At a stretching gallop, with some volunteer cavalry in front of it, the horse battery dashed up the road past the halted first brigade, which cheered loudly as the cannon swept by, Neill waving his cap and leading the cheering. On the left of the road there was a great deep trench full of water, which had somehow to be crossed. Led by Barrow, the cavalry escort plunged in, and scrambled through, and then halted to watch how Olpherts would conquer the obstacle. “Hell-fire Jack” was quite equal to the occasion, and his men were as reckless as himself. With no abatement of speed the guns were galloped into the great trough. For a moment there was chaos—a wild medley of detachments, drivers, guns, struggling horses, and splashing water; and then the guns were out on the further side, nobody and nothing the worse for the scramble, all hands on the alert to obey Olpherts’ stentorian shout, “Forward at a gallop!” Hamilton’s men marched and fought knee-deep in water; but the enemy’s right was smashed, his centre tumbled into ruin, and the men of the 78th and the Fusileers actually carried the Alumbagh in ten minutes! To tumble 12,000 men into flight, and carry the Alumbagh in this fashion, and in a space so brief, was a great feat; and while the men were in the exultation of victory, a messenger came riding in with the news—unhappily not true—that Delhi had fallen! On the 24th the little force rested, while its leaders matured their plans for the advance to the Residency. Before them ran the great canal, the road crossing it by what was called the Charbagh bridge. Havelock’s plan was to bridge the Goomtee, the river into which the canal ran, march along its further bank, round the city to its north-west angle, and re-cross by the iron bridge immediately in front of the Residency, and in this way avoid the necessity of forcing his way, with desperate and bloody street-fighting, through the interlaced and tangled lanes of the city. But the soil between the canal and the river was little better than a marsh, and it was determined to force the Charbagh bridge, advance on a lane which skirted the left bank of the canal, then turn sharply to the left, and fight a way across the city to the Residency.