While the firing continued, the columns of attack were already in motion towards their several points; and when it ceased, the left corps, under Colonel Mallet, was seen debouching from the jungle upon the enemy’s right; the right column, under Colonel Brodie, Madras army, in like manner advancing on the left; and the two central columns, one under Colonel Parlby of the Madras army, and the other commanded by Captain Wilson, of the 38th regiment, descending the stairs from the north gate of the pagoda, and filing up towards the centre of the position, by either side of the tank before alluded to, as partly covering the intrenchments on this side.
The appearance of our troops at the same moment upon so many different points seemed to paralyse the Burmese army, but they were not long in recovering from their momentary panic, when they opened a heavy and well-sustained fire upon our troops; and it was not until a decided charge was made, and our troops actually in the trenches, that the enemy finally gave way, and they were precipitately driven from their numerous works, curiously shaped, and strengthened by many strange contrivances, into the thick forest in their rear.
There, all pursuit was necessarily given up; our limited numbers, exhausted by seven days of watching and hard service, were unequal to the fatigue; though even when our men were fresh, the enemy could always baffle their pursuit in a country which afforded them so many facilities for escaping. Upon the ground the enemy left a great number of dead, who seemed generally from their stout and athletic forms, to have been their best troops. Their bodies had each a charm of some description, in which the brave deceased had no doubt trusted for protection, but in this case, they seemed to have lost any virtue ever possessed by them. In the intrenchments were found scaling-ladders, and every preparation for carrying the pagoda by storm.
No time was lost in completing the rout of the Burmese army, and on the evening of the 7th, a body of troops from His Majesty’s eighty-ninth regiment, and the forty-third Madras native infantry, under Colonel Parlby, were in readiness to embark from Rangoon as soon as the tide served, for the purpose of crossing the river and driving the enemy from their intrenchments at Dalla. The night, fortunately, was dark, and the troops were got over unperceived by the enemy. No shot was fired, nor alarm given, until the British troops had actually entered the Burmese intrenchments, and commenced firing at random among the noisy groups which they now heard all around them, but the risk of injuring each other in the dark made it advisable to desist. Parties were sent to occupy various parts of the works, which a previous acquaintance with the ground enabled them to accomplish with but little opposition or loss. On the approach of daylight next morning they found themselves in full and undisturbed possession of the whole position, with all the guns and stores of this portion of the Burmese army, the remains of which were perceived during the whole day, retracing their steps across the plain of Dalla, with more expedition and less pomp than they had exhibited but seven days before, when they traversed the same plain “in all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.”
Every gun they had, and the whole matériel of the army, fell into the hands of the conquerors. Desertions and the dispersion of entire corps, followed the defeat, so that in the course of a few days the haughty Bandoola, who so boasted of driving the rebel strangers into the sea, found himself completely foiled in all his plans, humbled, and surrounded by a beaten army, which he proudly called “invincible,” alike afraid of the consequences of a final retreat, and of another meeting with an adversary who had taught him such a severe lesson!
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE BATTLE OF MELLOONE.
1825.
After various successes, Sir Archibald Campbell was enabled to make his arrangements for an advance upon the Burmese capital. The distance from Prome to Ava may be estimated at three hundred miles, and although the roads and country upwards are generally more advantageous for military operations than those in the lower provinces, we had still much toil and labour to anticipate before the army could arrive in the open plains of Upper Ava.
The commissariat was conducted by natives, who even volunteered their services as drivers to the foot artillery, and on various occasions did not flinch from exposing themselves to the fire of their countrymen, expressing much pleasure at the precision with which the guns to which they were attached were directed by their new allies.
The officers, instead of walking, had now the luxury of being mounted on Pegu ponies, and they commenced the second campaign in good health, and in comparative comfort.