Grant was at Tammu, a Burma village station some distance to the south, when word arrived of the outbreak in Manipur. No details of the massacre or the escape were known, but in the hope of being able to effect a rescue the young officer obtained permission to lead a small force up to Manipur. He took with him eighty men in all, Punjabis and Ghurkas, with three elephants as carriers. Through the teak forests they marched steadily though slowly towards their goal, having to constantly beat off the Manipuris as they approached nearer. At Palel a sharp engagement took place, in which the gallant eighty dispersed a large number of the enemy. From prisoners that were captured here Grant learned for the first time of how Quinton and Grimwood had been murdered. Believing still that Mrs. Grimwood and several others were besieged in the Residency, he pushed on with all speed, and at last reached the town of Thobal, about half-way between Tammu and the capital. At this place the Manipuris, a thousand or more strong, offered a stout resistance to his progress, but a furious charge at the head of his followers cleared the entrenchments by the river-side, leaving them free to be occupied by him. These trenches the lieutenant at once strengthened, building up the walls with mud, rice-baskets, ration-sacks and everything that would answer the purpose, even using his own pillow-case as a sandbag. Provisions were fortunately to be had with little difficulty, for behind them, on the other side of the river, were some paddy fields. The siege of his fortified position soon began, and the enemy’s guns threw shell after shell into the trenches before the Ghurkas could drive them off. A brief halt was made in the hostilities while Grant, as he records, had a lively correspondence with the Regent and the Senaputty anent certain prisoners whom they threatened to murder unless he retired. Negotiations fell through eventually, and the attack was renewed. In all the fighting Grant played a heroic part, making sallies with a few of his Ghurkas, and striking terror into the hearts of the Manipuris. “Found myself in a bit of a hole,” he writes at one place in his journal; “for thirty or forty were in a corner behind a wall, six feet high, over which they were firing at us.” This wall had to be cleared, so Grant and seven men charged down on it headlong, and had “the hottest three minutes on record.” The Ghurkas had a very proper appreciation of their leader’s bravery. “How could we be beaten under Grant Sahib?” they asked, when questioned about this and similar exploits. “He is a tiger in fight!” The struggle at Thobal lasted a week. At the end of that time, just as Grant was noting with dismay that ammunition was running very short, a summons came to him from Burma to retire.