‘After I had seen all the Manipuris near the fort polished off, I sent for a dresser and lay down in one of the huts in the fort. Soon had my clothes off, and found the bullet had gone through the root of my neck, just above the shoulder, and carried some of the cloth of my collar and shirt right through the wound, leaving it quite clean. I was soon bound up, and men shampooed me and kept away cramp. It was only a very violent shock, and I felt much better in the evening.
‘As soon as the enemy got clear of the fort the shrapnel from the hills opened fire on them, and when they got beyond, then Cox cut in with his mounted infantry, and only five or six escaped; but poor Cox got badly shot by one of them through the shoulder, but is doing well.
‘Carnegy and Grant, of the 2nd-4th, found twenty or thirty of the enemy in a deep hole in the corner of the fort, where they had escaped our men, and in settling them Carnegy got shot through the thigh, and Drury got his hand broke by the butt of a gun. Two of my men were wounded, and two of the 2nd-4th killed, and five or six wounded, I think because they were in much closer order than my men, who were at ten paces interval.
‘We gathered seventy-five bodies in the fort and fifty-six near it, and the shrapnel and mounted infantry killed over one hundred. The Manipuris here say we killed over four hundred. So we paid off part of our score against their treachery. We spent the night there.
‘They were tremendously astonished and disgusted when they heard in Palel we had had such a fight. The fact is we left them no bolt-hole, and they thought, after their treacherous murder of the five Englishmen at Manipur, that we would give them no quarter, and so every man fought till he was killed.
‘Next morning we advanced to my fort at Thobal, and found it deserted; and the royal family and army fled from Manipur as soon as they heard of the action of the 25th. So yesterday, the 27th, we marched in here, my Thobal party, by order of the general, being the first to enter the palace on our side, the Cachar and the Kohima columns arriving from the west and north just before them.
‘I, alas! in my dholi, did not get up till two hours after, as it poured all the march, and the mud was awful; but I slept A1 last night, and to-day am feeling fit and well.
‘General Collett, commanding the army, came to-day to see me, and said all sorts of nice things to me, and his A.-G. asked me when I would be a captain, and said I would not be one long, meaning I would get a brevet majority. But all these people are very excited now, and talk of my getting brevet rank, and V.C. and D.S.O.; but when all is settled, if I get anything at all I will be content, and it will be about as much as I deserve. I have asked leave if I might stick to my men, as they had stuck so well to me at Thobal. I have had such luck, the men in this regiment will do anything for me, and I hate the idea of changing regiments again, so I may remain if a vacancy occurs.
‘I went out for a “walk” in my dholi this evening, and went round the palace—a very poor place.’