“Crack on the head with the butt-end, Teddy,” answered Charlie. “It knocked you senseless, and Goria Thapia carried you out of danger. Good job you’ve got the Russell skull. I expect the musket was smashed to bits! Without joking, old boy, you’ve had a narrow escape.”
“What’s the matter with my cheek—it’s stinging frightfully?” asked Ted.
“Your cheek?” replied Jim, laughing. “Oh, nothing’s the matter with that! It’s as big and fine and well-developed as usual.” Jim then placed his hand on his brother’s brow. “A sword or bayonet has just grazed your cheek, Ted, old man, and taken the skin off. It will be painful, but you’ll hardly feel it in a week’s time. Now, go to sleep.”
“But how did the fight go after I was dropped, Jim? Was Merban Sing killed?”
Captain Russell related the stirring incidents of the day, and told how Merban Sing and two of his brothers had laid down their lives to defend their trust.
For some time after this determined assault the rebels became more cautious, whilst our men sat tight, waiting for reinforcements and for a siege-train with which to batter those heavy walls whereon our little guns made no impression.
When off duty, officers and men would stroll from one regiment’s lines to another, the chief meeting-place being the Flagstaff Tower on the north end of the Ridge, well out of range. Games at cricket and quoits, as well as polo-matches and races, were arranged. Numerous were the visitors to Hindu Rao’s house, as men from all the regiments came to see this important outpost, to note the damage done by shot and shell, and to scrutinize those wonderfully tough little Gurkhas who were the first line of defence, and who were enjoying themselves hugely.
But though Major Reid[1] had many visitors, he himself never once left his post during these months of bitter fighting. He was guardian of the Ridge, and cricket, quoits, and races appealed to him in vain.
[1] Afterwards General Sir Charles Reid, K.C.B.
The 60th Rifles and the Sirmuris had become the best of friends and closest of chums, and in the early days of the fighting, when tobacco was still to be obtained without difficulty, little Gurkhas and heavy Yorkshiremen or sprightly Cockneys might be seen sitting side by side, smoking their pipes contentedly, and offering one another tobacco by signs, being unable to exchange a word.