What shall I call it? A gun or a serpent?
This gun is most heavy, and makes victory certain.
There is none like it in India or Kabul.
Made by Ghulam Rasul.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MALAKAND, 1897
As the officers of the Guides were sitting at dinner on the night of
July 26th, 1897, a telegram was handed to Colonel Adams informing him
that the Malakand position had been attacked by overwhelming numbers,
that the garrison was with difficulty holding its own, and asking him to
bring up his corps as speedily as possible to its succour.
Accustomed for decades to these sudden appeals, the Guides' cavalry, bag
and baggage, supplies, transport, and all complete, were off in three
hours, and the Guides' infantry followed them. The march was twenty-nine
miles along the flat to Dargai, and then seven miles rise and two
thousand feet climb to the summit of the Malakand Pass. For cavalry,
considering the time of year, it was by no means a mean undertaking; for
infantry it was one of the highest achievement. To march thirty-six
miles under service conditions, in the most favourable circumstances of
weather, temperature, and training, is a high test of endurance; but to
do so when the muscles are enervated with heat, along a treeless,
waterless road, during the fiercest term of the summer solstice, was a
feat to secure the admiration of every soldier. The march was
accomplished in sixteen hours, the first twenty-nine miles being covered
without any regular halt, and the last seven miles up a mountain on
which the blazing afternoon sun was beating its fiercest.
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