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By Root 1054 0

on the north-facing ramparts had an essential function if the garrison was to survive the morning; these cannons must break the impetus of the first enemy attack. It was now just light enough on the roof for him to see to load his pistols. He sat cross-legged in the native fashion beside the parapet and listened to the flag stirring restlessly in the light airs above him. Scowling with concentration he began to load the six chambers of his Colt Patent Repeating Pistol with the lead which dragged down one pocket of his scarecrow’s morning coat. One by one he filled each chamber with powder and then, without wadding or patch, placed a soft lead ball on its mouth and pulled the long lever beneath the barrel; this lever moved the rammer which forced the lead down into the chamber and sealed it so completely, the Collector had been assured that the powder would still fire even if you immersed your arm completely in water. When he had finished, and the Adams, too, had been loaded, the Collector settled down calmly to wait for the attack. He felt very weak, however, and every so often he retched convulsively, though without vomiting for he had consumed nothing except a little water in the past twenty-four hours. He was inclined to feel giddy, too, and was obliged to support himself against the parapet in order to steady his troubled vision.

The Collector had expected that the attack would begin with the howling warcry he had come to dread, but for once it did not; out of the thin ground mist that lingered in a slight dip in between the churchyard wall and the ruins of the Cutcherry the shapes of men began to appear. Then he heard, faintly but distinctly, the jingle of a bridle. He stood up shakily, then shouted: “Stand to! Prepare to fire!” From the roof his voice echoed over the sleeping plain like that of the muezzin. When they heard it the sepoys threw back their heads and uttered a howl so piercing, so harrowing that every window in the Residency must have dissolved if they had not been already broken. With that, bayonets glistening, they began to charge, converging from every angle of the hemisphere; before they had advanced a dozen yards squadrons of lancers had overtaken them racing for the ramparts.

The Collector waited until he estimated their distance at two hundred yards and shouted: “Fire!” This was at the limit of the effective range of canister but he could afford to wait no longer; his men were so weak, their movements so sluggish that they would need every extra second if they were to re-load and fire another charge before the enemy reached the ramparts. As half a dozen cannons flashed simultaneously at the ramparts, gaps appeared in the ranks of charging men and horses thrashed to the ground...But the Collector could see that he had given the order to fire too soon. Not enough damage had been done...It was like watching leaves floating on a swiftly flowing river; every now and then one of the leaves would be arrested against a submerged rock while the great mass of them flowed by even faster on each side. And he could see that the distance was in any case too short: his cannons would never be able to re-load in time. He ought to have waited to fire one really effective salvo at close range. The enemy sowars were already on top of the ramparts.

“Spike the guns!” he shouted, but no one could possibly have heard him. Half the men were already straggling back into the Residency building or into the hospital in order to form a new position while the remainder did their best to hold off the sepoys who were already swarming over the ramparts. Some of the sepoys were shot or cut down as they struggled to get over “the possessions” which stuck out jaggedly here and there; a sowar pitched headless from his horse on to a silted-up velvet chaise longue; a warrior from Oudh dived head first in a glittering shower through a case of tropical birds while a comrade at his elbow died spreadeagled on the mud-frozen wheels of the gorse bruiser. But this did not delay the charge for more than an instant. More sepoys poured forward