The plan of action upon which General Roberts determined was
simple. The 1st and 2nd brigade were to advance abreast, the 3rd to
follow in support. As the 66th were to take no part in the fight,
Will Gale obtained leave to ride out with General Weatherby, with
the 3rd division.
The enemy were well aware of the weak point of the position which they
occupied; and they had mustered thickly in the plain, in which were
several villages; with canals cutting up the ground in all directions,
and abounding with hedges, ditches, and enclosures--altogether, a very
strongly defensible position.
It was at 10 o'clock, on the 1st of September, that the British
force advanced. The first division, on the right, advanced against
the large walled village of Gundi, which was strongly held by the
enemy. Against this General Macpherson sent the 92nd and the 2nd
Ghoorkas and, stubbornly as the enemy fought, the place was carried
by the bayonet.
On the line taken by the 2nd division--under General Baker--three
villages had successively to be carried: Abasabad, Kaghanary, and
Gundigan. The 72nd Highlanders and the 2nd Sikhs advanced to the
attack of these. The resistance of the Afghans was stubborn in the
extreme, but they were driven out. The fighting line of the two
divisions kept abreast and, for two miles, had to fight every inch
of their way; from wall to wall, from garden to garden and, here
and there, from house to house and from lane to lane.
Illustration: Gundi carried by the Bayonet.
Once or twice the attack was checked, for a few minutes, by the
desperate resistance of the Afghans--at the crossing places of
canals and in walled enclosures--and again and again, the Ghazis
rushed down upon the troops. The 3rd Sikhs and the 5th Ghoorkas
joined the fighting line and, step by step, the ground was won;
until the base of the hill was turned, and the attacking force saw,
in front of them, the great camp of Ayoub's troops. Up to this
point, the enemy had fought with the greatest bravery; but a sudden
panic seized them, now they saw that their line of retreat was
threatened by our cavalry--for an Afghan always loses heart, under
such circumstances. As if by magic, the defense ceased; and the
enemy, horse and foot--abandoning their guns, and throwing away
their arms--fled up the Argandab valley. Everything was abandoned.
There was nothing more for the infantry to do but to sack Ayoub's
camp, and to park the captive guns, thirty in number. The amount of
stores and miscellaneous articles in the camp was enormous: arms,
ammunition, commissariat, and ordnance stores; helmets, bullock
huts crammed with native wearing apparel, writing materials,
Korans, English tinned meats, fruit, and money. Here, in fact, was
all the baggage which the army had brought from Herat; together
with all the spoil which they had captured at Maiwand.
The cavalry took up the pursuit. Unfortunately they had met with
great difficulties, in advancing through the broken country in rear
of the infantry. Had they been close at hand, when the latter
fought their way into Ayoub's camp, very few of the fugitives would
have escaped. As it was, they did good service in following up the
rout; and driving the enemy, a dispersed and broken crowd, into the
hills.
To the fury of the men they found, in Ayoub's camp, the body of
Lieutenant Maclaine; who had been taken prisoner at Maiwand, and
who was barbarously murdered, a few minutes before the arrival of
the English troops. The battle cost the lives of three officers:
Lieutenant Colonel Brownlow, commanding the 72nd Highlanders;
Captain Frome, of the same regiment; and Captain Straton, 2nd
battalion of the 22nd. Eleven officers were wounded, 46 men were
killed, and 202 wounded.
The enemy left 1200 dead on the field. Ayoub's regular regiments
scarcely fired a shot, and the British advance had been opposed
entirely by the irregulars and Ghazis; the regular regiments having
been drawn up behind the Pir-Paimal Pass, by which they expected
our main attack to be made--a delusion which was kept up by our
heavy fire, from early morning, upon the Afghan guns on the summit
of the pass. When our troops appeared round the corner of the spur
upon their flank they lost heart at once; and for the most part,
throwing away their arms, joined the body of fugitives.
"It would have been hard work, sir," Will Gale said to Colonel
Ripon, as they rode forward in rear of the fighting brigade, "to
have taken this position with the Candahar force, alone."
"It could not have been done," Colonel Ripon replied, "but no one
would have dreamed of attempting it. The Afghans say that the force
which Roberts brought down, from Cabul, was so large that they
stood on the defensive; but they would have ventured to attack us,
had we sallied out and offered battle on the level plain, round the
city. Then, I have no doubt we could have beaten them.
"However, all is well that ends well. Roberts has come up in time,
and has completely defeated the enemy; still, it would have been
more satisfactory had we retrieved Maiwand, by thrashing him
single-handed.
"Well, I suppose this is the end of the Afghan war. We have beaten
Ayoub: I hope, so effectually that Abdul-Rahman will have no
difficulty in dealing with him, in future and, if he really means
the professions of friendship which he has made us, we may hope for
peace, for some time. Probably the next time we have to fight, in
this country, it will be against the Russians and Afghans, united.
"There are men in England who persist in shutting their eyes to the
certain consequences of the Russian advance towards the northern
frontier of Afghanistan; but the time will come when England will
have to rue, bitterly, the infatuation and folly of her rulers.
When that day arrives, she will have to make such an effort, to
hold her own, as she has never had to do since the days when she
stood, alone, in arms against Europe."
Upon the following day, Will paid a visit to his friends in the
Rangers.
"So you got through Maiwand safely!" the colonel said. "Upon my
word, I begin to think that you have a charmed life.
"I hear one of your captains died, last night. That gives you your
step, does it not?"
"Yes, sir."
"You are the luckiest young dog I ever heard of. You got your commission,
within a year of enlisting; and now, by an extraordinary fatality, your
regiment is almost annihilated; and you mount up, by death steps, to a
captain's rank, nine months after the date of your gazette. In any other
regiment in the service, you would have been lucky if you had got three
or four steps, by this time."
"I am fortunate, indeed, sir," Will said. "I can scarcely believe
it, myself."
"Ah! whom do I see here?" the colonel exclaimed, as a mounted
officer rode through the camp. "My old friend, Ripon!
"Ah Ripon, how are you?"
The colonel reined in his horse; and the two officers, who had not
met for some years, entered into a warm conversation; while Will
strolled away to talk to some of the younger officers, who
congratulated him most heartily on the luck which had, in a few
months, taken him over their heads.
In the afternoon Will received a note from Colonel Ripon, asking
him to dine with him, as Colonel Shepherd was going to do so. Will
replied that he would gladly dine, but must be excused for a time,
afterwards; as he was on duty, and would have to go the rounds, in
the evening.
There were three or four other officers at dinner, as Colonel Ripon
had many friends in the relieving column. When dinner was over,
Will made his excuses and left; promising to look in again, in a
couple of hours, when he had finished his rounds. Soon afterwards,
the other young officers left. Colonel Shepherd, only, remained.
"That is a singularly fine young fellow--young Gale, I mean,"
Colonel Shepherd said; "and a singularly fortunate one. I feel
quite proud of him. It was upon my advice that he enlisted; but if
any one had told me, at the time, that he would be a captain in two
years, I should have said that it was absolutely impossible."
"Yes," Colonel Ripon replied, "his luck has been marvelous; but if
ever a fellow deserved it, he did. I have a very warm liking--I may
say an affection--for him. He saved my life, when I was attacked by
some Ghazis here, and must have been killed, had it not been for
his promptness, and coolness. He was wounded, too; and we were
nursed together, here. Since then I have seen a great deal of him
and, the more I see him, the more I like him.
"Do you know anything of him, previous to the time of his
enlisting? You told me he joined your regiment, on the day when it
arrived at Calcutta. I know nothing of his history, before that.
The subject never happened to occur, in conversation; and it was
one upon which I naturally should have felt a delicacy in asking
any questions--though I have sometimes wondered, in my own mind,
how he came to be penniless in Calcutta; as I suppose he must have
been, to have enlisted. Did you happen to hear anything about it?"
"Yes, indeed," Colonel Shepherd answered. "Curiously enough, he was
by no means penniless; as he had just received 100 pounds reward,
for the services he had rendered in preventing a ship from being
captured, by the Malays. I happened to meet its captain on shore,
the day I landed; and heard from him the story of the affair--which
was as follows, as nearly as I can recollect."
Colonel Shepherd then related, to his friend, the story of the
manner in which the brig--when chased by Malays--was saved, by
being brought into the reef, by Will.
"Naturally," he went on, "I was greatly interested in the story
and--expressing a wish to see the young fellow--he was brought off
that evening, after mess, to the Euphrates; and told us how he had
been wrecked on the island in a Dutch ship, from which only he, and
a companion, were saved. I was so struck with his conduct--and, I
may say, by his appearance and manner--that I took him aside into
my own cabin, and learned from him the full particulars of his
story. I don't think anyone else knows it for, when he expressed
his willingness to take my advice, and enlist, I told him that he
had better say nothing about his past. His manner was so good that
I thought he would pass well, as some gentleman's son who had got
into a scrape and, as I hoped that the time might come when he
might step upwards, it was perhaps better that it should not be
known what was his origin."
"But what was his origin, Shepherd? I confess you surprise me, for
I have always had an idea that he was a man of good family;
although in some strange way his education had been neglected for,
in fact, he told me one day that he was absolutely ignorant of
Latin."
"Well, Ripon, as you are a friend of the young fellow, and I know
it will go no further, I will tell you the facts of the case. He
was brought up in a workhouse, was apprenticed to a Yarmouth smack
man and--the boat being run down in a gale by a Dutch troopship, to
which he managed to cling, as the smack sank--he was carried in her
to Java. On her voyage thence, to China, he was wrecked on the
island I spoke of."
"You astound me," Colonel Ripon said, "absolutely astound me. I
could have sworn that he was a gentleman by birth. Not, mind you,
that I like or esteem him one iota the less, for what you tell me.
Indeed, on the contrary; for there is all the more merit in his
having made his way, alone. Still, you astonish me.
"They tell me," he said, with a smile, "that he is wonderfully like
me but, strangely enough, he reminds me rather of my wife. You
remember her, Shepherd? For you were stationed at Meerut, at the
time I married her there."
Colonel Shepherd nodded and, for a few minutes, the two friends sat
silent; thinking over the memories which the words had evoked.
"Strange, is it not," Colonel Ripon went on, arousing himself,
"that the child of some pauper parents should have a resemblance,
however distant, to me and my wife?"
"Curiously enough," Colonel Shepherd said, "the boy was not born of
pauper parents. He was left at the door of the workhouse, at Ely,
by a tramp; whose body was found, next morning, in one of the
ditches. It was a stormy night; and she had, no doubt, lost her way
after leaving the child. That was why they called him William Gale.
"Why, what is the matter, Ripon? Good heavens, are you ill?"
Colonel Shepherd's surprise was natural. The old officer sat rigid
in his chair, with his eyes open and staring at his friend; and
yet, apparently, without seeing him. The color in his face had
faded away and, even through the deep bronze of the Indian sun, its
pallor was visible.
Colonel Shepherd rose in great alarm, and was about to call for
assistance when his friend, with a slight motion of his hand,
motioned to him to abstain.
"How old is he?" came presently, in a strange tone, from his lips.
"How old is who?" Colonel Shepherd asked, in surprise. "Oh, you
mean Gale! He is not nineteen yet, though he looks four or five
years older. He was under seventeen, when he enlisted; and I rather
strained a point to get him in, by hinting that, when he was asked
his age, he had better say under nineteen. So he was entered as
eighteen, but I know he was more than a year younger than that.
"But what has that to do with it, my dear old friend? What is the
matter with you?"
"I believe, Shepherd," Colonel Ripon said solemnly, "that he is my
son."
"Your son!" his comrade exclaimed, astonished.
"Yes, I believe he is my son."
"But how on earth can that be?" his friend asked. "Are you sure
that you know what you are saying? Is your head quite clear, old
friend?"
"My head is clear enough," the colonel replied, "although I felt
stunned, at first. Did you never hear of my having lost my child?"
"No, indeed," Colonel Shepherd replied, more and more
surprised--for he had at first supposed that some sudden access of
fever, or delirium, had seized his friend. "You will remember that,
a week or two after you were married, my regiment was moved up to
the north; and we remained three years longer in India. When I got
back to England, I heard that you had lost your wife, a short time
before, and had returned. I remember our ships crossed on the way.
When we met again, the conversation never turned on the past."
"I will tell you the story," the colonel said, "and you will see
that, at any rate, the boy may be my son and, that being so, the
double likeness proves to me, incontestably, that he is.
"I had, as you know, been ill before I left India. I had not been
home for fifteen years, and got two years' leave. As you may know,
I had a good fortune, irrespective of the service; and I took a
place called Holmwood Park, near Dawlish and, as I had thought of
retiring, at the end of my leave, I was put on the commission of
the peace. My boy was born a few months after I got home.
"Soon after I took the place, some gipsy fellows broke into the
poultry yard, and stole some valuable chickens--which were great
pets of my wife. I chased them and, finally, brought home the guilt
of the theft to one of the men, in whose tent a lot of their
feathers were found. He had been previously convicted, and was
sentenced to a term of penal servitude.
"Before the trial his wife--also a gipsy--called upon me, and
begged me not to appear against her husband, This, of course, was
out of the question, as he had already been sent to trial. When she
found that her entreaties were useless she, in the most vindictive
tone, told me that I should repent it; and she certainly spoke as
if she meant it.
"I heard nothing more of the matter, until the boy was sixteen
months old. Then he disappeared. He was stolen from the garden. A
clue was left, evidently that I might know from whom the blow came.
The gipsy had been convicted partly on the evidence of the
feathers; but principally from the fact that the boot, which he had
on, had half the iron on the heel broken off, and this tallied
exactly with some marks in my fowl house. An hour after the child
was gone we found, in the center of the drive, in the park, a boot,
conspicuously placed there to catch the eye; and this boot I
recognized, by the broken iron, as that which had transported the
gipsy.
"That the woman had stolen the child, I had not the least doubt;
but neither of her, nor it, could I ever gain the slightest clue. I
advertised in every paper in the kingdom, I offered a reward of
1000 pounds, and I believe the police searched every gipsy
encampment in England, but without success.
"My wife had never been strong and, from that day, she gradually
sank. As long as there was hope she kept up, for a time. I hoped
all would go well; but three months afterwards she faded rapidly
and, ere six months had passed from the loss of the child, I buried
her, and came straight out to India. I went home once, for two or
three months, upon business connected with my property there, some
seven years since. That was when we last met, you know, at the
club. With that exception, I have remained here ever since."
"The trouble will be, I fear," Colonel Shepherd said, "for you to
identify him. That vindictive gipsy woman, who stole your child, is
not likely to have left any marks on its clothing by which it might
be identified at any future time, and her revenge on you
frustrated."
"Thank God!" the colonel said, earnestly, "if it be my son, he
bears a mark by which I shall know him. That was one of his poor
mother's greatest comforts. The child was born with an ugly blood
mark on its neck. It used to bother my wife a good deal, and she
consulted several surgeons whether it could not be removed; but
they all said no, not without completely cutting out the flesh--and
this, of course, was not to be thought of. After the child was lost
I remember, as well as if it had been spoken today, my wife saying:
"'How strange are God's ways! I was foolish enough to fret over
that mark on the darling's neck; and now, the thought of it is my
greatest comfort and, if it shall be God's will that years shall
pass away, before we find him, there is a sign by which we shall
always know him. No other child can be palmed off upon us as our
own. When we find Tom we shall know him, however changed he may
be.'
"Listen, Shepherd! That is his step on the stairs. May God grant
that he prove to be my son!"
"Be calm, old friend," Colonel Shepherd said. "I will speak to
him."
The door opened, and Will entered.
"I am glad you have not gone, colonel--I was afraid you might have
left, for I have been longer than I expected. I just heard the news
that the 66th are in orders this evening to march, the day after
tomorrow, for Kurrachee; to sail for England, where we are to be
reorganized, again."
"Gale, I am going to ask you a rather curious thing. Will you do
it, without asking why?" Colonel Shepherd said, quietly.
"Certainly, colonel, if it is in my power," Will said, somewhat
surprised.
"Will you take off your patrol jacket, open your shirt, and turn it
well down at the neck?"
For a moment, Will looked astounded at this request. He saw, by the
tone in which it was made, that it was seriously uttered and,
without hesitation, he began to unhook his patrol jacket. As he did
so, his eye fell upon Colonel Ripon's face; and the intense
anxiety, and emotion, that it expressed caused him to pause, for a
moment.
Something extraordinary hung on what he had been asked to do. All
sorts of strange thoughts flashed through his brain. Hundreds of
times in his life he had said to himself that, if ever he
discovered his parents, it would be by means of this mark upon his
neck, which he was now asked to expose. The many remarks which had
been made, of his likeness to Colonel Ripon, flashed across his
mind; and it was with an emotion scarcely inferior to that of the
old officer that he opened his shirt, and turned down the collar.
The sight was conclusive. Colonel Ripon held out his arms, with a
cry of:
"My son, my son!"
Bewildered and delighted, Will felt himself pressed to the heart of
the man whom he liked, and esteemed, beyond all others.
With a word of the heartiest congratulation, Colonel Shepherd left
the father and son together; to exchange confidences, and tell to
each other their respective stories, and to realize the great
happiness which had befallen them both. Their delight was without a
single cloud--save that which passed for a moment through Colonel
Ripon's mind, as he thought how his wife would have rejoiced, had
she lived to see that day.
His joy was, in some respects, even greater than that of his son.
The latter had always pictured to himself that, if he ever
discovered his father, he should find him all that was good; but
the colonel had, for many years, not only given up all hope of ever
finding his son, but almost every desire to do so. He had thought
that, if still alive, he must be a gipsy vagabond--a poacher, a
liar, a thief--like those among whom he would have been brought up.
From such a discovery, no happiness could be looked for; only
annoyance, humiliation, and trouble. To find his son, then, all
that he could wish for--a gentleman, a most promising young
officer, the man, indeed, to whom he had been so specially
attracted--was a joy altogether unhoped and unlooked for.
Morning had broken before the newly united father and son had done
their long and happy talk, and they separated only to take a bath,
to prepare them for the day's work.
The astonishment of everyone was unbounded when Colonel Ripon
announced, on the following morning, that in Captain Gale of the
66th--who, it was known, had risen from the ranks--he had
discovered a son that had been stolen from him, as a child. No one
entertained a doubt, for an instant, that any mistake had arisen;
for the likeness between the two men, as they strode down the
street together, on their way to General Roberts' quarters, was so
marked that--now that men knew the relationship--none doubted for a
moment that they were, indeed, father and son.
The warmest congratulations poured in upon them, from all sides;
and from none more heartily than from the general, who was more
than ever pleased that he had been the means of Will's obtaining
his commission from the ranks.
The same day Colonel Ripon sent off, by a mounted messenger
carrying despatches, a telegram to be sent from the nearest station
of the flying line--which the engineers advancing with General
Phayre's force had already carried as far as the Kojak Pass--to the
government of India; asking leave to go home, at once, on the most
urgent and pressing family business.
Yossouf's grief, when he heard that his master was going to leave for
England, was very great. At first, he begged that he might accompany
him; but Tom pointed out that--much as he should like to have him with
him--his position in England would be an uncomfortable one. He would
meet with no one with whom he could converse; and would, after a time,
long for his own country again. Yossouf yielded to his reasoning;
and the picture which Will drew of his own loneliness when in Cabul,
separated from all his own people, aided greatly in enforcing his
arguments on his mind. He said however that, at any rate, he would not
return to Afghanistan, at present.
"It will be long," he said, "before things settle down there; and
it will be useless for me to put my money into a herd which might
be driven off by plunderers, the next week.
"Besides, at present the feeling against the English will be
strong. So many have lost men of their family, in the fighting. If
I returned, I should be a marked man. It is known that I threw in
my lot with the English, and it will be cast in my teeth, even if
no worse came of it.
"No, I will enlist in the Guides. I shall be at home with them, for
most of them belong to the Afghan tribes. I am young yet, not fully
a man, and I have my life before me. Some day, perhaps, if things
are quiet and prosperous at home, I will go back and end my days
there."
So it was arranged. One of the officers of the Guides had
accompanied General Roberts, as interpreter; and Will handed over
Yossouf to him, telling him how well the lad had served him. The
officer promised to enroll him in the corps, as soon as he rejoined
it; and also that he would not fail to report his conduct to the
colonel, and to obtain his promotion to the rank of a native
officer, as soon as possible. From Will Yossouf would accept
nothing except his revolver, as a keepsake; but Colonel Ripon
insisted upon his taking, from him, a present which would make him
a rich man, when he chose to return to his native country.