When I entered upon my duties in the stock room I began to feel my way through this great department and to learn whom I had to meet in my daily business, but it was not long before I found myself amongst the ideal of my life, from the manager and his assistants, Messrs. Allward and Kirby, and from the employees, numbering 350—300 of whom were ladies. The beautiful, capacious and well-ventilated work rooms, together with their cheerful environment, made it one of the most desirable places to work in I have ever seen or heard of. Among the best friends I made in this great establishment were Messrs. W. Hall, Johnston, F. Howard, McWaters, Durno and William Day. Of the latter I learned the following characteristic incident which he would be too modest to mention: One night during the winter of 1905-1906, which was extremely cold, Mr. Day, on his way home, was overtaken by a stranger, a young man, who told him he had not had anything to eat for twenty-four hours. He had walked from Belleville to Toronto looking for work; he was poorly clad, not sufficiently to keep the cold from his shivering body. My friend did not ask who he was or anything regarding his antecedents. He saw before him a poor destitute young man, suffering with cold and hunger; he took him to a store and bought him comfortable underwear, boots and other warm garments, and then to a restaurant and ordered the best meal they could give, handed the stranger a dollar and continued his journey home.
I remained in the factory four years, but in consequence of my age and ill health was obliged to resign in May, 1906.
SERGT.-MAJOR EDWIN G. RUNDLE.
Age, 71 Years.
CHAPTER XII.
Incidents in the Afghan War.
[I would like to follow this brief and unpretentious narrative of my life with a sketch of the operations of a British force, in which my old regiment was brigaded, in the Afghan war.]
Just before sunset on the twentieth of November, 1878, the 2nd Brigade of the Peshawur Valley Field Force, consisting of the Guides Infantry, the 1st Sikhs, and the 17th Foot under Brigadier-General J. A. Tytler—the strength being forty British officers, 1,700 men, of whom 600 were Europeans—left its camp at Jamrud to begin the flank march which was to ensure the completeness of Sir Sam. Browne's victory over the garrison of Masjid. The 17th Regiment had spent the summer in the Murree Hills, where it had been carefully trained for the work that lay before it. Evatt, in his Recollections, says: "It was about the last of the long service battalions of that army which was just then disappearing before the short system, and better specimens of that old regime could not be seen than the men of the 17th, who for weight and space occupied per man were probably thirty per cent. heavier and much broader than the younger soldiers of to-day." Speed being essential to success and the difficulties presented by the country to be traversed very great, tents, bedding and baggage were left behind, to be sent up later through the Pass; and the troops took with them only a small hospital establishment, a reserve of ammunition, two days' cooked rations, and a supply of water stored in big leather bags, known as pukkals. In addition to their great coats, seventy rounds of ammunition and one day's cooked rations was carried by each man.
Unfortunately the greater part of the transport allotted to the brigade consisted of bullocks instead of mules—a mistake which was to leave the men without food for over twenty-four hours. Darkness soon closed in upon the column, and when the comparatively easy road across the Jam plain gave place to an ill-defined track running up a deep ravine, sometimes on one side of a mountain stream, sometimes on the other, sometimes in its very bed, even the native guides, men of the district, familiar with its every rock and stone, were often at fault. The transport animals blundered into the midst of the troops. One corps lost touch with another. A large part of the 17th Regiment wandered away from the path, and was with difficulty brought back to it by the shouting and whistling of its commander. There was so much confusion and so many delays that it was ten o'clock before the force, tired and cold, the men's boots and putties soaked through and through from frequent crossing and recrossing of the Lashora River, arrived at the little hamlet of the same name. Here it settled down to such rest as could be obtained under these uncomfortable conditions, for fires were out of the question where there was no certainty that hidden foes might not be lurking close at hand.
The 1st Brigade, consisting of the 4th Battalion Rifle Brigade, the 4th Gurkhas, the 20th Punjab Infantry, and the Hazars Mountain Battery, fared even worse than the 2nd, for it had to begin the day with marching from Hari Singhka-Burg to Jamrud, where it arrived to find, to the disgust of its commander, Brigadier-General Macpherson, that the supplies and transports which ought to have been awaiting it were not ready, and to be kept hanging about till 11 p.m. before it could get a fresh start. What with the darkness, the difficulty of getting the laden bullocks along, the practical absence of a road, the subsequent march proved very trying, and the position of the troops throughout the night was potentially one of great peril. If the Mohmands had come down the eastern slopes of the Rhotas Heights and fallen upon them as they stumbled and groped their way along the Lashora ravine, Macpherson would have had to choose between a retreat or an advance up the steep mountain side, three thousand feet high, in pursuit of an invisible enemy, and exposed to a shower of rocks and stones—missiles which every hill-man knows well how to handle.