The Story of the Guides Part 2

The movement was at once reported by the British outposts, but troops take some few minutes to arm, equip, and form up in line of battle; while the Affghan border warrior moves with a swiftness that may well cause panic and dismay. A young subaltern of the Guides, Lieutenant G.N.

Hardinge, seeing how matters were trending, rode out to the outlying picket of the Guides' cavalry, and there took his stand. It was an anxious moment. Behind him was the hastily arming camp, humming with the bustle of preparation; and before him, advancing across the stony plain, moved a line of skirmishers backed up by closed supports, and followed by great hordes of shouting warriors.

The motionless troop of the Guides stood foremost to meet the shock. On came the hardy tribesmen swiftly and relentlessly; but still, as he looked anxiously back, it was plain to the British subaltern that his comrades were not yet armed to meet the coming storm. "We can only give them one minute more," he said, and stout and steady came the answer: "Yes, your Honour, one minute more." And as they spoke each stalwart trooper gripped his sword still tighter and, shortening his reins, laid the flat of his thigh hard on his wiry neighing stallion; for as of old, so now, the war-horse scented the battle from afar.

The time pa.s.sed very slowly, a minute seeming an eternity to the impatient soldiers. Fifteen seconds--twenty seconds--thirty seconds--for--ty-five seconds--six--ty!

"Carry swords," in a serene and conversational voice remarked the young subaltern; equally smoothly and quietly came the order, "Walk, march."

Then, as the troop moved forward, followed the slightly more animated command, "Trot"; and as the excitement of coming conflict coursed with the wild exuberance of youth through the boy's veins, "Gallop! Charge!"

he yelled, and back came an answering shout, "Fear not, Sahib, we are with you!" And thus was launched on the flood of death a little band of heroes, that they might save an army.

But ever since the day when David slew Goliath, the G.o.d of Battles has not always sided with the big battalions. A few staunch hearts hurled fearlessly at the foe may still, like the ancient slinger's stone, lay low the giant. So on this occasion the effect of the bold attack was magical. Through the thin line of skirmishers, heedless of the spluttering fire, went the troop, like a round shot through a paper screen, and fell like yelling furies on the clumps of swordsmen, pikemen, and any-weapon-men, who formed the supports. These they killed and wounded and scattered like chaff to the wind. And then,--their mission was accomplished! The enemy's advancing ma.s.ses wavered, halted, hesitation and dismay replacing the confident sling-trot of a few minutes before. The surprise had failed, the camp was saved. Then Hardinge, his work accomplished, himself sore wounded, the enemy's standard in his hands, rallied his pursuing troop, and clearing to a flank left displayed the British force drawn up and ready to receive all comers.

To see the right moment and to seize it, to balance the profit and loss, counting one's own life as a feather in the scales, to strike hard and bold whatever the odds,--such are a few simple soldier lessons, learnt not from the scribes, but from a gallant British subaltern.

While Lieutenant Lumsden was in England in 1853 the command of the Guides was given to Lieutenant W.S.R. Hodson. This book would not be complete without relating the story of at any rate one of the many occasions on which this gallant officer, afterwards so famous, showed his fine metal. The fight about to be described was one, too, in which the many brave and devoted officers who have been surgeons to the corps have displayed the greatest gallantry.

For high crimes and misdemeanours it was decided to punish the large and important cl.u.s.ter of villages named Bori, in the land of the Jowaki Afridis, not far from the present military station of Cherat. A brigade of all arms, consisting of the 22nd Foot, 20th Punjab Infantry, 66th Gurkhas (now the 1st Gurkha Rifles), the Corps of Guides, a squadron of Irregular Cavalry, some 9-pounder guns on elephants, and a company of Sappers, the whole under Colonel S.B. Boileau, was detailed for the undertaking. The Bori villages lay in the valley of the same name enclosed by high and rugged mountains, making both ingress and egress in face of practised mountaineers a most difficult operation.

The advance was led by the Guides, who, themselves active as panthers in the hills, drove the Afridis before them through the Bori villages and up the precipitous mountains behind. The main body then set to work to burn and destroy the villages with all the food and fodder therein, and to drive off the cattle. So far, as is often the case in fighting these mountaineers, all had gone well; but now came the crucial time. Afridis may be driven all day like mountain sheep, but when the night begins to fall, and their tired pursuers commence of necessity to draw back to lower levels for food and rest, then this redoubtable foe rises in all his strength, and with sword and gun and huge boulder hurls himself like a demon on his retiring enemy.

At one of the furthest points ahead was Lieutenant F. McC. Turner, who with about thirty men of the Guides had driven a very much superior force of the enemy into a stone breastwork at the top of a high peak.

Here the British officer was held; not an inch could he advance; and now he was called upon to conform with the general movement for retirement.

To retire, placed as he was, meant practical annihilation, so sticking to the rocks like a limpet he blew a bugle calling for reinforcement.

Hodson, who himself was faced by great odds, seeing the serious position of his friend, sent across all the men he could afford to extricate him, but these were not strong enough to effect their purpose. Then it was that Dr. R. Lyell, the surgeon of the Guides, took on himself to carry forward the much needed succour. In reserve lying near him was the Gurkha company of the Guides, and also a company of the 66th Gurkhas under a native officer. Taking these troops, with great dash and personal gallantry he led them to the attack, drove back the already exulting enemy, stormed their position, and extricated Lieutenant Turner and his party from their perilous position. It was a n.o.ble deed, n.o.bly and gallantly carried out; and when it had been achieved, the brave fighter returned to the tender care of the wounded, and to alleviate the pains of the dying.

And now Hodson had got together the threads of his retirement, and using one to help the other, gradually and slowly drew back, covering the brigade with a net of safety. Thus quietly falling back, and meeting wild charges with ball and bayonet, he kept the open valley till all the force had safely pa.s.sed the defile of exit. Then, while the last of his infantry got safely to commanding posts on the lower slopes, he himself, with the ready resource of the born fighter, changed his game, and from the patient role of the steady infantry commander, became a cavalry leader. Mounting his horse and calling on the Guides' cavalry to follow him, he suddenly charged the astonished enemy, and hurling them back with slaughter secured for the rest of his men a peaceful retirement.

But before they laid themselves on the hard ground, this paladin of the fight and his staunch warriors had spent eighteen hours in desperate warfare with little food and no water.

So far as the records show this was the first occasion on which Hodson had led a cavalry charge, and was an auspicious opening to a cavalry career of remarkable brilliancy,--a career which was brought to a brave, but untimely end, only four years later before the walls of Lucknow.

Amongst other historic figures who watched this fight, and who added their generous meed of praise, were John Lawrence, the saviour of the Punjab, who later, as Lord Lawrence, was Viceroy of India, Major Herbert Edwardes, now Commissioner of Peshawur, who as a subaltern had won two pitched battles before Mooltan, and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Napier, afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala and Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India.

CHAPTER V

THE STORY OF DILAWUR KHAN.

The story of Dilawur Khan, subadar of the Guides, is one which kindles many a kindly memory of the rough brave fellows who, under a sprinkling of English officers, upheld British supremacy on the North-West Frontier of India in the early 'fifties.

When Lumsden was raising the Guides he looked about for men who, as he expressed it, were "accustomed to look after themselves and not easily taken aback by any sudden emergency,"--men born and bred to the sword, who had faced death a hundred times from childhood upwards, and who had thus instinctively learnt to be alert, brave, and self-reliant. To these hardy warriors Lumsden explained the simple doctrine that they were enlisted for three years, had to do what they were bid, and would receive a certain fixed salary every month for their trouble.

Soldiers of fortune and dashing young bloods from all the countryside flocked to his standard, and so popular was the corps that there were sometimes as many as thirty of these receiving no pay, and maintaining themselves and their horses, while awaiting a vacancy. And great indeed was the excitement when Lumsden, in his bluff breezy way, would say: "Well, here's a vacancy, and I don't for the life of me know which of you to give it to. Come along down to the rifle-range, and shoot it off amongst yourselves; the best shot gets the vacancy." And off they would go to the range, with all their friends and relations to the fifth generation, and all the partisans in the corps of each compet.i.tor: shooting for the King's Prize at Bisley is a flat and tame proceeding in comparison with this. And as each shot was fired the friends of the compet.i.tor would yell: "_Shahbash_! Bravo! Well shot! Another bull's eye! You will win for certain." While rival interests would with equal emphasis discredit the performance: "This bull's eye was certainly an accident. G.o.d willing he will miss next time. Bravo! let us not lose heart!"

The demeanour of the winner on such occasions would make a Master in Lunacy look grave. The happy young fellow would jump into the air, yelling and pirouetting, brandishing a sword, and at frequent intervals letting off a gun, nominally into the air, while most of his friends did likewise, embracing and congratulating him in the intervals. Without taking a seat amongst the Scribes and Pharisees, it is perhaps permissible to notice that such a scene as this is in curious contrast to that to be seen in any French or German country town when lots are being drawn for conscription. There the youth, who by drawing a lucky number escapes serving his country, is congratulated, feted, and led in procession round the streets.

One hard and fast rule, however, Lumsden made. He would take no low caste men; he would have naught to say to the washermen, sweepers, and fiddlers[7] of the village; he would take only the highest, which in this land is the fighting caste. His argument was one which still holds good. It is not in reason to expect the cla.s.ses which for hundreds of years have been hewers of wood and drawers of water, and for hundreds of years have been accustomed to receive the cuffs and kicks of their village superiors, to face readily the fighting cla.s.ses in the day of battle. The prestige of the soldier would be wanting to them, and prestige counts for as much in the East as elsewhere.

[7] A musician in India is a low caste person.

Yet holding these views, a brave man was a brave man to Lumsden, be his birth or caste what it might be. Most English-speaking people have read Mr. Rudyard Kipling's poem about Gunga Din the _bhisti_, or water-carrier, who by the unanimous verdict of the soldiers was voted the bravest man in the battle. Whether Mr. Kipling got that incident from the Guides or not his poem does not show, but there it actually occurred. The name of the bhisti was Juma, and so gallantly did he behave in action at Delhi, calmly carrying water to the wounded and dying under the most tremendous fire, that the soldiers themselves said: "This man is the bravest of the brave, for without arms or protection of any sort he is in the foremost line; if any one deserves the star for valour this man does." And so the highest distinction open to an Indian soldier was bestowed on Juma the bhisti; and further, the soldiers pet.i.tioned that he should be enlisted and serve in the ranks as a soldier, and no longer be menially employed. Nor was this all: in spite of his low birth, in a country where birth is everything, he rose step by step to be a native officer; and then to crown his glory, in the Afghan War he again won the star for valour, and the clasp which that great distinction carries. But this story is not about Juma, and so we must reluctantly leave him and get to our theme.

At this time it so happened that the most notorious highwayman and outlaw in the whole of Yusafzai was one Dilawur Khan, a Khuttuk of good family belonging to the village of Jehangira, on the Kabul River near its junction with the Indus. Brought up to the priesthood, his wild and impetuous nature and love of adventure could not brook a life of sedentary ease, and therefore, like many a spirited young blood, both before and since, he "took to the road." In his case the step was taken, if not actually with the sanction and blessing of his Church, at any rate with its unofficial consent. In those days the Sikhs held by force the country of the Faithful, and Hindus fattened on its trade. It was no great sin therefore, indeed, an active merit, that the sons of the Prophet, sword in hand, should spoil the Egyptian, by night or by day, as provided for by Allah.

To recount all the adventures of Dilawur would fill a book, and require a Munchausen to write it; but there was about them all a touch of humour, and sometimes of almost boyish fun, accompanied often by the rough courtesies of the gentlemen of the road, which reminds one of d.i.c.k Turpin and other famous exponents of the profession on the highways of England.

Now it so happened that it was at this time one of Lumsden's duties to hunt down and capture Dilawur, who for just and sufficient cause was now an outlaw, with a price on his head of no less than two thousand rupees. Many a time and oft did Lumsden and his men plan and strive, and ride and hide, but no nearer could they get to the capture of Dilawur.

Sitting one evening outside his tent, after yet another unsuccessful attempt, it suddenly occurred to Lumsden that Dilawur must have an astonishingly intimate knowledge of every path, nullah, and pa.s.s in the district to thus evade capture, as well as a remarkably efficient intelligence department, to give him timely warning. "Just the man for the Guides," exclaimed Lumsden. "I'll send for him." A polite note was accordingly written inviting Dilawur Khan to come into the Guides'

camp, at any time and place that fitted in with his other, and doubtless more important, engagements, "to talk matters over." At the same time a free pa.s.sport was sent which would allow of his reaching the camp unmolested. It speaks volumes for the high estimate which British integrity had already earned amongst these rough borderland people, that a man with two thousand rupees on his head could accept such an invitation. For the same man to have accepted a similar invitation from the Sikhs, or even from his own countrymen, would have been an act of culpable and aimless suicide.

One fine day, therefore, Dilawur strolled into camp, and he and Lumsden began "to talk matters over." After compliments, as the Eastern saying is, Lumsden with much heartiness, and in that free and easy manner which was his own, took Dilawur with the utmost candour into his confidence.

"Look here, Dilawur," said he; "you are a fine fellow, and are living a fine free life of adventure, and I daresay are making a fairly good thing out of it. So far, although I have done my best, I have failed to catch you, but catch you I a.s.suredly shall some day. And what do you suppose I shall do with you when I do catch you? Why, hang you as high as Haman,--a gentleman whose history appears in our Good Book. Now, that's a poor ending for a fine soldier like you, and I'll make you an offer, take it or leave it. I'll enlist you, and as many of your men as come up to my standard, in the Guides, and with decent luck you will soon be a native officer, with good fixed pay, and a pension for your old age, and, meanwhile, as much fighting as the greatest glutton can wish for. Well, what do you say?"

Dilawur Khan first stared, thunderstruck at the novelty and unexpectedness of the offer; and then, tickled with the comical side of it, burst into a roar of laughter. It was one of the very best jokes he had ever heard. He, an outlaw, with a price on his head, his sins forgiven, enlisted in the Guides, with the prospect of becoming a native officer! "No, no," he exclaimed, "that won't do"; and, still shaking with laughter, rose to take his leave. And as he walked away he was followed by the hearty and genial voice of Lumsden roaring after him: "Mind, I'll catch you some day, Dilawur, and then I'll hang you, as sure as my name's Lumsden!"

Lumsden, having many other matters on hand, thought nothing more about the matter, till, much to his surprise, one day six weeks later, who should walk calmly into his camp, without pa.s.sport or safe conduct, or anything save serene confidence in the British officer, but Dilawur Khan.

"I've been thinking of what you said," he began, "and I have come to enlist, and as many of my band as you care to take."

"That's right," said Lumsden, with great affability. "I thought you were a sensible fellow, as well as a brave one. I'll take you on."

"I have, however, one condition to make," solemnly continued the outlaw.

"Well, what's that?" asked Lumsden, thinking that he was going to drive some desperate bargain.

"I'll enlist on one condition," replied Dilawur, "and that is, I must be let off doing the goose-step. I really can't stand about on one leg, a laughing-stock amongst a lot of recruits."

"Oh, nonsense," laughed Lumsden; "you'll have to begin at the beginning, like everyone else. The goose-step is one of the foundations of the British Empire. If a king came into the army he'd have to do it. Why, I had to do goose-step myself! Of course you'll have to do it."

So with much good-humoured laughing and chaffing Dilawur Khan enlisted; and for weeks after one of the sights of Yusafzai, which notable chiefs rode many a mile to see, was the dreaded Dilawur, the terror of the Border, peacefully balancing himself on one leg, under the careful tuition of a drill-sergeant of the Guides.

Long years afterwards, when he had reached the highest rank open to him, in one of his friendly talks with Lumsden, he said: "Yes, Sahib, when I enlisted I thought you were one of the most unsophisticated persons I had ever come across. All I took on for was to learn your tricks and strategy, and how British troops were trained, and how they made their _bandobust_[8] for war. Directly I had learnt these things I had intended walking off whence I came, to use my knowledge against my enemies. But by the kindness of G.o.d I soon learnt what clean and straight people the sahibs are, dealing fairly by all, and devoid of intrigue and underhand dealing. So I stopped on, and here I am, my beard growing white in the service of the Queen of England."

[8] _Bandobust_, lit., a tying or binding; any system or mode of regulation discipline; arrangements.

His early religious education had given Dilawur more than the average insight into the intricacies of Mahomedan doctrine, and being possessed of ready wit, and considerable ability in debate, he was ever anxious to enter into doctrinarian discussions with the _mullahs_. Their superst.i.tions especially came in for his lively ridicule, and a good story is told by old native officers ill.u.s.trating his views. One day, Dilawur with a crowd of other pa.s.sengers was crossing the Indus, which there was very deep and rapid, in the ferry-boat. Being over-heavily loaded, the boat, when it felt the strong current, appeared in great danger of filling and sinking. Then the Mahomedans on board with one accord set up loud lamentations, and began to call upon their saints to succour them. "Oh Ali! Oh Hosein! Oh Kaka Sahib! save us,"

they cried. Whereupon Dilawur, not to be outdone, in his turn commenced yelling and shouting vociferously: "Lumsden Sahib! Oh Lumsden Sahib, save me!" "What are you doing, you accursed infidel?" exclaimed the scandalised pa.s.sengers, furiously. "Why do you supplicate Lumsden Sahib? It is enough to sink the boat straight away." "That is easily explained," calmly replied Dilawur. "You are calling on saints who have been dead for ages, while Lumsden Sahib is alive and lives close by. Personally I consider it more sensible to call on a living man than on a dead saint."

On another occasion his enthusiasm in the cause of religious enlightenment nearly cost him his life. When the Amir Dost Mahomed Khan came to Peshawur in 1856, he was accompanied by Hafiz Ji, a leading mullah of Afghanistan and a great doctrinarian; to whom came the learned amongst the Faithful, to discuss the tenets of their religion and to listen to the wisdom of the wise. With them came also Dilawur, full of zeal and thirsting for knowledge, who artlessly introduced so debatable a subject, that the a.s.sembly was thrown into an uproar; and lest worse things might happen unto him, the worthy, but too enquiring, subadar was hustled hastily forth, and requested in future to stick to soldiering, and to avoid bringing his infernal questions to cause discord amongst the chosen of the Prophet. As Dilawur afterwards pathetically remarked, he "didn't think much of a religion which instead of meeting argument with argument only threw stones at the head of the seeker after knowledge." Indeed the occasion seems to have thoroughly unsettled him in the convictions of his youth, for shortly afterwards he finally shook off all connection with the Mahomedan religion, and turning Christian was baptised at Peshawur in 1858.

During the Mutiny he did excellent service, making the famous march to Delhi with the Guides, and serving with them throughout the siege and storming of that place. He served also in the many skirmishes which occurred on the frontier during the next twelve years, getting what he had bargained for on joining, plenty of fighting. And then came that call of duty which asked of the staunch old warrior to lay down his life for the foreign Queen whose good servant he was.