Every available man in the camp was at the front, and when the 2nd Fusileers and the 4th Sikhs, who formed the approaching reinforcement, came pressing on with eager speed to the crest of the Ridge, over which the battle-smoke was drifting in dense white clouds, they were at once sent into the fight, and the enemy was finally driven back with a loss of over 1600 men. It is not easy to picture the exhaustion of the British at the close of a fight so stern and prolonged. “When I arrived at Hindu Rao’s,” wrote an eye-witness, “I found every one exhausted. There were the 1st Fusileers and some Rifles all done up. I went on to the new advanced battery; it was crowded with worn-out men. The artillerymen, likewise done up, had ceased firing; another party of Rifles in a similar state in another position. 120 men of the 2nd Fusileers, who had marched twenty-three miles that morning and had had no breakfast, were lying down exhausted. Three weak companies of Ghoorkas were out as skirmishers; but they, too, were exhausted, and the remainder were resting under a rock. The heat was terrific, and the thermometer must have been at least 140 degrees, with a hot wind blowing, and a frightful glare.” Of ten officers in the 2nd Fusileers five were struck down by _coup de soleil_. The next day Neville Chamberlain, Lawrence’s favourite officer, rode into the camp, and assumed the post of adjutant-general. On July 3 Baird Smith reached the Ridge, and took charge of the engineering operations of the siege. On July 5 Sir Henry Barnard died, killed by the burden of a task too great for him, and Reed assumed command. He held it for less than ten days, and then passed it over to Archdale Wilson, who had shared in the discredit of Meerut, and who, though a brave man, had scanty gifts of leadership. Twice over during those days of fierce and prolonged battle a time had been fixed for assaulting the city, and twice the plan had been spoiled by an earlier counter-attack of the enemy. Baird Smith, on his arrival, approved of the scheme for an assault, and urged it on Reed, who hesitated over it during the brief period of his command, and then handed it over as a perplexing legacy to his successor Wilson. The proposal to leap on Delhi was finally abandoned; but Baird Smith, the coolest brain employed in the siege, recorded long afterwards his deliberate judgment that “if we had assaulted any time between the 4th and 14th of July we should have carried the place.”