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The sun set while we were still winding through a labyrinth of peaks and pits, and the effect of the contrasting red gold lights and purple shadows in this strange confused landscape was a thing to be remembered. We rolled and bumped into Pindi at 8 P.M., having travelled nearly 1000 miles during our two days and nights in the train.
Many of the men were very footsore from their long march of the previous day, but all were cheerful and light-hearted, making naught of their hardships. Another thirty-two mile march brought the corps to Jani-ki-Sang, and took them the next morning fifteen miles in to Rawul Pindi.
Later on, when leave had expired for the hale, when the dogs had departed, and the voice of the gramophone was no more heard in the land, we came to see a great deal of the wounded warrior, and finally arranged to personally conduct him off the premises, and return him, in time for medical survey, to Rawal Pindi.
The dâk bungalow, prettily placed in a clump of trees, seemed the abode of luxury to us after the discomfort of Ghari Habibullah, and we fondly hoped that, being now upon the main road which runs from Rawal Pindi to Srinagar, our troubles were over. Saturday was the 1st of April, the day upon which I should have applied for my pass for Astor.
A strong reserve force was to be gathered between Peshawur and Rawal Pindi under the command of Major-General Ross, to move forward as occasion might require, in the south-west Sir Donald Stewart was to recall to Candahar his troops, which, having begun their march toward India, were now mainly echeloned along the route to Quetta, when that General would have about 9000 men at his disposition to dominate the Candahar province, reoccupy Khelat-i-Ghilzai, and threaten Ghuznee, his communications with the Indus being kept open by a brigade of Bombay troops commanded by Brigadier-General Phayre.
The hut just above ours was tenanted by a party of three young Lancers on leave from Rawal Pindi, a gramophone, and a few dogs. One of the soldiers was laid up with a bad ankle, and it soon became a daily custom for Jane or me to play a game of chess or piquet with the invalid.
Then an assortment of summer flannels, sufficient to last as far as India, must be available. We were unable to get any washing done from the date we left London, on the 22nd of February, until we reached Rawal Pindi, on the 21st March. Capacious canvas kit-bags are excellent things for cramming with grist for the dobie's mill.
By token I ad seen a dhriver of a batthery goin' by at a trot singin' 'Home, swate home' at the top av his shout, and takin' no heed o his bridle-hand I had seen that man dhrop under the gun in the middle of a word, and come out by the limber like like a frog on a pave-stone. No. I wud not hurry, though, God knows, my heart was all in Pindi.
From the cemetery the road runs fairly level to where, upon rounding a sharp corner, the hill station of Murree comes into sight, clinging to its hill-tops and overlooking the far flat plains beyond Pindi. I cannot imagine how anybody would willingly abide in Murree who could go anywhere else for the hot weather. There being no level ground, there is no polo, no cricket, and no golf.
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