'He turned to the westward, and as he did so there was a flicker in the darkness, where the rugged top of the Asmai Hill could just be made out. For an instant there was perfect silence; then, as the flame caught and flared, there rose from the men around him a low, involuntary "A--h," such as one may sometimes hear at Lord's when a dangerous wicket goes down. Then in the distance two musket shots rang out, and after them a few more; but along the cantonment wall all was silent; men stood with beating hearts awaiting the onslaught. For some minutes the suspense lasted, and then suddenly burst from the darkness a wild storm of yells, "Allah, Allah, Allah," and fifty thousand Afghans came with a rush at the wall, shouting and firing. The cantonment was surrounded by a broad continuous ring of rifle-flashes, and over the parapet and over the trenches the bullets began to stream.'
But the subjoined extract, which gives Langley's death, is a better example of the book's general style--cool, circumstantial, abhorrent of glitter or exaggeration, leaving a clear impression of things actually witnessed and done, a brief glimpse of one of the incidents that remain stamped on the brain of those who saw it, but are otherwise forgotten in war-time, after a day or two's regret for the lost comrade.[13]
'They were all weary, and marched carelessly forward in silence. The night was closing fast, and a little fine snow was falling.... There was a sudden flash in the darkness to the right, a shot, and then a scattering volley. Guy Langley threw up his arms with a cry, and as the startled horse swerved across the road he fell with a dull thud on the snow. There was a moment of confusion, but the Sikhs, though careless, were good soldiers, and two or three of them dashed towards the low wall from which the shots had come. They were just in time to see four men running across a bit of broken ground towards a deep water-cut, fringed with poplars. The horsemen were very quick after them, being light men on hardy horses; and one of the four Afghans, a big man in a dirty sheepskin coat, lost his head, and ran down under a bit of wall; the other three crossed the water-cut. The horsemen saw the position at once, and rode after the man on their side of the trench. They were up to him in a minute, and Atar Singh made a lunge at him with his lance; but the Afghan avoided it, and swinging up his heavy knife cut the boy across the hand. Before he could turn to run again a second horseman was on him, and with a grim "Hyun--Would you?" drove the lance through his chest.'