Accustomed for decades to these sudden appeals, the Guides’ cavalry, bag and baggage, supplies, transport, and all complete, were off in three hours, and the Guides’ infantry followed them.  The march was twenty-nine miles along the flat to Dargai, and then seven miles rise and two thousand feet climb to the summit of the Malakand Pass.  For cavalry, considering the time of year, it was by no means a mean undertaking; for infantry it was one of the highest achievement.  To march thirty-six miles under service conditions, in the most favourable circumstances of weather, temperature, and training, is a high test of endurance; but to do so when the muscles are enervated with heat, along a treeless, waterless road, during the fiercest term of the summer solstice, was a feat to secure the admiration of every soldier.  The march was accomplished in sixteen hours, the first twenty-nine miles being covered without any regular halt, and the last seven miles up a mountain on which the blazing afternoon sun was beating its fiercest.  Yet not a man fell out, and it is recorded by an eye-witness[24] that as the regiment passed the quarter-guards, the men came to attention, and answered the salute as smartly as if just returning from a parade march.  The Guides of 1897 had borne themselves no wit less worthily than the Guides of 1857 or the Guides of 1879.  To Lieutenant P. Eliott-Lockhart belongs the honour of commanding the Guides’ infantry in this fine soldierly performance, and the Distinguished Service Order worthily decorated him for this and other gallant service.  To arrive as a reinforcement is to be welcome enough; to arrive by exertions beyond the compass of calculation, in time to afford assistance at the critical moment, is the fortune of few.  Yet thrice has this good fortune smiled on the efforts of the Guides, at Delhi, at Kabul, and at the Malakand.

  [24] The Story of the Malakand Field Force; by Winston Spencer
  Churchill, Lieut. 4th Hussars.  London, 1898.

Arrived, and without a moment to rest or ease their belts, these weary, but stout-hearted fellows went straight on outpost duty, that 27th of July, 1897, and spent the livelong night, not in sleep, or even a quiet turn of sentry-go, but in a desperate hand to hand fight with swarms of brave and persistent warriors.

Piece by piece the officers heard the strange story of the sudden rising.  It appears that while the officers of the Malakand garrison, in days of profound peace, were playing polo down at Khar, a village three miles away, the villagers came to them with a warning.  They said that a very holy mullah from Upper Swat was coming down the valley with a large following to attack the Malakand, and advised the officers to get back to their defences as soon as possible; they even assisted back the grooms with the spare ponies.  Yet these very same friendly villagers a few hours later were caught in the frenzied flame of fanaticism, and were charging with the most devoted bravery breastworks held by troops commanded by the very officers whom they had just helped to save.