Part 10 (1/2)
It's mouth is open wide to eat.
What shall I call it? A gun or a serpent?
This gun is most heavy, and makes victory certain.
There is none like it in India or Kabul.
Made by Ghulam Rasul.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MALAKAND, 1897
As the officers of the Guides were sitting at dinner on the night of July 26th, 1897, a telegram was handed to Colonel Adams informing him that the Malakand position had been attacked by overwhelming numbers, that the garrison was with difficulty holding its own, and asking him to bring up his corps as speedily as possible to its succour.
Accustomed for decades to these sudden appeals, the Guides' cavalry, bag and baggage, supplies, transport, and all complete, were off in three hours, and the Guides' infantry followed them. The march was twenty-nine miles along the flat to Dargai, and then seven miles rise and two thousand feet climb to the summit of the Malakand Pa.s.s. For cavalry, considering the time of year, it was by no means a mean undertaking; for infantry it was one of the highest achievement. To march thirty-six miles under service conditions, in the most favourable circ.u.mstances of weather, temperature, and training, is a high test of endurance; but to do so when the muscles are enervated with heat, along a treeless, waterless road, during the fiercest term of the summer solstice, was a feat to secure the admiration of every soldier. The march was accomplished in sixteen hours, the first twenty-nine miles being covered without any regular halt, and the last seven miles up a mountain on which the blazing afternoon sun was beating its fiercest. Yet not a man fell out, and it is recorded by an eye-witness[24] that as the regiment pa.s.sed the quarter-guards, the men came to attention, and answered the salute as smartly as if just returning from a parade march. The Guides of 1897 had borne themselves no wit less worthily than the Guides of 1857 or the Guides of 1879. To Lieutenant P. Eliott-Lockhart belongs the honour of commanding the Guides' infantry in this fine soldierly performance, and the Distinguished Service Order worthily decorated him for this and other gallant service. To arrive as a reinforcement is to be welcome enough; to arrive by exertions beyond the compa.s.s of calculation, in time to afford a.s.sistance at the critical moment, is the fortune of few. Yet thrice has this good fortune smiled on the efforts of the Guides, at Delhi, at Kabul, and at the Malakand.
[24] _The Story of the Malakand Field Force_; by Winston Spencer Churchill, Lieut. 4th Hussars. London, 1898.
Arrived, and without a moment to rest or ease their belts, these weary, but stout-hearted fellows went straight on outpost duty, that 27th of July, 1897, and spent the livelong night, not in sleep, or even a quiet turn of sentry-go, but in a desperate hand to hand fight with swarms of brave and persistent warriors.
Piece by piece the officers heard the strange story of the sudden rising. It appears that while the officers of the Malakand garrison, in days of profound peace, were playing polo down at Khar, a village three miles away, the villagers came to them with a warning. They said that a very holy mullah from Upper Swat was coming down the valley with a large following to attack the Malakand, and advised the officers to get back to their defences as soon as possible; they even a.s.sisted back the grooms with the spare ponies. Yet these very same friendly villagers a few hours later were caught in the frenzied flame of fanaticism, and were charging with the most devoted bravery breastworks held by troops commanded by the very officers whom they had just helped to save.
Amongst the officers playing polo were Lieutenants Rattray and Minchin, who belonged to the garrison of Chakdara some seven or eight miles up the Swat Valley. To return to their posts they had therefore to pa.s.s right through the tide of armed men flowing down the valley in great numbers. Yet as ill.u.s.trating the chivalrous nature of the wild hillmen, a trait somewhat unusual amongst the more fanatical Pathans, the officers were allowed to pa.s.s unmolested, and indeed here and there a friendly voice bade them make good speed home. The British officer's custom of being out and about doing something, instead of sitting permanently at home studying or playing chess, stood him in good stead on this occasion, giving, as it proved, a good four hours' warning in advance.
It was not till after ten o'clock at night that the carefully planned attacks on the Malakand and Chakdara were delivered simultaneously by great swarms of tribesmen, with a resolution and bravery worthy of the highest admiration. At the Malakand there were many anxious moments, for the position was an extended one, and, by the nature of the ground, difficult for a small garrison to preserve from penetration. It was a night of individual heroism, a soldier's battle, where little knots of men under their officers fought independently, and with undiminished courage, though often cut off from all communication. No less brave was the enemy, and it was not until dawn that he reluctantly withdrew. This was the first of five nights and days through which the British garrison had to stand this stern ordeal.
The first thing to be done when daylight made concerted movements possible, was to contract the perimeter of defence, so as to make it more tenable by the number of troops available. The original garrison was now augmented by the arrival of the Guides, horse and foot. It was with considerable reluctance that Colonel Meiklejohn, who had himself been wounded by a sword-cut, decided on abandoning what was known as the North Camp, a position some distance below and isolated from the Malakand. This camp had been established both to allow the cavalry and pack-animals to be near water, of which there was scarcity on the Malakand itself; and also for sanitary reasons, so as to keep so large a number of animals out of a restricted area. The abandonment of this camp, necessary though it was, undoubtedly had an extraordinarily heartening effect on the enemy. All night they had fought desperately, and lost heavily, without apparently gaining any result; but the retirement of the troops from the North Camp, besides leaving in their hands the large tents and heavy baggage of all sorts, impossible to move at short notice, showed that the garrison also had felt the stress of battle.
Strongly reinforced, and with new heart, so soon as night fell the tribesmen renewed their attack. As ill.u.s.trating the desperate nature of the fighting, out of one picquet of twenty-five men of the 31st Punjab Infantry, the native officer and eighteen men were killed or wounded; while out of another picquet, consisting of the Guides and forty-five Sikhs, twenty-one were killed or wounded; and all this was done in close hand to hand fighting. Lieutenant Lockhart thus describes the scene:
It was a veritable pandemonium that would seem to have been let loose around us. Bands of _ghazis_, worked up by their religious enthusiasm into a frenzy of fanatical excitement, would charge our breastworks again and again, leaving their dead in scores after each repulse, while those of their comrades who were unarmed would encourage their efforts by shouting, with much beating of tom-toms, and other musical instruments. Amidst the discordant din which raged around, we could even distinguish bugle calls, evidently sounded by some _soi-disant_ bugler of our native army. As he suddenly collapsed in the middle of the ”officers' mess call” we concluded that a bullet had brought him to an untimely end.[25]
[25] _A Frontier Campaign_; by the Viscount Fincastle, V.C., Lieutenant 16th Lancers, and P.C. Eliott-Lockhart, D.S.O., Lieutenant Queen's Own Corps of Guides. London, 1898.
The fighting went on all night, and at daybreak the garrison, to show that they were none the worse for it, made a spirited counter attack, the 24th Punjab Infantry under Lieutenant Climo, the senior surviving officer, doing great execution. A desultory fire was kept up by the enemy during the day, while the British force improved their defences.
As darkness fell on the third night, the enemy, undaunted and heavily reinforced from countries as far afield as Buner, again advanced to the attack, the brunt of which fell on the 31st Punjab Infantry, a regiment so depleted by losses that Lieutenant H. Maclean, of the Guides'
cavalry, was requisitioned to give a helping hand. This officer, together with Lieutenants Ford and Swinley, were severely wounded.
Towards morning the attack again died away, and the indomitable garrison still held its own.
On the fourth night, in addition to bonfires placed out in front of the defences, to make the enemy's movements clear, it was decided to try the effect of mines, and portions of a serai, lately occupied by the Sappers and now abandoned, were accordingly undermined. At nightfall the enemy immediately seized this serai as an advance post to further their attack, and when it was crowded the mine was fired with fatal results.
For a time a death-like silence reigned, the enemy being apparently thunderstruck at the awful disaster. Minor attacks, however, were still persisted in, and the tribesmen did not draw off till three in the morning.
A fifth night had barely settled down on the garrison when, undeterred by four unsuccessful and costly attacks, or by the terrors of unseen mines, the enemy again swarmed down on the weary but undismayed defenders. To add to their difficulties, a severe dust storm, followed by torrents of rain, fell on the camp, and at the height of the storm a most determined attack was made on the 45th Sikhs, but was repulsed with great loss. Sitting drenched to the skin the garrison patiently awaited the dawn.
That day, the 31st of July, brought welcome reinforcements, consisting of the 35th Sikhs and the 38th Dogras, under Colonel Reid. Thus strengthened, Colonel Meiklejohn determined to take the offensive, and attempt to force his way to the a.s.sistance of the isolated garrison of Chakdara. The cavalry, consisting of the Guides and 11th Bengal Lancers, were to lead the way, but these regiments before they could get into the open were so strongly attacked in the rocky defiles from which they tried to issue, that they could make no headway and had to return to camp.