222 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



pickets right into our camp before the mistake had 

 been discovered. In those few moments of panic 

 and confusion nothing but the cool courage of some 

 of our officers and men, aided by the heroic loyalty 

 of a troop of native horse artillery,^ could have 

 saved our arms from untold disaster. Half an hour 

 later the discomfited raiders were hastening back to 

 their old lines, leaving thirty-five of their number 

 dead in the British camp. 



It was here that Hodson, " certainly the most 

 wide - awake soldier in the camp," as Hervey 

 Greathed wrote of him, found himself for once 

 entirely taken in by the retreating foe. As Hope 

 Grant's cavalry were following up the pursuit they 

 saw a body of sowars leisurely taking the same 

 direction as themselves. " They were dressed," 

 says Hope Grant, " exactly like our own men, and 

 I could not believe them to be a hostile force ; 

 but to make quite sure I sent my aide-de-camp, 

 Augustus Anson, to ascertain their identity, and he 

 brought me back word that they were a detachment 

 of our own cavalry. Captain Hodson also rode up, 

 accosted them, and marched with them for some 

 distance under the impression that they belonged 

 to one of the Hindustani regiments in camp. They 

 entered into most friendly conversation with him, 

 and told him, I think, that they were a party of 

 the 9th Irregulars. All of a sudden, however, they 

 put spurs to their horses, galloped ofi' like wildfire, 

 giving us the slip completely ; and we then dis- 



1 The rebel raiders called upon these brave men to join their side : 

 their only answer was to request Major Olphert's gunners to fire 

 through them into the enemy. 



