CHAPTER XXXIV
ONE OF THE LITTLE WARS
The campaign which Shere Ali directed on the borders of Chiltistan is nowmatter of history, and may be read of, by whoso wills, in the Blue-booksand despatches of the time. Those documents, with their paragraphs anddiaries and bare records of facts, have a dry-as-dust look about themwhich their contents very often belie. And the reader will not rise fromthe story of this little war without carrying away an impression of wildfury and reckless valour which will long retain its colours in his mind.Moreover, there was more than fury to distinguish it. Shere Ali turnedagainst his enemies the lessons which they had taught him; and a militaryskill was displayed which delayed the result and thereby endangered theposition of the British troops. For though at the first the neighbouringtribes and states, the little village republics which abound in thoseparts, waited upon the event as Phillips had foretold, nevertheless asthe days passed, and the event still hung in the balance, they took heartof grace and gathered behind the troops to destroy their communicationsand cut off their supplies.
Dick Linforth wrote three letters to his mother, who was living overagain the suspense and terror which had fallen to her lot a quarter of acentury ago. The first letter was brought to the house under the SussexDowns at twilight on an evening of late autumn, and as she recognized thewriting for her son's a sudden weakness overcame her, and her hand soshook that she could hardly tear off the envelope.
"I am unhurt," he wrote at the beginning of the letter, and tears ofgratitude ran down her cheeks as she read the words. "Shere Ali," hecontinued, "occupied a traditional position of defence in a narrowvalley. The Kohara river ran between steep cliffs through the bed of thevalley, and, as usual, above the cliffs on each side there werecultivated maidans or plateaus. Over the right-hand maidan, theroad--_our_ road--ran to a fortified village. Behind the village, a deepgorge, or nullah, as we call them in these parts, descending from a sideglacier high up at the back of the hills on our right, cut clean acrossthe valley, like a great gash. The sides of the nullah wereextraordinarily precipitous, and on the edge furthest from us stonesangars were already built as a second line of defence. Shere Alioccupied the village in front of the nullah, and we encamped six milesdown the valley, meaning to attack in the morning. But the Chiltisabandoned their traditional method of fighting behind walls and standingon the defence. A shot rang out on the outskirts of our camp at threeo'clock in the morning, and in a moment they were upon us. It wasreckoned that there were fifteen thousand of them engaged from first tolast in this battle, whereas we were under two thousand combatants. Wehad seven hundred of the Imperial Service troops, four companies ofGurkhas, three hundred men of the Punjab Infantry, three companies of theOxfordshires, besides cavalry, mountain batteries and Irregulars. Theattack was unexpected. We bestrode the road, but Shere Ali brought hismen in by an old disused Buddhist road, running over the hills on ourright hand, and in the darkness he forced his way through our lines intoa little village in the heart of our position. He seized the bazaar andheld it all that day, a few houses built of stone and with stones uponthe roof which made them proof against our shells. Meanwhile the slopeson both sides of the valley were thronged with Chiltis. They were armedwith jezails and good rifles stolen from our troops, and they had someold cannon--sher bachas as they are called. Altogether they caused usgreat loss, and towards evening things began to look critical. They hadfortified and barricaded the bazaar, and kept up a constant fire from it.At last a sapper named Manders, with half a dozen Gurkhas behind him, ranacross the open space, and while the Gurkhas shot through the loop holesand kept the fire down, Manders fixed his gun cotton at the bottom of thedoor and lighted the fuse. He was shot twice, once in the leg, once inthe shoulder, but he managed to crawl along the wall of the houses out ofreach of the explosion, and the door was blown in. We drove them out ofthat house and finally cleared the bazaar after some desperate fighting.Shere Ali was in the thick of it. He was dressed from head to foot ingreen, and was a conspicuous mark. But he escaped unhurt. The enemy drewoff for the night, and we lay down as we were, dog-tired and with nofires to cook any food. They came on again in the morning, clouds ofthem, but we held them back with the gatlings and the maxims, and towardsevening they again retired. To-day nothing has happened except thearrival of an envoy with an arrogant letter from Shere Ali, asking why weare straying inside the borders of his country 'like camels withoutnose-rings.' We shall show him why to-morrow. For to-morrow we attack thefort on the maidan. Good-night, mother. I am very tired." And the lastsentence took away from Sybil Linforth all the comfort the letter hadbrought her. Dick had begun very well. He could have chosen no betterwords to meet her eyes at the commencement than those three, "I amunhurt." But he could have chosen no worse with which to end it. For theyhad ended the last letter which her husband had written to her, and hermind flew back to that day, and was filled with fore-bodings.
But by the next mail came another letter in his hand, describing how thefort had been carried at the point of the bayonet, and Shere Ali drivenback behind the nullah. This, however, was the strongest position of all,and the most difficult to force. The road which wound down behind thefort into the bed of the nullah and zigzagged up again on the far sidehad been broken away, the cliffs were unscaleable, and the stone sangarson the brow proof against shell and bullet. Shere Ali's force wasdisposed behind these stone breastworks right across the valley on bothsides of the river. For three weeks the British force sat in front ofthis position, now trying to force it by the river-bed, now under coverof night trying to repair the broken road. But the Chiltis kept goodwatch, and at the least sound of a pick in the gulf below avalanches ofrocks and stones would be hurled down the cliff-sides. Moreover, whereverthe cliffs seemed likely to afford a means of ascent Shere Ali haddirected the water-channels, and since the nights were frosty thesepoints were draped with ice as smooth as glass. Finally, however, Mrs.Linforth received a third letter which set her heart beating with pride,and for the moment turned all her fears to joy.
"The war is over," it began. "The position was turned this morning. TheChiltis are in full flight towards Kohara with the cavalry upon theirheels. They are throwing away their arms as they run, so that they maybe thought not to have taken part in the fight. We follow to-morrow. Itis not yet known whether Shere Ali is alive or dead and, mother, it wasI--yes, I your son, who found out the road by which the position couldbe turned. I had crept up the nullah time after time towards the glacierat its head, thinking that if ever the position was to be taken it mustbe turned at that end. At last I thought that I had made out a way upthe cliffs. There were some gullies and a ledge and then some rockswhich seemed practicable, and which would lead one out on the brow ofthe cliff just between the two last sangars on the enemy's left. Ididn't write a word about it to you before. I was so afraid I might bewrong. I got leave and used to creep up the nullah in the darkness tothe tongue of the glacier with a little telescope and lie hidden all daybehind a boulder working out the way, until darkness came again andallowed me to get back to camp. At last I felt sure, and I suggested theplan to Ralston the Political Officer, who carried it to theGeneral-in-Command. The General himself came out with me, and I pointedout to him that the cliffs were so steep just beneath the sangars thatwe might take the men who garrisoned them by surprise, and that in anycase they could not fire upon us, while sharpshooters from the cliffs onour side of the nullah could hinder the enemy from leaving their sangarsand rolling down stones. I was given permission to try and a hundredGurkhas to try with. We left camp that night at half-past seven, andcrept up the nullah with our blankets to the foot of the climb, andthere we waited till the morning."
The years of training to which Linforth had bent himself with a definiteaim began, in a word, to produce their results. In the early morning heled the way up the steep face of cliffs, and the Gurkhas followed. One ofthe sharpshooters lying ready on the British side of the nullah said thatthey looked for all the world like a black train of ant
s. There werethirteen hundred feet of rock to be scaled, and for nine hundred of itthey climbed undetected. Then from a sangar lower down the line where thecliffs of the nullah curved outwards they were seen and the alarm wasgiven. But for awhile the defenders of the threatened position did notunderstand the danger, and when they did a hail of bullets kept them intheir shelters. Linforth followed by his Gurkhas was seen to reach thetop of the cliffs and charge the sangars from the rear. The defenderswere driven out and bayoneted, the sangars seized, and the Chilti forceenfolded while reinforcements clambered in support. "In three hours theposition, which for eighteen days had resisted every attack and held theBritish force immobile, was in our hands. The way is clear in front ofus. Manders is recommended for the Victoria Cross. I believe that I amfor the D.S.O. And above all the Road goes on!"
Thus characteristically the letter was concluded. Linforth wrote it witha flush of pride and a great joy. He had no doubt now that he would beappointed to the Road. Congratulations were showered upon him. Down uponthe plains, Violet would hear of his achievement and perhaps claimproudly and joyfully some share in it herself. His heart leaped at thethought. The world was going very well for Dick Linforth that night. Butthat is only one side of the picture. Linforth had no thoughts to spareupon Shere Ali. If he had had a thought, it would not have been one ofpity. Yet that unhappy Prince, with despair and humiliation gnawing athis heart, broken now beyond all hope, stricken in his fortune as sorelyas in his love, was fleeing with a few devoted followers through thedarkness. He passed through Kohara at daybreak of the second morningafter the battle had been lost, and stopping only to change horses,galloped off to the north.
Two hours later Captain Phillips mounted on to the roof of his house andsaw that the guards were no longer at their posts.