Broadfoot, now appointed garrison engineer, set about the work entrusted to him with all the energy and zeal for which his character was distinguished. His little corps of sappers had brought with them their pickaxes, shovels, and other working tools from Caubul; and were now ready to ply them with the heartiest good-will. There was not a soldier in garrison, European or Native, who was not eager to join in the work. Wood was to be collected; and iron was to be collected; for there were no available supplies of either. But from the ruins of old houses in the cantonment and in the town the former was extracted in sufficient quantity, and the neighbouring country supplied the latter.[218] Every difficulty was overcome as it arose. Impossibilities did not grow in Jellalabad. But before our soldiers could carry on their work in safety upon the ramparts, it was necessary to give the enemy, who assembled in great force beyond the walls of the city, a taste of our military strength. The morning of the 16th of November was an exciting, and it proved to be a glorious one. On the preceding evening it had been determined that Colonel Monteith, of the 35th Bengal Infantry, a true soldier and a good officer, should take out eleven hundred men, at daybreak, and give battle to the molesting Afghans. As soon as the early dawn would suffer him to take a survey of surrounding objects, Monteith ascended to the flat house-top of one of the most commanding edifices in the city, and looked around, with a keen soldier’s eye, upon the expanse of hill and plain, of garden and of vineyard, traced the course of the river, and marked the castles of the chiefs which dotted the adjacent country. He saw, too, what was of more importance still—the dispositions of the enemy. There seemed to be about 5000 fighting men, gathered together, some on the hill-sides, some in the enclosures on the plain; and though they were kept together by little discipline, there seemed to be some sturdy qualities about them, and they were, at all events, well armed. Monteith learnt all that could be learnt from that commanding position, and then he went down to place himself at the head of his men.