Cavalry—3d Bombay Light Cavalry, 243; Poona Horse, 176. Infantry (Europeans)—H.M. 64th regiment, 780; H.M. 78th Highlanders, 739; 2d Bombay European Light Infantry, 693. Infantry, &c. (Natives)—Sappers, 118; 4th Bombay Rifle Regiment, 523; 20th Regiment Bombay N.I., 442; 26th Regiment Bombay N.I., 479; Beloochee Battalion, 460. Guns—3d Troop Horse Artillery, 6; 3d Light Field Battery, 6; 5th Light Field Battery, 6. Total sabres, 419; Europeans, 2212; Natives, 2022. Total men, 4653; guns, 18.
The force was not provided with tents or extra clothing of any kind; but every man carried his great coat, blanket, and two days’ cooked provisions.
After a march of 46 miles in forty-one hours, during which the troops were exposed to the worst of weather—cold winds, deluging storms of rain and thunder, and clouds of driving sand, the greater part of the march lying through a reedy swamp—the force reached the enemy’s entrenched position near the town of Boorasjoon, on the morning of the 5th, but was only in time to find the enemy abandoning it. A smart brush, however, took place between their rearguard and the British cavalry, in which an officer and two or three troopers received some slight wounds. By two o’clock the force was in possession of the enemy’s entrenched camp, and great quantities of ammunition of all kinds, together with grain and camp equipage, were captured, the enemy having gone off in a most hurried and disorderly manner.
“The 6th and 7th of February were passed in the enemy’s position, destroying stores and searching for buried guns, which were afterwards ascertained to have been thrown down wells; their carriages and wheels, being found by us, were burned. Some treasure was also discovered, and many horses and carriage cattle secured. During this time no annoyance was experienced from the enemy, though an alarm on the night of the 6th caused the whole of the troops to stand to arms. From information received afterwards, and their own despatch, this alarm was not altogether a groundless one, as they fell up to our outposts; but finding the troops under arms, and it being a bright moonlight night, they attempted nothing. Many jokes were, however, current in camp next day on the events of the night, the picket of one regiment having taken a door prisoner, which was leaning against a bush in a most suspicious manner; and those of two other gallant corps skirmished up to, and were very nearly having a battle of their own with a patrol of the Poonah Horse. However, all passed off without accident.
“Many spies were doubtless in our camp during the entire period of our stay, and the enemy were well informed of every movement; regardless of which, however, intercourse between the villagers and camp was encouraged, and such strict precautions enforced that they should not be pillaged or ill-treated, that they were civil if not friendly, and at any rate gave no trouble.”[500]
The troops had been somewhat exhausted by their march of 46 miles through rain, mud, morass, and sand in forty-one hours; but being now recruited by their two days’ rest, and Sir James Outram having heard that the enemy had succeeded in getting his guns through the difficult pass of Maak, considered it better to rest content with the moral effect produced by the capture and destruction of their stores, and accordingly ordered a return to Busheer.
“At eight o’clock on the evening of the 7th,” Captain Hunt says, “the return march to Busheer was commenced, the column taking with it as much of the captured stores as carriage was procurable for, and the military Governor of Boorasjoon as a prisoner—this personage proving a double traitor. The General’s intention that the return march should be a leisurely one had been so widely made known through the force, that the stirring events then so shortly to occur were little indeed expected by any one.... Shortly after midnight a sharp rattle of musketry in the rear, and the opening of two horse artillery guns, put every one on the qui vive, and that an attack in force upon the rearguard was taking place became apparent to all. The column at once halted, and then moved back to extricate the baggage and protecting troops. These, however, were so ably handled by Colonel Honnor (who was in command) as to need little assistance, save for the increasing numbers of the assailants.
“In about half an hour after the first shot was fired, not the rearguard only, but the entire force, was enveloped in a skirmishing fire. Horsemen galloped round on all sides, yelling and screaming like fiends, and with trumpets and bugles making as much noise as possible. One of their buglers had the audacity to go close to a skirmishing company of the Highlanders, and sound first the ‘Cease fire,’ and afterwards, ‘Incline to the left,’ escaping in the dark. Several English officers having, but a few years since, been employed in organising the Persian troops, accounted for the knowledge of our bugle-calls, now artfully used to create confusion. The silence and steadiness of the men were most admirable, and the manœuvring of regiments that followed, in taking up position for the remaining hours of darkness, was as steady as an ordinary parade, and this during a midnight attack, with an enemy’s fire flashing in every direction, and cavalry surrounding, ready to take advantage of the slightest momentary confusion. Pride may well be felt in the steadiness of any troops under such circumstances; and how much more so when, as on the present occasion, two-thirds had never before been under an enemy’s fire. The horsemen of the enemy were at first very bold, dashing close up to the line, and on one occasion especially to the front of the 78th Highlanders; but finding that they could occasion no disorder, and having been in one or two instances roughly handled by the cavalry and horse artillery, this desultory system of attack gradually ceased, and the arrangement of the troops for the remainder of the night was effected under nothing more serious than a distant skirmishing fire. The formation adopted was an oblong, a brigade protecting each flank, and a demi-brigade the front and rear, field battery guns at intervals, and a thick line of skirmishers connecting and covering all; the horse artillery and cavalry on the flank of the face fronting the original line of march, the front and flanks of the oblong facing outwards; the baggage and followers being in the centre. When thus formed the troops lay down, waiting for daylight in perfect silence, and showing no fire or light of any kind.
“Scarcely was the formation completed when the enemy opened five heavy guns, and round shot were momentarily plunging through and over our position, the range of which they had obtained very accurately. Our batteries replied; and this cannonade continued, with occasional intervals, until near daylight, causing but few casualties, considering the duration of the fire.”
It appears that, in abandoning their position at Boorasjoon, Sooja-ool-Moolk (reputed to be the best officer in the Persian army), with his force, had taken the direct road to Shiraz by the Maak Pass, and the Elkanee, with his horse, had retired to the one leading to the Haft Moola, and that they had planned a night attack on the British camp on the night that the troops marched. The explosion of the magazine at Boorasjoon gave the Persians the first intimation of the departure of the British force, when they hastened after it, in the expectation of being able to attack it on the line of march, and possibly create confusion and panic in the dark.