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“Hi! yi !” said the Subadar-Major, who was sweating profusely. “Dam fools yonder, stand close order! This is no time for close order, it is the time for volleys. Ugh!”

Horrified, amused, and indignant, the Goorkhas beheld the retirement of the Fore and Aft with a running chorus of oaths and commentaries.

“They run! The white men run! Colonel Sahib, may we also do a little running?” murmured Runbir Thappa, the Senior Jemadar.

But the Colonel would have none of it. “Let the beggars be cut up a little,” said he wrathfully. “Serves ’em right. They’ll be prodded into facing round in a minute.” He looked through his field-glasses, and caught the glint of an officer’s sword.

“Beating ’em with the flat – damned conscripts! How the Ghazis are walking into them!” said he.

The Fore and Aft, heading back, bore with them their officers. The narrowness of the pass forced the mob into solid formation, and the rear ranks delivered some sort of a wavering volley. The Ghazis drew off, for they did not know what reserve the gorge might hide. Moreover, it was never wise to chase white men too far. They returned as wolves return to cover, satisfied with the slaughter that they had done, and only stopping to slash at the wounded on the ground. A quarter of a mile had the Fore and Aft retreated, and now, jammed in the pass, was quivering with pain, shaken and demoralised with fear, while the officers, maddened beyond control, smote the men with the hilts and the flats of their swords.

“Get back! Get back, you cowards – you women! Right about face – column of companies, form – you hounds!” shouted the Colonel, and the subalterns swore aloud. But the Regiment wanted to go – to go anywhere out of the range of those merciless knives. It swayed to and fro irresolutely with shouts and outcries, while from the right the Goorkhas dropped volley after volley of cripple-stopper Snider bullets at long range into the mob of the Ghazis returning to their own troops.

The Fore and Aft Band, though protected from direct fire by the rocky knoll under which it had sat down, fled at the first rush. Jakin and Lew would have fled also, but their short legs left them fifty yards in the rear, and by the time the Band had mixed with the Regiment, they were painfully aware that they would have to close in alone and unsupported.

“Get back to that rock,” gasped Jakin. “They won’t see us there.”

And they returned to the scattered instruments of the Band, their hearts nearly bursting their ribs.

“Here’s a nice show for us,” said Jakin, throwing himself full length on the ground. “A bloomin’ fine show for British Infantry! Oh, the devils! They’ve gone and left us alone here! Wot’ll we do?”

Lew took possession of a cast-off water-bottle, which naturally was full of canteen rum, and drank till he coughed again.

“Drink,” said he shortly. “They’ll come back in a minute or two – you see.”

Jakin drank, but there was no sign of the Regiment’s return. They could hear a dull clamour from the head of the valley of retreat, and saw the Ghazis slink back, quickening their pace as the Goorkhas fired at them.

“We’re all that’s left of the Band, an’ we’ll be cut up as sure as death,” said Jakin.

“I’ll die game, then,” said Lew thickly, fumbling with his tiny drummer’s sword. The drink was working on his brain as it was on Jakin’s.

“‘Old on! I know something better than fightin’,” said Jakin, stung by the splendour of a sudden thought due chiefly to rum. “Tip our bloomin’ cowards yonder the word to come back. The Paythan beggars are well away. Come on, Lew! We won’t get hurt. Take the fife an’ give me the drum. The Old Step for all your bloomin’ guts are worth! There’s a few of our men coming back now. Stand up, ye drunken little defaulter. By your right – quick march!”