Havelock left 300 men under Neill to hold Cawnpore, where rough but adequate entrenchments had been thrown up. Furious rains had swollen the Ganges, and it took him four days to transport his little force across its turbid and far-extended waters. He had under his command Neill’s “blue-caps,” the 64th, the 84th, the 78th, and Brasyer’s Sikhs, a force not quite 1500 strong—of which only 1200 were British—with ten small field-pieces and a troop of sixty horsemen. And with this mere handful of men a dozen strong positions had to be carried, a great river crossed, and a huge city, swarming with enemies, pierced! [Illustration: LUCKNOW 1857. Walker & Cockerell sc.] The village of Onao barred the road, some nine miles from the banks of the Ganges. Every house was held by Oude irregulars, a stubborn and hard-fighting race; the rain-water, lying deep on both flanks of the village, made a turning movement impossible. The infantry had outmarched the guns, and Havelock wished to keep them back till his artillery came up. But the men were fiercely impatient, and could hardly be restrained. “Pray, sir,” urged Colonel Hamilton, of the 78th, “let them go at the place and have done with it.” Havelock nodded, and in an instant Highlanders and Fusileers, vehemently racing against each other, went at a run into the village. Every house was a loopholed fortress, and the fighting was stubborn and deadly. House after house broke into flames, while clusters of Highlanders and Fusileers broke through doors and windows. The Oude men, to quote Forbes’s phrase, “fought like wild cats while they roasted.” The 64th next came up at the double, and the village was carried. Beyond the village the flying guns of the enemy halted, and drew up across the narrow causeway, barring it with a fiery hedge of shot and flame; but the “blue-caps,” their officers leading, swept like a human whirlwind down on the guns, and the stubborn Oude gunners, to a man, were bayoneted at their pieces. Six miles further the walled town of Bussarat Gunj crossed the road, its gateway spanning the whole width of the causeway. Havelock took his guns within short range of the gateway, and commenced to batter it, whilst he despatched the 64th to turn the town and cut off the retreat of the enemy. It was clever strategy, but the 78th and the Fusileers were too quick, the 64th too slow. Highlanders and “blue-caps” carried trench, gateway, and battery with one sustained and angry rush, and as they came storming through the gateway with bent heads and bayonets at the charge, the enemy were driven, a jumble of flying horsemen, galloping artillery, and wrecked infantry, through the town beyond it. The 64th, it is said, marched reluctantly on their turning movement. The men were eager to share the straight rush at the gate.