"And a little child shall lead them."
In the Army List they still stand as "The Fore and Fit Princess
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen-Auspach's Merther-Tydfilshire Own Royal Loyal
Light Infantry, Regimental District 329A," but the Army through all its
barracks and canteens knows them now as the "Fore and Aft." They may in
time do something that shall make their new title honorable, but at
present they are bitterly ashamed, and the man who calls them "Fore and
Aft" does so at the risk of the head which is on his shoulders.
Two words breathed into the stables of a certain Cavalry Regiment will
bring the men out into the streets with belts and mops and bad language;
but a whisper of "Fore and Aft" will bring out this regiment with rifles.
Their one excuse is that they came again and did their best to finish the
job in style. But for a time all their world knows that they were openly
beaten, whipped, dumb-cowed, shaking and afraid. The men know it; their
officers know it; the Horse Guards know it, and when the next war comes
the enemy will know it also. There are two or three regiments of the Line
that have a black mark against their names which they will then wipe out,
and it will be excessively inconvenient for the troops upon whom they do
their wiping.
The courage of the British soldier is officially supposed to be above
proof, and, as a general rule, it is so. The exceptions are decently
shoveled out of sight, only to be referred to in the freshet of unguarded
talk that occasionally swamps a Mess-table at midnight. Then one hears
strange and horrible stories of men not following their officers, of
orders being given by those who had no right to give them, and of disgrace
that, but for the standing luck of the British Army, might have ended in
brilliant disaster. These are unpleasant stories to listen to, and the
Messes tell them under their breath, sitting by the big wood fires, and
the young officer bows his head and thinks to himself, please God, his men
shall never behave unhandily,
The British soldier is not altogether to be blamed for occasional lapses;
but this verdict he should not know. A moderately intelligent General will
waste six months in mastering the craft of the particular war that he may
be waging; a Colonel may utterly misunderstand the capacity of his
regiment for three months after it has taken the field; and even a Company
Commander may err and be deceived as to the temper and temperament of his
own handful: wherefore the soldier, and the soldier of to-day more
particularly, should not be blamed for falling back. He should be shot or
hanged afterward--_pour encourager les autres_; but he should not be
vilified in newspapers, for that is want of tact and waste of space.
He has, let us say, been in the service of the Empress for, perhaps, four
years. He will leave in another two years. He has no inherited morals, and
four years are not sufficient to drive toughness into his fibre, or to
teach him how holy a thing is his Regiment. He wants to drink, he wants to
enjoy himself--in India he wants to save money--and he does not in the
least like getting hurt. He has received just sufficient education to make
him understand half the purport of the orders he receives, and to
speculate on the nature of clean, incised, and shattering wounds. Thus, if
he is told to deploy under fire preparatory to an attack, he knows that he
runs a very great risk of being killed while he is deploying, and suspects
that he is being thrown away to gain ten minutes' time. He may either
deploy with desperate swiftness, or he may shuffle, or bunch, or break,
according to the discipline under which he has lain for four years.
Armed with imperfect knowledge, cursed with the rudiments of an
imagination, hampered by the intense selfishness of the lower classes, and
unsupported, by any regimental associations, this young man is suddenly
introduced to an enemy who in eastern lands is always ugly, generally tall
and hairy, and frequently noisy. If he looks to the right and the left and
sees old soldiers--men of twelve years' service, who, he knows, know what
they are about--taking a charge, rush, or demonstration without
embarrassment, he is consoled and applies his shoulder to the butt of his
rifle with a stout heart. His peace is the greater if he hears a senior,
who has taught him his soldiering and broken his head on occasion,
whispering:--"They'll shout and carry on like this for five minutes. Then
they'll rush in, and then we've got 'em by the short hairs!"
But, on the other hand, if he sees only men of his own term of service,
turning white and playing with their triggers and saying:--"What the
Hell's up now?" while the Company Commanders are sweating into their
sword-hilts and shouting:--"Front-rank, fix bayonets. Steady
there--steady! Sight for three hundred--no, for five! Lie down, all!
Steady! Front-rank, kneel!" and so forth, he becomes unhappy; and grows
acutely miserable when he hears a comrade turn over with the rattle of
fire-irons falling into the fender, and the grunt of a pole-axed ox. If he
can be moved about a little and allowed to watch the effect of his own
fire on the enemy he feels merrier, and may be then worked up to the blind
passion of fighting, which is, contrary to general belief, controlled by a
chilly Devil and shakes men like ague. If he is not moved about, and
begins to feel cold at the pit of the stomach, and in that crisis is badly
mauled and hears orders that were never given, he will break, and he will
break badly; and of all things under the sight of the Sun there is nothing
more terrible than a broken British regiment. When the worst comes to the
worst and the panic is really epidemic, the men must be e'en let go, and
the Company Commanders had better escape to the enemy and stay there for
safety's sake. If they can be made to come again they are not pleasant men
to meet, because they will not break twice.
About thirty years from this date, when we have succeeded in
half-educating everything that wears trousers, our Army will be a
beautifully unreliable machine. It will know too much and it will do too
little. Later still, when all men are at the mental level of the officer
of to-day it will sweep the earth. Speaking roughly, you must employ
either blackguards or gentlemen, or, best of all, blackguards commanded by
gentlemen, to do butcher's work with efficiency and despatch. The ideal
soldier should, of course, think for himself--the _Pocketbook_ says so.
Unfortunately, to attain this virtue, he has to pass through the phase of
thinking of himself, and that is misdirected genius. A blackguard may be
slow to think for himself, but he is genuinely anxious to kill, and a
little punishment teaches him how to guard his own skin and perforate
another's. A powerfully prayerful Highland Regiment, officered by rank
Presbyterians, is, perhaps, one degree more terrible in action than a
hard-bitten thousand of irresponsible Irish ruffians led by most improper
young unbelievers. But these things prove the rule--which is that the
midway men are not to be trusted alone. They have ideas about the value of
life and an upbringing that has not taught them to go on and take the
chances. They are carefully unprovided with a backing of comrades who have
been shot over, and until that backing is re-introduced, as a great many
Regimental Commanders intend it shall be, they are more liable to disgrace
themselves than the size of the Empire or the dignity of the Army allows.
Their officers are as good as good can be, because their training begins
early, and God has arranged that a clean-run youth of the British middle
classes shall, in the matter of backbone, brains, and bowels, surpass all
other youths. For this reason a child of eighteen will stand up, doing
nothing, with a tin sword in his hand and joy in his heart until he is
dropped. If he dies, he dies like a gentleman. If he lives, he writes Home
that he has been "potted," "sniped," "chipped" or "cut over," and sits
down to besiege Government for a wound-gratuity until the next little war
breaks out, when he perjures himself before a Medical Board, blarneys his
Colonel, burns incense round his Adjutant, and is allowed to go to the
Front once more.
Which homily brings me directly to a brace of the most finished little
fiends that ever banged drum or tootled fife in the Band of a British
Regiment. They ended their sinful career by open and flagrant mutiny and
were shot for it. Their names were Jakin and Lew--Piggy Lew--and they were
bold, bad drummer-boys, both of them frequently birched by the Drum-Major
of the Fore and Aft.
Jakin was a stunted child of fourteen, and Lew was about the same age.
When not looked after, they smoked and drank. They swore habitually after
the manner of the Barrack-room, which is cold-swearing and comes from
between clinched teeth; and they fought religiously once a week. Jakin had
sprung from some London gutter and may or may not have passed through Dr.
Barnado's hands ere he arrived at the dignity of drummer-boy. Lew could
remember nothing except the regiment and the delight of listening to the
Band from his earliest years. He hid somewhere in his grimy little soul a
genuine love for music, and was most mistakenly furnished with the head of
a cherub: insomuch that beautiful ladies who watched the Regiment in
church were wont to speak of him as a "darling." They never heard his
vitriolic comments on their manners and morals, as he walked back to
barracks with the Band and matured fresh causes of offence against Jakin.
The other drummer-boys hated both lads on account of their illogical
conduct. Jakin might be pounding Lew, or Lew might be rubbing Jakin's head
in the dirt, but any attempt at aggression on the part of an outsider was
met by the combined forces of Lew and Jakin; and the consequences were
painful. The boys were the Ishmaels of the corps, but wealthy Ishmaels,
for they sold battles in alternate weeks for the sport of the barracks
when they were not pitted against other boys; and thus amassed money.
On this particular day there was dissension in the camp. They had just
been convicted afresh of smoking, which is bad for little boys who use
plug-tobacco, and Lew's contention was that Jakin had "stunk so 'orrid bad
from keepin' the pipe in pocket," that he and he alone was responsible for
the birching they were both tingling under.
"I tell you I 'id the pipe back o' barricks," said Jakin, pacifically.
"You're a bloomin' liar," said Lew, without heat.
"You're a bloomin' little barstard," said Jakin, strong in the knowledge
that his own ancestry was unknown.
Now there is one word in the extended vocabulary of barrack-room abuse
that cannot pass without comment. You may call a man a thief and risk
nothing. You may even call him a coward without finding more than a boot
whiz past your ear, but you must not call a man a bastard unless you are
prepared to prove it on his front teeth.
"You might ha' kep' that till I wasn't so sore," said Lew, sorrowfully,
dodging round Jakin's guard.
"I'll make you sorer," said Jakin, genially, and got home on Lew's
alabaster forehead. All would have gone well and this story, as the books
say, would never have been written, had not his evil fate prompted the
Bazar-Sergeant's son, a long, employless man of five and twenty, to put in
an appearance after the first round. He was eternally in need of money,
and knew that the boys had silver.
"Fighting again," said he. "I'll report you to my father, and he'll report
you to the Color-Sergeant."
"What's that to you?" said Jakin, with an unpleasant dilation of the
nostrils.
"Oh! nothing to _me_. You'll get into trouble, and you've been up too
often to afford that."
"What the Hell do you know about what we've done?" asked Lew the Seraph.
"_You_ aren't in the Army, you lousy, cadging civilian."
He closed in on the man's left flank.
"Jes' 'cause you find two gentlemen settlin' their differences with their
fistes you stick in your ugly nose where you aren't wanted. Run 'ome to
your 'arf-caste slut of a Ma--or we'll give you what-for," said Jakin.
The man attempted reprisals by knocking the boys' heads together. The
scheme would have succeeded had not Jakin punched him vehemently in the
stomach, or had Lew refrained from kicking his shins. They fought
together, bleeding and breathless, for half an hour, and after heavy
punishment, triumphantly pulled down their opponent as terriers pull down
a jackal.
"Now," gasped Jakin, "I'll give you what-for." He proceeded to pound the
man's features while Lew stamped on the outlying portions of his anatomy.
Chivalry is not a strong point in the composition of the average
drummer-boy. He fights, as do his betters, to make his mark.
Ghastly was the ruin that escaped, and awful was the wrath of the
Bazar-Sergeant. Awful too was the scene in Orderly-room when the two
reprobates appeared to answer the charge of half-murdering a "civilian."
The Bazar-Sergeant thirsted for a criminal action, and his son lied. The
boys stood to attention while the black clouds of evidence accumulated.
"You little devils are more trouble than the rest of the Regiment put
together," said the Colonel, angrily. "One might as well admonish
thistledown, and I can't well put you in cells or under stoppages. You
must be flogged again."
"Beg y' pardon, Sir. Can't we say nothin' in our own defence, Sir?"
shrilled Jakin.
"Hey! What? Are you going to argue with me?" said the Colonel.
"No, Sir," said Lew. "But if a man come to you, Sir, and said he was going
to report you, Sir, for 'aving a bit of a turn-up with a friend, Sir, an'
wanted to get money out o' _you_, Sir"--
The Orderly-room exploded in a roar of laughter. "Well?" said the Colonel.
"That was what that measly _jarnwar_ there did, Sir, and 'e'd 'a' _done_
it, Sir, if we 'adn't prevented 'im. We didn't 'it 'im much, Sir. 'E
'adn't no manner o' right to interfere with us, Sir. I don't mind bein'
flogged by the Drum-Major, Sir, nor yet reported by _any_ Corp'ral, but
I'm--but I don't think it's fair, Sir, for a civilian to come an' talk
over a man in the Army."
A second shout of laughter shook the Orderly-room, but the Colonel was
grave.
"What sort of characters have these boys?" he asked of the Regimental
Sergeant-Major.
"Accordin' to the Bandmaster, Sir," returned that revered official--the
only soul in the regiment whom the boys feared--"they do everything _but_
lie, Sir."
"Is it like we'd go for that man for fun, Sir?" said Lew, pointing to the
plaintiff.
"Oh, admonished,--admonished!" said the Colonel, testily, and when the
boys had gone he read the Bazar-Sergeant's son a lecture on the sin of
unprofitable meddling, and gave orders that the Bandmaster should keep the
Drums in better discipline.
"If either of you come to practice again with so much as a scratch on your
two ugly little faces," thundered the Bandmaster, "I'll tell the
Drum-Major to take the skin off your backs. Understand that, you young
devils."
Then he repented of his speech for just the length of time that Lew,
looking like a Seraph in red worsted embellishments, took the place of one
of the trumpets--in hospital--and rendered the echo of a battle-piece. Lew
certainly was a musician, and had often in his more exalted moments
expressed a yearning to master every instrument of the Band.
"There's nothing to prevent your becoming a Bandmaster, Lew," said the
Bandmaster, who had composed waltzes of his own, and worked day and night
in the interests of the Band.
"What did he say?" demanded Jakin, after practice.
"'Said I might be a bloomin' Bandmaster, an' be asked in to 'ave a glass
o' sherry-wine on Mess-nights."
"Ho! 'Said you might be a bloomin' non-combatant, did 'e! That's just
about wot 'e would say. When I've put in my boy's service--it's a bloomin'
shame that doesn't count for pension--I'll take on a privit. Then I'll be
a Lance in a year--knowin' what I know about the ins an' outs o' things.
In three years I'll be a bloomin' Sergeant. I won't marry then, not I!
I'll 'old on and learn the orf'cers' ways an' apply for exchange into a
reg'ment that doesn't know all about me. Then I'll be a bloomin' orf'cer.
Then I'll ask you to 'ave a glass o' sherry-wine, _Mister_ Lew, an' you'll
bloomin' well 'ave to stay in the hanty-room while the Mess-Sergeant
brings it to your dirty 'ands."
"'S'pose _I_'m going to be a Bandmaster? Not I, quite. I'll be a orf'cer
too. There's nothin' like taking to a thing an' stickin' to it, the
Schoolmaster says. The reg'ment don't go 'ome for another seven years.
I'll be a Lance then or near to."
Thus the boys discussed their futures, and conducted themselves with
exemplary piety for a week. That is to say, Lew started a flirtation with
the Color-Sergeant's daughter, aged thirteen,--"not," as he explained to
Jakin, "with any intention o' matrimony, but by way o' keepin' my 'and
in." And the black-haired Cris Delighan enjoyed that flirtation more than
previous ones, and the other drummer-boys raged furiously together, and
Jakin preached sermons on the dangers of "bein' tangled along o'
petticoats."
But neither love nor virtue would have held Lew long in the paths of
propriety had not the rumor gone abroad that the Regiment was to be sent
on active service, to take part in a war which, for the sake of brevity,
we will call "The War of the Lost Tribes."
The barracks had the rumor almost before the Mess-room, and of all the
nine hundred men in barracks not ten had seen a shot fired in anger. The
Colonel had, twenty years ago, assisted at a Frontier expedition; one of
the Majors had seen service at the Cape; a confirmed deserter in E Company
had helped to clear streets in Ireland; but that was all. The Regiment had
been put by for many years. The overwhelming mass of its rank and file had
from three to four years' service; the non-commissioned officers were
under thirty years old; and men and sergeants alike had forgotten to speak
of the stories written in brief upon the Colors--the New Colors that had
been formally blessed by an Archbishop in England ere the Regiment came
away.
They wanted to go to the Front--they were enthusiastically anxious to
go--but they had no knowledge of what war meant, and there was none to
tell them. They were an educated regiment, the percentage of
school-certificates in their ranks was high, and most of the men could do
more than read and write. They had been recruited in loyal observance of
the territorial idea; but they themselves had no notion of that idea. They
were made up of drafts from an over-populated manufacturing district. The
system had put flesh and muscle upon their small bones, but it could not
put heart into the sons of those who for generations had done overmuch
work for overscanty pay, had sweated in drying-rooms, stooped over looms,
coughed among white-lead and shivered on lime-barges. The men had found
food and rest in the Army, and now they were going to fight
"niggers"--people who ran away if you shook a stick at them.
Wherefore they cheered lustily when the rumor ran, and the shrewd, clerkly
non-commissioned officers speculated on the chances of batta and of saving
their pay. At Headquarters, men said:--"The Fore and Fit have never been
under fire within the last generation. Let us, therefore, break them in
easily by setting them to guard lines of communication." And this would
have been done but for the fact that British Regiments were wanted--badly
wanted--at the Front, and there were doubtful Native Regiments that could
fill the minor duties, "Brigade 'em with two strong Regiments," said
Headquarters. "They may be knocked about a bit, but they'll learn their
business before they come through. Nothing like a night-alarm and a little
cutting-up of stragglers to make a Regiment smart in the field. Wait till
they've had half a dozen sentries' throats cut."
The Colonel wrote with delight that the temper of his men was excellent,
that the Regiment was all that could be wished and as sound as a bell. The
Majors smiled with a sober joy, and the subalterns waltzed in pairs down
the Mess-room after dinner and nearly shot themselves at revolver
practice. But there was consternation in the hearts of Jakin and Lew. What
was to be done with the drums? Would the Band go to the Front? How many of
the drums would accompany the Regiment?
They took council together, sitting in a tree and smoking.
"It's more than a bloomin' toss-up they'll leave us be'ind at the Depot
with the women. You'll like that," said Jakin, sarcastically.
"'Cause o' Cris, y' mean? Wot's a woman, or a 'ole bloomin' depôt o'
women, 'longside o' the chanst of field-service? You know I'm as keen on
goin' as you," said Lew.
"Wish I was a bloomin' bugler," said Jakin, sadly. "They'll take Tom Kidd
along, that I can plaster a wall with, an' like as not they won't take
us."
"Then let's go an' make Tom Kidd so bloomin' sick 'e can't bugle no more.
You 'old 'is 'ands an' I'll kick him," said Lew, wriggling on the branch.
"That ain't no good neither. We ain't the sort o' characters to presoom on
our rep'tations--they're bad. If they have the Band at the Depot we don't
go, and no error _there_. If they take the Band we may get cast for
medical unfitness. Are you medical fit, Piggy?" said Jakin, digging Lew in
the ribs with force.
"Yus," said Lew, with an oath. "The Doctor says your 'eart's weak through
smokin' on an empty stummick. Throw a chest an' I'll try yer."
Jakin threw out his chest, which Lew smote with all his might, Jakin
turned very pale, gasped, crowed, screwed up his eyes and said,--"That's
all right."
"You'll do," said Lew. "I've 'eard o' men dyin' when you 'it 'em fair on
the breast-bone."
"Don't bring us no nearer goin', though," said Jakin. "Do you know where
we're ordered?"
"Gawd knows, an' 'e won't split on a pal. Somewheres up to the Front to
kill Paythans--hairy big beggars that turn you inside out if they get 'old
o' you. They say their women are good-looking, too."
"Any loot?" asked the abandoned Jakin.
"Not a bloomin' anna, they say, unless you dig up the ground an' see what
the niggers 'ave 'id. They're a poor lot." Jakin stood upright on the
branch and gazed across the plain.
"Lew," said he, "there's the Colonel coming, 'Colonel's a good old beggar.
Let's go an' talk to 'im."
Lew nearly fell out of the tree at the audacity of the suggestion. Like
Jakin he feared not God neither regarded he Man, but there are limits even
to the audacity of drummer-boy, and to speak to a Colonel was ...
But Jakin had slid down the trunk and doubled in the direction of the
Colonel. That officer was walking wrapped in thought and visions of a C.
B.--yes, even a K.C.B., for had he not at command one of the best
Regiments of the Line--the Fore and Fit? And he was aware of two small
boys charging down upon him. Once before it had been solemnly reported to
him that "the Drums were in a state of mutiny"; Jakin and Lew being the
ringleaders. This looked like an organized conspiracy.
The boys halted at twenty yards, walked to the regulation four paces, and
saluted together, each as well set-up as a ramrod and little taller.
The Colonel was in a genial mood; the boys appeared very forlorn and
unprotected on the desolate plain, and one of them was handsome.
"Well!" said the Colonel, recognizing them. "Are you going to pull me down
in the open? I'm sure I never interfere with you, even though"--he sniffed
suspiciously--"you have been smoking."
It was time to strike while the iron was hot. Their hearts beat
tumultuously.
"Beg y' pardon, Sir," began Jakin. "The Reg'ment's ordered on active
service, Sir?"
"So I believe," said the Colonel, courteously.
"Is the Band goin', Sir?" said both together. Then, without pause, "We're
goin', Sir, ain't we?"
"You!" said the Colonel, stepping back the more fully to take in the two
small figures. "You! You'd die in the first march."
"No, we wouldn't, Sir. We can march with the Regiment anywheres--p'rade
an' anywhere else," said Jakin.
"If Tom Kidd goes 'ell shut up like a clasp-knife," said Lew, "Tom 'as
very close veins in both 'is legs, Sir."
"Very how much?"
"Very close veins, Sir. That's why they swells after long p'rade, Sir, If
'e can go, we can go, Sir."
Again the Colonel looked at them long and intently.
"Yes, the Band is going," he said, as gravely as though, he had been
addressing a brother officer. "Have you any parents, either of you two?"
"No, Sir," rejoicingly from Lew and Jakin. "We're both orphans, Sir.
There's no one to be considered of on our account, Sir."
"You poor little sprats, and you want to go up to the Front with the
Regiment, do you? Why?"
"I've wore the Queen's Uniform for two years," said Jakin. "It's very
'ard, Sir, that a man don't get no recompense for doin' 'is dooty, Sir."
"An'--an' if I don't go, Sir," interrupted Lew, "the Bandmaster 'e says
'e'll catch an' make a bloo--a blessed musician o' me, Sir. Before I've
seen any service, Sir."
The Colonel made no answer for a long time. Then he said quietly:--"If
you're passed by the Doctor I dare say you can go. I shouldn't smoke if I
were you."
The boys saluted and disappeared. The Colonel walked home and told the
story to his wife, who nearly cried over it. The Colonel was well pleased.
If that was the temper of the children, what would not the men do?
Jakin and Lew entered the boys' barrack-room with great stateliness, and
refused to hold any conversation with their comrades for at least ten
minutes. Then, bursting with pride, Jakin drawled:--"I've bin intervooin'
the Colonel. Good old beggar is the Colonel. Says I to 'im, 'Colonel,'
says I, 'let me go the Front, along o' the Reg'ment.' 'To the Front you
shall go,' says 'e, 'an' I only wish there was more like you among the
dirty little devils that bang the bloomin' drums.' Kidd, if you throw your
'coutrements at me for tellin' you the truth to your own advantage, your
legs 'll swell."
None the less there was a Battle-Royal in the barrack-room, for the boys
were consumed with envy and hate, and neither Jakin nor Lew behaved in
conciliatory wise.
"I'm goin' out to say adoo to my girl," said Lew, to cap the climax.
"Don't none o' you touch my kit because it's wanted for active service, me
bein' specially invited to go by the Colonel"
He strolled forth and whistled in the clump of trees at the back of the
Married Quarters till Cris came to him, and, the preliminary kisses being
given and taken, Lew began to explain the situation.
"I'm goin' to the Front with the Reg'ment," he said, valiantly,
"Piggy, you're a little liar," said Cris, but her heart misgave her, for
Lew was not in the habit of lying.
"Liar yourself, Cris," said Lew. slipping an arm round her. "I'm goin'
When the Reg'ment marches out you'll see me with 'em, all galliant and
gay. Give us another kiss, Cris, on the strength of it."
"If you'd on'y a-stayed at the Depôt--where you _ought_ to ha' bin--you
could get as many of 'em as--as you dam please," whimpered Cris, putting
up her mouth.
"It's 'ard, Cris. I grant you it's 'ard. But what's a man to do? If I'd
a-stayed at the Depôt, you wouldn't think anything of me,"
"Like as not, but I'd 'ave you with me, Piggy, An' all the thinkin' in the
world isn't like kissin'."
"An' all the kissin' in the world isn't like 'avin' a medal to wear on the
front o' your coat."
"_You_ won't get no medal."
"Oh, yus, I shall though. Me an' Jakin are the only acting-drummers
that'll be took along. All the rest is full men, an' we'll get our medals
with them."
"They might ha' taken anybody but you, Piggy. You'll get killed--you're so
venturesome. Stay with me, Piggy, darlin', down at the Depôt, an' I'll
love you true forever."
"Ain't you goin' to do that _now_, Cris? You said you was."
"O' course I am, but th' other's more comfortable. Wait till you've growed
a bit, Piggy. You aren't no taller than me now."
"I've bin in the army for two years an' I'm not goin' to get out of a
chanst o' seein' service an' don't you try to make me do so. I'll come
back, Cris, an' when I take on as a man I'll marry you--marry you when I'm
a Lance."
"Promise, Piggy?"
Lew reflected on the future as arranged by Jakin a short time previously,
but Cris's mouth was very near to his own.
"I promise, s'elp me Gawd!" said he.
Cris slid an arm round his neck.
"I won't 'old you back no more, Piggy. Go away an' get your medal, an'
I'll make you a new button-bag as nice as I know how," she whispered.
"Put some o' your 'air into it, Cris, an' I'll keep it in my pocket so
long's I'm alive."
Then Cris wept anew, and the interview ended. Public feeling among the
drummer-boys rose to fever pitch and the lives of Jakin and Lew became
unenviable. Not only had they been permitted to enlist two years before
the regulation boy's age--fourteen--but, by virtue, it seemed, of their
extreme youth, they were allowed to go to the Front--which thing had not
happened to acting-drummers within the knowledge of boy. The Band which
was to accompany the Regiment had been cut down to the regulation twenty
men, the surplus returning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew were attached to
the Band as supernumeraries, though they would much have preferred being
Company buglers.
"'Don't matter much," said Jakin, after the medical inspection, "Be
thankful that we're 'lowed to go at all. The Doctor 'e said that if we
could stand what we took from the Bazar-Sergeant's son we'd stand pretty
nigh anything."
"Which we will," said Lew, looking tenderly at the ragged and ill-made
house-wife that Cris had given him, with a lock of her hair worked into a
sprawling "L" upon the cover.
"It was the best I could," she sobbed. "I wouldn't let mother nor the
Sergeant's tailor 'elp me. Keep it always, Piggy, an' remember I love you
true."
They marched to the railway station, nine hundred and sixty strong, and
every soul in cantonments turned out to see them go. The drummers gnashed
their teeth at Jakin and Lew marching with the Band, the married women
wept upon the platform, and the Regiment cheered its noble self black in
the face.
"A nice level lot," said the Colonel to the Second-in-Command, as they
watched the first four companies entraining.
"Fit to do anything," said the Second-in-Command, enthusiastically. "But
it seems to me they're a thought too young and tender for the work in
hand. It's bitter cold up at the Front now."
"They're sound enough," said the Colonel. "We must take our chance of sick
casualties."
So they went northward, ever northward, past droves and droves of camels,
armies of camp followers, and legions of laden mules, the throng
thickening day by day, till with a shriek the train pulled up at a
hopelessly congested junction where six lines of temporary track
accommodated six forty-wagon trains; where whistles blew, Babus sweated
and Commissariat officers swore from dawn till far into the night amid the
wind-driven chaff of the fodder-bales and the lowing of a thousand steers.
"Hurry up--you're badly wanted at the Front," was the message that greeted
the Fore and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross carriages told the
same tale.
"Tisn't so much the bloomin' fighting," gasped a headbound trooper of
Hussars to a knot of admiring Fore and Afts. "Tisn't so much the bloomin'
fightin', though there's enough o' that. It's the bloomin' food an' the
bloomin' climate. Frost all night 'cept when it hails, and biling sun all
day, and the water stinks fit to knock you down. I got my 'ead chipped
like a egg; I've got pneumonia too, an' my guts is all out o' order.
Tain't no bloomin' picnic in those parts, I can tell you."
"Wot are the niggers like?" demanded a private.
"There's some prisoners in that train yonder. Go an' look at 'em. They're
the aristocracy o' the country. The common folk are a dashed sight uglier.
If you want to know what they fight with, reach under my seat an' pull out
the long knife that's there."
They dragged out and beheld for the first time the grim, bone-handled,
triangular Afghan knife. It was almost as long as Lew.
"That's the thing to jint ye," said the trooper, feebly.
"It can take off a man's arm at the shoulder as easy as slicing butter. I
halved the beggar that used that 'un, but there's more of his likes up
above. They don't understand thrustin', but they're devils to slice."
The men strolled across the tracks to inspect the Afghan prisoners. They
were unlike any "niggers" that the Fore and Aft had ever met--these huge,
black-haired, scowling sons of the Beni-Israel. As the men stared the
Afghans spat freely and muttered one to another with lowered eyes.
"My eyes! Wot awful swine!" said Jakin, who was in the rear of the
procession. "Say, old man, how you got _puckrowed_, eh? _Kiswasti_ you
wasn't hanged for your ugly face, hey?"
The tallest of the company turned, his leg-irons, clanking at the
movement, and stared at the boy. "See!" he cried to his fellows in Pushto.
"They send children against us. What a people, and what fools!"
"_Hya!_" said Jakin, nodding his head cheerily. "You go down-country.
_Khana_ get, _peenikapanee_ get--live like a bloomin' Raja _ke marfik_.
That's a better _bandobust_ than baynit get it in your innards. Good-bye,
ole man. Take care o' your beautiful figure-'ed, an' try to look _kushy_."
The men laughed and fell in for their first march when they began to
realize that a soldier's life was not all beer and skittles. They were
much impressed with the size and bestial ferocity of the niggers whom they
had now learned to call "Paythans," and more with the exceeding discomfort
of their own surroundings. Twenty old soldiers in the corps would have
taught them how to make themselves moderately snug at night, but they had
no old soldiers, and, as the troops on the line of march said, "they lived
like pigs." They learned the heart-breaking cussedness of camp-kitchens
and camels and the depravity of an E.P. tent and a wither-wrung mule. They
studied animalculae in water, and developed a few cases of dysentery in
their study.
At the end of their third march they were disagreeably surprised by the
arrival in their camp of a hammered iron slug which, fired from a steady
rest at seven hundred yards, flicked out the brains of a private seated by
the fire. This robbed them of their peace for a night, and was the
beginning of a long-range fire carefully calculated to that end. In the
daytime they saw nothing except an occasional puff of smoke from a crag
above the line of march. At night there were distant spurts of flame and
occasional casualties, which set the whole camp blazing into the gloom,
and, occasionally, into opposite tents. Then they swore vehemently and
vowed that this was magnificent but not war.
Indeed it was not. The Regiment could not halt for reprisals against the
_franctireurs_ of the country side. Its duty was to go forward and make
connection with the Scotch and Gurkha troops with which it was brigaded.
The Afghans knew this, and knew too, after their first tentative shots,
that they were dealing with a raw regiment. Thereafter they devoted
themselves to the task of keeping the Fore and Aft on the strain. Not for
anything would they have taken equal liberties with a seasoned corps--with
the wicked little Gurkhas, whose delight it was to lie out in the open on
a dark night and stalk their stalkers--with the terrible, big men dressed
in women's clothes, who could be heard praying to their God in the
night-watches, and whose peace of mind no amount of "sniping" could
shake--or with those vile Sikhs, who marched so ostentatiously unprepared
and who dealt out such grim reward to those who tried to profit by that
unpreparedness. This white regiment was different--quite different. It
slept like a hog, and, like a hog, charged in every direction when it was
roused. Its sentries walked with a footfall that could be heard for a
quarter of a mile; would fire at anything that moved--even a driven
donkey--and when they had once fired, could be scientifically "rushed" and
laid out a horror and an offence against the morning sun. Then there were
camp-followers who straggled and could be cut up without fear. Their
shrieks would disturb the white boys, and the loss of their services would
inconvenience them sorely.
Thus, at every march, the hidden enemy became bolder and the regiment
writhed and twisted under attacks it could not avenge. The crowning
triumph was a sudden night-rush ending in the cutting of many tent-ropes,
the collapse of the sodden canvas and a glorious knifing of the men who
struggled and kicked below. It was a great deed, neatly carried out, and
it shook the already shaken nerves of the Fore and Aft. All the courage
that they had been required to exercise up to this point was the "two
o'clock in the morning courage"; and they, so far, had only succeeded in
shooting their comrades and losing their sleep.
Sullen, discontented, cold, savage, sick, with their uniforms dulled and
unclean, the "Fore and Aft" joined their Brigade.
"I hear you had a tough time of it coming up," said the Brigadier. But
when he saw the hospital-sheets his face fell.
"This is bad," said he to himself. "They're as rotten as sheep." And aloud
to the Colonel,--"I'm afraid we can't spare you just yet. We want all we
have, else I should have given you ten days to recruit in."
The Colonel winced. "On my honor, Sir," he returned, "there is not the
least necessity to think of sparing us. My men have been rather mauled and
upset without a fair return. They only want to go in somewhere where they
can see what's before them."
"'Can't say I think much of the Fore and Fit," said the Brigadier, in
confidence, to his Brigade-Major. "They've lost all their soldiering, and,
by the trim of them, might have marched through the country from the other
side. A more fagged-out set of men I never put eyes on."
"Oh, they'll improve as the work goes on. The parade gloss has been rubbed
off a little, but they'll put on field polish before long," said the
Brigade-Major. "They've been mauled, and they don't quite understand it."
They did not. All the hitting was on one side, and it was cruelly hard
hitting with accessories that made them sick. There was also the real
sickness that laid hold of a strong man and dragged him howling to the
grave. Worst of all, their officers knew just as little of the country as
the men themselves, and looked as if they did. The Fore and Aft were in a
thoroughly unsatisfactory condition, but they believed that all would be
well if they could once get a fair go-in at the enemy. Pot-shots up and
down the valleys were unsatisfactory, and the bayonet never seemed to get
a chance. Perhaps it was as well, for a long-limbed Afghan with a knife
had a reach of eight feet, and could carry away enough lead to disable
three Englishmen, The Fore and Fit would like some rifle-practice at the
enemy--all seven hundred rifles blazing together. That wish showed the
mood of the men.
The Gurkhas walked into their camp, and in broken, barrack-room English
strove to fraternize with them; offered them pipes of tobacco and stood
them treat at the canteen. But the Fore and Aft, not knowing much of the
nature of the Gurkhas, treated them as they would treat any other
"niggers," and the little men in green trotted back to their firm friends
the Highlanders, and with many grins confided to them:--"That dam white,
regiment no dam use. Sulky--ugh! Dirty--ugh! Hya, any tot for Johnny?"
Whereat the Highlanders smote the Gurkhas as to the head, and told them
not to vilify a British Regiment, and the Gurkhas grinned cavernously, for
the Highlanders were their elder brothers and entitled to the privileges
of kinship. The common soldier who touches a Gurkha is more than likely to
have his head sliced open.
Three days later the Brigadier arranged a battle according to the rules of
war and the peculiarity of the Afghan temperament. The enemy were massing
in inconvenient strength among the hills, and the moving of many green
standards warned him that the tribes were "up" in aid of the Afghan
regular troops. A Squadron and a half of Bengal Lancers represented the
available Cavalry, and two screw-guns borrowed from a column thirty miles
away, the Artillery at the General's disposal.
"If they stand, as I've a very strong notion that they will, I fancy we
shall see an infantry fight that will be worth watching," said the
Brigadier. "We'll do it in style. Each regiment shall be played into
action by its Band, and we'll hold the Cavalry in reserve."
"For _all_ the reserve?" somebody asked.
"For all the reserve; because we're going to crumple them up," said the
Brigadier, who was an extraordinary Brigadier, and did not believe in the
value of a reserve when dealing with Asiatics. And, indeed, when you come
to think of it, had the British Army consistently waited for reserves in
all its little affairs, the boundaries of Our Empire would have stopped at
Brighton beach.
That battle was to be a glorious battle.
The three regiments debouching from three separate gorges, after duly
crowning the heights above, were to converge from the centre, left and
right upon what we will call the Afghan army, then stationed toward the
lower extremity of a flat-bottomed valley. Thus it will be seen that three
sides of the valley practically belonged to the English, while the fourth
was strictly Afghan property. In the event of defeat the Afghans had the
rocky hills to fly to, where the fire from the guerilla tribes in aid
would cover their retreat. In the event of victory these same tribes would
rush down and lend their weight to the rout of the British.
The screw-guns were to shell the head of each Afghan rush that was made in
close formation, and the Cavalry, held in reserve in the right valley,
were to gently stimulate the break-up which would follow on the combined
attack. The Brigadier, sitting upon a rock overlooking the valley, would
watch the battle unrolled at his feet. The Fore and Aft would debouch from
the central gorge, the Gurkhas from the left, and the Highlanders from the
right, for the reason that the left flank of the enemy seemed as though it
required the most hammering. It was not every day that an Afghan force
would take ground in the open, and the Brigadier was resolved to make the
most of it.
"If we only had a few more men," he said, plaintively, "we could surround
the creatures and crumble 'em up thoroughly. As it is, I'm afraid we can
only cut them up as they run. It's a great pity."
The Fore and Aft had enjoyed unbroken peace for five days, and were
beginning, in spite of dysentery, to recover their nerve. But they were
not happy, for they did not know the work in hand, and had they known,
would not have known how to do it. Throughout those five days in which old
soldiers might have taught them the craft of the game, they discussed
together their misadventures in the past--how such an one was alive at
dawn and dead ere the dusk, and with what shrieks and struggles such
another had given up his soul under the Afghan knife. Death was a new and
horrible thing to the sons of mechanics who were used to die decently of
zymotic disease; and their careful conservation in barracks had done
nothing to make them look upon it with less dread.
Very early in the dawn the bugles began to blow, and the Fore and Aft,
filled with a misguided enthusiasm, turned out without waiting for a cup
of coffee and a biscuit; and were rewarded by being kept under arms in the
cold while the other regiments leisurely prepared for the fray. All the
world knows that it is ill taking the breeks off a Highlander. It is much
iller to try to make him stir unless he is convinced of the necessity for
haste.
The Fore and Aft awaited, leaning upon their rifles and listening to the
protests of their empty stomachs. The Colonel did his best to remedy the
default of lining as soon as it was borne in upon him that the affair
would not begin at once, and so well did he succeed that the coffee was
just ready when--the men moved off, their Band leading. Even then there
had been a mistake in time, and the Fore and Aft came out into the valley
ten minutes before the proper hour. Their Band wheeled to the right after
reaching the open, and retired behind a little rocky knoll still playing
while the regiment went past.
It was not a pleasant sight that opened on the uninstructed view, for the
lower end of the valley appeared to be filled by an army in position--real
and actual regiments attired in red coats, and--of this there was no
doubt--firing Martini-Henri bullets which cut up the ground a hundred
yards in front of the leading company. Over that pock-marked ground the
regiment had to pass, and it opened the ball with a general and profound
courtesy to the piping pickets; ducking in perfect time, as though it had
been brazed on a rod. Being half-capable of thinking for itself, it fired
a volley by the simple process of pitching its rifle into its shoulder and
pulling the trigger. The bullets may have accounted for some of the
watchers on the hillside, but they certainly did not affect the mass of
enemy in front, while the noise of the rifles drowned any orders that
might have been given.
"Good God!" said the Brigadier, sitting on the rock high above all. "That
regiment has spoiled the whole show. Hurry up the others, and let the
screw-guns get off."
But the screw-guns, in working round the heights, had stumbled upon a
wasp's nest of a small mud fort which they incontinently shelled at eight
hundred yards, to the huge discomfort of the occupants, who were
unaccustomed to weapons of such devilish precision.
The Fore and Aft continued to go forward but with shortened stride. Where
were the other regiments, and why did these niggers use Martinis? They
took open order instinctively, lying down and firing at random, rushing a
few paces forward and lying down again, according to the regulations. Once
in this formation, each man felt himself desperately alone, and edged in
toward his fellow for comfort's sake.
Then the crack of his neighbor's rifle at his ear led him to fire as
rapidly as he could--again for the sake of the comfort of the noise. The
reward was not long delayed. Five volleys plunged the files in banked
smoke impenetrable to the eye, and the bullets began to take ground twenty
or thirty yards in front of the firers, as the weight of the bayonet
dragged down, and to the right arms wearied with holding the kick of the
leaping Martini. The Company Commanders peered helplessly through the
smoke, the more nervous mechanically trying to fan it away with their
helmets.
"High and to the left!" bawled a Captain till he was hoarse. "No good!
Cease firing, and let it drift away a bit."
Three and four times the bugles shrieked the order, and when it was obeyed
the Fore and Aft looked that their foe should be lying before them in mown
swaths of men. A light wind drove the smoke to leeward, and showed the
enemy still in position and apparently unaffected. A quarter of a ton of
lead had been buried a furlong in front of them, as the ragged earth
attested.
That was not demoralizing to the Afghans, who have not European nerves.
They were waiting for the mad riot to die down, and were firing quietly
into the heart of the smoke. A private of the Fore and Aft spun up his
company shrieking with agony, another was kicking the earth and gasping,
and a third, ripped through the lower intestines by a jagged bullet, was
calling aloud on his comrades to put him out of his pain. These were the
casualties, and they were not soothing to hear or see. The smoke cleared
to a dull haze.
Then the foe began to shout with a great shouting and a mass--a black
mass--detached itself from the main body, and rolled over the ground at
horrid speed. It was composed of, perhaps, three hundred men, who would
shout and fire and slash if the rush of their fifty comrades who were
determined to die carried home. The fifty were Ghazis, half-maddened with
drugs and wholly mad with religious fanaticism. When they rushed the
British fire ceased, and in the lull the order was given to close ranks
and meet them with the bayonet.
Any one who knew the business could have told the Fore and Aft that the
only way of dealing with a Ghazi rush is by volleys at long ranges;
because a man who means to die, who desires to die, who will gain heaven
by dying, must, in nine cases out of ten, kill a man who has a lingering
prejudice in favor of life if he can close with the latter. Where they
should have closed and gone forward, the Fore and Aft opened out and
skirmished, and where they should have opened out and fired, they closed
and waited.
A man dragged from his blankets half awake and unfed is never in a
pleasant frame of mind. Nor does his happiness increase when he watches
the whites of the eyes of three hundred six-foot fiends upon whose beards
the foam is lying, upon whose tongues is a roar of wrath, and in whose
hands are three-foot knives.
The Fore and Aft heard the Gurkha bugles bringing that regiment forward at
the double, while the neighing of the Highland pipes came from the left.
They strove to stay where they were, though the bayonets wavered down the
line like the oars of a ragged boat. Then they felt body to body the
amazing physical strength of their foes; a shriek of pain ended the rush,
and the knives fell amid scenes not to be told. The men clubbed together
and smote blindly--as often as not at their own fellows. Their front
crumpled like paper, and the fifty Ghazis passed on; their backers, now
drunk with success, fighting as madly as they.
Then the rear-ranks were bidden to close up, and the subalterns dashed
into the stew--alone. For the rear-rank had heard the clamor in front, the
yells and the howls of pain, and had seen the dark stale blood that makes
afraid. They were not going to stay. It was the rushing of the camps over
again. Let their officers go to Hell, if they chose; they would get away
from the knives.
"Come on!" shrieked the subalterns, and their men, cursing them, drew
back, each closing into his neighbor and wheeling round.
Charteris and Devlin, subalterns of the last company, faced their death
alone in the belief that their men would follow.
"You've killed me, you cowards," sobbed Devlin and dropped, cut from the
shoulder-strap to the centre of the chest, and a fresh detachment of his
men retreating, always retreating, trampled him under foot as they made
for the pass whence they had emerged.
I kissed her in the kitchen and I kissed her in the hall.
Child'un, child'un, follow me!
Oh Golly, said the cook, is he gwine to kiss us all?
Halla-Halla-Halla Hallelujah!
The Gurkhas were pouring through the left gorge and over the heights at
the double to the invitation of their regimental Quickstep. The black
rocks were crowned with dark green spiders as the bugles gave tongue
jubilantly:
In the morning! In the morning by the bright light!
When Gabriel blows his trumpet in the morning!
The Gurkha rear-companies tripped and blundered over loose stones. The
front-files halted for a moment to take stock of the valley and to settle
stray boot-laces. Then a happy little sigh of contentment soughed down the
ranks, and it was as though the land smiled, for behold there below was
the enemy, and it was to meet them that the Gurkhas had doubled so
hastily. There was much enemy. There would be amusement. The little men
hitched their _kukris_ well to hand, and gaped expectantly at their
officers as terriers grin ere the stone is cast for them to fetch. The
Gurkhas' ground sloped downward to the valley, and they enjoyed a fair
view of the proceedings. They sat upon the bowlders to watch, for their
officers were not going to waste their wind in assisting to repulse a
Ghazi rush more than half a mile away. Let the white men look to their own
front.
"Hi! yi!" said the Subadar-Major, who was sweating profusely, "Dam fools
yonder, stand close-order! This is no time for close order, it's the time
for volleys. Ugh!"
Horrified, amused, and, indignant, the Gurkhas beheld the retirement--let
us be gentle--of the Fore and Aft with a running chorus of oaths and
commentaries.
"They run! The white men run! Colonel Sahib, may _we_ also do a little
running?" murmured Runbir Thappa, the Senior Jemadar.
But the Colonel would have none of it. "Let the beggars be cut up a
little," said he wrathfully. "'Serves 'em right They'll be prodded into
facing round in a minute." He looked through his field-glasses, and caught
the glint of an officer's sword.
"Beating 'em with the flat--damned conscripts! How the Ghazis are walking
into them!" said he.
The Fore and Aft, heading back, bore with them their officers. The
narrowness of the pass forced the mob into solid formation, and the
rear-rank delivered some sort of a wavering volley. The Ghazis drew off,
for they did not know what reserves the gorge might hide. Moreover, it was
never wise to chase white men too far. They returned as wolves return to
cover, satisfied with the slaughter that they had done, and only stopping
to slash at the wounded on the ground. A quarter of a mile had the Fore
and Aft retreated, and now, jammed in the pass, was quivering with pain,
shaken and demoralized with fear, while the officers, maddened beyond
control, smote the men with the hilts and the flats of their swords.
"Get back! Get back, you cowards--you women! Right about face--column of
companies, form--you hounds!" shouted the Colonel, and the subalterns
swore aloud. But the Regiment wanted to go--to go anywhere out of the
range of those merciless knives. It swayed to and fro irresolutely with
shouts and outcries, while from the right the Gurkhas dropped volley after
volley of cripple-stopper Snider bullets at long range into the mob of the
Ghazis returning to their own troops.
The Fore and Aft Band, though protected from direct fire by the rocky
knoll under which it had sat down, fled at the first rush. Jakin and Lew
would have fled also, but their short legs left them fifty yards in the
rear, and by the time the Band had mixed with the regiment, they were
painfully aware that they would have to close in alone and unsupported.
"Get back to that rock," gasped Jakin. "They won't see us there."
And they returned to the scattered instruments of the Band; their hearts
nearly bursting their ribs.
"Here's a nice show for _us_," said Jakin, throwing himself full length on
the ground. "A bloomin' fine show for British Infantry! Oh, the devils!
They've gone an' left us alone here! Wot 'll we do?"
Lew took possession of a cast-off water bottle, which naturally was full
of canteen rum, and drank till he coughed again.
"Drink," said he, shortly. "They'll come back in a minute or two--you
see."
Jakin drank, but there was no sign of the regiment's return. They could
hear a dull clamor from the head of the valley of retreat, and saw the
Ghazis slink back, quickening their pace as the Gurkhas fired at them.
"We're all that's left of the Band, an' we'll be cut up as sure as death,"
said Jakin.
"I'll die game, then," said Lew, thickly, fumbling with his tiny drummer's
sword. The drink was working on his brain as it was on Jakin's.
"'Old on! I know something better than fightin'," said Jakin, stung by the
splendor of a sudden thought due chiefly to rum. "Tip our bloomin' cowards
yonder the word to come back. The Paythan beggars are well away. Come on,
Lew! We won't get hurt. Take the fife an' give me the drum. The Old Step
for all your bloomin' guts are worth! There's a few of our men coming back
now. Stand up, ye drunken little defaulter. By your right--quick march!"
He slipped the drum-sling over his shoulder, thrust the fife into Lew's
hand, and the two boys marched out of the cover of the rock into the open,
making a hideous hash of the first bars of the "British Grenadiers."
As Lew had said, a few of the Fore and Aft were coming back sullenly and
shamefacedly under the stimulus of blows and abuse; their red coats shone
at the head of the valley, and behind them were wavering bayonets. But
between this shattered line and the enemy, who with Afghan suspicion
feared that the hasty retreat meant an ambush, and had not moved
therefore, lay half a mile of a level ground dotted only by the wounded.
The tune settled into full swing and the boys kept shoulder to shoulder,
Jakin banging the drum as one possessed. The one fife made a thin and
pitiful squeaking, but the tune carried far, even to the Gurkhas.
"Come on, you dogs!" muttered Jakin, to himself, "Are we to play
forhever?" Lew was staring straight in front of him and marching more
stiffly than ever he had done on parade.
And in bitter mockery of the distant mob, the old tune of the Old Line
shrilled and rattled:
Some talk of Alexander,
And some of Hercules;
Of Hector and Lysander,
And such great names as these!
There was a far-off clapping of hands from the Gurkhas, and a roar from
the Highlanders in the distance, but never a shot was fired by British or
Afghan. The two little red dots moved forward in the open parallel to the
enemy's front.
But of all the world's great heroes
There's none that can compare,
With a tow-row-row-row-row-row
To the British Grenadier!
The men of the Fore and Aft were gathering thick at the entrance into the
plain. The Brigadier on the heights far above was speechless with rage.
Still no movement from the enemy. The day stayed to watch the children.
Jakin halted and beat the long roll of the Assembly, while the fife
squealed despairingly.
"Right about face! Hold up, Lew, you're drunk," said Jakin. They wheeled
and marched back:
Those heroes of antiquity
Ne'er saw a cannon-ball,
Nor knew the force o' powder,
"Here they come!" said Jakin. "Go on, Lew:"
To scare their foes withal!
The Fore and Aft were pouring out of the valley. What officers had said to
men in that time of shame and humiliation will never be known; for neither
officers nor men speak of it now.
"They are coming anew!" shouted a priest among the Afghans. "Do not kill
the boys! Take them alive, and they shall be of our faith."
But the first volley had been fired, and Lew dropped on his face. Jakin
stood for a minute, spun round and collapsed, as the Fore and Aft came
forward, the maledictions of their officers in their ears, and in their
hearts the shame of open shame.
Half the men had seen the drummers die, and they made no sign. They did
not even shout. They doubled out straight across the plain in open order,
and they did not fire.
"This," said the Colonel of Gurkhas, softly, "is the real attack, as it
ought to have been delivered. Come on, my children."
"Ulu-lu-lu-lu!" squealed the Gurkhas, and came down with a joyful clicking
of _kukris_--those vicious Gurkha knives.
On the right there was no rush. The Highlanders, cannily commending their
souls to God (for it matters as much to a dead man whether he has been
shot in a Border scuffle or at Waterloo) opened out and fired according to
their custom, that is to say without heat and without intervals, while the
screw-guns, having disposed of the impertinent mud fort aforementioned,
dropped shell after shell into the clusters round the flickering green
standards on the heights.
"Charrging is an unfortunate necessity," murmured the Color-Sergeant of
the right company of the Highlanders.
"It makes the men sweer so, but I am thinkin' that it will come to a
charrge if these black devils stand much longer. Stewarrt, man, you're
firing into the eye of the sun, and he'll not take any harm for Government
ammuneetion. A foot lower and a great deal slower! What are the English
doing? They're very quiet there in the centre. Running again?"
The English were not running. They were hacking and hewing and stabbing,
for though one white man is seldom physically a match for an Afghan in a
sheepskin or wadded coat, yet, through the pressure of many white men
behind, and a certain thirst for revenge in his heart, he becomes capable
of doing much with both ends of his rifle. The Fore and Aft held their
fire till one bullet could drive through five or six men, and the front of
the Afghan force gave on the volley. They then selected their men, and
slew them with deep gasps and short hacking coughs, and groanings of
leather belts against strained bodies, and realized for the first time
that an Afghan attacked is far less formidable than an Afghan attacking;
which fact old soldiers might have told them.
But they had no old soldiers in their ranks.
The Gurkhas' stall at the bazar was the noisiest, for the men were
engaged--to a nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block--with the
_kukri_, which they preferred to the bayonet; well knowing how the Afghan
hates the half-moon blade.
As the Afghans wavered, the green standards on the mountain moved down to
assist them in a last rally. Which was unwise. The Lancers chafing in the
right gorge had thrice despatched their only subaltern as galloper to
report on the progress of affairs. On the third occasion he returned, with
a bullet-graze on his knee, swearing strange oaths in Hindoostani, and
saying that all things were ready. So that Squadron swung round the right
of the Highlanders with a wicked whistling of wind in the pennons of its
lances, and fell upon the remnant just when, according to all the rules of
war, it should have waited for the foe to show more signs of wavering.
But it was a dainty charge, deftly delivered, and it ended by the Cavalry
finding itself at the head of the pass by which the Afghans intended to
retreat; and down the track that the lances had made streamed two
companies of the Highlanders, which was never intended by the Brigadier.
The new development was successful. It detached the enemy from his base as
a sponge is torn from a rock, and left him ringed about with fire in that
pitiless plain. And as a sponge is chased round the bath-tub by the hand
of the bather, so were the Afghans chased till they broke into little
detachments much more difficult to dispose of than large masses.
"See!" quoth the Brigadier. "Everything has come as I arranged. We've cut
their base, and now we'll bucket 'em to pieces."
A direct hammering was all that the Brigadier had dared to hope for,
considering the size of the force at his disposal; but men who stand or
fall by the errors of their opponents may be forgiven for turning Chance
into Design. The bucketing went forward merrily. The Afghan forces were
upon the run--the run of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their
shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek,
up rose the lance-butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper
cantering forward cleared his point. The Lancers kept between their prey
and the steep hills, for all who could were trying to escape from the
valley of death. The Highlanders gave the fugitives two hundred yards'
law, and then brought them down, gasping and choking ere they could reach
the protection of the bowlders above. The Gurkhas followed suit; but the
Fore and Aft were killing on their own account, for they had penned a mass
of men between their bayonets and a wall of rock, and the flash of the
rifles was lighting the wadded coats.
"We cannot hold them, Captain Sahib!" panted a Ressaldar of Lancers. "Let
us try the carbine. The lance is good, but it wastes time."
They tried the carbine, and still the enemy melted away--fled up the hills
by hundreds when there were only twenty bullets to stop them. On the
heights the screw-guns ceased firing--they had run out of ammunition--and
the Brigadier groaned, for the musketry fire could not sufficiently smash
the retreat. Long before the last volleys were fired, the litters were out
in force looking for the wounded. The battle was over, and, but for want
of fresh troops, the Afghans would have been wiped off the earth. As it
was they counted their dead by hundreds, and nowhere were the dead thicker
than in the track of the Fore and Aft.
But the Regiment did not cheer with the Highlanders, nor did they dance
uncouth dances with the Gurkhas among the dead. They looked under their
brows at the Colonel as they leaned upon their rifles and panted.
"Get back to camp, you. Haven't you disgraced yourself enough for one day!
Go and look to the wounded. It's all you're fit for," said the Colonel.
Yet for the past hour the Fore and Aft had been doing all that mortal
commander could expect. They had lost heavily because they did not know
how to set about their business with proper skill, but they had borne
themselves gallantly, and this was their reward.
A young and sprightly Color-Sergeant, who had begun to imagine himself a
hero, offered his water-bottle to a Highlander, whose tongue was black
with thirst. "I drink with no cowards," answered the youngster, huskily,
and, turning to a Gurkha, said, "Hya, Johnny! Drink water got it?" The
Gurkha grinned and passed his bottle. The Fore and Aft said no word.
They went back to camp when the field of strife had been a little mopped
up and made presentable, and the Brigadier, who saw himself a Knight in
three months, was the only soul who was complimentary to them. The Colonel
was heart-broken and the officers were savage and sullen.
"Well," said the Brigadier, "they are young troops of course, and it was
not unnatural that they should retire in disorder for a bit."
"Oh, my only Aunt Maria!" murmured a junior Staff Officer. "Retire in
disorder! It was a bally run!"
"But they came again as we all know," cooed the Brigadier, the Colonel's
ashy-white face before him, "and they behaved as well as could possibly be
expected. Behaved beautifully, indeed. I was watching them. It's not a
matter to take to heart, Colonel. As some German General said of his men,
'they wanted to be shooted over a little, that was all.' To himself he
said: 'Now they're blooded I can give 'em responsible work. It's as well
that they got what they did. 'Teach 'em more than half a dozen rifle
flirtations, that will--later--run alone and bite. Poor old Colonel,
though.'"
All that afternoon the heliograph winked and flickered on the hills,
striving to tell the good news to a mountain forty miles away. And in the
evening there arrived, dusty, sweating, and sore, a misguided
Correspondent who had gone out to assist at a trumpery village-burning and
who had read off the message from afar, cursing his luck the while.
"Let's have the details somehow--as full as ever you can, please. It's the
first time I've ever been left this campaign," said the Correspondent to
the Brigadier; and the Brigadier, nothing loath, told him how an Army of
Communication had been crumpled up, destroyed, and all but annihilated by
the craft, strategy, wisdom, and foresight of the Brigadier,
But some say, and among these be the Gurkhas who watched on the hillside,
that that battle was won by Jakin and Lew, whose little bodies were borne
up just in time to fit two gaps at the head of the big ditch-grave for the
dead under the heights of Jagai.