The Drums of the Fore and Aft - Part III

Then the rear-ranks were bidden to close up, and the subalterns dashed
into the stew--alone. For the rear-rank had heard the clamor in front, the
yells and the howls of pain, and had seen the dark stale blood that makes
afraid. They were not going to stay. It was the rushing of the camps over
again. Let their officers go to Hell, if they chose; they would get away
from the knives.

"Come on!" shrieked the subalterns, and their men, cursing them, drew
back, each closing into his neighbor and wheeling round.

Charteris and Devlin, subalterns of the last company, faced their death
alone in the belief that their men would follow.

"You've killed me, you cowards," sobbed Devlin and dropped, cut from the
shoulder-strap to the centre of the chest, and a fresh detachment of his
men retreating, always retreating, trampled him under foot as they made
for the pass whence they had emerged.

I kissed her in the kitchen and I kissed her in the hall.
Child'un, child'un, follow me!
Oh Golly, said the cook, is he gwine to kiss us all?
Halla-Halla-Halla Hallelujah!

The Gurkhas were pouring through the left gorge and over the heights at
the double to the invitation of their regimental Quickstep. The black
rocks were crowned with dark green spiders as the bugles gave tongue
jubilantly:

In the morning! In the morning by the bright light!
When Gabriel blows his trumpet in the morning!

The Gurkha rear-companies tripped and blundered over loose stones. The
front-files halted for a moment to take stock of the valley and to settle
stray boot-laces. Then a happy little sigh of contentment soughed down the
ranks, and it was as though the land smiled, for behold there below was
the enemy, and it was to meet them that the Gurkhas had doubled so
hastily. There was much enemy. There would be amusement. The little men
hitched their _kukris_ well to hand, and gaped expectantly at their
officers as terriers grin ere the stone is cast for them to fetch. The
Gurkhas' ground sloped downward to the valley, and they enjoyed a fair
view of the proceedings. They sat upon the bowlders to watch, for their
officers were not going to waste their wind in assisting to repulse a
Ghazi rush more than half a mile away. Let the white men look to their own
front.

"Hi! yi!" said the Subadar-Major, who was sweating profusely, "Dam fools
yonder, stand close-order! This is no time for close order, it's the time
for volleys. Ugh!"

Horrified, amused, and, indignant, the Gurkhas beheld the retirement--let
us be gentle--of the Fore and Aft with a running chorus of oaths and
commentaries.

"They run! The white men run! Colonel Sahib, may _we_ also do a little
running?" murmured Runbir Thappa, the Senior Jemadar.

But the Colonel would have none of it. "Let the beggars be cut up a
little," said he wrathfully. "'Serves 'em right They'll be prodded into
facing round in a minute." He looked through his field-glasses, and caught
the glint of an officer's sword.

"Beating 'em with the flat--damned conscripts! How the Ghazis are walking
into them!" said he.

The Fore and Aft, heading back, bore with them their officers. The
narrowness of the pass forced the mob into solid formation, and the
rear-rank delivered some sort of a wavering volley. The Ghazis drew off,
for they did not know what reserves the gorge might hide. Moreover, it was
never wise to chase white men too far. They returned as wolves return to
cover, satisfied with the slaughter that they had done, and only stopping
to slash at the wounded on the ground. A quarter of a mile had the Fore
and Aft retreated, and now, jammed in the pass, was quivering with pain,
shaken and demoralized with fear, while the officers, maddened beyond
control, smote the men with the hilts and the flats of their swords.

"Get back! Get back, you cowards--you women! Right about face--column of
companies, form--you hounds!" shouted the Colonel, and the subalterns
swore aloud. But the Regiment wanted to go--to go anywhere out of the
range of those merciless knives. It swayed to and fro irresolutely with
shouts and outcries, while from the right the Gurkhas dropped volley after
volley of cripple-stopper Snider bullets at long range into the mob of the
Ghazis returning to their own troops.

The Fore and Aft Band, though protected from direct fire by the rocky
knoll under which it had sat down, fled at the first rush. Jakin and Lew
would have fled also, but their short legs left them fifty yards in the
rear, and by the time the Band had mixed with the regiment, they were
painfully aware that they would have to close in alone and unsupported.

"Get back to that rock," gasped Jakin. "They won't see us there."

And they returned to the scattered instruments of the Band; their hearts
nearly bursting their ribs.

"Here's a nice show for _us_," said Jakin, throwing himself full length on
the ground. "A bloomin' fine show for British Infantry! Oh, the devils!
They've gone an' left us alone here! Wot 'll we do?"

Lew took possession of a cast-off water bottle, which naturally was full
of canteen rum, and drank till he coughed again.

"Drink," said he, shortly. "They'll come back in a minute or two--you
see."

Jakin drank, but there was no sign of the regiment's return. They could
hear a dull clamor from the head of the valley of retreat, and saw the
Ghazis slink back, quickening their pace as the Gurkhas fired at them.

"We're all that's left of the Band, an' we'll be cut up as sure as death,"
said Jakin.

"I'll die game, then," said Lew, thickly, fumbling with his tiny drummer's
sword. The drink was working on his brain as it was on Jakin's.

"'Old on! I know something better than fightin'," said Jakin, stung by the
splendor of a sudden thought due chiefly to rum. "Tip our bloomin' cowards
yonder the word to come back. The Paythan beggars are well away. Come on,
Lew! We won't get hurt. Take the fife an' give me the drum. The Old Step
for all your bloomin' guts are worth! There's a few of our men coming back
now. Stand up, ye drunken little defaulter. By your right--quick march!"

He slipped the drum-sling over his shoulder, thrust the fife into Lew's
hand, and the two boys marched out of the cover of the rock into the open,
making a hideous hash of the first bars of the "British Grenadiers."

As Lew had said, a few of the Fore and Aft were coming back sullenly and
shamefacedly under the stimulus of blows and abuse; their red coats shone
at the head of the valley, and behind them were wavering bayonets. But
between this shattered line and the enemy, who with Afghan suspicion
feared that the hasty retreat meant an ambush, and had not moved
therefore, lay half a mile of a level ground dotted only by the wounded.

The tune settled into full swing and the boys kept shoulder to shoulder,
Jakin banging the drum as one possessed. The one fife made a thin and
pitiful squeaking, but the tune carried far, even to the Gurkhas.

"Come on, you dogs!" muttered Jakin, to himself, "Are we to play
forhever?" Lew was staring straight in front of him and marching more
stiffly than ever he had done on parade.

And in bitter mockery of the distant mob, the old tune of the Old Line
shrilled and rattled:

Some talk of Alexander,
And some of Hercules;
Of Hector and Lysander,
And such great names as these!

There was a far-off clapping of hands from the Gurkhas, and a roar from
the Highlanders in the distance, but never a shot was fired by British or
Afghan. The two little red dots moved forward in the open parallel to the
enemy's front.

But of all the world's great heroes
There's none that can compare,
With a tow-row-row-row-row-row
To the British Grenadier!

The men of the Fore and Aft were gathering thick at the entrance into the
plain. The Brigadier on the heights far above was speechless with rage.
Still no movement from the enemy. The day stayed to watch the children.

Jakin halted and beat the long roll of the Assembly, while the fife
squealed despairingly.

"Right about face! Hold up, Lew, you're drunk," said Jakin. They wheeled
and marched back:

Those heroes of antiquity
Ne'er saw a cannon-ball,
Nor knew the force o' powder,

"Here they come!" said Jakin. "Go on, Lew:"

To scare their foes withal!

The Fore and Aft were pouring out of the valley. What officers had said to
men in that time of shame and humiliation will never be known; for neither
officers nor men speak of it now.

"They are coming anew!" shouted a priest among the Afghans. "Do not kill
the boys! Take them alive, and they shall be of our faith."

But the first volley had been fired, and Lew dropped on his face. Jakin
stood for a minute, spun round and collapsed, as the Fore and Aft came
forward, the maledictions of their officers in their ears, and in their
hearts the shame of open shame.

Half the men had seen the drummers die, and they made no sign. They did
not even shout. They doubled out straight across the plain in open order,
and they did not fire.

"This," said the Colonel of Gurkhas, softly, "is the real attack, as it
ought to have been delivered. Come on, my children."

"Ulu-lu-lu-lu!" squealed the Gurkhas, and came down with a joyful clicking
of _kukris_--those vicious Gurkha knives.

On the right there was no rush. The Highlanders, cannily commending their
souls to God (for it matters as much to a dead man whether he has been
shot in a Border scuffle or at Waterloo) opened out and fired according to
their custom, that is to say without heat and without intervals, while the
screw-guns, having disposed of the impertinent mud fort aforementioned,
dropped shell after shell into the clusters round the flickering green
standards on the heights.

"Charrging is an unfortunate necessity," murmured the Color-Sergeant of
the right company of the Highlanders.

"It makes the men sweer so, but I am thinkin' that it will come to a
charrge if these black devils stand much longer. Stewarrt, man, you're
firing into the eye of the sun, and he'll not take any harm for Government
ammuneetion. A foot lower and a great deal slower! What are the English
doing? They're very quiet there in the centre. Running again?"

The English were not running. They were hacking and hewing and stabbing,
for though one white man is seldom physically a match for an Afghan in a
sheepskin or wadded coat, yet, through the pressure of many white men
behind, and a certain thirst for revenge in his heart, he becomes capable
of doing much with both ends of his rifle. The Fore and Aft held their
fire till one bullet could drive through five or six men, and the front of
the Afghan force gave on the volley. They then selected their men, and
slew them with deep gasps and short hacking coughs, and groanings of
leather belts against strained bodies, and realized for the first time
that an Afghan attacked is far less formidable than an Afghan attacking;
which fact old soldiers might have told them.

But they had no old soldiers in their ranks.

The Gurkhas' stall at the bazar was the noisiest, for the men were
engaged--to a nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block--with the
_kukri_, which they preferred to the bayonet; well knowing how the Afghan
hates the half-moon blade.

As the Afghans wavered, the green standards on the mountain moved down to
assist them in a last rally. Which was unwise. The Lancers chafing in the
right gorge had thrice despatched their only subaltern as galloper to
report on the progress of affairs. On the third occasion he returned, with
a bullet-graze on his knee, swearing strange oaths in Hindoostani, and
saying that all things were ready. So that Squadron swung round the right
of the Highlanders with a wicked whistling of wind in the pennons of its
lances, and fell upon the remnant just when, according to all the rules of
war, it should have waited for the foe to show more signs of wavering.

But it was a dainty charge, deftly delivered, and it ended by the Cavalry
finding itself at the head of the pass by which the Afghans intended to
retreat; and down the track that the lances had made streamed two
companies of the Highlanders, which was never intended by the Brigadier.
The new development was successful. It detached the enemy from his base as
a sponge is torn from a rock, and left him ringed about with fire in that
pitiless plain. And as a sponge is chased round the bath-tub by the hand
of the bather, so were the Afghans chased till they broke into little
detachments much more difficult to dispose of than large masses.

"See!" quoth the Brigadier. "Everything has come as I arranged. We've cut
their base, and now we'll bucket 'em to pieces."

A direct hammering was all that the Brigadier had dared to hope for,
considering the size of the force at his disposal; but men who stand or
fall by the errors of their opponents may be forgiven for turning Chance
into Design. The bucketing went forward merrily. The Afghan forces were
upon the run--the run of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their
shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek,
up rose the lance-butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper
cantering forward cleared his point. The Lancers kept between their prey
and the steep hills, for all who could were trying to escape from the
valley of death. The Highlanders gave the fugitives two hundred yards'
law, and then brought them down, gasping and choking ere they could reach
the protection of the bowlders above. The Gurkhas followed suit; but the
Fore and Aft were killing on their own account, for they had penned a mass
of men between their bayonets and a wall of rock, and the flash of the
rifles was lighting the wadded coats.

"We cannot hold them, Captain Sahib!" panted a Ressaldar of Lancers. "Let
us try the carbine. The lance is good, but it wastes time."

They tried the carbine, and still the enemy melted away--fled up the hills
by hundreds when there were only twenty bullets to stop them. On the
heights the screw-guns ceased firing--they had run out of ammunition--and
the Brigadier groaned, for the musketry fire could not sufficiently smash
the retreat. Long before the last volleys were fired, the litters were out
in force looking for the wounded. The battle was over, and, but for want
of fresh troops, the Afghans would have been wiped off the earth. As it
was they counted their dead by hundreds, and nowhere were the dead thicker
than in the track of the Fore and Aft.

But the Regiment did not cheer with the Highlanders, nor did they dance
uncouth dances with the Gurkhas among the dead. They looked under their
brows at the Colonel as they leaned upon their rifles and panted.

"Get back to camp, you. Haven't you disgraced yourself enough for one day!
Go and look to the wounded. It's all you're fit for," said the Colonel.
Yet for the past hour the Fore and Aft had been doing all that mortal
commander could expect. They had lost heavily because they did not know
how to set about their business with proper skill, but they had borne
themselves gallantly, and this was their reward.

A young and sprightly Color-Sergeant, who had begun to imagine himself a
hero, offered his water-bottle to a Highlander, whose tongue was black
with thirst. "I drink with no cowards," answered the youngster, huskily,
and, turning to a Gurkha, said, "Hya, Johnny! Drink water got it?" The
Gurkha grinned and passed his bottle. The Fore and Aft said no word.

They went back to camp when the field of strife had been a little mopped
up and made presentable, and the Brigadier, who saw himself a Knight in
three months, was the only soul who was complimentary to them. The Colonel
was heart-broken and the officers were savage and sullen.

"Well," said the Brigadier, "they are young troops of course, and it was
not unnatural that they should retire in disorder for a bit."

"Oh, my only Aunt Maria!" murmured a junior Staff Officer. "Retire in
disorder! It was a bally run!"

"But they came again as we all know," cooed the Brigadier, the Colonel's
ashy-white face before him, "and they behaved as well as could possibly be
expected. Behaved beautifully, indeed. I was watching them. It's not a
matter to take to heart, Colonel. As some German General said of his men,
'they wanted to be shooted over a little, that was all.' To himself he
said: 'Now they're blooded I can give 'em responsible work. It's as well
that they got what they did. 'Teach 'em more than half a dozen rifle
flirtations, that will--later--run alone and bite. Poor old Colonel,
though.'"

All that afternoon the heliograph winked and flickered on the hills,
striving to tell the good news to a mountain forty miles away. And in the
evening there arrived, dusty, sweating, and sore, a misguided
Correspondent who had gone out to assist at a trumpery village-burning and
who had read off the message from afar, cursing his luck the while.

"Let's have the details somehow--as full as ever you can, please. It's the
first time I've ever been left this campaign," said the Correspondent to
the Brigadier; and the Brigadier, nothing loath, told him how an Army of
Communication had been crumpled up, destroyed, and all but annihilated by
the craft, strategy, wisdom, and foresight of the Brigadier,

But some say, and among these be the Gurkhas who watched on the hillside,
that that battle was won by Jakin and Lew, whose little bodies were borne
up just in time to fit two gaps at the head of the big ditch-grave for the
dead under the heights of Jagai.