120 CAPTAIN WOLSELEY. chap. v. strain put Oil I 1 1 1 ■ powers of those who remained. Colonel Tylden. Thornton Grant Elphin- stone. ( >f I he men brought up as ' working-parties,' so a proportion were summoned to act as com- batants in the fights one after another, of which we shall presently hear, that, to execute the needed works with only the few 'hands' remain- ing, was a formidable task.* There however were happily present some officers of great zeal and energy who might be trusted to go to the ut- most of what mortal men could do. In darkness more or less thick, they toiled through the night, and on the whole under conditions which (except as regarded some few) made it hard for a chief in authority, however painstaking and anxious, to award them the praise they deserved. Yet with- out overpassing the limits of even official recog- nition, we see the names of six officers whose val- orous exertions were soon brought to light — the name first and foremost of Colonel Tylden, the commanding Engineer, the names of Colonel Thornton Grant, of Captain Browne, of Lieuten- ant Elphinstone, of Lieutenant Anderson of the 96th. The sixth name was that of a young officer of the 90th Regiment, whom a casual observer would call a strangely bright-looking boy. Now, how- ever — with pickaxe in hand — this boy (as he seemed) was devoting a mighty zeal — zeal gov- erned by knowledge and skill — to the cardinal purpose in hand. He was one who (as now the
- It is said that after deducting the numbers thus .summoned
to throw down their toots and stand to their arms, there re- mained only 250 for the needed work.
