The brunt of the charge fell
on the 18th Punjab Infantry, who lost one officer and sixteen men in the
encounter.
Many another fight too did the Guides have during the next few years
with unvarying success, but we may perhaps pass the less important by,
and come to the stiff encounter that faced them during the expedition
against the Mahsud Waziri tribe in 1860.
The British force operating in that country had in the course of the
campaign been split up into two columns; one under Sir Neville
Chamberlain[12] had gone forward, lightly equipped, into the Waziri
fastnesses; while a weaker column, some one thousand five hundred strong
under Lumsden and including the Guides, was left at Pallosin to guard
camp, equipage, and stores. Knowing the enemy he had to deal with, and
his predilection for, and skill in executing the unexpected in war,
Lumsden drew in his camp, so as to make it as snug and defensible as
possible, and putting out strong picquets with their supports all round,
he awaited the few days' absence of the main column. During the interval
no signs of the enemy could be seen, nor could any news of him be
obtained by means of spies. To all intents and purposes he seemed to
have disappeared, and the little column lay, apparently unnoticed and
unheeded, amidst the great mountains. Yet suddenly, from anywhere, from
nowhere, from the very bowels of the earth, the Waziris rose in their
thousands, and hurled themselves at the British camp.
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