sauntering back, a few yards only, then disappearing amongst the rocks with a rattle of rifle-fire.  Then back came more little parties of soldiers, all seemingly sauntering, all with the long sunny day before them.  And after them bounded great waves of men in blue, and men in white, only to break and stagger back before those little clumps of rock in which the rearmost soldiers lay.  “Get back, get back!  Damn you, why don’t you get back?” shouted the spectators on the eastern bank in impotent excitement.  But no word of this reached the Guides on the slopes of the still far-off mountain-side; nor would they have heeded had they heard, for they had been born and bred to the two simple maxims, “Be fiery quick in attack, but deadly slow in retirement.”  And so slowly back they came, and in their wake lay strewn the white and blue figures, all huddled up, or stark and flat.

The retirement now brought the regiment down the spur of a lofty hill which forms the angle where the Jandul River flows into the Panjkora.  This hill is to the south of the Jandul, while the bridge-head was to the north.  Thus to reach their entrenchment the Guides had to retire down the spur they were now on, and to cross the Jandul.

It was now noon, and at about this time the enemy’s masses were seen to divide in two; one-half keeping to the right, so as to support the attack on the Guides, while the other column continued down the Jandul, so as to cut the regiment off from its bridge-head.  Foot by foot (to the spectators it seemed inch by inch) the different companies retired alternatively, fiercely assailed on all hands, yet coolly firing volley after volley, relinquishing quietly and almost imperceptibly one strong position, only to take up another a few yards back.

At last the impatient spectators on the left bank of the Panjkora had a chance of helping, for the enemy were now within range of the mountain-guns, and the steady and accurate fire of these greatly relieved the pressure.  At the same time the two companies of the Guides in the entrenchment, seeing that the enemy’s left column was closing down, moved out to check their advance, and to stretch out to the rest of the regiment a helping hand.  The whole of the 2nd Brigade also lined their bank of the Panjkora, and prepared with flank fire to help the Guides, when they reached the foot of the spur.  Here it would have to cross several hundred yards of level ground, on which the green barley was standing waist-high, ford the Jandul, about three feet deep, and then across more open fields to the friendly bridge-head.  This naturally was the most difficult part of the operation, and in executing it Colonel Fred Battye, the fourth of the heroic brothers to be killed in action, fell mortally wounded.  He was, as might be expected from one of his race, always at the point of danger throughout the retirement, and as he crossed the open zone among the last, a sharp-shooter at close range, from behind a withered tree, fired the fatal shot.