"The work is with us; the event is with Allah."
--Kipling.
"Shade, water, grass . . . Not half a bad place for a picnic, eh,
Major? And I hope that plausible-looking scoundrel, talking to Norton,
has provided a decent breakfast for us. Five hours of marching in this
air puts an edge on a fellow's appetite."
Richardson's remark was addressed to Desmond,--now a Major of six
months' standing,--whose practised eye was critically surveying the
camping-ground assigned by the local magnate, Nussar Ali Khan, to the
seven British officers and their handful of native troops.
The site chosen was the topmost of two wide terraces descending to a
stream, from whose farther bank a great hill rose abruptly, dark with
pine and ilex, and cleft into a formidable nullah. On the right, flat
house-tops of a walled native village overlooked the terrace, with its
inviting group of trees, beneath which breakfast was in preparation.
On the left another elevation, crowned with huts; behind them an open
field, sloping to a ten-foot wall; and above the wall the ubiquitous
watch-tower of the Border glowered like a frown upon the face of peace.
The impedimenta of the little force,--transport, field-hospital, and
camp-followers,--still trailed along a narrow lane leading from the
_kotal_[1] over which they had come, to the terrace itself. Already
grey films of wood-smoke soared, plume-like, into the blue; and the air
at ten of the morning was still keen with the sharpness of a small
frost at high altitudes.
"Not half a bad place for a picnic," Desmond admitted mentally; though
for several reasons, this man,--who was a Frontier soldier by instinct
and heritage,--would scarcely have chosen it himself.
But stringent military precautions were no part of the programme:
Norton's escort of half a squadron, two guns, and five hundred Sikhs
and Punjabis, being little more than a necessary appendage to a
peaceful visitation. Such commonplaces of Frontier government as the
enforcing of a fine, and the choosing of a site for an outpost manned
by friendly tribesmen, was unlikely to cause friction or stir up
strife; and Norton, standing apart from the group of officers in khaki,
was listening politely to Nussar Ali Khan and his friends,--some half a
dozen Maliks from the fortified villages scattered among the hills.
Spare, muscular men, all of them, in peaked caps and turbans,
sheep-skin coats, and voluminous trousers, girded by the formidable
Pathan belt, with its pouches, dagger, and straight-handled sword;
their bearded faces lighted up, as they talked, by flashes of white
teeth; most of them towering half a head above the squarely-built
Englishman, with the jaw of a bull-dog and the eyes of a hawk, who
understood their language, their strange mingling of courage and
cruelty, of simplicity and cunning, as a man only understands that to
which he has devoted a lifetime of labour and thought.
Lower down, under the lee of the village wall, a local _jirgah_[2] sat
watching the influx of troops with non-committal indifference, waiting
to come forward and protest their devotion to the White Queen and the
Burra Sahib; their entire readiness to be bound over by the Maliks'
proposals, and, in effect, to behave themselves till next time! The
utmost guarantee of good conduct that will ever be wrung out of the
lawless sons of the North-western hills.
"It is enough, Khan Sahib," Norton said at length, cutting short a
string of compliments that he knew by heart. "Let the _jirgah_ come to
me and make their statement while breakfast is preparing."
But the Khan, indicating with a sweep of his arm the limitless time at
their disposal, declared that a matter so trifling could very well wait
till the Presence and the officer Sahibs had refreshed themselves.
"It is well known among our people, Hazur," he concluded, "that your
Honour regardeth not food or rest when work remaineth to be done. But
the matter hath already been peacefully settled with these men.
Moreover, there be the officer Sahibs also, desiring breakfast; and my
son hath commanded everything of the best for your Honour's reception:
even wood and grass in abundance, that labour might be spared."
Having struck camp before six that morning, Norton needed no further
pressing: and ten minutes later the eight Englishmen were breakfasting
heartily on provisions that atoned in quantity for lack of quality.
Besides Desmond and the Gunners, the Deputy Commissioner, who knew how
to pick his men, had secured Unwin and Montague with the Sikhs, a smart
subaltern with the Punjab Infantry, and Courtenay as medical officer.
Behind them, sepoys and sowars, keeping their arms by Colonel
Montague's orders, smoked or slept at their ease. Sentries had been
told off; pickets posted in front and rear; the screw guns unlimbered,
and stationed with their infantry escort on rising ground at the far
end of the field. Scattered groups of villagers, appearing on walls
and house-tops and on the hill to the left, squatted on their heels,
watching the mild tamasha with evident interest, and exchanging broad
sallies of wit with the sepoys by way of adding flavour to the
entertainment.
Pipes, cigars, and a pleasant sense of wellbeing followed the meal.
"I congratulate you, Norton," Montague remarked between pulls at a
stumpy briar that was consoling him for muscular fowl and curried
leather. "Your Wolves of the Khanigoram are behaving like
Sunday-school children at a prize giving! We can fix the site for the
post when we've rested a bit longer, and start back this afternoon, eh?"
"Yes, by all means. I have only to settle matters with the _jirgah_."
"Thank goodness, I'm booked for first leave," the other continued
conversationally. He was a plump, well-cared-for little man, hampered
by half a dozen boys and girls clamouring for education at home, and
was beginning to lose his taste for scratch picnics across the Border.
"This sort of thing sets one hankering for the hills. I suppose you
won't be doing wonders up Tibet way this year, Lenox? Metal more
attractive, and all that sort of thing, eh?"
"Yes, I shall stick to the Battery for the present," Lenox answered,
ignoring the playful allusion: and Richardson, detecting annoyance in
the tone, put in his own oar deftly enough.
"Unwin's the lucky beggar. When do you sail, old chap?"
"To-day fortnight, praise the powers! No more dancing attendance on
Waziris for eighteen good months to come." He stretched his cramped
legs contentedly. "Those Johnnies on the wall seem to be getting bored
with our show. We ought to have brought a couple of banjos along to
amuse their majesties!"
It was true. Gradually, by twos and threes, the villagers were melting
away: and Desmond, who was leaning against a tree trunk close to
Norton, helmet tilted over his nose, apparently half asleep, touched
the civilian's arm.
"I say, Norton," he said under his breath. "Take your oath it's all
square?"
Norton looked round sharply.
"My dear man, we've eaten their food. Ever know a Pathan commit a
breach of hospitality?"
"No. But it looks queer."
For by now their audience had practically disappeared. The village
wall was empty, save for one crouching figure, that sprang suddenly and
silently to its full height, and brandished a bared sword: the blade
flashing like a helio in the strong light.
"What's the _mutlub_[3] of that theatrical interlude?" Richardson
demanded with a laugh; and was answered by a signal shot from the
watch-tower behind.
In a flash all eight of them were on their feet: Montague and Lenox
shouting to their men to 'fall in.'
The order was obeyed with incredible promptness. But the Waziris had
the advantage of playing a prepared game; and before the officers had
time to disperse a murderous fire was poured upon them from all sides
at once: from the village, the watch-tower, and the huts on the left.
Swift as magic the walls bristled with picked marksmen, armed with
matchlocks, Winchesters, and Martini Henry's stolen from Border
sentries: and it was clear that the enemy held the nullah in great
strength.
"Massacre, by God!" Desmond muttered between his teeth as he dodged a
whizzing bullet, while a second glanced off his brass buckle, and
buried itself in the tree behind him.
Colonel Montague, advancing to meet his men, who came forward at the
double, fell, mortally wounded, with two bullets through his body. He
staggered to his feet; only to fall again, face downward, as Desmond
and Courtenay hurried up to him, and--covered by the fire of his
Sikhs--carried him into comparative safety behind a stack of
_bhusa_,[4] within reach of the ambulance; his bugler following close
at their heels.
"I'm done for," he panted, as they laid him down. "Make the best job
you can of me; and prop me . . against the stack. I'll direct
operations . . while I can . . hold out."
There was clearly nothing else to be done; and while Courtenay obeyed
the dying man's injunctions, Desmond made haste to join his own sowars,
who were already doing smart work with their rifles, under Ressaldar
Rajinder Singh.
By now the din was terrific. It was as if a special department of hell
had been suddenly opened up. Firing had become general from all the
surrounding hills; for an attack of this kind, once started, speedily
degenerates into a matter of _ghaza_.[5] Every moment brought fresh
reinforcements to the Waziris; every moment their fire grew hotter; and
every moment, through the rattle of musketry and the yells of the
tribesmen, came the deep-throated duet of the sturdy little screw-guns
under the wall, as they pitched shell after shell into the nullah, from
whose depths a hidden foe responded with pitiless accuracy and vigour.
For, simultaneously with Montague's advance, Lenox and Richardson had
doubled to their guns through a hailstorm of humming, leaping bullets.
One, passing through Lenox's coat-sleeve, grazed his upper arm; while a
second struck Richardson's breast-pocket, and was only prevented from
wounding him mortally by a pad of first-aid bandages which Courtenay
had served out to him, in joke, two days earlier. Reaching the guns
unscathed, they found the gunners at their posts, the infantry escort
blazing merrily and effectively at the marksmen on the wall: and at
once opened fire on the nullah with case-shot and shell.
But their height and exposed position rendered them too conspicuous to
be missed for long by an enemy whose skill in picking off British
officers makes the little wars of the Frontier such cruelly costly
affairs. In less than two minutes, a burning pain near his
shoulder-blade told Lenox he was hit. But not being disabled, he paid
small heed to so trivial an incident at the time. The incessant firing
took up all his attention.
Before ten minutes were out, shells, case-shot, and shrapnel had all
been exhausted. The Mahsuds were firing more steadily than ever; and
on the terrace itself, the infantry and sowars were in no enviable
case. Unwin had fallen, shot through the head. Montague had
momentarily succumbed to pain and exhaustion; and Desmond, with little
Martin of the Punjab Infantry and a Sikh Subadar, was in command of
affairs.
Sudden faintness, and a damp discomfort down his back, warned Lenox
that his wound must be bleeding more freely than he knew. He gripped
the shoulder of a gunner standing near him; and for an instant all
things swam together before his eyes.
"Look, Captain Sahib, look! There be fresh men on the hill."
The voice of the Havildar Major in his ear steadied his senses: and he
saw the new danger that threatened. Down the steep hillside at their
right rear, a compact body of men leapt cautiously from cover to cover;
an occasional glint of sunlight on a sword-blade revealing their
probable intent.
"I say, Dick, those devils'll rush the guns if we give 'em half a
chance," he said, turning to his subaltern; and without waiting for an
answer, ordered his escort to cover the hill, and prepare for a volley.
But almost before the command could be obeyed,--with a final leap and a
dull roar, rising to a yell of triumph,--the Waziris were upon them at
close quarters; the front ranks brandishing long knives, the rest armed
with matchlocks and rifles.
The Sikhs stood their ground sturdily: as Sikhs may be trusted to do in
any straits; while the guns, firing over their heads, sent many of the
frenzied fanatics rolling over and over, with yells of a very different
nature.
Then, suddenly . . Lenox never quite knew how it happened . . he felt
the earth heave under him; some one gripped him from behind: Dick's
tall figure, revolver in hand, interposed between him and the swarming
hillside; and the next instant reeled against him with such violence
that both fell heavily to the ground. At once their men closed round
them, covering them with their rifles; a Havildar and two gunners
eagerly proffering lengths of turban for bandages, since it was plain
that Richardson's wound in the thigh was no light matter.
Startled and stunned as he was, Lenox righted himself speedily; and
kneeling on one knee, supported his subaltern's shoulders against the
other, while a Havildar roughly bandaged the wounded leg, and bullets
whinged and whirred on all sides of them.
"Dick, you'd no business to be there. What the devil did you do?"
Lenox asked, a queer vibration in his voice: for it seemed that not
till this moment had he understood the strength of the link that bound
him to the simple-hearted man who was his friend.
"For God's sake don't plague a chap with questions when he's hard hit.
The thing's done; and . ." Richardson's voice trailed off
inaudible,--"it's better this way . . for her." Then he roused himself
with an effort. "We've crushed the brutes, haven't we?"
"Yes. For the present. The men behaved splendidly. Jove! here comes
Norton through the thick of it all. Orders to clear out, most likely.
If it's that, I wish to hell it had come five minutes sooner." And
Richardson murmured inarticulate assent.
Norton carried his message in his face.
"The Colonel has rallied a little," he said, after expressing sympathy
and concern for the plight of both officers. "And he agrees with me
that it is wanton sacrifice of men to hold out any longer. Only
Courtenay and Martin untouched out of the seven of you; for Desmond's
just had his wrist smashed, poor fellow. We must get back, as best we
can, by the lane and over the _kotal_. Desmond has despatched a party
of his sowars to Brownlow, of your corps, for reinforcements of men and
ammunition. His post is only nine miles off, and we can push along in
that direction. Now I must get back to the Colonel. I'll let
Courtenay know he's wanted: and send a stretcher along."
With his departure, began the desperate business of dismembering guns
and loading mules under a sharp fire; gunners, drivers, and native
officers vieing with each other in carrying off the wounded, repulsing
hand-to-hand attacks, and in many individual acts of gallantry. While
limbering up the guns a mule was shot, and two wheels rolled down the
slope. The Havildar in charge sped after them, through pattering
bullets; returning with seventy-two pounds of solid metal hanging from
each arm. But even as he flung them down in triumph, he rolled over,
with a bullet through his chest: while Richardson's orderly staggered
past, carrying the gun itself, a matter of two hundred pounds. Such
amazing feats can flesh and blood achieve under the spur of momentary
exaltation.
And at last,--despite the catastrophe of a stampede among the
ammunition and ambulance mules, which left them poorer by four thousand
rounds and their field hospital,--the preliminaries were accomplished.
Covered by the sharp rifle practice of the infantry and sowars, men,
animals, and stretchers retired, without precipitation or disorder,
along the narrow lane, bounded by stone walls and rugged hills swarming
with a jubilant enemy. For at the first signs of evacuation the
Mahsuds came out in greater numbers; harrying and pressing in upon the
dogged little column on all sides, yet rarely offering a mark for
riflemen; their lithe bodies and marvellous activity enabling them to
find cover almost anywhere.
It was heart-breaking work: for, in the soldier's vocabulary, there is
no more unwelcome word than retreat; notwithstanding the fact that a
retreat which covers all ranks with honour and glory is perhaps the
finest achievement possible in the great game of war. Certain it is
that the progress of Norton's broken escort through that veritable
death-trap, to the _kotal_ where a second stand might prove feasible,
was carried out by officers and men with the indomitable coolness and
spirit that converts failure into 'an honourable form of victory.'
It is such crises which test the mettle of our native troops: adding
fresh proof, if more were needed, of the magnificent fighting material
that India has given into our hands. For Colonel Montague had again
lost consciousness; and Martin having been shot in the calf as he
entered the lane, the task of carrying out all the details of the
retirement fell upon the senior Native officer, Subadar Hira Singh,
under Desmond's orders. He and Norton, bearing the joint burden of
responsibility, kept close together. The surface cynicism of the
civilian had been burnt up in the fire of healthy savage action; and at
odd moments, when ordinary speech was possible, his admiration for the
conduct of all concerned vented itself in disjointed ejaculations of
approval that warmed the cavalryman's heart.
"Wait till I make out my report of all this," he said on one occasion.
"Be sure you Piffers will get all the kudos you deserve."
And five minutes later, he fell--shot through the body--into Desmond's
arms.
"Nothing . . nothing serious," he protested, while his face wried with
pain. "Don't delay matters . . on my account. I can pull along
somehow, if you'll give me an arm."
But they got him on to a stretcher, none the less; and Courtenay did
all he could till a definite halt was possible.
"Bad . . is it?" the civilian asked coolly, noting the concern in the
other's eyes. "Well, a man might do worse than die . . . like a
soldier. But by God, I'll hang on to life somehow,--till I can draft
out my report."
And hang on to life he did, in defiance of mortal pain, with a tenacity
worthy of his bull-dog jaw.
At the foot of the _kotal_, Desmond called a halt; and the rearguard
under Hira Singh closed up, to hold the enemy in check, that the guns
and wounded might get over in safety before the position should be
finally abandoned.
And now began the toughest bit of fighting the day had yet seen. For
the Waziris closed with the Sikhs and Punjabis in overwhelming numbers;
exchanging the clatter of musketry for the clash of steel, the
sickening thud of blows given and received. But neither numbers nor
cold steel availed to break up that narrow wall of devoted men. With
each gap in their ranks, they merely closed in, and fought the more
fiercely: Hira Singh, with his brother the Jemadar, and a score of
unconsidered heroes, flinging away their lives with less of hesitation
than they would have flung away a handful of current coin, to gain time
for those whose safety hung upon their power of resistance.
At last,--when all had passed over the small hill behind them,--came
the order to fall back: and not till that moment had any man among them
yielded a foot of space to the persistent foe, who now pressed after
them; and, with renewed jubilations and flutterings of green standards,
occupied every available position on the surrounding hills.
For two interminable hours the dreary game went on; till six ridges,
that climbed to a commanding plateau, had been held and abandoned
through shortage of ammunition. But thanks to the steadiness of the
rearguard, and to their leader's genius for the art of war, no further
lives were lost; no further advantage gained by the Waziris; and at
length, heart-weary and leg-weary, they reached the plateau itself, to
find Brownlow,--with shot and shell, and two hundred Sikhs thirsting
for battle,--already there before them, having covered the nine miles
in one and a half hours.
Perhaps only a soldier who has drunk his cup of blood and fire to the
dregs, knows the strange mingling of emotions packed into that little
word 'relieved': and assuredly none but a soldier could enter into the
joy with which Lenox stood swaying dizzily beside his beloved guns,
while he and Brownlow pitched eight-and-twenty shells into the
fortified village below the last one, to their shameless satisfaction,
lighting on the mosque itself, and lifting the Mullah, with his green
flag of victory, twenty feet into the air.
It was a more or less damaged and dejected party of five which
assembled in the small mess tent that night.
So much had been lost, so little gained by the day's disaster: an
epitome of too many 'regrettable incidents' beyond the Border. The
costliest item of Frontier defence is this unavoidable waste of the
lives of picked soldiers. The Sikhs had lost heavily in Native
officers and men. Colonel Montague had succumbed to his wounds during
the retirement. Norton and Richardson, both too severely hurt to
appear at mess, were officially in hospital,--that is to say, on
stretchers in two field service tents: and three out of the five men at
the mess table had brought away superfluous mementoes of Waziri
marksmanship.
Lenox himself had suffered more from loss of blood than from the flesh
wound in his shoulder, which was not a serious affair; and to Desmond's
broken wrist had been added a disfiguring slash across his cheek. No
doubt orders and commendation awaited them: but their elation at the
prospect was hushed by the very present shadow of death. For the
soldier, inured as he is, does not count death a little thing. He
cannot, any more than the rest of us, 'go out of the warm sunshine
easily.' And the thought of Montague's wife and children, of Unwin's
'No more dancing attendance on Waziris,' intruded unsought, breaking
the thread of common speech.
No doubt, also, Desmond and Lenox were thinking, manlike, of their own
wives; and thanking God for wounds that would only let loose the
woman's divine reserves of tenderness, her passion for 'mothering' the
man she loves. Once during the evening they exchanged a glance of
comprehension,--the freemasonry of those who love,--and the same
question sprang simultaneously to their minds. "How about poor Norton?
Would the news bring that wife of his back to Dera Ishmael in the last
week of March?" And Desmond decided that if it did not, Norton must be
persuaded to put up with them, and submit to Honor's ministrations, in
whose power to soothe and bless he had the faith of a little child, or
of a great man; for the two are so nearly allied as to be almost
identical.
As for Norton himself, he was too much engrossed in the painful task of
'hanging on to life' to trouble his head about any other matter. The
news of his serious hurt spread through the neighbouring villages as
news only speeds in India, without help of post or wire: and when, on
the following morning, a deputation of friendly Khans waited upon the
Burra Sahib, to express their sorrow and shame at so flagrant a breach
of the great Border law of hospitality, and to offer help with the
bringing in of dead bodies, Norton insisted on receiving them, propped
up on a chair: a broken, but unconquered remnant of the man whom they
had feared, and loved, and obeyed, with that mixture of independence
and loyal allegiance which is perhaps England's greatest triumph in
India.
But all his courage could not conceal the truth from their eyes: and
with one accord, these hardened men--who had no regard for death in the
abstract, and an unlimited veneration for strength in any form--bowed
themselves at the Englishman's feet, and wept like children.
"Oh, Sahib, . . Father of the District, . . this is an evil thing that
hath befallen," the oldest among them wailed, in deep-toned
lamentation. "How will it be with us who have so long been ruled by
your wisdom, when the light of your Honour's countenance is withdrawn?
And whom will the _Sirkar_[6] send us in thy stead?"
"In less than a month the Sirkar will send fire and sword," Norton
answered sternly. "Smoking villages, and blackened crops. A gift for
a gift, a blow for a blow, is straight dealing. But for one life taken
yesterday the _Sirkar_ will exact ten: of that ye may rest assured."
"Nay, but let it not be forgotten, Hazur, that we, who are present, be
men of one word, true to our salt; not as those murderers, upon whom
the wrath of Allah will be poured out like water, even upon the
man-child at the breast, for yesterday's black work."
Which comfortable prediction Norton received with rather a bitter
smile. It did not square with his own experience of the ironical
tangle men call Life. But for all that, it is possible that, in his
extremity, he envied these savage Sons of the Prophet their faith in
the rough justice of Allah's dispensations.
[1] Hill.
[2] Tribal council.
[3] Meaning.
[4] Chopped straw.
[5] Fanatical slaughter.
[6] Government.