While Captain Malet-Marsac and Captain John Bruce (of the Gungapur Engineering College) slaved at carrying out his orders in the Prison, other officers, with picked parties of European Volunteers, went out to bring in fugitives, to commandeer the contents of provision and grain shops, to drive in cattle, to seize cooks, sweepers and other servants, to shoot rioters and looters in the Cantonment area, to search for wounded and hidden victims of the riot, to bury corpses, extinguish fires, penetrate to European bungalows in the city and in outlying places, to publish abroad that the Military Prison was a safe refuge, to seize and empty ammunition shops and toddy shops, to mount guards at the railway-station, telegraph office, the banks, the gate-house of the great Jail, the Treasury and the Kutcherry,[64] and generally, to use their common sense and their rifles as the situation demanded. [64] Collector's Court and Office. Day by day external operation became more restricted as the mob grew larger and bolder, better armed and better organized, daily augmented and assisted from without. The last outpost which Colonel Ross-Ellison withdrew was the one from the railway-station, and that was maintained until it was known that large bridges had been blown up on either side and the railway rendered useless. In the Jail gate-house he established a strong guard under the Superintendent, and urged him to use it ruthlessly, to kill on the barest suspicion of mutiny, and to welcome the first opportunity of giving the sharpest of lessons. In this matter he set a personal example and behaved, to actual rioters, with what some of his followers considered unnecessary severity, and what others viewed as wise war-ending firmness. When remonstrated with by Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green (caught, alas! with his admirable wife in this sudden and terrible maelstrom), for shooting, against the Prison wall, a squad of armed men caught by night and under more than suspicious circumstances, within Cantonment limits, he replied curtly and rudely:-- "My good little Gosling, I'd shoot _you_ with my own hand if you failed me in the least particular--so stick to your drill and hope to become a Corporal before the war is over". The world-famous Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., hoping to become a Corporal! Meanwhile he was less--a private soldier, doing four hard drills a day--not to mention sentry-go and fatigues. Like Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble, he grumbled bitterly--but he obeyed, having been offered the hard choice of enrolment or exclusion. "I'll have no useless male mouths here," had said Colonel Ross-Ellison. "Enroll or clear out and take your chance. I'll look after your wife." "But, my dear Sir...." "'Sir' without the 'my dear,' please." "I was about to say that I could--ah--assist, advise, sit upon your councils, give you the benefit of my--er--experience, ..." the Publicist had expostulated. "Experience of war?" "No--er--I----"