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On the tenth day he found himself really able to walk, without very great difficulty. Looking out of the window, one morning, he saw that the women of the house were all gathered round the guards, and talking excitedly. Evidently some messenger had come in with news from the Tirah valley. He knew, by this time, how many there were in the house, and was satisfied that they were all there.
I have never been able to understand why we should drag about swords, which are of no use whatever while, with rifles, we could at least pot some of the enemy; instead of standing, looking like fools, while the men are doing all the work." "I agree with you, there. In the Tirah campaign I, several times, got hold of the rifles of fallen men, and did a little shooting on my own account.
The Field-Marshal smiled he knew the Pathan of old; the colonel mentally registered a black mark against the delinquents. "Whence come you?" said the Field-Marshal. "From Tirah, Sahib." "Ah! we have had some little trouble with your folk at Tirah. But all that is now past. Serve the Emperor faithfully and it shall be well with you." "Ah! Sahib, but I am sorely troubled in my mind."
It was considered by the authorities that it would be less expensive to organize another expedition in the spring, when the sowing had begun; than to maintain a large force in the Tirah during the winter. The Afridis would not come down, and orders were therefore issued for destroying all the villages. These were burned, and the axe laid to the roots of the beautiful groves.
All was well until the Commander-in-Chief said he was going, but that moment arose the good old trouble the trouble which muddled our start for the Relief of Chitral and ruined the Tirah Campaign. Braithwaite, of all people, was good natured enough to plead for the Administration.
"And wherefore?" "My aged father writes that a pig of a thief hath taken our cattle and abducted our women-folk. I would fain have leave to go on furlough and lie in a nullah at Tirah with my rifle and wait for him. Then would I return to France." "Patience! That can wait. How like you the War?" "Burra Achha Tamasha, Sahib. But we like not their big guns.
Usually it is deficient in "stopping" power, but he had provided against this little drawback by notching all the cartridges in the six rifles after the effective manner devised by an expert named Thomas Atkins during the Tirah campaign. None of the Dyaks saw him.
No, I would rather go through a campaign against the Russians, than have anything more to do with the Tirah; though I must admit that, if we were to begin at once, we should not have snow to contend with. "I have been through several campaigns, but the last was infinitely the hardest, and I have not the least desire to repeat it.
Six days' easy march along a good road would take them to Shinawari and, in three or four days more, they would get into the heart of the Tirah. Much would depend on the conduct of the Orakzais, a powerful tribe whose country lay between Kenmora and that of the Zakka-Khels.
And even so has he done. "And how like you this war?" "Sahib, it is a fine war, a hell of a fine war, but for the great guns." "And wherefore?" "Because we cannot come nigh unto them. But I, I have slain many men." "And what is your village?" asks my friend, Major D , of the I.M.S. "Chorah." "Why, I was there in the Tirah campaign." "Even so, sahib."
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