I was startled from a sound sleep by heavy firing, and saw the enemy advancing within a few hundred yards of our halting-place.

Coke formed his Infantry along the bank of the canal, and sent a mounted officer to recall the Cavalry and Artillery.
The enemy came on very boldly at first, but the steady fire of our Infantry kept them at bay, and when the guns arrived we had no difficulty in driving them off.

They left 80 dead on the field; we had on our side 3 killed and 23 wounded, besides losing several British soldiers from sunstroke.
Major Coke was much grieved by the loss in this engagement of a Native friend of his, a Chief of the Kohat border, by name Mir Mubarak Shah.
He was a grand specimen of a frontier Khan,[3] and on hearing that the 1st Punjab Infantry was ordered to Delhi expressed his determination to accompany it.

He got together a troop of eighty of his own followers, and leaving Kohat on the 1st June, overtook Coke at Kurnal on the 27th, a distance of nearly 600 miles.

A day or two afterwards Coke's men were approached by the Hindustanis of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, and some Native officers of the 9th Irregulars, who tried to induce them to join in the rebellion.