FROM THE OUTPOSTS. WANA. EVEN a full moon, which and girdled with hills, those on does a lot for desolate places, failed to tone down the ghastly desolation of the pass in the jaws of which the force lay. Its rocks, cliffs, and stony plateaux kept an eloquent silence as to the history of the place, an unbroken record of blood. If it was a thirsty land, the thirst was not for water but for blood, and it had been slaked in every possible way that the brain of man could devise-by raid, onfall, bushment, stabbing, shooting,-and was, and is still, thirsty. A stream burbled over the rocks. It issued from one narrow defile or tangi, spread itself over a little space of flat, and disappeared into the dark of another tangi-a furtive stream whose waters had too often been stained. On both sides of the water, and between the two tangis, lay the force, secure within its cordon of piquets posted far above them on the cliffs. Next morning it marched, the heights on either side of its road having been previously seized and held. As the tail of the column passed these piquets they descended to the road, and added to the most vulnerable part of a moving column, its rear. So it arrived on a bleak upland plateau, of great extent its farther or northern extremity being snow-clad mountains, with pine forests showing black on their lower slopes. Here the force, or, to give it its proper title, the Delimitation Escort, went into permanent camp. A High Commissioner had been sent through the passes to delimitate a doubtful boundary. And as the country and the people amongst which the boundary was to lie were both very rough and very tough, the High Commissioner had been given an escort : a tolerably strong one-three battalions, a battery of mountain guns, a squadron of cavalry, some sappers, and the necessary oddments; the whole under a general, who was an old hand at this sort of business. The Escort went into a perimeter camp-that is, it was packed close within a completely surrounding defence. The High Commissioner set up his huge pavilions outside the camp. On all sides stretched a plain, in appearance perfectly level and smooth. But from the hills three miles away in one direction a nullah, eroded by rainstorms into the semblance of a deep railway cutting, ran right out into the plain, and passed one side of the camp and some few hundred yards from it. It gave a convenient and quite invisible avenue of approach from hills to camp, and a good gathering spot for an assaulting force. This was a fact patent to all. But as the force was not an expeditionary force, nor in any sense of the word at war, but merely an escort to a delimitating High Commissioner, the position for camp had been chosen from its nearness to water rather than from its tactical invulnerability. Of the three battalions in camp, one bore the letters P.F.F. (Punjab Frontier Force) after its name, another consisted largely of Afridis, and the third was a Gurkha regiment. The Piffer regiment on arriving in camp, and as a matter of ancient routine, immediately tucked itself away behind a stout breastwork of stones and a good ditch on the far side of it. The Afridi regiment, which, from its composition, presumably knew what it was about, and the Gurkhas, who were a well-blooded lot and quite alive to frontier ways, were not so careful, and did not erect such a high breastwork as the Piffers, and they omitted the ditch. It was close to the Gurkha front of the camp that the deep nullah ran. Each regiment held an allotted portion of the camp perimeter, and, as always on these occasions, tents were pitched all round and just inside the perimeter, so that occupants could step straight from tent to their posts on the breastwork. To the cavalry, who were also Piffers, was allotted a small length of perimeter to hold with dismounted men. Their horses were well inside the camp. Some guns were also on the perimeter, the battery headquarters and mules being well in the interior, together with hospitals, transport animals, mules, and camels. There was a constant procession of maliks, or headmen, to and from the High Commissioner's tents outside the camp, and to these men the lie of the the camp, the positions of units in it, and the nature of the defences were therefore no secrets. Before many Tribesmen of the North-West Frontier never relish the presence of armed forces, however peaceful their intentions, within tribal limits. days had passed political officers began to talk of trouble brewing, and hinted at an attack on the force. Every one said "Good business," and began to think of medals, or rather of clasps to the old N.W.F. medal with its blue and red ribbon, which nearly every one there already possessed. Incidentally these hopes were not disappointed, and again incidentally this was to be the last occasion on which that old medal and familiar ribbon, the former showing our young Queen's head, and both having been on issue during the last fifty years, were to be awarded. Senior officers already possessed five, six, or more clasps, at the end of which dangled (on rare occasions) the single medal The same thing happened on which represented such fre- two succeeding occasions, and quent war service. The sands of Egypt offered more prolific soil for decorations; for there a short little campaign of a few months' duration, and under the most perfect limelight, never produced less than two, and often more, decorations per head. And with such splendid ribbons, too! On receipt of these rumours of impending attack, no alterations were made in the dispositions of the Escort, nor were the High Commissioner's tents brought within the perimeter. Presumably this was on the principle that geese laying golden eggs are immune from slaughter. That High Commissioners are geese I do not affirm, but that they do lay golden eggs is a matter of common knowledge, and hungry tribesmen are fond of this kind of egg. So the White Tabs, which are the mark and badge by which you shall know the political and civil officer when in khaki, lay without the defences and held jirgahs. Jirgahs are pow-wows conducted in Pushtu, which is the language of these tribesmen, and are dear to all who summon them and to all who attend them, but unspeakably dilatory and boring to soldiers. From information received, it was now announced that an attack would take place on a certain night and at a certain hour. The force stood to arms throughout the night, and went to bed very cold after dawn. on each the force stayed up all night, and went to bed not only cold but cursing politicals and tribesmen - chiefly politicals. And yet a fourth time word went round: No lights and stand to arms till after dawn. This attack was timed to be delivered on the stroke of mid night. The camp lay too far from any hills to piquet them at night. They were held by day, and patrols moved everywhere. But at night all troops lay within the camp, save for a few small "warning" posts, stationed a hundred yards or so outside the perimeter, behind little breastworks of their own. Their function was to shoot and skedaddle; but neither the day piquets nor patrols had seen a vestige of any movement or gathering. Darkness fell on the camp, and silence. For all the sounds that came from it, it might have held sleepers only. There had been clouds and a little snow during the day, and night closed in very dark and with an icy wind. A perfect night for a rush on the camp, and a very imperfect one to await it, crouching behind parapets. Midnight came and went. One o'clock and a dark night. Two o'clock and a cold one. Three o'clock-would it ever come? It did, but four o'clock came yet slower, with more cold and no less darkness. At last five o'clock-the chilliest hour -was approaching, the hour when night, with a final tweak the tents, sentries every fifty at blue noses, vanishes. The yards along the breastwork, General thought of his shiver- guards just behind them, and ing men crouching behind the those lonely little posts outbreastwork. He looked at his side camp, each of four or watch, and again he looked, five men, blowing on their and yet again. That took him fingers and counting the motill 5.30 A.M.-half an hour to ments till relief time. Had dawn. He put his watch back but one man of them tiptoed in its pocket, held a murmured forward a couple of hundred consultation with his Brigade- yards and peeped into that Major, and presently silent nullah! But orders were strict-there were to be no casual movements from behind wall or or breastwork between dusk and dawn. the Orderly Officer vanished quietly into the gloom. Leaving the usual guards and sentries on the perimeter and the warningposts outside, troops were to turn into tents, armed, and ready to turn out at a moment's notice. These were pitched, as before-mentioned, so that egress could be made from them straight to the breastwork-a matter of a few strides. Picture, then, some 2000 chilly men flitting silently into The Gurkhas thus turned into their tents with the rest, and as they were on the windward perimeter and the cutting breeze blew right into their tents, they laced them up. This was the state of affairs at 5.40 A.M. At 5.45 A.M. came a fearful jackal yell. II. nullah. Now let us turn to that to the attack of the Unbeliever. A gathering-place was named, and the Fiery Cross, or its equivalent, rushed abroad over stony hillside and barren upland. For days past a pestilent moollah, or priest, had been on the rampage. He spat out curse and exhortation to ears easily enough inflamed, and to souls ready to imbibe a great deal of hatred seasoned with a little religion. Eld counselled restraint, but wagged its grey beard ineffectually at Youth, who was neither to hold nor to bind. A few days up and down the country did it. The moollah set going a tide which swept all with it From tower to tower it passed, from cave to cavefor many hereabouts in winter dwelt in caves; and hordes of those lean, valiant, dirty, and fanatical tribesmen came to the tryst, well back in the hills, at the hour of midnight, and here the moollah treated them to a final sermon. After this, percolation down that nullah began-swordsmen, fired. a-many; jezailchis and match- shot, and one only, had been lock men, a goodly number; and the fortunate possessors of stolen service rifles, a few. With them the moollah, still booming curses, till they bade him cease. The nullah was packed with moving armed men, silent; and their feet, sandalled with fibre from the dwarf palm, gave scarcely a sound. A long hour or more they waited in the nullah at the point where it passed nearest to camp, and here they quietly marshalled their order of battle. A band of several hundred swordsmen, anxious to slay and loot, but ready to die in so good a cause, was to lead the rush. Once within the camp the mass behind them was to follow, or said they would. Among them the moollah, or said he would. The assault was to be delivered at the darkest hour, just before dawn. The moollah had promised a dark night, and dark it was. He had promised a scuffling wind, which would help a complete surprise, and behold! it blew and scuffled across the plain twenty feet above them. The next instant the swordsmen were at the parapet, and the next were over it and into camp. The sentries fired, and the guards ran up. But these failed to check for one moment the rush. And now the tribesmen were at the tents, slashing at the ropes or at any head or hand that showed from within. Many tents went down, and their occupants were slaughtered as they lay beneath the canvas. Groups lingered here; other groups passed on towards the hospitals, cutting up screaming followers, rushing here, there, and everywhere-dark figures appearing and vanishing. None could tell friend from foe. All this within some two minutes of the first rush. The silent camp became immediately alert. But two regiments were on the perimeter distant from the direction of the attack, able to hear the uproar, but to know nothing and to do nothing. Here they stood facing two ways, the half of them turned outwards to their front, looking into the darkness, for from this direction attack might come, and half faced inwards. In the one direction there was nothing to shoot at; in the other an enemy certainly, but friends also. No shooting possible that way. And not a shot was fired. Good discipline this. The ranks stood steady and silent, and within So at 5.45 A.M.-this by the Brigade-Major's watch and not by any that the tribesmen carried, you may be surecame that fearful yell. A quick scuttering of sandalled feet had preceded it, and the yell had occurred when the warning-posts had been reached, overwhelmed, cut to pieces. So sudden had been the onrush, and from such utter darkness a few yards raged pandehad it come, that one warning monium. It was mentioned |