"Then throw your rifle and belt over the walls," he was ordered.
The dervish complied, but as an askari ran up to collect it, seized another rifle and shot the soldier through the back.
And that was the end of Baran. Clean fighters, enraged by this act of treachery, and as one man, the K.A.R. sprang to their feet, and no door built by the hand of man could deny them their revenge.
It was found later that, though the firing from inside the fort had slackened, it was not owing to the casualties suffered by the dervishes from direct hits. The concussion of the exploding Stokes bombs on the roof had stunned the defenders, who, though treacherous murderers of women and of little children, apostles of the doctrine of frightfulness as we understand them, yet proved themselves, in this little fight, to be brave men.
After the arrival of the K.A.R., at Jidali, the dismounted column left on its return march. It was obvious that the escarpment above Las Khorai—the plateau around Jidali stretching far to the South which holds the best grazing grounds in Somaliland—was free of dervishes, and once more, after many years, accessible to the poor wretches of friendlies who had been driven forth like pariahs from their beloved haunts by that robber-tiger, Hassan Abdullah, the Mad Mullah. It is indeed a splendid country for the pastoralist, in spite of the burning days and the bitterly cold nights—nights during which the hardiest European, covered by three or four good blankets, finds it hard to keep warm.
Meanwhile, we learned from fugitives that the Mullahs baggage had been captured: that the aeroplanes had harassed his fleeing stock, which ran at last into a transport column, under Captain Allden, at Eil Der, and was ignominiously captured after a sharp fight. Tale the wretched old man had succeeded in entering, but the Camel Corps was hard on his heels, and the friendlies, under Captain Gibb, were at the gates.
JIDALI FORT FROM THE GROUND.
(By permission of the Air Ministry.)