It was on this open ground that the extraordinary bravery of the enemy was most brilliantly shown.  Standard-bearers with reckless gallantry could be seen rushing to certain destruction, falling perhaps within ten yards of the line of the Guides; men, who had used up all their ammunition, would rush forward with large rocks and hurl them at the soldiers, courting instant death.  Nothing could damp their ardour, or check the fury of their assaults.  Even after the Guides had crossed the river, and the enemy were under a severe flank fire from the Gordon Highlanders and King’s Own Scottish Borderers, they dashed into the stream, where each man stood out as clear as a bullseye on a target, and attempted to close again.  But not a man got across, so steady and well directed was the flank fire of the British regiments.  This welcome diversion enabled the Guides to complete the retirement into their entrenchment at the bridge-head, and there make rapid preparation for the attack that must follow; for though the enemy had lost six hundred men, their spirit was by no means broken.

Reinforcements consisting of two companies of the 4th Sikhs, and the Devonshire Regiment Maxim gun, were sent across after much labour by means of a little skin raft that only held two at a time.  The near bank was also sungared and held by the 2nd Brigade and the Derajat mountain battery, which at eight hundred yards’ range could fire over the heads of those at the bridge-head.  Several officers of the Guides’ cavalry also volunteered to cross over and help their comrades, for in a night attack it was a matter of holding their own, covering fire from the near bank being too dangerous an expedient.

The Guides, who were now under that good and cheery soldier Fred. Campbell, put out no picquets, so as to keep clear the field of fire, and every man slept, or sat awake, at his fighting station with his rifle in his hand.  The enemy could be heard close by in large numbers, hidden by a fold in the ground, and directly darkness set in they began yelling and tom-tomming in the most approved fashion.  This was to work up any flagging spirits that there might be, and to exalt the courage of all, for two thousand chosen warriors, sword in hand, lay ready in the standing corn, to make a desperate dash at the given signal, which was to be the first peep of the crescent moon over the mountains, calculated for about midnight.  There was some warlike cunning in this, for when a moon is about to rise every weary watcher is looking for it during the last moments, and then looking down again would find everything dark as the pit’s mouth by comparison.  In those few seconds the assailants meant to bound across the short intervening space, and come to close grips with the enemy who had staved them off all day and half the night.