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By Root 3131 0

he turned to deal with this new threat. It had been bad enough to have to fend off attacks from their front and their right flank while being harassed by fire from the surrounding housetops; but if the enemy were to break through from the rear and pour in troops at ground level, the garrison might find themselves forced to abandon the Residency, together with their wounded, and retreat to the barracks as the only position left to them. An untenable position at that, as the barracks would be impossible to hold once the Residency was lost, because the enemy would then be able to concentrate their fire on it from a range of a few yards; and once penned inside it there would be no way of seeing across the compound or gaining any idea of what the Afghans were doing.

The rear wall was only too easy to breach as it was woefully thin, and the men who filled the narrow street behind it were hacking at it in perfect safety, for they could not be fired on except from the roofs of the Residency houses – which entailed standing up on the curtain wall of the Envoy's House or the extreme edge of the Mess House, and aiming directly downwards: and since the first three jawans to attempt this were killed instantly by enemy marksmen crouching behind the parapets of rooftops on the opposite side of the street, it was not tried again.

The sappers below had been at work for some time before the danger was spotted, for the continuous crackle of firing, allied to the roar of a mob whose rage against the Infidel and inbred lust for fighting had been inflamed by the long fast of Ramadan, had masked the sounds of pick-axes from the men inside the Residency. The existence of this new and deadly threat had only been realized when a group of servants, crouching in a ground-floor room of the Envoy's House, saw a hole appear near the skirting. One of them had rushed upstairs to give the alarm, and implored the Envoy to leave his office and go over to the other house.

‘Huzoor, if these shaitans break through below, you will be trapped. And then what shall become of us? You are our father and our mother, and if we lose you, we are lost – we are all lost!’ yammered the terrified man, beating his head against the floor.

‘Be-wakufi!’ snapped Cavagnari angrily. ‘Stand up, thou. Weeping will not save your lives, but work may do so. Come on, William – and you others too – they'll need help down there.’

He made for the stairs, followed by William and the two jawans who had been firing through loopholes in the shutters, the wailing servant bringing up the rear. But Wally, appraising his Chief's grey face and unfocused eyes and realizing that this time he could not refuse his help, managed to persuade him that he would be far better employed as a sniper on the top floor of the Mess House, firing through a loophole at the mob surrounding the Arsenal to discourage them from invading the compound again.

Cavagnari had not demurred. He was beginning to suffer from the effects of concussion, and he did not suspect that Lieutenant Hamilton's real reason for asking him to man that particular position was that the top floor of the Mess House seemed to Wally a far safer place than the crowded courtyard, and he meant to ensure that his wounded chief ran no unnecessary risks.

As though to prove that his caution was justified, he had no sooner escorted Sir Louis from the courtyard than a musket ball was fired into it from close range and at knee level. The shot had wounded two men, and created considerable confusion among the remainder as it appeared to have come from inside the tent that had contained the ammunition; and it was only when a second and third shot followed that the garrison realized that the enemy's sappers must have broken through the wall behind the empty tent, and were firing at them blindly from the street behind the Residency. The courtyard cleared with magical swiftness, and William detailed Naik Mehr Dil and sepoys Hassan Gul and Udin Singh to block the hole, which could not be reached until the tent came down.

The three jawans had managed to dismantle