Cavignari was a very astute person and a match for the
most wakeful Afridi. For instance, the British troops that lay nearest
to Paia were those in garrison at Nowshera, and these, therefore, were
the most obvious ones to use. Being the most obvious, it was at once
decided that they were not the troops to use. Therefore Cavignari
refrained from touching the Nowshera garrison, and called on the Guides,
who were sixteen miles further away, and watching quite another
frontier, to undertake the business.
But here again a difficulty arose; the Guides on their way would have to
pass through Nowshera, and as that place was doubtless full of spies, no
better result could be hoped for than by using a Nowshera regiment
direct. And there was yet another difficulty: it was the middle of the
hot weather and a great many of the British officers of the Guides,
including the Commanding Officer, were away on leave; to recall them
was to make the ears prick up of every person, with a guilty conscience,
within a fifty mile radius.
But after all, military difficulties are possibly only introduced by a
beneficent Providence lest warlike operations should become too easy; at
any rate these were in due course overcome, though it required
considerable ingenuity to do so. In the first place the Guides were
marched off, without a notion what they were required for, or whither
they were going. All they knew was that they were plodding along the
Nowshera road on a very hot evening in August.
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