g numbers,
that the garrison was with difficulty holding its own, and asking him to
bring up his corps as speedily as possible to its succour.

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.

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