"Then fighting recommenced and, at daybreak, the enemy made a determined attack upon the advance, with artillery. By eight o'clock they had pushed the attack home, and passed the line of walls and hedges a hundred yards from our position. The situation was growing serious when, leaving me in command, Grant went out with ten Ghoorkhas, crept along unobserved to the end of one of the walls and, turning this, made a sudden attack upon the enemy from behind. Taken wholly by surprise they fled, leaving six or seven dead behind them.
"At eleven o'clock they were again pressing hotly and, encouraged by the success of his first sortie, Grant determined to make another. This time he took me with him. With six Ghoorkhas he had driven the enemy from one hedge, when he discovered a party of about sixty men behind a wall, twenty yards distant.
"'Now, my lads,' he said, 'we have got to run the gauntlet, but you need not be afraid of their fire. Seeing us so close to them, it is sure to be wild.'
"Then, with a cheer, we dashed across the open. The enemy blazed at us, but their fire was wild and confused; and we were among them before they could reload, killing a dozen, and sending the rest to the right about, many of them wounded.
"On returning to the camp, we found that there were only fifty rounds left for the Snider rifles, and thirty rounds each for the Martinis. Strict orders were therefore given that no one was to fire till the enemy were within close range. However, there was no doubt that the fight was all taken out of them, by the spirit with which those two little sorties had been made. They kept up a steady fire till nightfall, but took good care not to show themselves; and they retired, as soon as they could do so, in the darkness.
"That was really the end of the fighting. Three days passed, and then a letter arrived from the officer in command of the expedition, ordering him to fall back to Tamu, whence a detachment had been despatched to meet him. This order had fallen into the hands of the enemy. They no doubt informed themselves of its contents, and were so utterly glad to get rid of us, without further loss, that they gladly sent it in to us. That night there was a heavy thunderstorm, with a tremendous downpour of rain, and under cover of it we withdrew quietly, and before long were met by the relieving force."
"That was a splendid resistance."
"Magnificent! You certainly earned your commission well, Towers.
"Now, Major, let us hear the story of the battle of Ahmed Kheyl, where you met the fanatics in force. I doubt whether the Afridis will fight in the same way; but they may and, at any rate, the story will be instructive."
"Well, it is seventeen years ago, now," the major said, "and I was a junior lieutenant. I was, as you all know, marching from Kandahar to Kabul under Sir Donald Stewart; and at Ahmed Kheyl, twenty-three miles south of Ghuzni, we met the Afghans in force, estimated at fifteen thousand foot and a thousand horse. For several days we had known that they were in the neighbourhood. Their cavalry scouts could be seen marching parallel to us, about eight miles away, on the right flank.