The enemy, whose forces were now increased to some twenty-five thousand men, had their left strongly posted in the broken ground of the old cantonments between the city and the river. Cawnpore itself was occupied; and its face towards the canal, opposite the advanced posts of the British camp, was thickly lined with troops. The hostile right was behind the canal on the southern plain, the Calpee road covered by the camp of the Gwalior Contingent. To fall on the enemy's right and prevent assistance being rendered it by their left, was the governing idea of Sir Colin's plan of attack. He determined to throw the whole weight of his force on the rebel right on the plain, to strike at the camp of the Gwalior Contingent, establish himself on its line of retreat, and having thus separated it from the Bithoor force constituting the rebel left, to effect the discomfiture of both bodies in detail. The troops at his disposal amounted to five thousand infantry, six hundred cavalry, and thirty-five guns. At 10 A.M. of the 6th, while the troops of Sir Colin's left were being formed in order of battle on either side of the Grand Trunk Road, Windham opened a fire of heavy artillery from the entrenchment upon the enemy's right between the city and the river, with the object of concentrating their attention on that quarter and of masking the main point of Campbell's attack. When this cannonade slackened Greathed, moving up to the line of the canal, engaged the enemy holding the edge of the city with a heavy musketry-fire for the purpose of detaining them in that position. On Greathed's left Walpole with his riflemen and the Thirty-Eighth crossed the canal, skirted the southern edge of the city, then bringing forward his right shoulder, swept across the plain towards the enemy's camp. Simultaneously the columns of Hope and Inglis, forming in successive lines further to the left under cover of the heavy artillery and preceded by the Sikhs and the Fifty-Third, drove the enemy across the canal, followed them up closely, and pressed eagerly forward upon the camp of the Gwalior Contingent, hurling back the foe in utter confusion. A battery galloping to the front poured round after round of grape into the tents, which were speedily cleared. So complete was the surprise, so sudden the onslaught, that the _chupatties_ were found baking on the fires, the bullocks stood tied beside the carts, the sick and wounded were lying in the hospitals. By noon the enemy were in full flight by the road to Calpee. Such was the demoralisation that a pursuit by Sir Colin, his staff and personal escort, along with Bourchier's field-battery, sufficed to keep the fugitives on the run; for the cavalry which was intended to cut off the enemy's retreat had missed its way, and only joined in the pursuit some miles beyond the abandoned camp. Gun after gun was captured in the chase. Sir Colin maintained the pursuit with the cavalry and the horse-artillery along the Calpee road for fifteen