Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 25, 2025
Lisle modestly told the story, amid frequent cross questioning. "Well, there is no doubt that you were lucky, Lisle," the colonel said, when he had brought his story to a conclusion. "The pluck of your action, in getting Colonel Houghton off and staying yourself, appealed strongly to the Afridis; and caused their chief to decide to retain you as a hostage, instead of killing you at once.
I wish I could have seen you tackling the Afridis you were mentioned in the papers after that last scrimmage, and they gave you a rousing send-off. You deserve the Victoria Cross, and you would get it if you were a soldier." "I didn't fight for glory," Jack muttered, bitterly. "I'm the most unlucky beggar alive." Jimmie looked at him curiously.
I'm busy." "But " "Go away, I tell you!" Then she jerked a scornful hand toward the door. "Six months later I was married men who are missed among the Afridis don't come back," she said. "I'm more sorry than I can put into words!" murmured Helen. "For goodness' sake don't let us grow sentimental. Shall we return to our sheep?
As it was, the convoy halted, upon which the Hillmen, seeing that they were observed, opened a heavy but ill-directed fire upon us. I had asked Chamberlain to throw out his men in skirmishing order, and to give them directions to retreat slowly upon the waggons so as to draw the Afridis on. The ruse succeeded to perfection.
"What we want now is water. We drank the last drop, when we saw you coming. We had scarcely a mouthful each, and we have not had much more during the siege." Flasks were instantly produced, and each man drank his fill. "And now we had better be off," the officer in command of the relief party said. "Likely enough the Afridis will be down upon us, as soon as we move."
The caravans going both ways are required to camp under well-formed regulations at either entrance until daylight of Tuesday or Friday, when they are escorted through by armed bodies of Afridis horsemen.
As every man was engaged in fighting, the fall was unnoticed and, as he could not recover his footing, he was washed helplessly down to the mouth of the defile. As he managed to reach the shore, a party of Afridis rushed down upon him with drawn tulwars; but a man who was evidently their leader stopped them, as they were about to fall upon him. "He is an officer," he said.
Already several deputations have come in from the tribesmen, some of them bringing in the fines imposed upon them; and all seem to say that there is a general desire among the Afridis for peace, and that deputations from other tribes will shortly follow them." "I am glad to hear it, sir," Lisle said. "I think I have had quite enough of hill fighting."
It must be remembered, too, that the Afridis are far better fighters, more warlike, and of far better physique than the men engaged in the fights that I have been speaking of. They are splendid shots, and are almost all armed with breech-loading rifles, Sniders and Martinis.
If he ever had duties he was inclined to shirk, he thought of that half-hour which had forever set the seal upon his reputation as a British soldier. He thought of it now. He saw himself again looking up at the bristling cliffs that were to be rushed, whence the Afridis were pouring their deadly fire.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking