ion
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.
. . . . . .
Strike hard who cares. Shoot straight who can.
The odds are on the cheaper man."

RUDYARD KIPLING.

Half an hour before dawn on the 17th, the cavalry were mounted, and as
soon as the light was strong enough to find a way through the broken
ground, the squadron started in search of the missing troops. We had
heard no more of their guns since about two o'clock. We therefore
concluded they had beaten off the enemy. There might, of course, be
another reason for their silence. As we drew near Bilot, it was possible
to distinguish the figures of men moving about the walls and houses. The
advanced files rode cautiously forward. Suddenly they cantered up to the
wall and we knew some at least were alive. Captain Cole, turning to his
squadron, lifted his hand. The sowars, actuated by a common impulse,
rose in their stirrups and began to cheer. But there was no response.
Nor was this strange. The village was a shambles. In an angle of the
outside wall, protected on the third side by a shallow trench, were the
survivors of the fight. All around lay the corpses of men and mules. The
bodies of five or six native soldiers were being buried in a hurriedly
dug grave. It was thought that, as they were Mahommedans, their
resting-place would be respected by the tribesmen. [These bodies were
afterwards dug up and mutilated by the natives: a foul act which excited
the fury and indignation of soldiers of every creed in the force. I draw
the reader's attention to this unpleasant subject, only to justify what
I have said in an earlier chapter of the degradation of mind in which
the savages of the mountains are sunk.] Eighteen wounded men lay side by
side in a roofless hut. Their faces, drawn by pain and anxiety, looked
ghastly in the pale light of the early morning. Two officers, one with
his left hand smashed, the other shot through both legs, were patiently
waiting for the moment when the improvised tourniquets could be removed
and some relief afforded to their sufferings. The brigadier, his khaki
coat stained with the blood from a wound on his head, was talking to
his only staff-officer, whose helmet displayed a bullet-hole. The most
ardent lover of realism would have been satisfied. Food, doolies, and
doctors soon arrived. The wounded were brought to the field hospitals to
be attended to. The unwounded hurried back to camp to get breakfast