Norton carried his message in his face.
"The Colonel has rallied a little," he said, after expressing sympathy and concern for the plight of both officers. "And he agrees with me that it is wanton sacrifice of men to hold out any longer. Only Courtenay and Martin untouched out of the seven of you; for Desmond's just had his wrist smashed, poor fellow. We must get back, as best we can, by the lane and over the kotal. Desmond has despatched a party of his sowars to Brownlow, of your corps, for reinforcements of men and ammunition. His post is only nine miles off, and we can push along in that direction. Now I must get back to the Colonel. I'll let Courtenay know he's wanted: and send a stretcher along."
With his departure, began the desperate business of dismembering guns and loading mules under a sharp fire; gunners, drivers, and native officers vieing with each other in carrying off the wounded, repulsing hand-to-hand attacks, and in many individual acts of gallantry. While limbering up the guns a mule was shot, and two wheels rolled down the slope. The Havildar in charge sped after them, through pattering bullets; returning with seventy-two pounds of solid metal hanging from each arm. But even as he flung them down in triumph, he rolled over, with a bullet through his chest: while Richardson's orderly staggered past, carrying the gun itself, a matter of two hundred pounds. Such amazing feats can flesh and blood achieve under the spur of momentary exaltation.
And at last,—despite the catastrophe of a stampede among the ammunition and ambulance mules, which left them poorer by four thousand rounds and their field hospital,—the preliminaries were accomplished. Covered by the sharp rifle practice of the infantry and sowars, men, animals, and stretchers retired, without precipitation or disorder, along the narrow lane, bounded by stone walls and rugged hills swarming with a jubilant enemy. For at the first signs of evacuation the Mahsuds came out in greater numbers; harrying and pressing in upon the dogged little column on all sides, yet rarely offering a mark for riflemen; their lithe bodies and marvellous activity enabling them to find cover almost anywhere.
It was heart-breaking work: for, in the soldier's vocabulary, there is no more unwelcome word than retreat; notwithstanding the fact that a retreat which covers all ranks with honour and glory is perhaps the finest achievement possible in the great game of war. Certain it is that the progress of Norton's broken escort through that veritable death-trap, to the kotal where a second stand might prove feasible, was carried out by officers and men with the indomitable coolness and spirit that converts failure into 'an honourable form of victory.'
It is such crises which test the mettle of our native troops: adding fresh proof, if more were needed, of the magnificent fighting material that India has given into our hands. For Colonel Montague had again lost consciousness; and Martin having been shot in the calf as he entered the lane, the task of carrying out all the details of the retirement fell upon the senior Native officer, Subadar Hira Singh, under Desmond's orders. He and Norton, bearing the joint burden of responsibility, kept close together. The surface cynicism of the civilian had been burnt up in the fire of healthy savage action; and at odd moments, when ordinary speech was possible, his admiration for the conduct of all concerned vented itself in disjointed ejaculations of approval that warmed the cavalryman's heart.
"Wait till I make out my report of all this," he said on one occasion.
"Be sure you Piffers will get all the kudos you deserve."
And five minutes later, he fell—shot through the body—into Desmond's arms.
"Nothing . . nothing serious," he protested, while his face wried with pain. "Don't delay matters . . on my account. I can pull along somehow, if you'll give me an arm."
But they got him on to a stretcher, none the less; and Courtenay did all he could till a definite halt was possible.