begin to sing across the eight hundred yards of open, and flop ominously round the drivers, intermittently at first, but faster and faster as more men come up, till the drumming of the rifles becomes a continuous roar, and the captors are forced to leave the goats to resume their interrupted grazing while they themselves seize the women by wrist or hair, and by this ungallant means secure immunity and reach the pass unhurt along with their prisoners. The riflemen on the crags now spitefully try to destroy what they cannot hold, and turn their fire on to the innocent goats. A successful shot is signalled by shouted taunts as to the courage of the Sherannis and the fickleness of their womenkind, while the carcass of the stricken beast rolls down the slope, a sheer waste of what would be good meat for a true believer if only one were at hand to cut its throat with due ritual before life is extinct. The Sherannis lying behind the rocks are no cowards, but even so they allow themselves a pause before venturing across that bullet-swept expanse. Yet brave men seldom lack a leader, and when a rifle and a wife represent the invested savings of a lifetime, a man will freely risk his life rather than lose either. Alam Khan, owner of one of the captured ladies, leaps up to head the rush. Round him the bullets fall in a spray of lead, and his career is short. Fifty yards from his cover he goes down with a thigh - bone splintered by the cruel soft bullet of the Snider rifle, and like those other wounded of the escort, he too is shot to death as he lies bleeding. But the floodgates are opened, and a stream of men follow where he led, while fresh arrivals sustain the musketry and cover the advance of their charging comrades. Now, too, there is safety in numbers. The fire that was deadly when concentrated on one, spreads itself over the many with small effect. Here and there a man drops under it, but escapes the merciless attention paid to Alam Khan. Even as it was at Dargai in 1897, the rush of a mass of men succeeds where the piecemeal advance of small parties would fail. And as at Dargai the defenders show discretion and decline the crowning mercy of the assault, thinking it better to live to fight another day. The black dots that were their heads no longer show against the skyline, and the owners of the dots are making very good time down the other side of the mountain long before the Sherannis have reached the pass and begun to spread right and left along the crest in the search for their vanished opponents. But fighting is over for this day and a halt is called in the pursuit, for the sound of the firing has reached the Usterzai villages where they lie four thousand feet below, and in the clear mountain air a swarm of men is seen issuing from them and making to the hills. A fight in the open with the full strength of each tribe engaged, this little bit of rear-guard and the accompanying casualty work no further precautions roll, is rather more than the are taken. Men go down a Sherannis are prepared to hill quicker than they come up. undertake for the sake of a The Usterzais are coming up, few old females. Any wounded and the Sherannis prefer to goats are slaughtered with the complete their descent and get proper invocation to God and out of range before the others the Prophet, and are carried reach the top. So they stand off to be eaten in the evening. not upon the order of their Alam Khan's body has already going but go at once, and with been laid on a bier of branches them goes a white man whose of oak and wild olive, and is attendance at this purely tribal on its way to the village tea party should by rights cemetery, where the warrior subject him to an official wigwill take his rest with his face ging for thus running the risk turned towards holy Mecca, of getting involved in a matter while his widow goes down to which has no concern with her captivity. The men who frontier politics. But perhaps reached the pass fall back from the experience is worth the it on to the main body, covered chance of a reprimand. As for during their retreat by a few the fate of the Sheranni women, scouts who remain on the and the vengeance taken for heights until the rest are out Alam Khan's death, they will of danger, and then themselves no doubt furnish the Sheranrun back at speed till they nis with material for another have left the fateful grass act in the long-drawn-out slopes behind them. Beyond Sheranni-Usterzai tragedy. A REVOLUTION IN LAND WARFARE ? PRACTICAL experience in face of the enemy may prove that air-craft are destined to exert less influence over the warfare of the future than recent events during military manoeuvres in this country and on the Continent would seem to foreshadow. These engines of discovery have yet to be tried during actual hostilities where both belligerents are making use of flying corps, before a final verdict on the subject can properly be arrived at. As our War Office Memorandum, which was issued before the operations in East Anglia began, very properly pointed out with reference to the campaign in North Africa, where aeronautics have played a not unimportant part, the Italians in that theatre of conflict have had the air to themselves. No conclusive test of this new arm is possible so long as its capabilities in a campaign are only put to trial by one side, or so long as they are only tested during the progress of peace exercises. Nevertheless, soldiers will be well advised to look ahead in this matter, and they ought to be prepared for at least the possibility of aviation bringing about such farreaching developments as to amount to a transformation in the conduct of war. The achievements of the Royal Flying Corps in September, on the first occasion of this branch of his Majesty's Service conducting operations on an important scale in connection with other troops, were undoubtedly remarkable. Except on the one occasion when a whole division-a somewhat important item, it should be observed-contrived to conceal itself from overhead observation for a considerable time, the airmen attached to each of the respective sides in the Army Manoeuvres ascertained and reported the movements of the opposing army during the period of the approach marches with significant despatch and accuracy. During the previous week, moreover, on the occasion of the Command Manoeuvres of the Aldershot troops under Sir Douglas Haig, scouting on the part of aviators twice over made known to the commander of one of the contending forces the strength, the position, and the movements of his antagonist. That being the case, it will not perhaps be inexpedient to consider briefly how far these triumphs, triumphs which are undisputed, ought to be discounted before they can fairly be accepted as applicable to the conditions that arise in real war. The concealment of the 4th Division near Saffron-Walden for some hours seems to suggest that, now that the scouting capabilities of airmen are realised, troops may often be able to hide themselves completely from this kind of overhead observation. The feasibility of doing so, however, obviously depends very largely upon the topographical character of the theatre of war. The east of England, and indeed most parts of the more thickly populated districts of the United Kingdom, offer exceptional facilities for the hiding of large bodies of men. The roads and lanes in general are flanked by substantial hedgerows, which offer effective cover at least to foot-soldiers. In Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, moreover, there is commonly a strip of grass running along one or both sides of the roadway, and it is on the actual roadway that troops show up best to the aerial scout. Woods and coppices, furthermore, abound in this part of the country, and these provide excellent means of concealment so long as a force is at the halt. Devices which were successfully put in force in the north-western corner of Essex by part of General Grierson's army might, on the other hand, prove ineffective and even impracticable for deceiving aeronauts were an attempt made to apply them to Salisbury Plain; and it has to be remembered that Salisbury Plain much more nearly represents the type of terrain on which European campaigns are normally fought out than does the interseoted region through which the right flank of the Blue Army made its advance after detraining west of Cambridge. It is obviously easier, again, for troops to hide when they are at the halt than when they are on the march, and they cannot always be at the halt. Infantry on the move may be able to scuttle away to one side on the approach of an aeroplane being reported, and to crouch under the hedge, when there is one; but guns and other vehicles cannot conduct themselves thus. The theory that armies on the move by daylight will be able to hide themselves from aeronauts does not, in fact, hold water except when the conditions happen to be abnormal. And troops will often find the task of concealment by no means an easy one to carry out, even when they are the halt. at Then, again, there is the question of difficulties due to nature-i.e., of thick weather interfering with observation, or of strong winds making flight impracticable. Now, mist and fogs must necessarily render the efforts of the aerial scout abortive; but it has to be remembered that the same thing applies also to mounted troops or cyclists when engaged in reconnaissance work. If such atmospheric conditions prevail, observation in any form becomes almost impossible. Still, there is one set of atmospheric conditions which will always seriously prejudice the work of work of the airman, although it would not adversely affect the operations of the vedette-the conditions arising where the clouds are hanging low. When such conditions prevail, aeroplanes or airships must necessarily manœuvre within dangerously easy range of the troops under observation, as they must be ob serving from below cloud level. In so far as the question of strong winds is concerned, the difficulties in the way of aviation are likely to diminish as time goes on. This is mainly a question of the machine, and in view of the amazing progress which the science of construction has been making within the last three or four years, it seems not unlikely that types of air-craft will eventually be designed which can be navigated and can be brought to the ground with reasonable safety in any but the very worst weather. Finally, and most important by far of all, there is the as yet unsolved problem of the extent to which, in time of war, such air power as may be at the disposal of the enemy, coupled with the artillery fire and musketry of hostile troops, will serve to neutralise the operations of the aviator scout. This must remain to a great extent a matter of conjecture until the veil comes to be torn aside when the next great international conflict arises: it is safe to predict that abundant light will be thrown upon this aspect of the question of military aeronautics whenever there is another war between firstclass civilised Powers. Still, without wishing to dogmatise in respect to a matter about which very different opinions are held by the many military authorities who have studied it, it may be suggested that war experience under almost all circumstances seems to indicate that, where it is a question of exploration, it proves easier for the scout to find out what he wants to than it does for protective troops of the other side to keep the scout at a distance. That certainly is the case when cavalry or other mounted troops are pushing their reconnaissances; because as a result of operations of that type both sides generally find out what they wish to, and neither side proves successful in keeping the hostile patrols at arm's length. The initiative rests, in fact, with the scout. Aerial observers will no doubt often be intercepted; many will come to grief, others will be driven away without ascertaining what they want, others again will be so harassed by opposition that the information which they bring back will be incomplete, and may even be misleading. But some will succeed in spite of obstacles of every kind, and their intelligence may well suffice for the commander who has to base his plans upon the data that they bring him. The art of aerial operations is not, needless to say, being studied in military circles merely from the point of view of executing strategical and tactical exploration. How also to defeat the machinations of hostile air- craft is a subject which is receiving attention on all sides, and it is consequently certain that scouting by aeroplane will prove a far more delicate and dangerous service in time of war than it is in the time of peace. Awkward problems of all kinds arise in connection with the question. |