The Great War was a matrix wherein many anecdotes have sprouted.
They are short-lived plants--fragile as mushrooms--none too easy to
extricate either, embedded as they are in the mass.
To dig out the character of a General even from the plans of his
General Staff is difficult; how much more difficult to dig out the
adventures of Number 1000 Private Thomas Atkins from those of the other
999 who went "like one man" with him over the top? In the side-shows
there was more scope for the individual and in the Victorian wars
much more scope. To show the sort of thing I mean I am going to put
down here for the first time an old story, almost forgotten now, in
the hopes that it may interest by its contrast to barrages and barbed
wire. Although only an old-fashioned affair of half a dozen bullets and
three or four dead men it was a great event to me as it led to my first
meeting with the great little Bobs of Kandahar.
On the morning of September 11, 1879, I lay shivering with fever and
ague at Alikhel in Afghanistan. So sick did I seem that it was decided
I should be carried a day's march back to G.H.Q. on the Peiwar Kotal to
see if the air of that high mountain pass would help me to pull myself
round. Polly Forbes, a boy subaltern not very long from Eton, was sent
off to play the part of nurse.
We reached the Peiwar Kotal without any adventure, and were allotted
a tent in the G.H.Q. camp pitched where the road between the Kurram
Valley and Kabul ran over the high Kotal or pass. Next morning,
although still rather weak in the knees, I felt game for a ride to the
battlefield. So we rode along the high ridge through the forest of
giant deodars looking for mementoes of the battle. The fact was that we
were, although we knew it not, in a very dangerous No Man's Land.
We had reached a point about two miles from camp when we were startled
by half a dozen shots fired in quick succession and still more startled
to see some British soldiers rushing down towards us from the top of a
steep-sided knoll which crowned the ridge to our immediate front.
Close past us rushed those fugitives and on, down the hillside, where
at last, some hundred yards below us, they pulled up in answer to our
shouts. But no amount of shouts or orders would bring them up to us,
so we had to get off our ponies and go down to them. There were seven
of them--a Corporal and three men belonging to one of the new short
service battalions and three signallers--very shaky the whole lot. Only
one was armed with his rifle; he had been on sentry-go at the moment
the signalling picquet had been rushed--so they said--by a large body
of Afghans.
What was to be done? I realised that I was the senior. Turning to the
Corporal I asked him if he could ride. "Yes, sir," he replied rather
eagerly. "Well, then," I commanded, "you get on to that little white
mare up there and ride like hell to G.H.Q. for help. You others go up
with him and await orders." Off they went, scrambling up the hill,
Forbes and I following rather slowly because of my weakness. When we
got up to the path, ponies, syces, all had disappeared except that one
soldier who had stuck to his rifle.
All was as still as death in the forest where we three now stood alone.
"Where are the others?" I asked the man. "I think they must be killed."
"Do you think they are up there?" "Yessir!" So I turned to Forbes and
said, "If there are wounded or dead up there we must go and see what we
can do."
Where we stood we were a bit far away from the top of the wooded hill
for a jezail shot to carry and once we began to climb the slope we
found ourselves in dead ground. Nearing the top, my heart jumped into
my mouth as I all but put my foot on a man's face. Though I dared not
take my eyes off the brushwood on the top of the hill, out of the
corner of my eye I was aware he was a lascar and that he must be dead,
for his head had nearly been severed from his body.
At that same moment we heard a feeble cry in Hindustani, "_Shabash,
Sahib log, chello!_" "Bravo, Gentlemen, come along!" This came from
another lascar shot through the body--a plucky fellow. "_Dushman kahan
hain?_"--"Where are the enemy?" I whispered. "When the sahibs shouted
from below they ran away," he said, and at that, side by side with the
revolvers raised to fire, Forbes and I stepped out on to the cleared
and levelled summit of the hill, a space about fifteen feet by twenty.
All was quiet and seemed entirely normal. There stood the helio and
there lay the flags. Most astonishing of all, there, against a pile
of logs, rested the priceless rifles of the picquet guard with their
accoutrements and ammunition pouches lying on the ground beside them.
Making a sign to Forbes we laid down our revolvers ready to hand, took,
each of us, a rifle, loaded it, fixed the bayonet and stood at the
ready facing the edge of the forest about thirty yards away.
Even in these days when my memory is busy chucking its seventy years or
so of accumulations overboard, the memory of that tense watch into the
forest remains as fresh as ever. For the best part of half an hour it
must have lasted. At last we heard them--not the Afghans but our own
chaps, coming along the ridge and now they were making their way in
open order up the hill--a company of British Infantry together with a
few Pathan auxiliaries, the whole under command of Captain Stratton of
the 22nd Foot, head Signaller to the Force.
In few words my story was told and at once bold Stratton determined
to pursue down the far side of the hill. Stratton had told me to go
back to camp, but I did not consider that an order and, keeping on the
extreme left of the line so that he should not see me, I pushed along.
I noticed that the young soldier of the picquet who had stuck to his
rifle was still keeping by me as the long line advanced down the slope,
which gradually bifurcated into two distinct spurs. The further we went
the wider apart drew the spurs and the deeper became the intervening
nullah. Captain Stratton, Forbes, and the Regimental Company commander
were all on the other or eastern spur and the men kept closing in
towards them, until at last everyone, bar myself and my one follower,
had cleared off the western spur. I did not want to cross the
nullah, feeling too weak and tired to force my way through the thick
undergrowth. Soon we could no longer hear or see the others.
Suddenly I heard Click! "Take cover!" I shouted and flung myself behind
a big stone. Sure enough, the moment often imagined had come! Not more
than twenty paces down the slope an old, white-bearded, wicked-looking
Enemy was aiming at me with his long jezail from behind a fallen log.
Click! again. Another misfire.
Now I was musketry instructor of my regiment, which had been the best
shooting regiment in India the previous year. My revolver was a rotten
little weapon, but I knew its tricks. As the Afghan fumbled with his
lock I took aim and began to squeeze the trigger. Another instant and
he would have been dead when bang! went a rifle behind me; my helmet
tilted over my eyes, my shot went where we found it next day, about six
feet up into a tree. The young soldier had opened rapid fire just over
my head.
At the same time, I saw another Afghan come crouching through the
brushwood below me towards a point where he would be able to enfilade
my stone. I shouted to my comrade, "I'm coming back to you," and turned
to make for his tree. Luck was with me. At that very moment bang went
the jezail and when we dug out the bullet next morning and marked the
line of fire, it became evident that had I not so turned I would never
have sat spinning this yarn.
That shot was a parting salute. There were shouts from the right of the
line, and as I was making for my tree the Afghans made off in the other
direction. I shouted to Stratton and his men to press down to the foot
of the hill, working round to the north so as to cut off the raiders.
Then, utterly exhausted, I began my crawl back to the camp.
Soon after I had got in I was summoned into the presence of the
redoubtable Bobs. Although I had marched past him at Kohat this was
my first face-to-face meeting with one who was to play the part
of Providence to my career. He made me sit in a chair and at once
performed the almost incredible feat of putting me entirely at my ease.
This he did by pouring a golden liquid called sherry into a very large
wine-glass. Hardly had I swallowed this elixir when I told him all
about everything, which was exactly what he wanted.
A week later the Commander of the Cavalry Brigade, Redan Massy, applied
to Headquarters for an Aide-de-Camp. Sir Fred Roberts advised him to
take me. That billet led to unimaginable bliss. Surrounding villages
by moonlight, charging across the Logar Valley, despising all foot
sloggers--every sort of joy I had longed for. The men of the picquet
who had run away were tried by Court Martial and got long sentences,
alas--poor chaps! The old Mullah was sent to his long account by
Stratton.
But that is the point of most war stories; when anyone gets a lift up
it is by the misfortune or death of someone else.