“By all means,” said Jenkins; “no man stays in the Guides against his will.  You are a free man from this moment.”

And so, very near the same spot where he had taken service on the field of battle, Bahaud-din Khan quietly took his discharge, and rode off, like a knight of old, to place his sword at the service of any who wanted it.  “But riding-school, God forbid!” he muttered as he went.

It is not intended to follow the Guides through all the phases of the Afghan War, but only to tell the story of some of their gallant adventures.  One of the earliest of these was at the little battle of Fattehabad, where Wigram Battye was killed, and Walter Hamilton earned the Victoria Cross.[19] A small force consisting of portions of the 10th Hussars, Guides’ cavalry, 17th Foot, forty-five Sikhs, together with a battery of horse-artillery, were sent on from Jellalabad, as an advance force to clear the road to Kabul.  About twelve miles out, at the village of Fattehabad, General Gough[20] was suddenly threatened in flank by a great gathering of Afghan tribesmen.

  [19] Here again I have had to depart from strict chronology.

  [20] Afterwards General Sir Charles Gough, V.C., G.C.B., etc.

Acting on the principle that in dealing with Asiatics it is always wise, whatever the odds, to attack, instead of waiting the onslaught, the General moved out rapidly with the cavalry and horse-artillery, and ordered the infantry to follow as quickly as possible.  Getting in touch with the enemy, the horse-artillery came into action, but their fire, good and accurate as it might be, was not sufficient to stay the determined advance of large bodies of bloodthirsty and fanatical ghazis.  The General, therefore, ordered the cavalry to charge, the two regiments acting independently under their own commanders.

Major Wigram Battye was commanding the squadron of the Guides’ cavalry launched to the attack, but ere he had proceeded a few hundred yards a bullet hit him in the left hip, and the squadron, under Hamilton, swept on, leaving him still in the saddle, though in great pain and supported by his orderly.

Then happened one of those strange fatalities which brings the Kismet of the Mahomedan into close touch with the Providence of the Christian.  Hamilton and the whole squadron galloping every second into more imminent danger remain unscathed.  The solitary sore wounded horseman, walking his horse behind them, had that day come to the end of God’s allotted span; and as he walked yet another chance bullet pierced his chest, and he fell to rise no more; the second of the Battyes to die on the field of honour, in the ranks of the Guides.