning flesh was
sickening. During the morning the camp-followers dragged the corpses
into the deep ditch which had been found so difficult to cross on
the previous day. The Begum's palace was recognised to be the key to
the enemy's position, and our heavy guns were promptly advanced for
the object of breaching the Imambara, which was the only building of
magnitude intervening between the Begum's palace and the Kaiserbagh.
From the early morning of the 11th Sir Colin had been at the front
superintending the preparations for the assault of the Begum Kotee.
But before that enterprise was ripe he was reluctantly summoned
from the scene of action to receive a visit from Jung Bahadoor,
who had just arrived at the Dilkoosha with the Nepaulese army after
an interminable series of delays. In the midst of the formal durbar
there occurred a striking scene. Captain Hope Johnstone, aide-de-camp
to General Mansfield, covered with powder-smoke and the dust of
battle, strode up to the Chief with the welcome tidings that the
Begum Kotee had been taken. Thereupon Sir Colin, to whom ceremonial
was detestable, seized the occasion to bring the durbar to a close,
and after announcing the news to his guest hurried to the front. Next
day the Nepaulese troops came up into position holding the line of
the canal between Banks' house and the Charbagh bridge, thus covering
the left of the main attack. On the right the Shah Nujeef had been
occupied on the evening of the 11th, on a parallel front with the
position in the Begum Kotee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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