In a moment there was a blast as of thunder, and—not the gate unfortunately, but merely the little wicket in it, had vanished! The bugler from the ditch sounded the advance; but such was the tumult of battle now raging that the storming parties of the 52nd, waiting eagerly to make their rush, heard neither the explosion nor the bugle-call. Campbell, their colonel, however, had seen the flame of the explosion, and gave the word. The storming party and the supports, all intermixed, ran forward at the double, they crossed, man after man, the single beam remaining of the bridge, and crept through the wicket. They found within the gate an overturned cannon, and some blackened Sepoy corpses. The main body followed, and from the two breaches and the Cashmere Gate the three columns met, breathless, confused, but triumphant, in the open space between the Cashmere Gate and the church. The fourth column alone of the assaulting parties practically failed. A battle is always rich in blunders; and the guns, which were to have accompanied the column, somehow failed to arrive, and Reid, its commander, pushed on without them. He had to face an unbroken wall 18 feet high, lined with guns and marksmen. Reid himself fell, wounded and insensible, and there was some confusion as to who should take his place as leader. It was expected that the Lahore Gate would have been opened from within by the advance of the first column, but, before the Lahore Gate was reached from within the city by the British, the fourth column found itself unable to sustain the murderous fire from the walls, and fell back into cover. The Sepoys, in their exultation, actually ventured upon a sally, and Hope Grant had to bring up the scanty cavalry of the camp to check the advance of the enemy. The cavalry could not charge, for this would bring them under the fire of the walls; they would not withdraw, for this would uncover the camp. They could only sit grimly in their saddles, and hold back the enemy by the menace of their presence, while men and horses went down unceasingly under the sleet of fire which broke over them. “For more than two hours,” says Hodson, “we had to sit on our horses, under the heaviest fire, without the chance of doing anything. My young regiment behaved admirably, as did all hands. The slaughter was great. Lamb’s troop lost twenty-seven men out of forty-eight, and nineteen horses, and the whole cavalry suffered in the same proportion.” Hope Grant tells how he praised the 9th Lancers for their cool steadiness, and the men answered from the ranks that they were ready to stand as long as he chose. “Hodson,” says one officer who was present, “sat like a man carved in stone, apparently as unconcerned as the sentries at the Horse Guards, and only by his eyes and his ready hand, whenever occasion offered, could you have told that he was in deadly peril, and the balls flying among us as thick as hail!”