The Air Patrol Part 42

"Where's the rest?" he asked.

"There's the rub, sir. The rest is dispersed through many pages of my note-book, high and dry, pearls of poesy, gems of purest ray serene, waiting leisure and a rhyming dictionary to thread them into perfect and resplendent ornament."

"Well, finish it when you have time. You can send it to us, you know."

"Registered, sir. I will do so without failings, and earn the meed of melodious tear or two, if not penny a line."

Rolling up the paper, he returned to his own quarters, followed by eyes mirthful but compa.s.sionate.

The campaign in Afghanistan lasted for several months after the check given to the flanking force in the valley. The Mongols having obtained a firm grip of the country around Kabul, it was difficult to dislodge them, though they never succeeded in forcing the pa.s.ses into India. As the struggle developed, and the British Indian army took the offensive, the Afghans, who had by this time found the Mongols unpleasant guests, and begun to doubt their value as allies, quarrelled with the invaders, and either withdrew into their remotest and least accessible hills, or took sides actively against them. This was the beginning of the end.

The horses which, if the early raids had been successful, would have proved a tremendous a.s.set to the enemy, were in a prolonged check in Afghanistan a serious handicap. It became impossible to feed them. The Mongol host lost its mobility, and found itself pent up in a mountainous region where supplies even for the men failed.

The story of the great retreat cannot be told in these pages. When once the retrograde movement began, every armed man in Afghanistan and Northern Persia hasted like a sleuth-hound in pursuit. Only a fraction of the half-million invaders returned to Tashkend and beyond.

A year or two afterwards, when the invasion was pa.s.sing into the oblivion which soon swallows up even the greatest events of the hurrying modern world, two of the actors in this little drama had their memories recalled to it by a trifling street scene. Colonel Sir Herbert Endicott and Lieutenant Robert Appleton were walking through the bazaar at Lah.o.r.e when they met an old fakir striding along. They were struck by his vacant gaze, and the incessant muttering of his lips.

"You heard what he said, Bob?" said the Colonel, as the tall, lean, half-naked figure swung by.

"Yes," replied Bob, who was becoming an expert in the Border dialects.

"'I am a sharpener of swords,' wasn't it?"

And his thoughts flew back to that first journey through the hills.

"The poor wretch is clearly mad," said the Colonel. "I fear the sword he sharpened has wounded his own hand. Let's hope it will always be so with rebels and malcontents. There's this good come out of it, at any rate: we have learnt to sharpen our own swords, and not to grudge the expense.... When do you expect your new aeroplane?"

"Pretty soon. It's a ripper, but I shan't like it so well as the old one. Old friends are best."

"Does that hold with aeroplanes as with men, I wonder? Anyhow, I wish you luck with it. Shall we turn?"

THE END