A FIGHT WITH THE MOHMUNDS.
Save for flying rumours cantonment life at Jellalabad had been a
little monotonous for some time past. Paper hunts had been resorted
to, and polo was played every afternoon by officers of the 10th
Hussars, riding Cabul ponies upon a piece of ground cleared for them
by their men about two miles from the city.
Other officers exercised their skill in 'potting,' with the
breechloader, quails, and the beautiful partridge, called the 'hill
chuckore' by the Afghans, wild sheep, and antelopes, while some of
the more adventurous brought down a wolf or hyena, but as these were
chiefly to be found at a distance some personal risk was incurred,
and one might be 'potted' in turn by the 'juzail' of some hill-man
lurking unseen behind a rock or tree.
The counterbalance to these little amusements were visitations of
wind and dust, or torrents of rain, that pattered like a storm of dry
peas on the tents of the troops who were in camp near the city, so,
when the weather had become settled, all hailed with considerable
satisfaction the advent of the expedition under General Macpherson to
look after a gathering of the Mohmunds--a tribe of about fifty
thousand souls, whose fighting men were reported as mustering for
mischief on the other side of the Cabul river, in the south-west
corner of the Jellalabad Valley, opposite to Girdi Kas, where the
stream flows away towards Chardeh.
The staff were in their saddles betimes, and on the ground in front
of the city.
'Good morning, gentlemen,' said old Spatterdash, as he came cantering
up on his Arab in the dark. 'What is the hour?'
Colville adroitly caught a firefly, and placing it for a moment on
the glass of his watch, saw the time.
'Four o'clock, colonel.'
'We have other work this morning than pig-sticking or potting jackals
and foxes; but there is time yet for a cup of coffee dashed with
brandy--a cheroot, and then away.'
'The bugles are sounding, and there go the trumpets of the Hussars
and Lancers blowing "boot and saddle."'
Disdaining the use of a regulation sword, which he stigmatised as an
'army tailor's blunt knife,' Colonel Spatterdash rode with an
enormous tulwar by his side--a weapon once wielded by the great rebel
Tantia Topee--one literally for slicing, and having such an edge that
he might have shaved with it. He was in high spirits, and being
still practically under the influence of his potations overnight, was
humming the song of 'The Sepoy Grenadiers'--
'The spirits of our sires,
Who gathered such renown
From clouds of battle fires,
With stern delight look down,
'To Delhi and to Deeg they point,
Those stars of other years;
And bid us still uphold the fame
Of _the Sepoy Grenadiers_!'
'I'm not likely to die from "waste of nervous tissue," as the doctors
call it, whatever the devil it may be,' he added, as he unsheathed
his tulwar, that flashed in the paling starlight; 'we'll have a burra
khana' (_i.e._, big dinner) 'when we come back, after polishing off
these Mohmund fellows.'
'At least all who are able to partake of it.'
'Don't be gloomy, Colville; d--n it, I never am.'
The force for this expedition was made up of detachments from the
column; there were some of the Rifles, with some of the Ghoorkas, 1st
Sikhs, and 20th Punjaub Infantry, one hundred of the 10th Hussars
under Captain St. Quintin, and one hundred of the 11th Bengal
Lancers, in blue uniforms faced with red, under Major Princep. De
Latour's Hazara Mountain Battery came clattering up, and two Royal
Horse Artillery guns, which latter, with a small force, proceeded at
once on observation down the right bank of the Cabul river, in case
any of the Mohmunds might have taken post in that direction.
At half-past four in the morning the whole force--not much over a
thousand men--after forming in silence and as quickly as possible,
without further sound of drum or bugle, moved off, and, with St.
Quintin's hussars in the van, crossed the river by the new bridge
erected by our Royal Engineers, and advanced into the dark country
beyond, where the only sounds heard were the wails of an occasional
jackal, replied to by those of a pack of his fourfooted brethren.
In galloping from point to point, when the troops were forming under
arms and then in columns of march, giving the general's last orders
or directions, Colville had not much time for abstract reflection,
yet a certain idea did occur to him, and he muttered, with a glow of
the purest satisfaction,
'If I fall to-day or any other day, thank God I have made all square
for my dear girl and her sister, too.'
This referred to a secret visit paid by him to Lincoln's Inn 'anent'
codicils to his will the day before he left London; and now he
recalled with astonishment the time when he either disliked these
unknown cousins or forgot that they existed.
Though Mohammed, Khan of Lalpura and chief of the Mohmunds, had made
complete submission apparently to Sir Louis Cavagnari at Dakka, in
the preceding year, it did not prevent his people from opposing us
now in arms, like many other mountain tribes.
After the hoofs of the cavalry and wheels of the artillery had made
the planks of the trestle-bridge resound, silence again fell on the
column; and when the moon came out in its oriental splendour, amid
some weird, windy, and fast-flying clouds, there was light enough to
see the column distinctly.
The sheeny bayonets of the infantry and the spearheads of the lancers
(denuded _pro temp._ of their fluttering banneroles) glittered
brightly, as did the sword-blades of all the officers; and our
cavalry are generally so gaily appointed that, when the 10th Hussars
went cantering to the front, the flashes of light reflected from
their accoutrements, if they added to the picturesque, also added to
the peril of the occasion, if any scouting Mohmunds were about, as
this alone would have revealed the advance of the force, which from
its sombre costume would have been, otherwise, almost invisible--but
the tropical white helmets were always prominent objects amid the
gloom.
At this time, all our troops in Afghanistan wore Cashmere putties, or
leg-bandages, made of strips of woollen cloth, two yards and a half
long, with a tape stitched on at the end. They were worn round the
calf of the leg from the ankle to the knee, where the tape secured
them. For cavalry and infantry alike they were a useful and warm
addition to the clothing in cold weather; and there was but one
objection--the time necessary for binding them on.
Some natives acted as guides, and in the cold moonlight the cavalry
and artillery went clattering over rough stones, and more than one of
the former fell from his horse, and of the latter off the
limber-seats, as some sudden and deceitful ditch or water channel had
to be crossed. The enemy was in front; no one knew precisely when or
where he might be fallen on, and this added to the zest and
excitement of the time and occasion.
The orders of the cavalry were to spur on in front; to get in between
the Mohmunds and the hills, for the purpose of cutting off their
retreat; and a picturesque sight were the Hussars and Lancers, as
they dashed through the Kunar River (which joins the Cabul about five
miles from Jellalabad), in its descent from Shigar, and flashes of
light came from their glancing accoutrements as they vanished away
from the sight of the infantry in the gloom ahead, when a cloud
passed over the face of the moon.
Next came the infantry splashing through the Kunar, which rose to the
men's waist-belts, and was broad at the point where it was crossed;
and a bath such as it gave was not a desirable beginning in a cold
morning with the work they had in hand.
At one place the route lay over what seemed to have been an old
Mohammedan burial-ground. Coffins are not used in the East, the body
being simply rolled up in a sheet, and placed in the grave with only
a foot or two of earth spread over it. Into these receptacles the
wheels of the guns stuck fast in succession, compelling the gunners
to quit the limber-seats and drag them out, crushing and grinding the
human bones beneath, and causing an expression of much rough language
unfitted for ears polite. If the superstition of the Afghans, who
greatly venerate burial places, which they call 'Cities of the
Silent,' be true, that the ghosts of the dead sit at the head of
their own graves, invisible to mortal eyes, enjoying the odours of
the flowers planted there, the said ghosts must have been somewhat
scared by the row Her Majesty's gunners made till they got their
seven-pounders free from this succession of traps, and once more on
solid ground; and also by old Spatterdash, who was impatient to get
his Sepoys forward, and swore in English and Hindostanee.
Though the Kunar river, which takes its rise near the great Pamir
Steppe and Bam-i-Duniah, or 'the Roof of the World,' was left in the
rear, the troops had to splash through several tributaries of it ere
they obtained higher ground, and then they began to look upon scenery
wild and mighty, rugged and uncultured, where wolves peopled the
forest, the elk and deer haunted the brook, and the crane and the
stork hovered about the watercourses, and over all, desolate and
savage, towered the mountains of Shigar, many thousands of feet in
height.
Sometimes the route lay between groves of dark poplars, of pale green
willows, or dwarf palm, sunk amid which the tributaries of the Kunar
flowed like streaks of silver; and sometimes between vegetation
familiar to the British eye--the ash, the oak, the chestnut, and
hawthorn, though mingling with the cedar, the olive, and fig.
Major Louis Cavaguari, a handsome dark-complexioned man, whom
Colville now saw for the first time, came riding up and joined the
staff, accompanied by a brilliantly attired and accoutred Afghan
horseman, whom he introduced as the Khan of Besoot, from whom much
useful information could be gathered, among others that a range of
hills in front was full of the enemy under a fanatic named Moollah
Khalil.
The Ghoorkas, who were leading, were now ordered to seek cover as
soon as they had left in rear a village near these hills, while the
cavalry swung round to take these in flank or cut off the retreat of
the enemy, and with that force went Colville with a message from the
general.
While galloping on to overtake them he could see the files who were
to skirmish dart out in extended order with unslung carbines, and
soon the cracking of exchanged shots quickened every pulse as they
were heard among the hills.
'Push forward the mountain battery!' was now the general's order.
It was galloped to the south side of a projecting ridge, while old
Spatterdash, with some of the Punjaub infantry, began to scale its
rocky crest. There the Mohmunds were in position, but so dingily were
they attired, or so much did the colour of their costume blend with
that of the rocks and trees, that, though not a single man of them
could as yet be separately distinguished, the existence of their
masses was known by the flashing of their arms in the sunshine, or by
the fluttering out of a red or green village banner against the
sky-line.
While measures were thus being taken to have them on the flank and an
attack was delivered in front, De Latour got his mountain guns ready
for action, and sent a shell at a thousand yards' range whistling
through the air. Curving in its course, it fell and burst among them
high up on the ridge, scattering death and mutilation. Another and
another fell, and then, as the arms ceased to glitter, it was known
that the Mohmunds were falling back.
Again the flashing of their weapons in the sunshine, and the jets of
white smoke from their long juzails, levelled over bank and rock, but
fired at long and almost useless distances, announced a rally or
pause in their retreat, the line of which lay along a plain that
extended away to the eastward, and onward through that space and
clouds of rising dust swept the cavalry, followed by the infantry at
the double.
The skirmishers of Redhaven's troop having, in the ardour of pursuit,
advanced too far into a dell, became suddenly exposed to a galling
fire, which emptied more than one saddle; and Colville dashed forward
with orders for their recall.
The trumpet sounded the 'retire,' and it was obeyed by all but one
hussar, who continued to load and fire, while the juzail balls
whistled about him, and knocked up jets of sand about his horse's
hoofs.
'Sound again!' said Lieutenant Redhaven to the trumpeter, who sat
with the bell of the trumpet planted on his thigh.
Again he blew, but in vain.
'He is too far--he does not hear it--the fellow will be lost!'
'Oh, he hears it well enough, sir,' replied the trumpeter; 'but just
now he pretends to be deaf.'
'Deaf!--what the devil does he mean? To throw his life away?'
'Looks like it, from what I have seen of him more than once.'
'He is a brave but reckless fool!' exclaimed Redhaven, impetuously,
as he was now seen engaged with four Afghan horsemen, after having
slung his carbine, and drawn his sword; and by this time Colville,
full of pity and admiration, inspired also by the passing remarks of
the trumpeter, was already on the spur to succour him.
'Allow me, sir, that officer can't go alone; besides, the poor fellow
is my own comrade,' said a hussar, who, without waiting for
Redhaven's consent, dashed the spurs into his horse, settled himself
well down on the saddle, and in less than a minute was among the
cloud of dust, where Colville and the other hussar were in close
_mêlée_ with the four Afghans, one of whom was the Moollah Khalil,
who was armed, not with a tulwar, but an enormous maul, furnished
with a round knob of gilt metal.
'Allah Ackbar, Mohammed resool illa,' he was shrieking, with blazing
eyes, as he goaded his horse in the fray, and laid about him like a
madman, and by one blow brained or stunned the horse of the
skirmisher whose rashness had brought this combat about, and during
which the juzailchees had ceased firing, lest they might hit their
own leader.
Ere the hussar could free himself from his stirrups the maul was
about to descend on his head, when a thrust from Colville's sword,
delivered under the right arm, pierced the lungs of Moollah Khalil,
who fell to rise no more, and, protecting the hussar by a great
circular sweep of his sword, Colville dragged him up by his bridle
hand, and mounted him on the Moollah's horse. His follower had now
disposed of a second Afghan just as his horse was shot under him, and
the two others, terrified by the fall of the Moollah, fled at a
gallop, on which the _juzailchees_ resumed firing, and the shot
whistled and whirred past Colville and his companions.
'Quick--run as best you can,' said he, putting his horse to a trot,
but loth to leave the two soldiers behind.
A wailing cry escaped one as a shot evidently struck him, and
Colville paused by checking his bridle. The man was mortally wounded
and ghastly pale, yet he walked on for some thirty paces, erect and
steadily, his eyes fixed on vacancy; then he paused, and fell dead on
his face.
'Poor Sam Surcingle!' exclaimed the other, and at that moment
Colville also dropped from his saddle, struck by a ball in the left
ribs.
Luckily it was a spent one, and only knocked the breath out of him;
but not a moment was to be lost, as a few of the Mohmund
_juzailchees_ were creeping back, filled with the maddest rage at the
death of their fanatic leader, who had believed his life to be
charmed.
The hussar dragged Colville up, and almost lifted him into the
saddle, and taking the bridle applied one spur to both horses, and
brought the officer into the lines faint, worn, and with his mouth
full of blood.
When safe out of fire Colville dismounted near a pool covered with
crimson water-lilies--the sacred lotus of Brahma--and then the hussar
whose life he had saved, and who had succoured him in return, opened
his blue patrol jacket and proceeded, after bathing his face and
giving him a draught from the pool, to examine his hurts with a
skilful hand.
'Not a rib broken, sir, thank God' said he; 'only a contusion, and
the consequent discolouration will pass away in a few days. I
haven't forgotten my Quain and Turner.'
'Robert Wodrow!' exclaimed Colville, recognising for the first time
the ex-medical student.
'Yes, Captain Colville--Robert Wodrow it is,' replied the other, with
a sad smile, as he proffered his brandy-flask.
'Thanks--I have my own,' said Colville, struggling into a sitting
position. 'Mary and Ellinor Wellwood told me of the step you had
taken--a very rash one I think it--when you failed in your studies
through the mischief wrought you by that scoundrel Sleath.'
'So you met them?'
'Yes--and left them well and every way, I hope, happy.'
'It is an unexpected pleasure to see you here, sir.'
'My poor fellow, if I can befriend you, I shall, believe me,' said
Colville, shaking Robert's hand.
'Thank you, Captain Colville; my officers and comrades like me
already, thank God; and I am now a corporal.'
'They are right who assert that there is nothing certain but the
unexpected,' said Colville, laughing, yet wincing the while with
pain; 'and this meeting with you has been most unexpected by me.'
'But not by me, sir.'
'How so?'
'I have seen you in and about Jellalabad for days and weeks past.'
'And why did you not speak to me?'
'I am not now what I was--when hoping to be a graduate of the
Edinburgh University, but a poor hussar--_un simple soldat_.'
'Simple, indeed, to throw your chances in life away thus--and even
your life too, as you so nearly did a few minutes ago.'
'I had none left--none that I cared for,' said Robert, hoarsely.
While this conversation was taking place, the infantry and artillery
had halted, and the brigadier, with all the cavalry, had pushed on in
pursuit of the fugitive Mohmunds as far as a place called Gurdao, in
a gorge, where the Cabul river flows out of the valley of Jellalabad.
On an islet in the river there are the remains of an old Buddhist
monastery, surrounded by a tope of hoary trees. For here had once
been the worship of Buddha--a worship which, though now almost
banished from India, has spread over countries of an almost wider
area, and is usually ranked as the ninth avatar of Vishnu.
Here a few of the Mohmunds made their last stand, till the best
cavalry marksmen picked them off with their carbines, and the whole
troops began a retrograde movement towards Jellalabad.
Colville was once more in his saddle, and, by Redhaven's permission,
Robert Wodrow attended to him on the march.
'I wish I understood the law of crises,' says the author of _Altiora
Peto_. 'I suppose it has an intimate connection with that other
mysterious problem, the law of chances ... I have always had a
theory,' he adds, 'that from time to time our lives culminate to
crises. Then the crisis bursts, and we begin again, and slowly or
rapidly, as the case may be, culminate to another crisis.'
Well, here was a crisis and something more in connection with the law
of chances. The two men who loved the two sisters, Mary and Ellinor
Wellwood, under circumstances and with success so different, by the
birks of Invermay, were now face to face and together in that
far-away land of peril.
After hearing Colville's little narrative of what had transpired
before he left London, Robert Wodrow looked at him for a time in
silence, and thought how different were their fates and probable
future in the world.
Colville had hope and wealth, he (Wodrow) neither, and life seemed so
valueless; yet a couple of Afghan bullets might solve all
difficulties for both of them!
While the artillery made a detour to avoid the pitfalls of the
Mohammedan burial-place, Wodrow was remarking to the officer by whose
side he rode,
'It would seem, Captain Colville, that, as some writer says of the
romance of life, ours seems to be overtaking us pretty quickly.'
'Romance, do you call it?'
'Bitterness, in my case, would be nearer the truth. I am a broken
and ruined man,' said the other, after a pause. 'Ellinor took the
last ray of sunshine out of my life. She told me plainly that she
could not marry a poor man for the world, nor wait till he became
rich--a knowledge that only came to her after Sir Redmond Sleath
found his way to Birkwoodbrae. She was wiser, perhaps, but her
wisdom, poor girl, brought her nothing--nothing! My love was only an
ideal after all, Captain Colville; and though life does not seem to
me worth living, it must be lived--till ended--after all.'
Colville made no reply, but proffered his cigar-case to the speaker,
who accepted a cigar with a courteous bow and blush of pleasure; the
very act was a kindly recognition that they had once been equals, and
were still friends.
'You must quit this sort of thing, Wodrow, and go back to your
studies at Edinburgh,' said Colville; 'back to Quain and Turner, to
Balfour's Botany, Jackson's Materia Medica, and all the rest of it.
If you want money for that or anything else, consider me your banker.'
But Robert Wodrow shook his head with an air of decision. 'Sir, I
thank you from my heart's core, but no, Captain Colville--never
again.'
'Tuts; we'll talk about all this another time,' said Colville,
kindly, hoping to bring him to a right way of thinking and acting.
Yet while he declined all proffers of assistance, Robert Wodrow's
mind was full of thoughts--soft, subduing, and kindly thoughts--of
his reverend father, his mother so sweet and meek, so abiding and
confiding in the will and goodness of God, and the old sequestered
manse embowered among the bonnie birks of Invermay--the manse of
Kirktoun-Mailler.
By midnight the returned expedition marched into the lines of the
camp at Jellalabad.
'You have acted bravely to-day, Captain Colville,' said the
brigadier, shaking his hand as the troops were dismissed to their
tents; 'and so sure as the stars look down on us you shall have your
V.C. for saving the rash hussar and killing the Moollah Khalil. I
wish you had polished off Mohammed Shah, too, while you were about
it.'
'Who is he?' asked Colville, to whom the name seemed somehow familiar.
'One of the sirdars of the Ameer, and a very distinguished one, now
with the Mohmunds.'
'By Jove! that was the fellow who pretended to be a hadji, and whom I
had for a night in the Bala Hissar--in the citadel actually.'
'A lesson for you to be more careful and less hospitable in future,'
said the brigadier, laughing.
Colville was duly complimented in general orders, and weeks after the
latter was read and duly appreciated by one who then was--far, far
away!