The fact is this:--the
citadel of Allyghur is situated upon a rock, about a thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by fourteen walls, as his
Excellency was good enough to remark in his despatch. A man who would
mount these without scaling-ladders, is an ass; he who would SAY he
mounted them without such assistance, is a liar and a knave. We HAD
scaling-ladders at the commencement of the assault, although it was
quite impossible to carry them beyond the first line of batteries.
Mounted on them, however, as our troops were falling thick about me, I
saw that we must ignominiously retreat, unless some other help could
be found for our brave fellows to escalade the next wall. It was about
seventy feet high. I instantly turned the guns of wall A on wall B, and
peppered the latter so as to make, not a breach, but a scaling
place; the men mounting in the holes made by the shot. By this simple
stratagem, I managed to pass each successive barrier--for to ascend a
wall which the General was pleased to call "as smooth as glass" is an
absurd impossibility: I seek to achieve none such:--
"I dare do all that may become a man,
Who dares do more, is neither more nor less."
Of course, had the enemy's guns been commonly well served, not one of us
would ever have been alive out of the three; but whether it was owing to
fright, or to the excessive smoke caused by so many pieces of artillery,
arrive we did.
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