them there. At 6.30 A.M. on July 27 he struck camp
and moved forwards with his little force of 2599 fighting men. Daring
has wrought wonders in Indian warfare, but rarely has any British
commander undertaken so dangerous a task as that to which Burrows set
his hand on that morning.

During his march he heard news from a spy that the Afghan main body was
about to join their vanguard; but, either because he distrusted the
news, or hoped even at the last to "pluck the flower, safety, out of the
nettle, danger," he pushed on and sought to cut through the line of the
enemy's advance as it made for Maiwand. About 10 A.M. his column passed
the village of Khig and, crossing a dried watercourse, entered a parched
plain whereon the fringe of the enemy's force could dimly be seen
through the thick and sultry air. Believing that he had to deal with no
large body of men, Burrows pushed on, and two of Lieutenant Maclaine's
guns began to shell their scattered groups. Like wasps roused to fury,
the ghazis rushed together as if for a charge, and lines of Afghan
regulars came into view. The deceitful haze yielded up its secret.
Burrows' brigade stood face to face with 15,000 Afghans. Moreover some
influence, baleful to England, kept back those Asiatics from their
usually heedless rush. Their guns came up and opened fire on Burrows'
line. Even the white quivering groups of their ghazis forebore to charge
with their whetted knives, but clung to a gully which afforded good
cover 500 yards away from the British front and right flank; there the
Afghan regulars galled the exposed khaki line, while their cannon, now
numbering thirty pieces, kept up a fire to which Maclaine's twelve guns
could give no adequate reply.

[Illustration: Battle of Maiwand]

It has been stated by military critics that Burrows erred in letting the
fight at the outset become an affair of artillery, in which he was
plainly the weaker. Some of his guns were put out of action; and in that
open plain there was no cover for the fighting line, the reserves, or
the supporting horse. All of them sustained heavy losses from the
unusually accurate aim of the Afghan gunners. But the enemy had also
suffered under our cannonade and musketry; and it is consonant with the
traditions of Indian warfare to suppose that a charge firmly pushed home
at the first signs of wavering in the hostile mass would have retrieved
the day. Plassey and Assaye were won by sheer boldness. Such a chance