Free Bayonets Along the Border by John Wilcox Page A

filled by masses of tribesmen, advancing towards the defences of Malakand. He put down the glasses and shook his head. How could this badly mauled post hold out against such numbers?
    He beckoned to Jenkins. ‘See if the horses are all right. Then find the colonel – either one will do – and ask where they would like us.Oh, and see if you can find a couple of bayonets from somewhere. I would feel much happier with lungers on the end of the Lee-Metfords.’
    ‘Blimey, so would I.’
    Inevitably, Jenkins – the indomitable forager – returned within the half-hour carrying two bayonets, two mugs of hot tea and a fistful of chapattis, concealing something hot and spicy. Then the two took up their positions with the native troops manning the east side of the
abattis
. These were just hastily positioned poles of wood fixed at just below shoulder height and topped by strands of barbed wire.
    There they crouched through most of the afternoon, ducking their heads as an occasional bullet thudded into the
abattis
or pinged overhead.
    Towards late afternoon a bugle sounded from high on the Pass and a cheer went up from the fort, then echoed by the defenders in the Crater, as a line of khaki-clad figures could be seen cresting the
kotal
. There they paused and the sunlight glinted off steel as bayonets were fixed. The Guides’ infantry had arrived!
    The line of troops manning the stone sangars up to the fort set up covering fire to protect the infantry and no attempt was made by the Pathans to attack as they marched wearily but solidly down to the Crater. There they were dispersed inside the defences to get some rest before the inevitable night attack, for they had marched for nearly eighteen hours, with only brief breaks, and they were exhausted.
    As the sun set, however, drums began beating from the hills and the cries of the tribesmen began to rise to a crescendo that made the defenders manning the
abattis
feel that they were caught in the centre of some kind of crazily discordant orchestra, conducted by the devil himself.
    ‘What they tryin’ to do, burst our bleedin’ eardrums?’ shouted Jenkins.
    ‘Save your breath,’ grunted Fonthill. ‘They’re creeping nearer and, as soon as the sun goes down, they’ll be at us over this bit of open ground in their thousands. We’ll need to fire as fast as we can, so lay out your spare magazines.’
    So it proved. No sooner had the last rays of the sun flickered away over the jagged hilltop then the cries changed to screams and the earth shook as thousands of sandals thudded across the beaten ground. As Fonthill and Jenkins levelled their rifles and squinted down the barrels a solid mass of figures, waving swords, emerged from the gloom, startlingly close.
    Immediately, the wall of the
abattis
was lit by the flashes of the rifles. There was no need for the defenders to aim. So massed were the attackers and so short the range that it was impossible to miss. The complete front rank of the charging tribesmen fell, bringing down with them those immediately in the rear. But the following lines jumped over the bodies and ran on … into the wall of death produced by the line of Martini-Henrys, firing and being reloaded as fast as brown fingers could ram the cartridges into the breeches.
    Despite the speed with which the sepoys could fire and reload their single-shot rifles, the ten-shot magazines of the Lee-Metfords at the shoulders of Fonthill and Jenkins could more than treble the firepower of the older rifles and, working the breech bolts feverishly, they were able to cut a noticeable swathe in the phalanx of attackers immediately in front of them. Nevertheless, it was more than ten minutes before the tribesmen, now seriously hindered by the bodies at their feet, paused and then – as was their custom – began retrieving their wounded andthe corpses that littered the earth before retreating.
    ‘No firing,’ shouted Meiklejohn. ‘Save your ammunition. Let them collect their