[Illustration: SERGT.-MAJOR EDWIN G. RUNDLE. Age, 71 Years.]
[I would like to follow this brief and unpretentious narrative of my life with a sketch of the operations of a British force, in which my old regiment was brigaded, in the Afghan war.]
Just before sunset on the twentieth of November, 1878, the 2nd Brigade of the Peshawur Valley Field Force, consisting of the Guides Infantry, the 1st Sikhs, and the 17th Foot under Brigadier-General J. A. Tytler--the strength being forty British officers, 1,700 men, of whom 600 were Europeans--left its camp at Jamrud to begin the flank march which was to ensure the completeness of Sir Sam. Browne's victory over the garrison of Masjid. The 17th Regiment had spent the summer in the Murree Hills, where it had been carefully trained for the work that lay before it. Evatt, in his Recollections, says: "It was about the last of the long service battalions of that army which was just then disappearing before the short system, and better specimens of that old regime could not be seen than the men of the 17th, who for weight and space occupied per man were probably thirty per cent. heavier and much broader than the younger soldiers of to-day." Speed being essential to success and the difficulties presented by the country to be traversed very great, tents, bedding and baggage were left behind, to be sent up later through the Pass; and the troops took with them only a small hospital establishment, a reserve of ammunition, two days' cooked rations, and a supply of water stored in big leather bags, known as pukkals. In addition to their great coats, seventy rounds of ammunition and one day's cooked rations was carried by each man.
Unfortunately the greater part of the transport allotted to the brigade consisted of bullocks instead of mules--a mistake which was to leave the men without food for over twenty-four hours. Darkness soon closed in upon the column, and when the comparatively easy road across the Jam plain gave place to an ill-defined track running up a deep ravine, sometimes on one side of a mountain stream, sometimes on the other, sometimes in its very bed, even the native guides, men of the district, familiar with its every rock and stone, were often at fault. The transport animals blundered into the midst of the troops. One corps lost touch with another. A large part of the 17th Regiment wandered away from the path, and was with difficulty brought back to it by the shouting and whistling of its commander. There was so much confusion and so many delays that it was ten o'clock before the force, tired and cold, the men's boots and putties soaked through and through from frequent crossing and recrossing of the Lashora River, arrived at the little hamlet of the same name. Here it settled down to such rest as could be obtained under these uncomfortable conditions, for fires were out of the question where there was no certainty that hidden foes might not be lurking close at hand.