About midday the signallers with General Macpherson heliographed down that a vast body with many standards were streaming out from Indikee into the Chardeh Valley, and were taking a northerly direction, which would bring them under the hill occupied by Colonel Jenkins. The movement was well made, and eventually developed into an attack upon the conical hill which the Guides and Highlanders first stormed. This hill was held by thirty-three men of the 72nd Highlanders, a small party of Guides under a Subadar, the whole being under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, 72nd. While the upper hill was being taken, parties of the enemy’s infantry and cavalry were seen coming across Chardeh from the direction of Kila Kazi, as if to take Colonel Jenkins in flank, and the conical hill was strengthened by Swinley’s Mountain Battery, with an escort of 100 men of the 5th Punjabees, under command of Lieutenant Wilson, of the 10th Hussars, serving for the day as a volunteer. This gave Colonel Clark about 200 rifles, with which to hold the hill. The mountain guns opened fire upon the body of Afghans in the plain, who broke up and dispersed out of range. In the meantime the enemy from Indikee—to the number of fully 15,000 or 20,000; they covered the plain for miles—had marched out as if going to Kila Kazi, or Argandeh. Their array was orderly enough; and when they had all reached the plain, they suddenly faced about and came down in the shape of a crescent upon the heights we were holding. Their right flank had for its object the scaling of a ridge extending down from the southern _sungar_ on the Deh-i-Afghan hill; their centre, the assault of the low conical hill, which was General Baker’s weakest point; and their left flank swept round upon the lumpy hill to the north of Colonel Clark’s position, and commanding it. They seemed to our handful of men to be myriads as they came steadily on; and although volleys were fired from the conical hill, and the mountain guns shelled them at short ranges, they never faltered. They were literally mowed down; but as one Ghazi fell, another sprang to the front, and their standards were at last placed on a little mound within 150 yards of our bayonets. Their left flank had gained the lumpy hill which we had left alone, not having men enough to occupy it, and a cross fire was opened upon Colonel Clark’s party. There was a bit of open ground between the mound on which their standards were placed and the rocks in rear, under which their main body had clustered in face of our fire; but across this small space numbers rushed with reckless audacity until, behind their advanced standards, several hundred men were hidden. Colonel Clark thought that at all risks they must be driven from this mound, as they might make a rush in overwhelming numbers: and Captain Spens volunteered to make the attempt. Taking with him five of the 72nd Highlanders and a few Guides, he made