It was near two o'clock in the afternoon of a winter day, and the troops had been under arms since daybreak. Lord Gough, therefore, wisely determined to defer the action until the morrow, and the camping-ground was being marked out. But the Sikh leaders knew well how prone to kindle was the temperament of the gallant old Chief. They themselves were keen for fighting, and the British commander needed little provocation to reciprocate their mood when they gave him a challenge of a few cannon shots. Late in the day though it was, he determined on immediate attack. The heavy guns were ordered up and opened fire at a range of some sixteen hundred yards, the gunners in the thick jungle having no other means of judging distance than by timing the intervals between the flash and report of the Sikh guns. The advance of the infantry soon obliged the fire of the British guns to cease. The line pressed on eagerly, its formation somewhat impaired by the thickness of the jungle through which it had to force its way, and met in the teeth as it pushed forward by the artillery fire which the enemy, no longer smitten by the heavy guns, poured on the advancing ranks of the British infantry. For a while nothing but the roar of the Sikh artillery was to be heard; but after a short time the sharp rattle of the musketry told that the conflict had begun in earnest and that the British infantry were closing on the hostile guns. Of the two divisions Gilbert's had the right, Colin Campbell's the left. The latter had been the first to receive the order to advance and was the first engaged. Pennycuick commanded Campbell's right brigade, consisting of the Twenty-Fourth Queen's, and the Twenty-Fifth and Forty-Fifth native infantry regiments; Hoggan's, his left brigade, was formed of the Sixty-First Queen's and the Thirty-Sixth and Forty-Sixth Sepoy regiments. In the interval between the brigades moved a field-battery, and on the left of the division three guns of another. At some distance on Campbell's left were a cavalry brigade and three troops of horse-artillery under Thackwell, whose duty it was to engage the attention of Utar Singh's detachment and to attempt to hinder that force from taking Campbell in flank and in reverse. The nature of the ground to be fought over rendered it impossible that the divisional commander could superintend the attack of more than one brigade; and Colin Campbell had arranged with Pennycuick that he himself should remain with the left brigade. Pennycuick's brigade experienced an adverse fate. During the advance its regiments were exposed to the fire of some eighteen guns on a mound directly in their front, from which they suffered very severely. The Twenty-Fourth, a fine and exceptionally strong regiment, advancing rapidly on the hostile batteries carried them by storm, but encountered a deadly fire from the infantry masses on either flank of the guns. The regiment sustained fearful losses.