Read Online Bayonets Along the Border by John Wilcox - Free Book Online Page B

tried to bring him down and desperately urging his horse on until, blessedly, he was through the attackers and into open space on the other side.
    He reined his horse around and found Jenkins, bleeding from a sword wound in his thigh, galloping towards him, grinning and waving his revolver. As he watched, others emerged from the fray and, there was the colonel, Major Darwin at his side, blood oozing from his calf, waving his sword and ordering the bugler to sound the re-form.
    Somehow, the regiment began to make a coherent formation again and Fonthill realised, with relief, that there were very few riderless horses among them. The pace and force of the charge had taken the tribesmen on their flank and carried the cavalry straight through them, leaving scores of lifeless figures on the plain behind them.
    A cheer sounded from behind the low wall of the Crater and it was immediately answered by the tribal cry of the Pathans – the Pathans, that is, who formed the Guides’ cavalry, who were now waving their sabres at their colonel and forming up into some kind of formation.
    Wiping his brow, Fonthill realised that, for the first time in his life, he had taken part in a cavalry charge in earnest – and he had survived. What’s more, so had Jenkins. He took out his watch. The whole thing, from the moment they had cantered down from the browof the Pass until now, had taken just three minutes! He realised that he was trembling.
    ‘You’re hurt,’ he called to Jenkins.
    ‘It’s nothing. The tip of the bugger’s sword just caught me before I got ’im. ’Ardly worth patchin’. But blimey – what a ride, eh!’
    ‘352. Thank you for pushing me back. I think I would have regained the saddle, so it was not necessary to nursemaid me, you know. But thank you, anyway. Damnit, you’re always there, aren’t you?’
    The Welshman, perspiration trickling down into his wide moustache, had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Ah, bach sir. I don’t mean to be pissin’ in your pocket, so to speak. But it’s me job, look you. What else would I be doin’, now?’
    A sudden crackle of musketry from the hills to their right caused the colonel to raise his sword and shout, ‘Back to the Crater now, at the gallop!’ As he led, so the whole column, now strung out less than tidily, followed until they were all safely through the wooden gate that was swung back for them.
    Safely inside, Fortescue was warmly welcomed by the officer commanding the post, a fiercely moustached Colonel Meiklejohn, of the 20th Punjabis, who shook hands all around. It was clear that he was vastly relieved to have reinforcements.
    ‘Are your infantry on their way as well, Fortescue?’ he asked anxiously.
    ‘Right behind us – though I don’t expect them to arrive for about another nine hours or so, poor blighters. It was bad enough for us but it will have been worse for them. But they will get here, don’t you worry. Here, come and meet someone interesting.’
    He walked Meiklejohn over to where Fonthill was attempting tobandage Jenkins’s thigh. ‘This is Fonthill – you may have heard of him. You were at Kandahar with Roberts, I know. Fonthill was there too, and he’s the chap, with his man here, Jenkins, who got through to Gordon in Khartoum and then was nabbed by the Mahdi as he tried to get back. They’ve already shown they’re damned good fighters, as if we didn’t know already.’
    ‘Good Lord, yes.’ Meiklejohn held out his hand. ‘Heard of both of you and I’m delighted to meet you at last.’ He gave a wan smile. ‘Don’t quite know what you’re doing here charging around with this superannuated cavalryman here, but you are most welcome. Welcome then, from the frying pan to the fire.’
    Everyone smiled and Fortescue briefly related Fonthill and Jenkins’s reasons for visiting Marden.
    ‘You must have had a tough time of it through the night, Colonel,’ observed Simon.
    ‘Yes. They just kept coming at us, throwing themselves