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Updated: May 27, 2025
On the walls are tablets to the memory of Sir Harry Lumsden; Major F.H. Barton, the cheery, gallant sportsman who was killed at polo in 1902; Major Gaikskill; A.W. Wilde, son of Sir Alfred; Hector MacLean; Quentin and Fred Battye; Major G.H. Bretherton, who was drowned on the way to Lhassa; Charlie Keyes, son of Sir Charles, treacherously killed in West Africa, and many others.
The retreating column was sorely pressed, although the Maxim guns and the mountain battery opened fire upon the enemy. Colonel Battye was mortally wounded, and so hotly did the Afridis follow up their attack that a company of the Guides fixed bayonets, and charged them. "As, however, the enemy still persisted in their attack, the force set to work to entrench themselves.
After seven miles of severe toil, they arrived in the vicinity of the hostile village; and Captain Battye placed his men on the surrounding high ground, so as to completely command the place, and cut off all retreat. His disposition had been completed without arousing the enemy and, in a short time, day broke.
And so reverently they lifted the body of their dead comrade, and through the hot spring night carried it on the first stage towards the sweet spot in Mardan where the brothers Battye lie at rest. But the silver lining to this dark cloud of loss was the prowess of the young subaltern and the squadron that had fallen to his charge.
That the defence might not be a passive one only, Lieutenant-Colonel Fred Battye, who was commanding, was ordered at dawn to push out, destroy all the neighbouring villages, and turn the enemy out of all positions from which they had been operating during the construction of the bridge, and from which they could harass the passage of the force.
Captain Wigram Battye was in command, and took with him the Guides' cavalry and a detachment of Guides' infantry mounted on mules. Marching all night, the force arrived three miles beyond Abazai and within eight miles of its objective, when it was found impossible, owing to the difficult nature of the country, to proceed further on horseback.
Then the guns on the wall opened a heavy fire, and the cavalry fell back as the balls plunged in among them. There were but two or three hurt, but among them was Lieutenant Quentin Battye, a most gallant young officer, a mere lad, but a general favorite alike with other officers and the men.
And brightest lights, as was meet, amidst these heroes, were the little band of British officers, for of those, in that one first fight, all were killed or wounded. Amongst the latter was the lion-hearted, ever-cheerful Daly; and amongst the former the first of the great soldier-name of Battye to die a soldier's death.
McCabe's introduction into preserves he had reckoned exclusively his own advised himself to throw off a nasty word or so on the subject to Commander Battye and Captain Taylor, over strong waters and cigars in his surgery tea, the ladies, and the card-table left to their own devices in the drawing-room meanwhile one evening after a rubber of whist.
As one consequence of such parochial solidarity, the village gentry set in a steady stream towards The Hard on the Monday afternoon following the historic Sunday already chronicled. Commander and Mrs. Battye called. Captain and Mrs.
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