During the next few days the whole camp helped the Engineers to put into execution the plan of attack which Colonel Baird Smith's masterly brain had planned. At dead of night the soldiers constructed batteries and shelter-trenches between the English camp and the walls, in positions where it would have meant death to have worked by daylight. Before long thousands of gabions[20] and acres of fascines[21] had been made for the protection of gunners. [20] Gabions are hollow cylinders of basket-work filled with earth. [21] Fascines are large bundles of brushwood faggots. On the eventful morning of 8th September, 1857, Major Brind of the Artillery--a man concerning whom an officer present observed: "Talk about the V.C., why, Brind should be covered with them from head to foot!"--is given the honour of commencing the bombardment from No. 1 Battery, only seven hundred and fifty yards from the walls. In spite of all Brind's labours of the night, the sun rises before his battery is ready for action, and the mutineers at once perceive his designs. Pitiless showers of well-directed grape plunge in and around the battery. Though but half-sheltered from this terrible fire, Brind's gunners, assisted by a detachment of the Gurkhas of the Kumaon Battalion, go on with the rapid completion of the work. At length a single howitzer is dragged into position, and the first shot of the real bombardment is fired. It is but a feeble retort to the thundering giants of the Mori and Kashmir bastions, and the foemen laugh as they continue to pound the gallant little band with round-shot, grape, and shell. Ted from his post on the Ridge looks on with disappointed eyes. But before long a second gun is on its platform, and then a third, and the rebels laugh no longer. And soon the battery is complete; five 18-pounders and four 24-pounders, magnificently aimed and served, are replying in earnest, as though the very cannon knew how long the army had been waiting for them, and had resolved to do their duty and show that the waiting had not been in vain. With high hopes and expectations thousands of British, Gurkha, Pathan, Sikh, and Dogra soldiers look on at the awful duel. Idle spectators are they, unable to assist, and safe from the venomous fire of the rebel cannon which are now all directed to the destruction of this impertinent No. 1 Battery. The insurgents stand manfully to their guns, but the finest artillerymen in the world are serving under Brind, and at length, to the delight and amid the resounding cheers and hurrahs of the spectators, the massive masonry of the Mori Bastion, that looked but yesterday strong enough to defy an earthquake, begins to crumble away. The answering fire slackens and dwindles down.