Chapter the Sixteenth No Thoroughfare
“We seem to have lived an age during the last two days,” said Bob on greeting Lawrence again in the dining-room. “‘One crowded hour of glorious life,’ begad! But why aren’t you asleep, young man?”
“I can hardly keep my eyes open, but I shan’t sleep till I know where we are. What did your flag mean?”
“Of course, you don’t know. It seems stale news to me. There’s a whole army corps encamped ten miles beyond the bridge—twenty thousand men at a guess, with field-guns, all complete. I saw hundreds of transport-wagons rolling up, camel caravans too. It’s a big thing.”
“But what’s the game? They don’t need an army corps to bag this mine.”
“Hanged if I know. It seems clear they intend to march up the valley; it was probably an advanced outpost that we came into conflict with. So far as I know the valley leads only to Afghanistan and—India.”
“Those Mongols we have heard about, then, are going to have a slap at Afghanistan?”
“Or India!”
“That’s tosh. Twenty thousand men are no good for invading India, and they wouldn’t come this way in any case.”
“That’s just what I said to myself. Of course Afghanistan is much nearer, and they might catch the Amir napping by choosing this unusual road. But after all, what concerns us is our position here.”
“Yes. What have you been doing all day?”
“Flying up and down like a swallow—or wasn’t it an eagle that dropped something on a Johnny’s bald skull—in the classics. I haven’t done that exactly, but I’ve had a little practice in bomb dropping.”
He related the manoeuvres by which he had checked the pursuit of the Pathans and driven the Kalmucks down-stream, and the subsequent adventurous flight of Nurla Bai.
“Would you have let them shoot at him?” he asked. “The Babu was mad with me.”
“I don’t think I would. It wouldn’t be cricket, do you think? The Babu wouldn’t learn that sort of thing at Calcutta University!”
“Have you had any trouble?”
“Quite enough, I can assure you. In the small hours they tried to cross at the bridge, some of them floating themselves on water-skins. We beat them off at the cost of a few knocks. But some must have got past us over the hills—a mighty big round. We met a crowd of them on foot. Luckily it was all very sudden, and a charge scattered them. We lost one man, but we polished off a lot of them; the Pathans are perfect demons at fighting.”
“Well done, old chap! Charging was the very thing. These beggars can’t face it. I remember that in the Mutiny our men never charged without success. But what about the future? We’ve two courses open: to pack up and cut our sticks before the Mongols arrive, or to hang on and make the best defence we can. Candidly, I don’t see how we can hold the place with our little lot against such a host.”
“What about Thermopylae and Leonidas?”
“Yes, but Xerxes hadn’t any artillery. Besides, if I’m not mistaken, Leonidas and his three hundred were cut up, to a man.”
“Only because a traitor showed the Persians a way round to their rear. Still, you know best.”
“I’ll send for old Gur Buksh. He’s seen a lot of service, and has a cool head. We’re better placed than Leonidas in one respect: traitor or no traitor, we can’t be got at from the rear.”
When the havildar arrived, Bob put the position to him exactly, omitting no detail, and glossing over none of the difficulties.
“Now, havildar,” he said in conclusion, “shall we run, or shall we fight? We ought to have plenty of time to get away. The enemy can’t advance in force until they have repaired the bridge, and they’ll have to do that thoroughly if they wish to bring their artillery across. It will take them at least a day, probably longer. We can reckon on twenty-four hours’ start.”
The havildar, a fine soldierly figure, stood in silence before the two lads, pondering deeply.
“The men are very weary, sahib,” he said at length. “They could not start before morning. There are not horses for all: the march would be slow, and the journey would be long. We should not be safe for a hundred miles, and if the enemy is so numerous, they would pursue us not only along the track, but over the hills, and outstrip us, and we should not escape.”
“And what if we remain here?”
“Who can tell? If we die, we die. But we are safer here, sahib. The enemy cannot haul their guns up the heights opposite. The gorge is narrow; with our gun and our rifles we could prevent them from passing the bend northward—so long as our ammunition lasts.”
“And how long will that be? And what provisions have we?”
“There are plenty of cartridges, sahib, and we have those the Kalmucks left behind in their huts. Our provisions would have lasted three weeks for us all; now that the Kalmucks are gone, they will last longer.”
“I say, Bob,” said Lawrence, “why not block up the track? With a good charge of dynamite we could bring down tons of rock on it, and though that wouldn’t block the way for ever against twenty thousand men, it would give them a few days’ work to clear it.”
“The chota sahib speaks words of wisdom,” said Gur Buksh. “The track is narrow where it bends a little to the north—that is the place to do what the sahib says.”
“A jolly good notion,” said Bob. “We’ll set about it to-morrow. Also, havildar, we will strengthen the wall. You have already, I see, lined it with bags of earth, as I ordered. You must throw up behind them a mound of the tailings from the mine. Cover that with earth, and beat it down hard, and we shall have a triple fortification. It won’t be very scientific, Lawrie, but it ought to be of some use. Can you think of anything else, havildar?”
“That is all, sahib. Has the sahib told the Pathans what he has told me?”
“Oh yes. The men who were chased by the Kalmucks intended to go home, but I told them everything, and I’m sure they will stick to us. You have arranged the sentries for the night?”
“That is done, sahib.”
“Then we’ll get to bed, Lawrie. We both want a good sound sleep. Wake us if anything happens, havildar.”
But Gur Buksh had not been gone five minutes, and Bob had not yet taken off his boots, when he was struck with a sudden uneasiness.
“I say, Lawrie,” he exclaimed, “what if the beggars came up during the night? We couldn’t use either the machine-gun or our rifles with any effect in the darkness, and they might easily slip past; not without some loss, of course, but not enough to stagger them.”
“But you said yourself just now that it would take them a whole day to repair the bridge. They couldn’t get here before morning.”
“It would certainly take them a day or longer to make the bridge strong enough to bear their artillery. But we’ve only the advanced guard to deal with, not the main army, and in two or three hours they could rig up a bridge good enough for themselves and their ponies. They may be only a few hours’ march away. I wish we had a searchlight. We could then light up the track at the bend yonder, and give them such a dose that they wouldn’t try it again.”
“Why not try a bonfire? Light a big one just on this side of the bend. That would give us enough light.”
“A good idea! We’ll do it, and to make perfectly sure, we’d better blast the rock at once, and not leave it till the morning. I’ll see to it, however; you have a good sleep.”
“Not a bit of it. I should fall asleep in two ticks if I had nothing to do, but I’m not going to leave you to bear the brunt of everything. We share and share alike.”
“Thanks, old chap. You see to the dynamite and get a wire spliced for the current while I get the bonfire started.”
In a few minutes a large fire was blazing on a ledge of rock a few feet south of the bend, and a number of Pathans were drilling holes in the cliff. An hour’s work by experienced miners would suffice, Bob thought, to prepare for the charge of dynamite. Meanwhile, in the compound, under Lawrence’s direction, other men were splicing together several lengths of the wire used for conveying the current from the small electric battery to the mine galleries. A number of boxes were broken up to provide fuel for the bonfire, which, however, it would be hardly necessary to keep alight when once the track had been blocked up by the fallen rocks.
These operations were all in progress when there was a sudden commotion among the men drilling the rock. After a moment’s hesitation, they dropped their tools and scampered at the top of their speed towards the mine. They had barely crossed the bridge, and this had only been raised a few feet from its platform, when there came swiftly round the bend a string of horsemen, galloping two abreast. Gur Buksh was at his post by the machine-gun. In a few moments it was rattling its shot in a rapid stream towards the enemy, and at the same time the Sikhs opened fire with their rifles. A number of the enemy were seen to fall, either upon the track or over the brink into the river, and the horses of the men immediately behind them stumbled over the prone bodies and in one or two cases threw their riders. There were a few moments of confusion. The quiet of the night was broken by cries and groans and the rattle and hiss of shots. Then the stream of horsemen suddenly stopped. Shouts were heard from beyond the bend, but no more of the enemy appearing, Bob ordered his men to cease fire.
Everybody in the mine compound had been so intent on what was happening within the area illuminated by the bonfire that only Bob himself and one or two more had noticed that several of the enemy had got past the critical point before fire was opened. They were now in darkness, but the clatter of their horses’ hoofs could be heard on the track just beyond the quarters lately occupied by the Pathans. At this sound Bob had much difficulty in preventing his men from blazing away at random at the cliff opposite. To allow it would be merely to waste ammunition, for the enemy were quite invisible; so he peremptorily ordered them to desist after two or three shots had been fired. When quietness was restored, he heard the horsemen retreating up the valley, and soon the sound of their movements died away.
“Lucky we didn’t go to bed after all,” said Bob to Lawrence. “Is that wire ready?”
“Yes, but the rock isn’t drilled yet, is it?”
“We’ll soon finish that. The track must be blocked at once, or we may have this going on all night.”
He called the miners up, and ordered them to go back to their work.
“Mashallah, sahib, but it is not safe, we shall all be killed,” one of them ventured to say.
“Nonsense. They won’t come on again.”
“But some have got past, sahib. They will come back and shoot us.”
“They won’t venture within the light of the bonfire, and if they do the Sikhs will shoot them down. Come on: I’ll go with you. Give me the dynamite, Lawrence. Fazl, you take the end of the wire. Now then, a few minutes’ more work, and we’ll tumble a mountain of rock on to the track, and be able to sleep soundly for the rest of the night.”
His confident bearing, and the example of his personal leadership, inspired the men with courage. The bridge was again lowered; Bob passed over with Fazl and the miners; Lawrence, Gur Buksh and the Sikhs posted themselves between the bridge head and the southern extremity of the compound to guard against any attack on the part of the men who had gone up the track. They could not number more than a dozen or so at the most, and Bob felt sure that after what had occurred they would not be very ready to approach the spot that had proved so fatal to their comrades.
He ordered the men to move very quietly. On reaching the place where they had flung down their tools, he bade them wait a little. From round the bend came the sound of voices, apparently some distance away. The enemy had not withdrawn altogether: would they have the courage to come on again? The machine-gun was no protection to the working-party, for it could not fire without great risk of hitting them. Bob sent one of the men back to fetch three of the Sikhs; their rifles might at any rate suffice to check a rush long enough for the miners to retreat to the bridge.
As soon as the Sikhs arrived, he ordered the men to resume their drilling, for which the bonfire gave sufficient light. The first sounds attracted the attention of the enemy. They raised their voices, and Bob, grasping his revolver, told the Sikhs to level their rifles and fire if he gave the word. All were concealed from the enemy by the shoulder of the cliff. The work went on without interference from the enemy beyond, but presently shots began to patter on the rocks from the rifles of those who had passed up the valley. The bonfire was now an inconvenience, and the danger was greater to Bob and the Sikhs, who stood erect, than to the miners stretched on the ground. But it was a risk that must be endured, and Bob spoke a cheery word to the men at his side, and urged the miners to hurry on with their work. Unknown to him, at the first shot Lawrence had led the other Sikhs across the bridge and posted them on the track, to repel the Kalmucks if they should venture nearer to get a better aim.
In a quarter of an hour the drilling was finished. Bob sent the miners back, and himself laid the charge of dynamite. Then he inserted the wire, and retreated with Fazl and the Sikhs.
“Good man!” he said to Lawrence when he reached the bridge. “It’s all done. We’ve only to make the contact.”
“Nobody hit?” asked Lawrence anxiously.
“Never a man. I think we’d have done better. Now let’s get back. In five minutes we’ll have a little earthquake.”
They crossed into the compound, the bridge was raised, and Bob sent Fazl into the shed where the battery was kept, to complete the electric circuit. The firing had ceased. Nothing was to be heard but the rushing water. In a few minutes there was a dull, sullen rumble; the ground quivered, and immediately afterwards a terrific crash which echoed and re-echoed along the valley. The bonfire was suddenly obliterated as by an extinguisher.
“Another trick to us!” said Bob gleefully. “And now I think we can go to sleep with an easy mind. They won’t get past till they’ve moved a thousand cartloads of rubbish.”
“What about those fellows who got past?”
“We can leave Gur Buksh to deal with them. They can’t get into the compound; if they did they’d never get out again. I shouldn’t wonder if they’re wishing they hadn’t been in quite such a hurry. Now, my boy, bed: neither you nor I will need any rocking to-night. It’s barely eight o’clock: we ought to get a good twelve hours, and I can do with it all.”
They felt a strange pang as they passed through their uncle’s room. It was the first time they had entered it since the fatal morning when they set out so cheerfully with him in pursuit of Nurla Bai. Neither spoke of him; his loss touched them now with a poignancy of feeling that would not endure expression. Bob closed the door quietly, as if a sleeper lay within; and both undressed in silence.