They listened to the clear sonorous voice once more, though there was no shelter now from the grape and canister, and musket balls; or rather only the shelter of that one tall figure ahead riding at a foot's-pace.
"Steady! Hold your fire! I'll give the word, never fear! Come on! Come on!"
So through a perfect bog they stumbled on doggedly. Here and there a man fell; but men will fall sometimes. "Now then! Let them have it."
They were within the limit. Twenty yards off lay the guns. There was one furious volley; above it one word answered by a cheer.
So at the point of the bayonet the serai was carried. Then without a pause the troops changed front with a swiftness unforeseen and swept on to the left.
"To Delhi, brothers! To Delhi!" The old cry, begun at Meerut, rose now with a new meaning as the panic-stricken guns limbered up and made for the bridge. Too late! Captain Blunt's were after them, chasing them. The wheel of the foremost, driven wildly, jammed; those following couldn't pull up. So, helter skelter, they were in a jumble, out of which Englishmen helped the whole thirteen! The day, or rather the night, was won; for Nature's dark flag of truce hung even between the assailants and the few desperate defenders of the third village, who, with escape cut off, were selling their lives at a cost to the attackers of seventeen out of that total death-roll of twenty-five. But Nicholson knew his position sure, so he left night to finish the rout, and, with his men, bivouacked without food or cover among the marshes; for it was too dark to get the baggage over the ford. Yet the troops were ready to start at daybreak for an eighteen miles tramp back to the Ridge again. There was no talk of exhaustion now, as at Budli-ke-serai; so just thirty-six hours after they started, that is, just one hour for every mile of morass and none for the fight, they startled the Ridge by marching in again and clamoring for food! But Nicholson was in a towering temper. He had found that another brigade had been lurking behind the canal, and that if he had had decent information he might have smashed it also, on his way home.
"He hadn't even a guide that he didn't pick up himself," commented Major Erlton angrily. "By George! how those niggers cave in to him! And his political information was all rot. If the General had obeyed instructions he would have been kicking his heels at Bahâdagurh still."
"We heard you at it about two o'clock," said a new listener. "I suppose it was a night attack--risky business rather."
Herbert Erlton burst into a laugh; but the elation on his face had a pathetic tenderness in it. "That was the bridge, I expect. He blew it up before starting. He sat on it till then. Besides there were the wagons and tumbrils and things. He told Tombs to blow them up, too, for of course he had to bring the guns back, and he couldn't shove the lot."
As he passed on some of his listeners smiled.