ticable, and which would lead one out on the brow of
the cliff just between the two last sangars on the enemy's left. I
didn't write a word about it to you before. I was so afraid I might be
wrong. I got leave and used to creep up the nullah in the darkness to
the tongue of the glacier with a little telescope and lie hidden all day
behind a boulder working out the way, until darkness came again and
allowed me to get back to camp. At last I felt sure, and I suggested the
plan to Ralston the Political Officer, who carried it to the
General-in-Command. The General himself came out with me, and I pointed
out to him that the cliffs were so steep just beneath the sangars that
we might take the men who garrisoned them by surprise, and that in any
case they could not fire upon us, while sharpshooters from the cliffs on
our side of the nullah could hinder the enemy from leaving their sangars
and rolling down stones. I was given permission to try and a hundred
Gurkhas to try with. We left camp that night at half-past seven, and
crept up the nullah with our blankets to the foot of the climb, and
there we waited till the morning."

The years of training to which Linforth had bent himself with a definite
aim began, in a word, to produce their results. In the early morning he
led the way up the steep face of cliffs, and the Gurkhas followed. One of
the sharpshooters lying ready on the British side of the nullah said that
they looked for all the world like a black train of ants. There were
thirteen hundred feet of rock to be scaled, and for nine hundred of it
they climbed undetected. Then from a sangar lower down the line where the
cliffs of the nullah curved outwards they were seen and the alarm was
given. But for awhile the defenders of the threatened position did not
understand the danger, and when they did a hail of bullets kept them in
their shelters. Linforth followed by his Gurkhas was seen to reach the
top of the cliffs and charge the sangars from the rear. The defenders
were driven out and bayoneted, the sangars seized, and the Chilti force
enfolded while reinforcements clambered in support. "In three hours the
position, which for eighteen days had resisted every attack and held the
British force immobile, was in our hands. The way is clear in front of
us. Manders is recommended for the Victoria Cross. I believe that I am
for the D.S.O. And above all the Road goes on!"

Thus characteristically the letter was concluded. Linfor