1 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS. 63
2 4 ete fe : illing a
3 enced considerable difficulty in penetrating the Sikh.
4 quilted and padded clothes of the Sikhs, and at
5 Moodkee an officer of the irregular cavalry who
6 had wounded his adversary in the sword-arm,
7 actually could not kill him from this cause, and was
8 obliged to leave the work to one of his own men
9 who came to his aid!
10 Though Lall Singh was nominally the Comman-
11 der-in-chief of the Khulsa troops destined to cross
12 the Sutlej and measure arms with the British, yet,
13 Tej Singh was the most influential man in their Tej singh in
14 . . reality the
15 army and considered their leader. Averse as_ the Commander-
16 . . in-Chief of the
17 Sirdar had been to war with such a powerful foe; sikh Army.
18 when, once in the midst of his soldiers, he resolved
19 to do his utmost, and took the lead in the hostile
20 operations which had now commenced.
21 To meet the coming struggle nearly all the
22 Khulsa troops had been sent across the Sutlej, and
23 only a few battalions under Dhonkul Singh and
24 some Mussulmans with fifty or sixty guns left at
25 Lahore. The Sikhs crossed with the purpose of
26 not simply vanquishing the British in one or two Ea eae
27 battles and then returning to the Punjab, but of the Sikharmy.
28 forcing their way to Delhi, Benares, and Calcutta!!
29 Their ambition and arrogance knew no bounds.
30 To effect this purpose Tej Singh marched towards
31 Kussoor with a large force, consisting of at least
32 We have remarked that the dragoons experi- Difficulty of
33 twelve battalions of infantry under the command
34 of Mehtab Singh and Misr Sookh Raee; there were