Mr. Brackenbury—Scenes in the little cellar—Destruction of our home—Another moonlight night with a difference—Reopening of the attack on the Residency—Death of Mr. Brackenbury—Preparations to escape. I remained where he had left me, alone for some minutes, though some of the officers were standing just outside the door of the cellar where I was sitting. It seemed so hard that I could not go with my husband. I feared being left alone without him, and felt very lonely and broken-hearted among so many men, mostly strangers to me. I knew, too, that they would look upon me as an extra burden, and wish me very far away. I was roused to action by the doctor, who had taken advantage of the truce to get his wounded brought up from the hospital to the house, and had come up first to see what kind of a place could be got ready. I showed him the cellars, for there were several, which all communicated with each other, and formed the entire basement of the house. Shortly afterwards the Kahars[16] arrived, carrying poor Mr. Brackenbury on a mattress, and the others followed fast, so that the small cellar was very soon quite full of men lying side by side on the stone floor. The blankets and sheets that we had already collected were very useful, and I made several journeys up to the house, and gathered up every kind of covering from every direction, and all the pillows I could find. A little cooking-stove proved of great service. I fixed it securely upon a table in one corner which I reserved for cooking operations. The soup we had made on the previous day was in great request. Fortunately there was a large quantity of it, to which I added the contents of five or six tins which I found in the store-room. Milk was the difficulty. All the cows were out in the grounds, and many of them had strayed away altogether and we could not get any milk from them, so were obliged to fall back on condensed milk, of which we also had several tins. Some of the men were terribly wounded, but poor Mr. Brackenbury was by far the worst. His legs and arms were all broken, and he had several other injuries besides. It seemed a marvel that he was still alive and fully conscious to all that was going on around him. The doctor attended to him first of all, and had bound up his broken limbs, and done as much as possible to alleviate his sufferings; but it was a terrible sight to see the poor lad in such agony, and be so powerless to lessen it in any way. He was very thirsty, and drank a good deal of soup and milk, but we could not get him into a comfortable position. One minute he would lie down, and the next beg to be lifted up; and every now and then his ankle would commence bleeding, and cause him agony to have it bound up afresh. His face was gray and drawn, and damp dews collected on his forehead from the great pain he was suffering.