The day at Chinhut, in brief, was one of blunders and disasters. “Everything,” says Fayrer, “was against us.” The force started late, and without adequate preparation. The supplies of food and water never came up. The men of the 32nd had to attack when exhausted by heat, thirst, and fatigue, and want of food. The native artillerymen deserted; the Sikh cavalry fled. The one formidable gun the British had, an 8-inch howitzer, was thrown out of action owing to the elephant that drew it taking fright. The British, in addition, were badly armed. Many of their muskets would not go off. In the confusion of the retreat an officer called on a private of the 32nd by name to turn round and fire on the enemy. “I will do so, sir, if you wish,” said the man, “but it’s no use! I have snapped six caps already and the piece won’t go off.” The Sepoys, as it happened, were armed with new and clean muskets. The enormous number of the Sepoys enabled them to outflank the scanty British force, and nothing remained but retreat. There were many individual acts of gallantry; but, in broken, desperately fighting clusters, the 32nd had to fall back, many of the men dropping from exhaustion or sunstroke while they tried to fight. An officer in the battle has described the huge mass of the Sepoys as it pressed on the flank of the retreating British. “The plain,” he says, “was one moving mass of men. Regiment after regiment of the Sepoys poured steadily towards us, the flanks covered with a foam of skirmishers. They came on in quarter-distance columns, the standards waving in their places, and everything performed as steadily as possible. A field-day on parade could not have been better.” Under the terrific fire poured on their flank the gallant 32nd simply melted away. Their colonel, Case, a splendid soldier, fell desperately wounded, and one of the officers ran to assist him. “Your place,” Case told him, “is with your men. Never mind me. Leave me to die, but stand by your men.” Lawrence rode, hat in hand, wherever the fire was fiercest, cheering the men; but again and again he wrung his hands, and was heard to say, “My God! I have brought them to this!” A great body of native cavalry was about to charge down on the clusters of broken red-coats, when the thirty-six volunteers on horseback rode at them with such fury that the whole hostile mass was broken, and, with its two guns and sea of glittering sabres, was actually driven off in flight! The retreating column had reached the iron bridge; the Sepoys, outnumbering them by hundreds to one, were pressing on, when Lawrence saved them by a flash of warlike genius.