CHAPTER XV.
1857 Reinforcements begin to arrive--An assault again proposed -- The attack on Alipur--Death of General Barnard -- General Reed assumes command--Two V.C.'s--Treachery in camp -- Fighting close up to the city walls -- Sufferings of the sick and wounded--General Reed's health fails That my readers may better understand our position at the time I joined the Delhi Field Force, I might, I think, quote with advantage from a letter[1] written the very day of my arrival by General Barnard to Sir John Lawrence, in which he describes the difficulties of the situation, hitherto met by the troops with the most determined courage and endurance, but to which no end could be seen.

When he took over the command, he wrote, he was expected to be able to silence at once the fire from the Mori and Kashmir bastions, and then to bring his heavy guns into play on the walls and open a way into the city, after which, it was supposed, all would be plain sailing.

But this programme, so plausible in theory, was absolutely impossible to put into practice.

In spite of every effort on our part, not a single one of the enemy's guns was silenced; they had four to our one, while the distance from the Ridge to the city walls was too great to allow of our comparatively light guns making any impression on them.

Under these circumstances the only thing to be done was to construct batteries nearer to the city, but before these could be begun, entrenching tools, sandbags, and other necessary materials, of which the Engineers were almost entirely destitute, had to be collected.