As for the fort itself, it was so completely commanded by the fire from the spurs that to move about in it was to court death.  Yet thus glued to the walls, and assailed night and day by brave warriors whose numbers rose rapidly from fifteen hundred to over ten thousand, a few young British officers with a couple of hundred Sikhs again and again rolled back the tide of war.  The history of that week was as the history of the Malakand, continuous attacks by night and day; but the execution done on the enemy, considering the smallness of the garrison, was comparatively higher; statistics are difficult to gather, but a fairly accurate estimate puts their loss at two thousand.  And, to illustrate the indomitable courage and unflagging spirit with which the defence was maintained to the end, when on the last day the thrice welcome sight of the Guides’ cavalry and the 11th Bengal Lancers, coming over the Amandara Pass, met the view of that weary little band, they in their turn became the attackers, and, led by the undaunted Rattray, sallied forth and stormed the enemy’s positions.  To Hedley Wright who commanded, and to Rattray and Wheatley who were the soul of the defence, as well as to the gallant Sikhs, is due the admiration of every soldier who loves to hear of a good fight fought out to the end as British officers and men led by them know how to fight it.

As at the Malakand, so at Chakdara, and so times without number, it is the gallant British subaltern, in spite of silly chatter, who again and again has shown the highest attributes of an officer and a soldier.  It is the foolish custom of a certain class of Englishman to decry all that is their own; and amongst the latest of these victims of a dyspeptic imagination is the British officer.  Men call him stupid, who would themselves have no chance of passing the intellectual test which every young officer has to go through.  Sitting safe and smug at home they libel the courage and devotion of the gallant gentleman who is giving his life for them.  Perhaps against these may be placed the word of an old soldier, who for thirty years has seen the British officer, as fighter, diplomatist, and administrator, in all parts of the world, and who has not lightly come to the conclusion that he has not his better in the army of any country, and is only equalled by his brother of the British Navy.

* * * * *

Marshalling and redistributing his forces, Sir Bindon Blood, after the relief of Chakdara, proceeded systematically to punish the tribes involved in the late fanatical upheaval.  Amongst the first to be so dealt with were the tribesmen of the Upper Swat, and the action of Landaki was the result.