1
Among The Pathans
William Murray Graydon
1891
When Jack Chetwynd dropped into the Bundar Cafe at Delhi one scorching afternoon in September of last year and informed me that we were ordered off to the Punjaub, I could have shouted for joy. I did not do it, though, for I well knew how scornfully Jack would regard any such demonstration. I merely nodded my head, lazily, and went on reading the Post with as much calmness as if such news was a mere every day affair.
"Yes, my boy," went on Jack, dropping into a chair and ordering a lemon squash, "we are going to have some fun. You know those rascally Pathans killed two or three of our fellows near the frontier station at Oghi some time ago, so an expedition is going up to give them a drubbing for it. It's a deuce of a country, they say, that Black Mountain region, and these Pathans are terrible fellows, too; fight like tigers. Plenty of chance for glory there, Charlie; so prepare yourself!"
Jack stopped for breath, and buried his mustache in the icy goblet.
"And so the Rifles are really ordered off, are they?" I said, eagerly. "It's high time. I've been here nearly a year now, and the worst enemy I've seen yet was a rascally wild boar. Do you know how soon we start?"
"About the first of October, I believe," Jack replied. "And now come take a hand at billiards. You will have time enough to discuss the Black Mountain tribes between this and the first."
Jack's information proved correct. The Seventh Rifles, on whose regimental records I was entered as Lieutenant Charles Bentley, was included in the expeditionary forces, while Jack, whose regiment was still up in Sikkim