For Name and Fame Part 30

The enemy were well aware of the weak point of the position which they occupied; and they had mustered thickly in the plain, in which were several villages; with ca.n.a.ls cutting up the ground in all directions, and abounding with hedges, ditches, and enclosures--altogether, a very strongly defensible position.

It was at 10 o'clock, on the 1st of September, that the British force advanced. The first division, on the right, advanced against the large walled village of Gundi, which was strongly held by the enemy. Against this General Macpherson sent the 92nd and the 2nd Ghoorkas and, stubbornly as the enemy fought, the place was carried by the bayonet.

On the line taken by the 2nd division--under General Baker--three villages had successively to be carried: Abasabad, Kaghanary, and Gundigan. The 72nd Highlanders and the 2nd Sikhs advanced to the attack of these. The resistance of the Afghans was stubborn in the extreme, but they were driven out. The fighting line of the two divisions kept abreast and, for two miles, had to fight every inch of their way; from wall to wall, from garden to garden and, here and there, from house to house and from lane to lane.

Ill.u.s.tration: Gundi carried by the Bayonet.

Once or twice the attack was checked, for a few minutes, by the desperate resistance of the Afghans--at the crossing places of ca.n.a.ls and in walled enclosures--and again and again, the Ghazis rushed down upon the troops. The 3rd Sikhs and the 5th Ghoorkas joined the fighting line and, step by step, the ground was won; until the base of the hill was turned, and the attacking force saw, in front of them, the great camp of Ayoub's troops. Up to this point, the enemy had fought with the greatest bravery; but a sudden panic seized them, now they saw that their line of retreat was threatened by our cavalry--for an Afghan always loses heart, under such circ.u.mstances. As if by magic, the defense ceased; and the enemy, horse and foot--abandoning their guns, and throwing away their arms--fled up the Argandab valley. Everything was abandoned.

There was nothing more for the infantry to do but to sack Ayoub's camp, and to park the captive guns, thirty in number. The amount of stores and miscellaneous articles in the camp was enormous: arms, ammunition, commissariat, and ordnance stores; helmets, bullock huts crammed with native wearing apparel, writing materials, Korans, English tinned meats, fruit, and money. Here, in fact, was all the baggage which the army had brought from Herat; together with all the spoil which they had captured at Maiwand.

The cavalry took up the pursuit. Unfortunately they had met with great difficulties, in advancing through the broken country in rear of the infantry. Had they been close at hand, when the latter fought their way into Ayoub's camp, very few of the fugitives would have escaped. As it was, they did good service in following up the rout; and driving the enemy, a dispersed and broken crowd, into the hills.

To the fury of the men they found, in Ayoub's camp, the body of Lieutenant Maclaine; who had been taken prisoner at Maiwand, and who was barbarously murdered, a few minutes before the arrival of the English troops. The battle cost the lives of three officers: Lieutenant Colonel Brownlow, commanding the 72nd Highlanders; Captain Frome, of the same regiment; and Captain Straton, 2nd battalion of the 22nd. Eleven officers were wounded, 46 men were killed, and 202 wounded.

The enemy left 1200 dead on the field. Ayoub's regular regiments scarcely fired a shot, and the British advance had been opposed entirely by the irregulars and Ghazis; the regular regiments having been drawn up behind the Pir-Paimal Pa.s.s, by which they expected our main attack to be made--a delusion which was kept up by our heavy fire, from early morning, upon the Afghan guns on the summit of the pa.s.s. When our troops appeared round the corner of the spur upon their flank they lost heart at once; and for the most part, throwing away their arms, joined the body of fugitives.

"It would have been hard work, sir," Will Gale said to Colonel Ripon, as they rode forward in rear of the fighting brigade, "to have taken this position with the Candahar force, alone."

"It could not have been done," Colonel Ripon replied, "but no one would have dreamed of attempting it. The Afghans say that the force which Roberts brought down, from Cabul, was so large that they stood on the defensive; but they would have ventured to attack us, had we sallied out and offered battle on the level plain, round the city. Then, I have no doubt we could have beaten them.

"However, all is well that ends well. Roberts has come up in time, and has completely defeated the enemy; still, it would have been more satisfactory had we retrieved Maiwand, by thrashing him single-handed.

"Well, I suppose this is the end of the Afghan war. We have beaten Ayoub: I hope, so effectually that Abdul-Rahman will have no difficulty in dealing with him, in future and, if he really means the professions of friendship which he has made us, we may hope for peace, for some time. Probably the next time we have to fight, in this country, it will be against the Russians and Afghans, united.

"There are men in England who persist in shutting their eyes to the certain consequences of the Russian advance towards the northern frontier of Afghanistan; but the time will come when England will have to rue, bitterly, the infatuation and folly of her rulers.

When that day arrives, she will have to make such an effort, to hold her own, as she has never had to do since the days when she stood, alone, in arms against Europe."

Upon the following day, Will paid a visit to his friends in the Rangers.

"So you got through Maiwand safely!" the colonel said. "Upon my word, I begin to think that you have a charmed life.

"I hear one of your captains died, last night. That gives you your step, does it not?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are the luckiest young dog I ever heard of. You got your commission, within a year of enlisting; and now, by an extraordinary fatality, your regiment is almost annihilated; and you mount up, by death steps, to a captain's rank, nine months after the date of your gazette. In any other regiment in the service, you would have been lucky if you had got three or four steps, by this time."

"I am fortunate, indeed, sir," Will said. "I can scarcely believe it, myself."

"Ah! whom do I see here?" the colonel exclaimed, as a mounted officer rode through the camp. "My old friend, Ripon!

"Ah Ripon, how are you?"

The colonel reined in his horse; and the two officers, who had not met for some years, entered into a warm conversation; while Will strolled away to talk to some of the younger officers, who congratulated him most heartily on the luck which had, in a few months, taken him over their heads.

In the afternoon Will received a note from Colonel Ripon, asking him to dine with him, as Colonel Shepherd was going to do so. Will replied that he would gladly dine, but must be excused for a time, afterwards; as he was on duty, and would have to go the rounds, in the evening.

There were three or four other officers at dinner, as Colonel Ripon had many friends in the relieving column. When dinner was over, Will made his excuses and left; promising to look in again, in a couple of hours, when he had finished his rounds. Soon afterwards, the other young officers left. Colonel Shepherd, only, remained.

"That is a singularly fine young fellow--young Gale, I mean,"

Colonel Shepherd said; "and a singularly fortunate one. I feel quite proud of him. It was upon my advice that he enlisted; but if any one had told me, at the time, that he would be a captain in two years, I should have said that it was absolutely impossible."

"Yes," Colonel Ripon replied, "his luck has been marvelous; but if ever a fellow deserved it, he did. I have a very warm liking--I may say an affection--for him. He saved my life, when I was attacked by some Ghazis here, and must have been killed, had it not been for his promptness, and coolness. He was wounded, too; and we were nursed together, here. Since then I have seen a great deal of him and, the more I see him, the more I like him.

"Do you know anything of him, previous to the time of his enlisting? You told me he joined your regiment, on the day when it arrived at Calcutta. I know nothing of his history, before that.

The subject never happened to occur, in conversation; and it was one upon which I naturally should have felt a delicacy in asking any questions--though I have sometimes wondered, in my own mind, how he came to be penniless in Calcutta; as I suppose he must have been, to have enlisted. Did you happen to hear anything about it?"

"Yes, indeed," Colonel Shepherd answered. "Curiously enough, he was by no means penniless; as he had just received 100 pounds reward, for the services he had rendered in preventing a ship from being captured, by the Malays. I happened to meet its captain on sh.o.r.e, the day I landed; and heard from him the story of the affair--which was as follows, as nearly as I can recollect."

Colonel Shepherd then related, to his friend, the story of the manner in which the brig--when chased by Malays--was saved, by being brought into the reef, by Will.

"Naturally," he went on, "I was greatly interested in the story and--expressing a wish to see the young fellow--he was brought off that evening, after mess, to the Euphrates; and told us how he had been wrecked on the island in a Dutch ship, from which only he, and a companion, were saved. I was so struck with his conduct--and, I may say, by his appearance and manner--that I took him aside into my own cabin, and learned from him the full particulars of his story. I don't think anyone else knows it for, when he expressed his willingness to take my advice, and enlist, I told him that he had better say nothing about his past. His manner was so good that I thought he would pa.s.s well, as some gentleman's son who had got into a sc.r.a.pe and, as I hoped that the time might come when he might step upwards, it was perhaps better that it should not be known what was his origin."

"But what was his origin, Shepherd? I confess you surprise me, for I have always had an idea that he was a man of good family; although in some strange way his education had been neglected for, in fact, he told me one day that he was absolutely ignorant of Latin."

"Well, Ripon, as you are a friend of the young fellow, and I know it will go no further, I will tell you the facts of the case. He was brought up in a workhouse, was apprenticed to a Yarmouth smack man and--the boat being run down in a gale by a Dutch troopship, to which he managed to cling, as the smack sank--he was carried in her to Java. On her voyage thence, to China, he was wrecked on the island I spoke of."

"You astound me," Colonel Ripon said, "absolutely astound me. I could have sworn that he was a gentleman by birth. Not, mind you, that I like or esteem him one iota the less, for what you tell me.

Indeed, on the contrary; for there is all the more merit in his having made his way, alone. Still, you astonish me.

"They tell me," he said, with a smile, "that he is wonderfully like me but, strangely enough, he reminds me rather of my wife. You remember her, Shepherd? For you were stationed at Meerut, at the time I married her there."

Colonel Shepherd nodded and, for a few minutes, the two friends sat silent; thinking over the memories which the words had evoked.

"Strange, is it not," Colonel Ripon went on, arousing himself, "that the child of some pauper parents should have a resemblance, however distant, to me and my wife?"

"Curiously enough," Colonel Shepherd said, "the boy was not born of pauper parents. He was left at the door of the workhouse, at Ely, by a tramp; whose body was found, next morning, in one of the ditches. It was a stormy night; and she had, no doubt, lost her way after leaving the child. That was why they called him William Gale.

"Why, what is the matter, Ripon? Good heavens, are you ill?"

Colonel Shepherd's surprise was natural. The old officer sat rigid in his chair, with his eyes open and staring at his friend; and yet, apparently, without seeing him. The color in his face had faded away and, even through the deep bronze of the Indian sun, its pallor was visible.

Colonel Shepherd rose in great alarm, and was about to call for a.s.sistance when his friend, with a slight motion of his hand, motioned to him to abstain.

"How old is he?" came presently, in a strange tone, from his lips.

"How old is who?" Colonel Shepherd asked, in surprise. "Oh, you mean Gale! He is not nineteen yet, though he looks four or five years older. He was under seventeen, when he enlisted; and I rather strained a point to get him in, by hinting that, when he was asked his age, he had better say under nineteen. So he was entered as eighteen, but I know he was more than a year younger than that.

"But what has that to do with it, my dear old friend? What is the matter with you?"

"I believe, Shepherd," Colonel Ripon said solemnly, "that he is my son."

"Your son!" his comrade exclaimed, astonished.

"Yes, I believe he is my son."

"But how on earth can that be?" his friend asked. "Are you sure that you know what you are saying? Is your head quite clear, old friend?"