come," and finished my scramble up to the top.

Then we took a look round to see how things stood.

Devil a sign of the company coming down the rope was there, and the
Pioneers seemed to have disappeared too.

Then we numbered our party--three British officers, my orderly, and
eleven Sappers, the latter armed with Snider carbines only; my orderly
was the only one with a bayonet. There was a low ridge in front of us
hiding the enemy's sangars, so we lined this with the Sappers, till we
could see what the game was. We now saw the Pioneers moving down the
nullah towards the river, while at the same time the Levies showed on
the ridge and took possession of the sangar. We were all right, I saw,
so I gave the order to advance--keeping along the edge of the nullah so
as to get at the sangars. Of course just my luck that as we started to
advance, the buckle of my chuplie broke; there was no time to mend it,
so I shoved it into my haversack, and went along with one bare foot;
luckily the ground was not very stony.

As soon as we topped the swell of the ground, we saw the enemy bolting
in twos and threes from the nearest sangar, now about two hundred yards
off, and presently there came a rush right across our front. We opened
fire, trying volleys at first, but the Sappers were useless at that,
never having had any training, so independent firing was ordered. During
the halt Moberly had a narrow shave, a bullet passing between his left
hand and thigh, as he was standing superintending the firing. His hand
was almost touching his thigh, and the bullet raised the skin of the
palm just below the little finger.