‘Maharajah wrote saying he was not responsible for the outbreak; and Senaputti told the messengers he had 3,000 men in front of me, and would cut us all up.
‘I wrote refusing to move without the Ghoorka prisoners at least, and said “I didn’t care for 5,000 Manipuri Babus.”[23]
‘At last Jubraj said the prisoners had been sent away to Assam, and sent me 500 pounds ata and 50 pounds each dhal and ghee to retire with. I sent back the rations, and refused to move without a member of the durbar as a hostage, to remain at Tammu till prisoners arrived at Cachar and Kohima. They offered me a subadar. I said he was no one. I had signed all my letters as Col. A. Howlett, Com. 2nd B. Regt., to impress them with my strength and importance, and put on the subadar’s badges of rank in addition to my own.
‘The next morning (6th) they attacked again at dawn, and as I had only seventy rounds per man for Sniders and thirty for Martinis, I closed into the fort. At first, after forty minutes’ shelling, they made determined efforts to cross the walls 100 to 200 yards in front of my front and left; but nearly every man was hit as he mounted the wall, and then they remained firing from behind the walls.
‘At eight a.m. a good lot had collected behind the wall 200 yards from my left. I crept out with ten or twelve Ghoorkas, who held my rear and right under the hedge, and drove them with loss by an attack on their right flank, and we bolted back to fort without loss.
‘Then at eleven a.m. there was firing from behind the hedges to our front with a weapon that rang out louder than their rifles. I crept out with a havildar and six Ghoorkas close in the ditch under the hedge, out to our front from our right, up to within ten yards of the nearest of them. They opened a wild fire, and bolted as we attacked their left flank; but then we found ourselves in a bit of a hole, for thirty or forty were in a corner behind a wall, six feet high, over which they were firing at us. I had my D. B. sixteen-bore shot-gun, and six buckshot and six ball cartridges, and as they showed their heads over the wall they got buckshot in their faces at twenty yards.
‘When my twelve rounds were fired, and the Ghoorkas also doing considerable damage, we rushed the wall, and I dropped one through the head with my revolver, and hit some more as they bolted.
‘When we cleared them out we returned to the fort along the ditch, having had the hottest three minutes on record, and only got the Ghoorka havildar shot through the hand and some of our clothes shot through; we had killed at least ten.
‘Next day I visited the corner, and found blood, thirty Snider and fifteen Martini cartridges, and one four-inch long Express cartridge, ·500, which accounted for the unaccountable sounds I had heard.
‘Next day I heard I had killed the “Bhudda” (old) Senaputti, or the commander-in-chief of the old Maharaj, father of the present lot of scoundrels, and also two generals; but that is not yet confirmed.