Just here the tribesmen had
constructed a formidable abattis of prickly brushwood, which stretched
athwart the road, and dammed back the fugitives in the shallow oval basin
between the termination of the ravine and the summit of the ridge. In
this trap were caught our hapless people and the swarm of their native
followers, and now the end was very near. From behind the barrier, and
around the lip of the great trap, the hillmen fired their hardest into
the seething mass of soldiers and followers writhing in the awful Gehenna
on which the calm moon shone down. On the edges of this whirlpool of
death the fell Ghilzais were stabbing and hacking with the ferocious
industry inspired by thirst for blood and lust for plunder. It is among
the characteristics of our diverse-natured race to die game, and even to
thrill with a strange fierce joy when hope of escape from death has all
but passed away and there remains only to sell life at the highest
possible premium of exchange. Among our people, face to face with death
on the rocky Jugdulluk, officers and soldiers alike fought with cool
deadly rancour. The brigadier and the private engaged in the same fierce
_melee_, fought side by side, and fell side by side. Stalwart Captain
Dodgin of the 44th slew five Afghans before he fell. Captain Nicholl of
the horse-artillery, gunless now, rallied to him the few staunch gunners
who were all that remained to him of his noble and historic troop, and
led them on to share with him a heroic death.
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