merciless ferocity; every appalling circumstance was present. But there
were men who were equal to the occasion. As soon as the alarm sounded
Lieutenant-Colonel McRae of the 45th Sikhs, a holder of the Gold Medal
of the Royal Humane Society and of long experience in Afghanistan and on
the Indian frontier, ran to the Quarter Guard, and collecting seven or
eight men, sent them under command of Major Taylor, of the same
regiment, down the Buddhist road to try and check the enemy's advance.
Hurriedly assembling another dozen men, and leaving the Adjutant,
Lieutenant Barff, with directions to bring on more, he ran with his
little party after Taylor in the direction of the entrance gorge of the
Kotal camp. Two roads give access to the Malakand camp, from the plain
of Khar. At one point the Buddhist road, the higher of the two, passes
through a narrow defile then turns a sharp corner. Here, if anywhere, the
enemy might be held or at least delayed until the troops got under arms.
Overtaking Major Taylor, Colonel McRae led the party, which then
amounted to perhaps twenty men, swiftly down the road, It was a race on
which the lives of hundreds depended. If the enemy could turn the
corner, nothing could check their rush, and the few men who tried to
oppose them would be cut to pieces. The Sikhs arrived first, but by a
very little. As they turned the corner they met the mass of the enemy,
nearly a thousand strong, armed chiefly with swords and knives, creeping
silently and stealthily up the gorge, in the hope and assurance of
rushing the camp and massacring every soul in it. The whole road was
crowded with the wild figures. McRae opened fire at once. Volley after
volley was poured into the dense mass, at deadly range. At length the
Sikhs fired independently. This checked the enemy, who shouted and
yelled in fury at being thus stopped. The small party of soldiers then
fell back, pace by pace, firing incessantly, and took up a position in a
cutting about fifty yards behind the corner. Their flanks were protected
on the left by high rocks, and on the right by boulders and rough