Page 164 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

taking care to carry with them the greater part of their dead and
wounded, many of whom were females who had joined in the
sortie’. Thejoasmi women had shown themselves to be as brave
and ferocious as their men.
Reinforcements were sent up, and by next day the lost ground
had been regained but ‘there was hardly a single survivor’ from
the forward piquets which had been first attacked. It was found
that the pirates had dragged the heavy guns some seventy yards
forward, close to the town walls, hoping to take them for their
own use. According to Loch, the British and Indian troops suf­
fered ‘a loss of about 200 in killed and wounded, including several
officers, the pirates neither givingnorcxpccting quarter and,owing
to their savage brutality, they received none from our troops’.
During the next two days, while the ships kept up intermittent
fire on the town, the troops consolidated their position by digging
earthworks across the peninsula, with gun batteries at intervals.
The Sultan’s troops held a position on some high ground in the
rear. One of the difficulties facing the attackers was that the shore
batteries alone could not effect a breach in the walls, and it was
impossible to bring the ships within easy range of the town.
Loch made an attempt to take the Eden into the deep water inside
the shoal, which extended along the front of the town, but ‘as
the Devil would have it, she took to the ground on the eastern
point where she hung, in spite of all our exertions, till the turn
of the tide’. The Liverpool and the cruisers, when they opened
fire, found that their shots went wide, owing to the distance and
the elevation of the guns, although the 24-pounders on the
Liverpool's main deck did some execution. The land batteries
concentrated on the north-west corner of the main tower, ex­
pecting to demolish it without much difficulty, but ‘this solid
piece of masoncry’ stood up against the gunfire and there were
no signs of a breach.
On the 7th, the General, finding that attempts to shell the
tower from the sea were producing little effect, decided to land
a number of seamen from each ship to reinforce the land batteries.
At dawn on the following day, the batteries started a steady
pounding at the target, which was kept up, as far as possible,
without a pause. After some time, the tower began to show the
effects of this sustained barrage. ‘Here and there large masses of
masoncry peeled off, and rolled to the ground.’
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