Chapter the Twelfth A Skirmish on the Bank
Lawrence, riding behind Fyz Ali, reflected with rueful amusement on the fate which had made him a sort of soldier in his own despite. “I’m not cut out for this kind of job,” he thought. “Bob would be elated at having shivered through a night watch, and beaten off an attack. I don’t feel particularly jolly; in fact, I feel thoroughly rotten; and there’s more to come, worse luck.”
It is said that the greatest commanders have felt depressed rather than exalted after a victory; so that, remembering the hardships and anxieties of the past twenty-four hours, one can sympathize with Lawrence Appleton. It did not occur to him that he had come through his recent ordeal with much credit, and he was quite unaware that the Pathans ahead were discussing him as they rode, summing him up, and deciding that the chota sahib was a first-rate fighting man.
After riding at a trot for about half a mile, Lawrence said:
“Now I’ll get off and walk, Fyz Ali. The pony’s lagging.”
“Not so, sahib,” replied the man. “I will walk; the sahib is used to a softer life.”
“The more reason why I should harden myself.”
“That is true, sahib; but it is foolishness to yoke a calf to an ox-wagon.”
By which Lawrence understood that this stalwart man regarded him as still an ungrown boy. He made no more objection; Fyz Ali dismounted, and kept pace with him over the rugged ground to which they had now come.
Thus the little party marched for another mile. They went for the most part in single file, the track only rarely widening so much as to give them room to ride abreast. It was at one of such broader stretches that a sudden demand was made upon Lawrence’s quickness and resource. He was riding in front with two of the Pathans; the other two mounted men were a few yards behind, with Fyz Ali on foot between them. Quite suddenly, about two hundred yards ahead, there came into view from round a high rock a band of at least a score of men, marching towards them. Lawrence had been expecting to meet the Pathan reinforcements from the mine, and he might at the first moment have mistaken the strangers but for a savage yell from the men at his side. Then he recognized in a flash that they were Kalmucks.
Both parties had momentarily halted; each was as much surprised as the other. Then, as Lawrence saw some of the Kalmucks lifting rifles to their shoulders, he became instantly alive to the situation. Without a moment’s hesitation he dug his heels into the flanks of his pony, and, shouting to his men to come on, he rode straight at the enemy. It was the psychological moment. The Kalmucks were apparently without a leader; or their leader, if they had one, was a shade less quick-witted than the Englishman. With a spirited captain the warlike Pathans will go anywhere and do anything. Responding to his call with a true mountaineer’s yell the men urged their steeds to a gallop, and swooped down upon the still hesitating enemy.
Lawrence could not have decided better if all the circumstances had been known to him. Some of the Kalmucks, after the failure of their night attack, had crossed the river some distance below the bridge, and marching on foot for long hours in the darkness over the difficult and tortuous path through the hills, had turned back along the track to take the defenders in the rear. They were weary: they had no regular leader; and being accustomed to fight on horseback they were demoralized at the sight of mounted Pathans, few as they were, galloping straight at them. With a well-directed volley they might have annihilated the little band; but they let the opportunity slip. A few stood their ground and fired; the rest took flight, and while some scurried up the hill-side, seeking cover in the broken ground, where horses could not well follow them, others turned tail and bolted straight back along the track.
The few shots thus wildly fired missed all the Pathans save one, and he was only scratched. Lawrence and his men pressed their advantage. Two of the Pathans wheeled to the right, and in spite of the steepness of the hill-side and the many natural obstacles, they dashed up in pursuit of the fleeing Kalmucks, cutting down several with their terrible tulwars before they could reach safety. Lawrence rode straight at the men who had fired. He overturned one by the impact of his horse, struck another down with his clubbed rifle, and then led his men after the others, who were running, some up, some down the bank. Two or three Kalmucks sprang into the river; within ten minutes the whole body was completely scattered. Only at the last did one who had climbed to an inaccessible crag on the hill-side and recovered from his panic, take good aim and roll a Pathan from his horse with a mortal wound.
The charge was over; the victory was complete; and Lawrence reined up his panting pony. Not till then did he remember that Fyz Ali was not mounted, and must have been left far behind. What had become of him? Lawrence turned and looked back along the track. He was not in sight.
“Stay here,” he said to the Pathans; “I’ll go back and look for Fyz Ali.”
“Hai, sahib!” said one of the men, “it is foolishness. See, Ayoub is dead. Some of the dogs of Kalmucks are hiding behind the rocks above; they will shoot you even as they shot Ayoub.”
“Nonsense: I’m riding Fyz Ali’s horse: I can’t leave him in the lurch.”
He rode back along the track, and after a moment’s hesitation one of the Pathans followed him. Warned by the fate of Ayoub they proceeded with caution, scanning the hill-side for signs of the enemy. For half a mile or more they saw neither foe nor friend, except the bodies of those who had fallen in the fray. Then they came in view of a strange procession. At this point the hill-side to the left of the track rose so steeply as to be unscalable. It was here that the Kalmucks, hard pressed, had flung themselves into the river. A few hundred yards ahead they saw two men approaching them, walking slowly backward. One of them was Fyz Ali, the other a Kalmuck. Fyz Ali had the man by the middle, holding him so that he formed a screen against a dozen Kalmucks who were slipping from rock to rock on the hill-side some distance beyond. Evidently they were watching for a chance to take a shot at the Pathan, but were baffled by his ingenious device. By keeping the prisoner constantly between him and them, he rendered it impossible for them to fire without the risk of hitting their own man.
Smiling with appreciation of Fyz Ali’s manoeuvre, Lawrence dismounted, and ordered his man to dismount also. Then leading the ponies behind a rock, they knelt down, took aim at the distant Kalmucks, and fired. It was doubtful whether their shots took effect, but they checked the pursuit, and Fyz Ali seized the opportunity to hasten his retreat. Hugging the perpendicular wall, he came nearer and nearer, never loosing his hold of the Kalmuck, nor allowing his own person to be exposed.
The Kalmucks beyond returned Lawrence’s fire, but they made no attempt to advance. They were not equal to the desperate venture of leaving their cover among the rocks and running the gauntlet along the open space which Fyz Ali and his prisoner were now traversing. In another two minutes the Pathan had joined his master.
“That was well done,” said Lawrence, welcoming him.
Fyz Ali, breathing hard, set his prisoner against the rock, and holding him there with his left hand, drew his tulwar.
“No, no,” said Lawrence hastily.
“Why, sahib? He is a Kalmuck,” said Fyz Ali, and his eyes glared as he looked round.
“It is not our way,” said Lawrence, “to kill prisoners. And he is unarmed.”
“But I am not!” growled the Pathan. “Would he not kill me? Did not Nurla Bai try to kill Muhammad, unarmed and sleeping? It will be short, sahib.”
“No, I can’t allow it. Tie his hands together so that he can do no mischief; then we’ll leave him to his friends.”
Fyz Ali muttered between his teeth, but obeyed. He tore off the man’s coat; it was dripping wet; the Kalmuck was one of those who had sprung into the river, and he had clambered up the bank in the nick of time to serve the quick-witted Pathan as a screen. With a few strokes of his tulwar Fyz Ali slit the coat into shreds, with which he bound the trembling man’s hands together. Then, striking him heavily on the face—the Pathan is not chivalrous towards his enemies—he hauled him to the top of a rock, and left him there.
Lawrence and the two Pathans then hastened back to the place where they had left the others. These had given their dead comrade burial in the river. Then all resumed their march. They looked back whenever they reached a spot where they could get a view of the track behind them, but there was no sign of pursuit.
“They must have come over the hills in the night,” said Lawrence, walking beside Fyz Ali, whom he had insisted on remounting. “Where does the hill-path join the track?”
“I know not, sahib,” replied the man. “The Kalmucks know the path: it is their country.”
“Well, keep your eyes open as we go, and see if you can find it. We may as well know.”
They scanned the hill-side narrowly, and about twenty minutes later Lawrence noticed a narrow cleft in the precipice above the track which might possibly be the lower end of the hill-path. He stopped and examined the ground at the entrance, but it was so hard that the skin boots of the Kalmucks could have left no trace on it. Had they been mounted, the hoof marks would have been easily discoverable. Lawrence glanced up the winding cleft. It seemed an unlikely enough passage-way; indeed, at a height of several hundred feet above the track it appeared to come abruptly to an end. Lawrence deliberated for a few moments whether to climb and satisfy himself one way or the other; but decided that he had better not delay.
Ten minutes later they met the reinforcements from the mine. The men had heard firing in the distance and hurried on at full speed. On learning from their comrades of what had happened, they were eager to push on and annihilate the surviving Kalmucks, and one of them, when Lawrence refused to go back, muttered under his breath that the Englishman was afraid. Fyz Ali caught the words, and turned fiercely on the man.
“I’ll slit your throat if you talk foolishness, Hosein,” he said. “The chota sahib is a man; get that into your silly head. Did he not fight at the bridge? And when we met those Kalmuck pigs, did he not in a twinkling see what was to be done, and ride straight at them, cheering as the sahibs always do? And when I was left behind, he came back for me, though the dogs were hidden among the rocks and had just killed Ayoub. He is a man, I tell you; mashallah! what he says is good, and what he does is better, and I will cut your hand off if you do not swear to follow wherever he leads.”
“Peace, brother,” said the man. “How was I to know? His beard is not yet grown. Allah is great! All the sahibs are men, even in the cradle.”