intense. The camp became a sea of
mud. In expectation that the enemy would attack it, General Jeffreys had
signalled in an order to reduce the perimeter. The camp was therefore
closed up to half its original size.

Most of the tents had been struck and lay with the baggage piled in
confused heaps on the ground. Many of the transport animals were loose
and wandering about the crowded space. Dinner or shelter there was none.
The soldiers, thoroughly exhausted, lay down supperless in the slush.
The condition of the wounded was particularly painful. Among the tents
which had been struck were several of the field hospitals. In the
darkness and rain it was impossible to do more for the poor fellows than
to improve the preliminary dressings and give morphia injections, nor
was it till four o'clock on the next afternoon that the last were taken
out of the doolies.

After about an hour the rain stopped, and while the officers were
bustling about making their men get some food before they went to sleep,
it was realised that all the troops were not in camp. The general, the
battery, the sappers and four companies of infantry were still in
the valley. Presently we heard the firing of guns. They were being
attacked,--overwhelmed perhaps. To send them assistance was to risk more
troops being cut off. The Buffs who were dead beat, the Sikhs who had
suffered most severe losses, and the Guides who had been marching and
fighting all day, were not to be thought of. The 38th Dogras were,
however, tolerably fresh, and Colonel Goldney, who commanded in the
absence of the General, at once ordered four companies to parade and
march to the relief. Captain Cole volunteered to accompany them with a
dozen sowars. The horses were saddled. But the order was countermanded,
and no troops left the camp that night.

Whether this decision was justified or not the reader shall decide.
In the darkness and the broken ground it was probable the relief would
never have found the general. It was possible that getting involved
among the nullahs they would have been destroyed. The defenders of the
camp itself were none too many. The numbers of the enemy were unknown.
These were weighty reasons. On the other hand it seemed unsoldierly to
lie down to sleep while at intervals the booming of the guns reminded
us, that comrades were fighting for their lives a few miles away in the
valley.

CHAPTER XII: AT INAYAT KILA

"Two thousand pounds of educat