Ch. 16: The Courting of Dinah Shadd

What did the colonel's lady think?
Nobody never knew.
Somebody asked the sergeant's wife
An' she told 'em true.
When you git to a man in the case
They're like a row o' pins,
For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady
Are sisters under their skins.
BARRACK-ROOM BALLAD.

Al day I had followed at the heels of a pursuing army engaged on one of
the finest battles that ever camp of exercise beheld. Thirty thousand
troops had by the wisdom of the Government of India been turned loose
over a few thousand square miles of country to practise in peace what
they would never attempt in war. Consequently cavalry charged unshaken
infantry at the trot. Infantry captured artillery by frontal attacks
delivered in line of quarter columns, and mounted infantry skirmished up
to the wheels of an armoured train which carried nothing more deadly
than a twenty-five pounder Armstrong, two Nordenfeldts, and a few score
volunteers all cased in three-eighths-inch boiler-plate. Yet it was a
very lifelike camp. Operations did not cease at sundown; nobody knew the
country and nobody spared man or horse. There was unending cavalry
scouting and almost unending forced work over broken ground. The Army of
the South had finally pierced the centre of the Army of the North, and
was pouring through the gap hot-foot to capture a city of strategic
importance. Its front extended fanwise, the sticks being represented by
regiments strung out along the line of route backwards to the divisional
transport columns and all the lumber that trails behind an army on the
move. On its right the broken left of the Army of the North was flying
in mass, chased by the Southern horse and hammered by the Southern guns
till these had been pushed far beyond the limits of their last support.
Then the flying sat down to rest, while the elated commandant of the
pursuing force telegraphed that he held all in check and observation.

Unluckily he did not observe that three miles to his right flank a
flying column of Northern horse with a detachment of Ghoorkhas and
British troops had been pushed round, as fast as the failing light
allowed, to cut across the entire rear of the Southern Army, to break,
as it were, all the ribs of the fan where they converged by striking at
the transport, reserve ammunition, and artillery supplies. Their
instructions were to go in, avoiding the few scouts who might not have
been drawn off by the pursuit, and create sufficient excitement to
impress the Southern Army with the wisdom of guarding their own flank
and rear before they captured cities. It was a pretty manoeuvre, neatly
carried out.

Speaking for the second division of the Southern Army, our first
intimation of the attack was at twilight, when the