The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing.
The 78th Highlanders held the bridge for three hours till the whole force was over, and desperate fighting was going on all the time, for the enemy was coming up in dense numbers. At length a detachment advanced to a little temple further up the road, which was held by the sepoys, and succeeded in turning them out. But once inside, the Highlanders could only defend it with their swords, for the cartridges were so swelled by exposure to the rain that they would not go into the guns. After an hour, young Havelock, whose duty lay at the bridge, sent up some fresh cartridges, and then Webster, who from the shelter of the temple had been impatiently watching the action of three small cannon which had been firing down the Cawnpore road, exclaimed:
'Who's for those guns?'
'I'm for the guns!' they all shouted, and the temple door was opened and Webster leaped out, Macpherson, the adjutant, and the men following. The guns when captured were thrown into the canal, where those of the Charbagh bridge were already lying.
Perhaps the most trying part of the whole campaign was the advance towards the residency through the narrow streets, where the very women flung down stones, and from the roofs and windows a ceaseless fire poured upon our men. Deep trenches had been cut along the cross-roads in order to make the horses stumble, and the smoke was so thick that men and beasts were nearly blinded. It was here that Neill fell, shot in the head, and Webster found a grave instead of the Victoria Cross, which would certainly have been given him. Then there was a rush forward, and they were within the gates.
For the first few minutes the men did not know what they were saying or doing, so great was the excitement on both sides; but soon it was plain that the rescuing party were utterly exhausted, and needed rest, and what food might be forthcoming, which was neither good nor plentiful. Most of all they must have rejoiced in the possibility of changing their clothes, stiff with mud and wet, for Havelock tells us that he himself entered the city with one suit which had hardly been off his back for six weeks.