15 AUGUST 1908, Page 20

BOOKS.

THE GUIDES.*

IT was a happy thought of Colonel Younghusband's to put upon durable record the most important and exciting of the many adventures which have befallen the famous corps of Guides. His book makes no pretence at being a history ; it is rather a collection of stirring anecdotes loosely strung together in chronological sequence, so that it resembles in its disorder and its variety the incidents which it describes. Perhaps the uninstructed reader would have welcomed a somewhat more precise background of information to set off the mass of details which make up the greater part of the volume. The origin of the corps is passed over very lightly, and, what is more important, the nature of its composition is nowhere clearly described. If Colonel Younghusband had explained these matters more fully, and if especially he had emphasised the importance of a combination of mutually supporting bodies of horse and foot in a single corps—a fact which can only be gathered by inference from his pages—be would have considerably increased the value of his work. But these, after all, are minor blemishes, for the real merit of Colonel Younghusband's book does not depend upon the thoroughness of its historical structure. It is not a history, but it is something which, in its own way, is as valuable and as fascinating as any history,—it is the rough material out of which history is made. When the record of the rule of the British in India comes to be written, not the least thrilling and splendid of its chapters will be that for which the present book, and others of its kind, will serve as a foundation. That chapter will be devoted neither to great administrative achievements nor to great military triumphs ; it will be concerned with what may seem at first sight to be nothing more than a series of obscure struggles over small issues with insignificant results. But, rightly read, it will reveal much more than that,—it will add a wide domain to what we know already of the valiancy of the human spirit and of the ennobling forces of our race.

Superficially, Colonel Younghusband's book presents us with a curiously savage picture—a picture of violence, disorder, ignorance, and ferocity, which, in spite of the vein of un- flinching heroism which runs through the whole, seems to belong to some remote barbaric period of history rather than to the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is a book about soldiers, so that it is only natural that it should be full of bloodshed ; but it is not the quantity of the fighting in it that is remarkable so much as the spirit in which this fighting was carried on. These rough tribesmen of the frontier regions of India—Afridis, Pathans, Khuttuks, Sikhs, Gurkhas—whose doings, on one side or the other, either for or against the " Feringhis," make up the present chronicle, cannot be classed as ordinary soldiers ; to them fighting was neither a profession nor a means of gain ; it was simply a necessary condition of life. Colonel Younghusband's pages show us a world in which all that is most revolting to civilised man—unceasing confusion and the reign of force—is accepted not only as the natural state of affairs, but as the most agreeable and the best.

This atmosphere of frank and unbridled savagery, however, though it is the most obviously striking, is not the most interesting characteristic of these stories of the Guides. Their fundamental significance is far more profound,—it is the example they afford of the far-reaching and beneficent effects which may be produced by the powers of order, self-reliance, and self-control. The savage tribes of the frontier resembled some chemical substance which only required to come into contact with an appropriate force to reveal a multitude of unexpected attributes and powers. This force was the British officer, and particularly, as Colonel Younghusband is careful to point out, the British subaltern. The great achievements of the Guides—their early services in the Sikh Wars, their memorable march to Delhi, their supreme loyalty in the massacre at Kabul, and, more lately, their courage and devotion during the relief of Chitral and the fighting in the Malakand—all these things are instances of the way in which the wildest barbarism may be converted into the noblest

• The Story of the Guides. By Colonel G. J. Younghusband, C.B., With Illustrations. London : Macmillan and Co. [7s. 6d. net.] virtue and the highest heroism. There is the shrewdness of the savage in the Pathan saying :—" First comes one English- man, as a traveller, or for shikar (sport); then come two and. make a map ; then comes an army and takes the country: It-

is better. therefore, to kill the first Englishman." But when the same savage has experienced the rule of the Englishman, when he has entered the Guides and learnt the lessons of discipline and honour, his verdict is very different. Of all Colonel Younghusband's stories perhaps the most delightful is that of Ditawur Khan, the Khuttuk bandit, who, after many years of hostility to the English, was persuaded by Lumsden to join the Guides, and remained ever after a.

faithful servant of his old enemies. Many years after his enlistment he confessed to Lumsden what his motives had.

been :-

"All I took on for was to learn your tricks and strategy, and_ how British troops were trained, and how they made their- banctobust for war. Directly I had learnt these things I had intended walking off whence I came, to use my knowledge against my enemies. But by the kindness of God I soon learnt what. clean and straight people the sahibs are, dealing fairly by all, and devoid of intrigue and underhand dealing. So I stopped on, and here I am, my beard growing white in the service of the- Queen of England." The central feature of all these stories is the sentiment or loyalty which they reveal. Sometimes, indeed, this feeling is-

carried to absurd lengths, as in the case of the orderly who, having observed that Sir John Lawrence, then Lieutenant- Governor of the Punjab, had spoken sharply to Lumsden, and.

that Lmnsden had resented it, addressed his Colonel thus :—

" I and my comrades noticed that the Lord Sahib spoke to-day- words that were not pleasing to your Excellency, and that you- were angry and displeased when you heard them. So we have- consulted together as to how best we may serve the proper end; for it is not right and proper that we should allow our Colonel Sahib to be harshly spoken to by anyone. There is, therefore, this alternative : the Lord Sahib has arranged to leave by the straight road to-morrow morning for Peshawur, but with your- honour's kind permission, and by the Grace of God, there is no- reason whatever why he should ever reach it."

It was another manifestation of the same spirit which, in the- Residency at Kabul, earned for a small detachment of the- Guides a splendid immortality. When the four Englishmen, whose bodyguard they formed, were massacred, the fanatic' multitudes surrounding the Residency were ready to spare- the lives of their kinsmen. "The Sahibs gave us this duty to- perform," said Jemadar Jewared Singh to his comrades, " to defend this Residency to the last. Shall we then disgrace- the cloth we wear by disobeying their orders now they are dead P I for one prefer to die fighting for duty an& the fame of the Guides, and they that will do likewise, follow me." They were killed to a man ; and their heroism has. been commemorated on the monument at Mardan, with its inscription: "The annals of no army and no regiment can show a brighter record of devoted bravery than has been achieved by this small band of Guides."