Adam Khel Afridis. This was the subadar or senior native officer of the Gurkha company, named Kaur Singh, a man remarkable even amongst Gurkhas for exceptional gallantry. On this occasion, as the Guides were driving the enemy towards the city through the enclosures of the Sabzi Mandi suburb, Kaur Singh saw three of the mutineers firing from the shelter of a house. Without hesi

tation he dashed into the building, his kukri or Gurkha knife in his hand, and alone engaged and despatched all three of his opponents. He himself escaped unhurt, but unfortunately he was mortally wounded a few days later. On the 3d July Hodson wrote in his diary: "Kaur Singh, the little Gurkha subadar, who won won the order of merit in that stiff affair at Boree in '53, is gone." So exceptional were the services of this native officer, that on his death a commission in the Guides was given to his son, Kharak Singh, then a boy of about twelve years old.

The reappearance of Hodson's name in connection with the Guide Corps should be explained. On the 19th June Captain Daly, the commandant, was severely wounded at the head of the Guides cavalry, when charging a vastly superior force of mutineers. The enemy had managed to turn the right flank of the British position, and were threatening the rear of the camp. No infantry could be spared to meet this attack, for every available man was in the fighting line against the mutineers' simultaneous onslaught on the main position. Such small force of artillery and cavalry as could be mustered had to bear the brunt of the attack on the rear. The enemy were sheltered by banks and walls, and any free movement

of cavalry against them was impossible; but it quickly became evident that if something could not be done to stop their advance, there was danger of the guns being captured and the camp rushed. In this emergency Daly, with a very small body of the Guides, gallantly charged into the enclosed ground in front, and by his timely intervention saved the guns from capture. He was, as has been said, severely wounded, and the corps having now lost its two senior officers, Lieutenant Hodson was placed in temporary command, in addition to his other arduous duties as Intelligence officer with the force, and commandant of a newly raised regiment of horse.

Amongst many instances of individual gallantry on the part of the native ranks during the daily fighting outside Delhi, the following is noticeable as illustrating the extraordinarily dauntless spirit which animated the soldiers of the Guide Corps. On the 9th of July the rebel cavalry, aided by the treachery of a picket of the 9th Irregular Cavalry, a regiment which up to that time had been believed to be loyal, managed to surprise the rear of the British position and to charge the camp. As the enemy bore down on the lines, where the cavalry were hastily mounting and the guns being brought into action, a ressaldar of the Guides, Muhammad Khan by name, whose horse happened to be standing ready for him to mount, leapt into the saddle, and without waiting for support galloped alone to meet the advancing rebels. Regardless of the odds against him, or of the almost certain death towards which he was hastening, his only thought was to meet the foe in deadly combat, and it was only with difficulty that he was prevented by Major Tombs of

the Artillery from thus engaging the enemy single-handed. Ulti mately the rebels were stopped by a few rounds of grape from the guns, and as they turned about and endeavoured to make good their retreat, Muhammad Khan was foremost in pursuit, and cut down several of them before they could regain shelter.

The temptation is great to linger over deeds such as these, in which British officers, as well as all the native ranks of the Guides, vied with one another in establishing a record of gallantry unsurpassed by any corps even amongst the gallant regiments of the Delhi Field Force. Hodson's raid on Rohtak, the battle of Najafgarh,

besides numberless skirmishes round the camp, and incessant picket and patrolling duties, all gave evidence of the value of these boldest of the frontier soldiery. But it is not possible here to give a detailed chronicle of the actions in which the Guides were engaged, and it must suffice to notice briefly the last scene of that memorable siege on the day when the assaulting columns under Nicholson, Jones, and Campbell broke through the mutineers' defence and established themselves within the walls of Delhi. The Guides infantry was detailed on the day of the assault to join the 4th column, under Major Reid, of the Gurkhas. Their task was perhaps more trying than that of any other column,

and the resistance encountered

was most stubborn. Readers of Lord Roberts's lately published Memoirs will recall how the 4th column, deprived early in the day of its gallant leader, was called on to fight its way from the right of the British camp to the Kabul gate, through the walled lanes

between that gate and the Sabzi Mandi; and how, after most gallant efforts against very superior numbers, the column, sadly reduced in strength, was obliged to fall back. This retirement was covered by the cavalry brigade, including the Guides cavalry, whose steadiness in the most trying circumstances was a brilliant feature of this day of heroism.

"I have been in a good many fights Hodson's second in command, "but now," wrote Lieutenant MacDowell, always under such a heavy fire as this with my own regiment, and there is always excitement cheering on your men, who are replying to the enemy's fire; but here we were in front of a for cavalry, under a fire of musketry lot of gardens perfectly impracticable which I have seldom seen equalled, the enemy quite concealed. . . . Had we retired, they would at once have taken our guns. Had the guns retired with us, we should have lost the position."

It was during these trying two hours that a gallant attempt was made by a party of the Guides infantry to silence one of the enemy's batteries :

"A party consisting of eighty of the Guides infantry came down to our support, and, though so small a number, went gallantly into the gardens and took up a position in a house close to the battery. I regret, however, to say the officer in command, a most gallant young fellow, Lieutenant Bond, was wounded in the head, and had to be taken away; but the Guides held out most bravely till they got surrounded in the house and were in great danger." 1

With this day's work ended the siege of Delhi, during the three months of which the Guide Corps had suffered to the extent of 303 killed and wounded out of a total strength of 650.

The Guides remained for three months more at Delhi, but they did not accompany the columns which marched down country against the mutineers of Oudh. The fall of Delhi had saved the Punjab, and with this event the reason for their employment at a distance from the legitimate field for their exploits, the North-West Frontier, disappeared. The corps commenced their return march on December 18, and reached Peshawar on the 2d February 1858. There they were received by a general parade of the troops in garrison, a royal salute was fired in their honour, and they were greeted in eloquent words by Major-General Sidney Cotton, commanding the division. "We feel proud," he said, "of being reassociated with men whose deeds of daring have earned our noble profession never-dying fame." The Hon. the Court of Directors, in a letter to the Government of India, expressed their fullest concurrence in Major-General Cotton's sentiments, and placed on record their deep sense of the fidelity and heroic gallantry of the Guides under "their gallant commander, Major Daly."

During the campaign 4 British officers and 127 native officers and men either were killed or died; 8 British officers and 222 of the native ranks were wounded. 24 of the native ranks were decorated and 54 promoted for gallantry in the field.

The years which followed the great Mutiny were marked in India rather by drastic civil and military reforms than by stirring incident. In this period of inaction, however, the Guides had no share. On the frontier one little war followed another in rapid succession, and in all, or nearly all, the corps took a prominent part. The Black Mountain expedition of '58 was followed a few months later by that against the Waziris, when the Guides were once more led by their gallant founder, Major Lumsden. In the spring of 1860

came

a considerable expedition against the Mahsud Waziris, and it was on this occasion that the warriors of that wild tribe first employed against our forces the stratagem which they repeated with only too much success in November 1894. Part of the British force was encamped near the village of Patosin, when in the early dawn of the 23d April the camp was suddenly rushed by some 3000 Waziris. For a few minutes the confusion was great, but the steadiness of the Guides soon stemmed the fury of the attack, and a bayonet charge of 200 men under Lieutenant Bond rapidly cleared the camp. The loss, however, in the pickets and amongst the campfollowers was serious, amounting to a native officer, 14 fighting men, and 18 followers killed, and 61 fighting men and 13 followers wounded.

We can but glance very briefly at the Ambela campaign, which, having been begun with insufficient strength, was protracted through two long months at the end of 1863. Few of our frontier wars have been more productive of brilliant deeds than this, and few such deeds surpass in daring

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and readiness the action of Dafadar Fakira of the Guides cavalry at the beginning of the campaign. This non-commissioned officer was on duty with three so wars as night patrol in the Guides camp on the 3d September 1863. Patrolling in the neighbourhood of the camp, the party of four came suddenly in the dark on a body of some 300 of the enemy advancing with the intention of effecting a surprise. Without a moment's hesitation the patrol charged the tribesmen with loud shouts, whereupon the latter, imagining that their plans had been betrayed and that they had fallen into an ambush, turned and fled without striking a blow.

The Ambela campaign terminated on the 21st December, and from this date began a period of unusual inactivity for the Corps of Guides, which, with the exception of some short intervals of active service, lasted for fourteen years.

But the reputation of the corps had been made already in the eventful years some of the incidents of which have been described in the foregoing pages, and throughout the Indian army it was felt that the honour had been well earned when, in commemoration of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, his Royal Highness was appointed honorary colonel of the Guides, while at the same time her Majesty 66 was graciously pleased to confer on the corps the distinction of being styled 'Queen's Own,' and of wearing on their colours and appointments the royal cypher within the garter." This was the first occasion on which such complimentary titles had been conferred on any regiments of the Indian army, and the Guides shared the honour of being called the " Queen's Own" with the 2d Bengal Light Infantry, a regiment

distinguished by having the longest list of victories on their colours of any corps in India, as well as by having maintained an unsullied reputation for fidelity throughout the trying months of 1857. The only other Indian corps which was similarly honoured was that of the Madras Sappers and Miners, whose reputation then, as now, extended wherever the army of India has borne arms.

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Passing over the Jowaki expedition of 1877, the campaigns in Afghanistan in 1878-80 demand notice. Here, as might be expected, the Corps of Guides had a prominent part to play, being engaged in Sir Sam Browne's attack on Ali Masjid, and in all the principal operations of the first campaign in the country round the Khaibar Pass. Of these, the last was the expedition against the Khugiani tribe in the neighbourhood of the town of Fatehabad. The column, which was about 1200 strong, included the cavalry of the Guides under Major Wigram Battye, and was manded by Brigadier-General C. S. Gough, who, as a subaltern, had been attached to the Guide Corps during the siege of Delhi. The hostile tribesmen were encountered in great force near Fatehabad on the 2d April 1879. Having been lured from their position by a feigned retirement, the enemy were first shaken by infantry fire, and then charged in the most dashing manner by the small cavalry force composed of detachments of the 10th Hussars and of the Guides. The latter behaved with all their old gallantry, completely breaking down the enemy's resistance, and inflicting on them severe loss. Lieutenant W. R. P. Hamilton was conspicuous in the fight, and earned the Victoria Cross by his conduct, while six of the native

ranks were decorated for gallantry. But the satisfaction at the success of the action was sadly marred by the losses sustained by the corps. Not only were three of the men killed and thirty wounded, three of them mortally, but in addition the Guides had to mourn the death of the gallant Major Battye, who was shot down at the head of his men. Like his brother Quentin, who fell in his first fight outside the walls of Delhi, Wigram Battye was beloved by all who knew him, as much as admired for his soldierly qualities. Few men are mourned as he was, yet one cannot but feel how just were the words of his general, Sir Sam Browne :

"It is some consolation to me, in mourning over his loss, to feel that he died, as he would have wished, at the head of his gallant Guides. Throughout his brief yet distinguished career, he conducted himself in his private capacity as a high-minded English gentleman, in his public life as an able, chivalrous soldier; and it seems fitting that to such a life the death of a hero should have been accorded."

1

So ended the first campaign of the second Afghan war, during the whole of which (to quote again from the despatches) the infantry of the Guides had "more than acted up to their old reputation," while the cavalry had, as ever, shown themselves to be "a model of what light horsemen should be."

The tranquillity which followed the peace of Gandamak was of short duration. On the 26th June 1879 the newly appointed Resident at Kabul, Major Sir Pierre Louis Cavagnari, left Kohat with his escort : on the 4th September India was horrified by the news of the massacre of the whole party.

The escort was composed of twentyfive cavalry and fifty-two infantry of the Guides, the whole under the command of Lieutenant Hamilton, who had earned the V.C. for his gallantry at Fatehabad. From the date of their arrival at Kabul signs and rumours were not wanting of the ill favour with which they were regarded by both populace and soldiery, and in the early morning of the 3d September the smouldering fire burst forth. The exact details of that day will never be accurately known, for no credible eyewitness of what happened survived to tell the tale. But the main facts are a sufficient record of heroic and determined courage fighting to the death against fearful odds. The Residency, where the British were attacked, was commanded on all sides, nor could it be termed in any way defensible. Nevertheless the little band of eighty men held the armed populace of a great city at bay there from seven in the morning till eight at night, and the struggle only ceased when the doors of their frail fortress were battered in and the few who remained alive were shot down by the mob. Four times did the defenders sally out and charge their opponents, and before them the Afghans fled "like sheep before a wolf"; but each time the leaders and men from the Residency were fewer in number, and at length the band which remained were driven to defend themselves in the upper storey, till the approaches to that too were forced. Seldom has dastardly treachery been faced so boldly, nor can his tory show a finer example of unfaltering and desperate courage. Lieutenant Hamilton and his men were worthy of their famous regiment. On the capture of Kabul