Getting in touch
with the enemy, the horse-artillery came into action, but their fire,
good and accurate as it might be, was not sufficient to stay the
determined advance of large bodies of bloodthirsty and fanatical
ghazis. The General, therefore, ordered the cavalry to charge, the
two regiments acting independently under their own commanders.
Major Wigram Battye was commanding the squadron of the Guides' cavalry
launched to the attack, but ere he had proceeded a few hundred yards a
bullet hit him in the left hip, and the squadron, under Hamilton, swept
on, leaving him still in the saddle, though in great pain and supported
by his orderly.
Then happened one of those strange fatalities which brings the Kismet of
the Mahomedan into close touch with the Providence of the Christian.
Hamilton and the whole squadron galloping every second into more
imminent danger remain unscathed. The solitary sore wounded horseman,
walking his horse behind them, had that day come to the end of God's
allotted span; and as he walked yet another chance bullet pierced his
chest, and he fell to rise no more; the second of the Battyes to die on
the field of honour, in the ranks of the Guides.
A touching proof of the affection and respect which his men had for him
was most affectingly illustrated after the battle. There were, as in all
armies, ambulance-bearers, whose duty it is to carry in litters the dead
and wounded.
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