I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib
(the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but--no. All
the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was
all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to
make a loincloth. A fool's war from first to last; for it is manifest that
he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a
_purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had
their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them
permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and
severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be
done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked
much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, "It is a Sahibs' war. That is
the order;" and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond
the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border,
he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his
head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like
a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered
than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me
Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these
people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97