etely commanded by the fire from
the spurs that to move about in it was to court death. Yet thus glued to
the walls, and assailed night and day by brave warriors whose numbers
rose rapidly from fifteen hundred to over ten thousand, a few young
British officers with a couple of hundred Sikhs again and again rolled
back the tide of war. The history of that week was as the history of the
Malakand, continuous attacks by night and day; but the execution done
on the enemy, considering the smallness of the garrison, was
comparatively higher; statistics are difficult to gather, but a fairly
accurate estimate puts their loss at two thousand. And, to illustrate
the indomitable courage and unflagging spirit with which the defence was
maintained to the end, when on the last day the thrice welcome sight of
the Guides' cavalry and the 11th Bengal Lancers, coming over the
Amandara Pass, met the view of that weary little band, they in their
turn became the attackers, and, led by the undaunted Rattray, sallied
forth and stormed the enemy's positions. To Hedley Wright who commanded,
and to Rattray and Wheatley who were the soul of the defence, as well as
to the gallant Sikhs, is due the admiration of every soldier who loves
to hear of a good fight fought out to the end as British officers and
men led by them know how to fight it.

As at the Malakand, so at Chakdara, and so times without number, it is
the gallant British subaltern, in spite of silly chatter, who again and
again has shown the highest attributes of an officer and a soldier. It
is the foolish custom of a certain class of Englishman to decry all that
is their own; and amongst the latest of these victims of a dyspeptic
imagination is the British officer. Men call him stupid, who would
themselves have no chance of passing the intellectual test which every
young officer has to go through. Sitting safe and smug at home they
libel the courage and devotion of the gallant gentleman who is giving
his life for them. Perhaps against these may be placed the word of an
old soldier, who for thirty years has seen the British officer, as
fighter, diplomatist, and administrator, in all parts of the world, and
who has not lightly come to the conclusion that he has not his better in
the army of any country, and is only equalled by his brother of the
British Navy.

* * * * *

Marshalling and redistributing his forces, Sir Bindon Blood, after the
relief of Chakd