Penn’s mountain train of steel guns, which were following the naval train,
now arrived at the top of the road, instantly unloaded, and took their
places by the side of the Punjaubees. When the enemy were within three
hundred yards the steel guns opened with shell, the Punjaubees poured in
their fire and speedily stopped the advance of the head of the column. The
greater part of the natives then went down the ravine to the left, along
which they proceeded to the attack of the baggage, in the main valley of
which this ravine was a branch. The baggage-guard, composed of a
detachment of the 4th, scattered along the long line, had already been
warned by the guns of the fortress that an attack was impending, and
Captain Aberdie, of the transport train, gallopping down, brought them
word of the advancing body of the enemy. The various officers upon duty
instantly collected their men. Captain Roberts was in command, and was
well seconded by Lieutenants Irving, Sweeny, and Durrant of the 4th, and
by the officers of the transport train.
As the enemy poured down the ravine they were received by a withering fire
from the deadly Snider. A portion of the Punjaubees came down the ravine
and took them in flank, and some of the guns of Penn’s battery, getting
upon a projecting spur, scattered death everywhere amongst them. From the
extreme rapidity of the fire of the Snider, the firing at this time in
different parts of the field was as heavy and continuous as that of a
general action between two large armies. The Punjaubees behaved with great
gallantry and charged with the bayonet, doing great execution. The
natives, who had fought with great pluck, now attempted to escape up the
opposite side of the ravine, but great numbers were shot down as they did
so, their white dresses offering a plain mark to our riflemen; at last,
however, the remnant gained the opposite bank, and fled across the country
to our left, their retreat to Magdala being cut off. The action, from the
first to the last gun, lasted an hour and a half. It was, as far as our
part of the fray was concerned, a mere skirmish. We had not a single man
killed, and only about thirty wounded, most of them slightly. Captain
Roberts, however, was hit in the elbow-joint with a ball, and will, it is
feared, lose his arm. On the other hand, to the enemy this is a decisive
and crushing defeat. Upwards of five thousand of Theodore’s bravest
soldiers sallied out; scarcely as many hundreds returned. Three hundred
and eighty bodies were counted the next morning, and many were believed to
have been carried off in the night. Very many fell on the slope of the
hill, and away in the ravines to our right and left, where our
burying-parties could not find them. Certainly five hundred were killed,
probably twice as many were wounded, and of these numbers have only
crawled away to die. It was a terrible slaughter, and could hardly be
called a fight, between disciplined bodies of men splendidly armed, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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