home-keeping Englishman who might desire to see as in a
moving photograph what was going on in the British camp before Kabul
during the perilous winter of 1879-80, to hear the camp-talk, and to
realise the nature and methods of Afghan fighting.

'He turned to the westward, and as he did so there was a flicker in
the darkness, where the rugged top of the Asmai Hill could just be
made out. For an instant there was perfect silence; then, as the
flame caught and flared, there rose from the men around him a low,
involuntary "A--h," such as one may sometimes hear at Lord's when a
dangerous wicket goes down. Then in the distance two musket shots
rang out, and after them a few more; but along the cantonment wall
all was silent; men stood with beating hearts awaiting the
onslaught. For some minutes the suspense lasted, and then suddenly
burst from the darkness a wild storm of yells, "Allah, Allah,
Allah," and fifty thousand Afghans came with a rush at the wall,
shouting and firing. The cantonment was surrounded by a broad
continuous ring of rifle-flashes, and over the parapet and over the
trenches the bullets began to stream.'

But the subjoined extract, which gives Langley's death, is a better
example of the book's general style--cool, circumstantial, abhorrent
of glitter or exaggeration, leaving a clear impression of things
actually witnessed and done, a brief glimpse of one of the incidents
that remain stamped on the brain of those who saw it, but are
otherwise forgotten in war-time, after a day or two's regret for the
lost comrade.[13]

'They were all weary, and marched carelessly forward in silence.
The night was closing fast, and a little fine snow was falling....
There was a sudden flash in the darkness to the right, a shot, and
then a scattering volley. Guy Langley threw up his arms with a cry,
and as the startled horse swerved across the road he fell with a
dull thud on the snow. There was a moment of confusion, but the
Sikhs, though careless, were good soldiers, and two or three of
them dashed towards the low wall from which the shots had come.
They were just in time to see four men running across a bit of
broken ground towards a deep water-cut, fringed with poplars. The
horsemen were very quick after them, being light men on hardy
horses; and one of the four Afghans, a big man in a dirty