CAPTURED RAIDERS ON THE WAY TO KACHA.
That same night, or rather early on the following morning, for it was about two a.m., I was awakened in my tent and informed that a sawar had just arrived with an urgent message for me. A moment later one of the cavalrymen composing the escort, which had started so gaily about twenty hours before, came in, breathing quickly and heavily with the speed at which he had ridden. He told me that he had ridden as he had never ridden before to bring me a message from the officer commanding the prisoners' escort. It was to the effect that every one of the prisoners, save Jiand and one of his sons, had escaped in the darkness, and that he awaited further orders in the circumstances.
For a moment I thought I was still asleep and dreaming. How could it be possible that forty-five unarmed men had succeeded in escaping from an armed, and numerically larger, escort?
But the stark truth was at last forced upon me, and it amounted to nothing short of absolute disaster. The whole of my four months' work had been undone in a few hours, and I was confronted with the knowledge that I should now have to make a humiliating confession of utter failure, and at the very moment when the work I had been sent to do seemed so nearly and successfully finished.
The situation resolved itself into this; not only would it now be impossible to hand over our enemy and ringleaders to the large armed escort now on its way, and especially detailed to receive them, but these escaped Chiefs would be able to reorganise and hearten up their people, who had remained quiet during the past few weeks simply because they had been without their leadership.
These same Chiefs, of course, knew to a man the strength of our force, and were naturally bitter with resentment as an outcome of their recent captivity. They would, I knew, now leave no stone unturned in their endeavour to wipe us out. My feelings can be better imagined than described.
The Sawar was questioned closely as to this disastrous affair, and I obtained the following details.
The escort had pitched its camp before sundown on an open hillside. An enclosure, or sort of rough zareba, had been constructed with a few strands of barbed wire, and the prisoners, with the exception of Jiand and his son, had been placed inside, and sentries set over them. Jiand and his son had been kept apart, in a small jugi, with a sentry in front of it.
It was a very dark, quiet night, and the camp had soon settled down to sleep.
Suddenly, strange stealthy sounds had been heard close to the zareba, and the sentries had fired wildly into the darkness. Instantly the whole camp had been roused, and the officers had rushed to the prisoners' quarters.