The Story of the Guides

by G. J. Younghusband

This was not at all to the red-coated gentleman's liking. To trot behind his Lord, richly caparisoned and splendidly mounted, was one thing; but to meet an infernal fellow who deliberately fitted a cartridge into his carbine to defend his post, was a matter not lightly to be undertaken. Accordingly he galloped off to fetch his native officer. When this officer arrived he was much enraged, and roundly abused the sentry, calling him every name under the sun, and casting the gravest reflections on the whole of his ancestors, especially on the female side.

But the sentry stood like a block of wood, and when the other had finished answered: "I don't know who you are, and don't care; and for the present you may talk as much as you like, though when I am at liberty I also shall have a few words to say. But I am sentry here on this pond, and my orders are such and such, and I mean to obey them. The first man who tries to force me I hit with a bullet."

"Was there ever such a person?" said the native officer. "He must be mad! And the Great Lord's horses too! God preserve him; he will certainly be hanged, or sent across the Black Water for life."

So he too rode off to fetch his sahib; and shortly a trail of dust on the road showed that he was returning, and not leisurely. The officer was hot, indignant, and vexed, and said to the sentry: "By my order you will allow the Viceroy's horses to water at this pond."

"With every respect," replied the sentry, "my own Sahib has given me other orders, and I mean to obey him."

And nothing the officer could say, and he said a good deal, could move the sentry one hair'sbreadth from that resolve. So he, in his turn, rode off to fetch the last court of appeal, the Military Secretary, Lord William Beresford.

As all who knew him will remember, his Lordship was very short and sharp when anything occurred that in the least infringed the dignity of the Viceroy, or of anything belonging to that exalted personage; and probably few would have cared to be in the shoes of that sentry during the next few minutes. But the sentry was sublimely oblivious of the existence of so high an official as a Military Secretary, and only dimly aware of the existence of a Great Lord. On the other hand his own Colonel Sahib and his own sahibs, with whom he had fought and bled, were real live people, whom he knew quite well and whose word was law unto him. The Military Secretary, therefore, being evidently an older and more worthy sahib than the last, was received with even more respect; but as to allowing the horses to water, the sentry was adamant on that point. "I obey my Colonel's orders," said he, "and no one else's." Lord William, though greatly vexed, as perhaps was only natural, was too good a soldier to force a sentry, and rode off therefore to the Guides' camp to lay the matter before the commanding officer. The rest was naturally all cordiality and good feeling, and an invitation to lunch; while the Guides' subaltern galloped off and cut the Gordian knot.

Scarcely had Lumsden parted from his beloved corps, when they again took the field, in the small but bloody Umbeyla campaign of 1863. The opening incident was in what was coming to be honourably looked upon as thoroughly Guides' fashion. Two troops of the cavalry and two companies of the infantry of this corps, under Jenkins,[1] were encamped at Topi, blockading the Gaduns and Hindustani fanatics preparatory to the advance of the field-force. One night a patrol of three men, under Duffadar Fakira, suddenly encountered a body of about three hundred of the enemy, on their way to surprise and capture the camp of the Guides. Without a moment's hesitation, and with highly commendable presence of mind, the duffadar began shouting "Fall in! fall in!" as if addressing countless legions; and then wheeling his three men into line, and each man yelling like a dozen fiends, fell with fury on the advancing enemy. The effect was magical, the enemy thinking that they had been betrayed, or forestalled, or had perchance fallen into an ambush, and that opposed to them was the whole strength of the Guides. In the darkness a panic set in, and the whole force broke and fled, their redoubted and sainted leader, the Mullah Abdullah, showing the way.

[1] Afterwards Colonel Sir Francis Jenkins, K.C.B.

In the fierce and frequent fighting which week after week, raged round the celebrated Crag picquet, the Guides took their part. This picquet stood at the top of an abrupt and precipitous rock, accessible from our side only by a narrow rocky path, while towards the enemy the ground sloped away to further hills. The weakness of the picquet, therefore, lay not only in its openness to determined attack, in days of short-range weapons and hand-to-hand fighting, but also in the difficulty experienced in quickly reinforcing it. Once taken, not only the neighbouring post, known as the Monastery picquet, but the whole camp lay under its commanding fire.