Part 34 (1/2)

The major therefore brought his men to a corner of the rocks, where on two sides, at any rate, attack would be difficult; and there, ordering them to dismount and form square, stood grimly.

A cruel half-hour followed. Man after man of that little band went down before the dropping fire of the enemy. Had the guns been able to command the position, they would have fallen by tens and scores. Major Atherton, in the middle of the square, had his horse shot under him before five minutes were past. Alas! there was no lack of empty saddles to supply the loss, for before a quarter of an hour had gone by, out of a dozen officers scarcely half remained.

Still they stood, waiting for the first boom of the guns at the head of the pa.s.s, and often tempted to break away from their posts and die fighting. For of all a soldier's duties, that of standing still under fire is the hardest.

Captain Forrester, das.h.i.+ng up the defile at the head of the artillery, had been prepared to find a lively skirmish in progress between his own comrades and the handful of Afghans who were luring them on. But when, on emerging on to the plain, he found himself and the guns more than half surrounded by the enemy, and no sign anywhere of Atherton, he felt that the ”brush” was likely to be a very stiff one.

The Afghans had set their hearts on those guns; that was evident by the wild triumphant yell with which they charged down on them. Forrester had barely time to order a halt and swing the foremost gun into action when a pell-mell scrimmage was going on in the very midst of the gunners. The first shot fired wildly did little or no execution, but it warned Atherton that his time was come, and signalled to the troops still toiling up the pa.s.s what to expect when they got through.

That fight round the guns was the most desperate of the day. The Afghans knew that to capture them as they stood, meant the certain annihilation of the British troops as they defiled into the plain.

Forrester knew it, too.

Unlike Atherton, he had no protected sides. The enemy was all round him. The little troop at his command was barely able to cover one side of the square; and the gunners, obliged to fight hand to hand where they stood, were powerless to advance a step. Every moment was golden.

Already a distant bugle-note announced that Atherton's horse had broken loose, and were somewhere within reach--probably cutting their way through the guns. And within a few minutes the head of the column ascending the defile would also come upon the scene. Hold the guns till then, and all might yet be safe.

So decided Captain Forrester, as with a cheery smile on his handsome face he shouted to his men to hold out, and fought like a lion beside the foremost gun.

The Afghans, baffled by the stubborn resistance, and aware of the danger of delay, hurled themselves upon that devoted little bond with a fury before which nothing could stand. Man after man dropped across his gun; but still Forrester shouted to his men and swung his sabre. It was no time for counting heads. He hardly knew whether, when he shouted, thirty, or twenty, or only ten shouted back. All he knew was the enemy had not got the guns yet, and that was sufficient!

A bugle! Five minutes more, and they might still laugh at the foe. The bugle-note came from Atherton's men, who at the first sound of the gun had vaulted with a cheer to their horses and dashed towards the sound.

Many a brave comrade they left behind them, and many more dropped right and left as they cut their way forward. Atherton, at their head, peered eagerly through the dust and smoke. All he could see was a surging ma.s.s of human beings, in the midst of which it was impossible to discern anything but the flash of sabres, and at one spot a few British helmets among the turbans of the enemy. That was enough for Major Atherton.

Towards that spot he waved on his men, and ordered his bugler to sound a rousing signal. The bugler obeyed, and fell at the major's side before the note had well ceased! The struggle round the guns increased and blackened. One after another the British helmets went down, and the wild shouts of the Afghans rose triumphantly above them.

At length Atherton saw a tall figure, bareheaded and black with smoke, spring upon a gun-carriage, and with the b.u.t.t end of a carbine fell two or three of the enemy who scrambled up to dislodge him.

Atherton knew that form among a thousand, and he knew too that Forrester was making his last stand.

”Cheer, men, and come on!” cried he to his men, rising in his stirrups and leading the shout.

The head of the column, just then emerging from the gorge, heard that shout, and answered it with a bugle flourish, as they fixed bayonets and rushed forward to charge. At the same moment, a cheer and the boom of a gun on the left proclaimed that the other half of the column had at that moment reached the plain, and were also bearing down on the enemy's flank.

But Atherton saw and heeded nothing but that tall heroic figure on the carriage. At the first sound of the troopers' shout Forrester had turned his head, smiling, and raised his carbine aloft, as though to wave answer to the cheer. So he stood for a moment. Then he reeled and fell back upon the gun he had saved.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

AN OFFICIAL REPORT.

Scarfe, on the return of the skating party to Wildtree, found himself the hero of the hour. Whether the risk he ran in rescuing his old schoolfellow from his icy bath had been great or small, it had resulted in saving Jeffreys' life, and that was quite sufficient to make a hero of him. Percy, easily impressed by the daring of any one else, and quite overlooking his own share in the rescue, was loud in his praises.

”How jolly proud you must feel!” said he. ”I know I should if I'd saved a fellow's life. That's never my luck!”

”You lent a hand,” said Scarfe, with the complacency of one who can afford to be modest.

And, to do Scarfe justice, until he heard himself credited with the lion's share of the rescue, he had been a little doubtful in his own mind as to how much of it he might justly claim.

”Oh,” said Percy, ”a lot I did! You might as well say Raby lent a hand by lending Jeff her shawl.”