They had lost touch in the darkness, and, not perceiving
that the general had halted, had gone on towards camp. Thus the battery
was left with no other escort than thirty sappers.
A party of twelve men of the Buffs now arrived, and the circumstances
which led them to the guns are worth recording. When the Buffs were
retiring through the villages, they held a Mahommedan cemetery for a
little while, in order to check the enemy's advance. Whilst there,
Lieutenant Byron, Orderly Officer to General Jeffreys, rode up and told
Major Moody, who commanded the rear companies, that a wounded officer
was lying in a dooly a hundred yards up the road, without any escort. He
asked for a few men. Moody issued an order, and a dozen soldiers under a
corporal started to look for the dooly. They missed it, but while
searching, found the general and the battery outside the village. The
presence of these twelve brave men--for they fully maintained the honour
of their regiment--with their magazine rifles, just turned the scale.
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