leave the fort, which the stunned Sikh garrison promptly did. This action, which was to become the first of Nicholson's famed exploits among the Sikhs, had enabled him to secure the vital fort without firing a single shot. Nicholson followed up this action just days later when he heard a Sikh infantry regiment were moving through the Margalla Hills in order to join the rebellion. Nicholson left Attock with his trusted irregulars and met the Sikh force camped at a Muslim cemetery. Nicholson rode up to the enemy camp and demanded to speak with their Colonel whom he gave one hour to submit their loyalty to him and be spared or else be destroyed "to a man". The Sikhs argued for an hour in front of the imposing figure of Nicholson, who sat motionless on his horse for the entire duration. Upon the hour mark, the Sikhs returned to Nicholson and declared their willingness to submit to his authority, thus cementing the growing legend of Nicholson among the Sikh population. Nicholson and the rest of the British political officers throughout the Punjab spent the next few weeks attempting to fight the tide of the rebellion, but still awaiting support from Company troops and with the intervention of the Afghans into the conflict, they inevitably suffered a number of setbacks and Nicholson himself was seriously wounded while trying to storm a tower held by the Sikhs. By September 1848, Abbott and Nicholson were effectively on the run from the Sikh army and could only undertake limited action against them. However, with the arrival of the Company Field Army, which included Nicholson's younger brother Charles, to Lahore in November, the tide turned and the British were soon able to undertake offensive actions with Nicholson's irregular troops acting as the army's reconnaissance force and securing its supply lines. Nicholson fought in the subsequent Battle of Chillianwala and witnessed the Sikhs' final surrender at the Battle of Gujrat before being tasked to chase the retreating Afghan army all the way back to the Khyber Pass. Following the complete annexation of the Punjab under the administration of the East India Company, Nicholson was appointed the new Deputy Commissioner at Rawalpindi. He soon set about imposing "law and order" in the region. In one incident, after placing a bounty on a particularly troublesome local robber chieftain failed to result in his arrest, Nicholson rode out alone