The little force, without any further interference from the enemy, who had suffered pretty severely, left their entrenchments one evening during a terrible thunderstorm, and set off on their return journey. An advance party of a hundred and eighty men met them near Palel, at which place some hours later they fought another brisk action with the Manipuris. In all this fighting Grant had escaped unhurt, but a few weeks afterwards, while again under fire at Palel, he had a very narrow shave, a bullet passing through the back of his neck. As he said himself, his luck all through was marvellous: “Everything turned up all right.” At the same time, making full allowance for the element of luck, there is much, very much, to be placed to his credit on the score of pluck and skill. The difficulties before him when he set out for Manipur on his gallant attempt at rescue were tremendous, and only his undaunted courage and resourcefulness carried him successfully through. The young lieutenant is now Major Grant, V.C., having been gazetted two months after his dashing exploit; and it is pleasing to note that every one of his men who survived the march were also decorated, receiving the Indian Order of Merit for their devotion and heroism. CHAPTER XXVI. HOW SURGEON-CAPTAIN WHITCHURCH WON FAME. There was some consternation in the quaint-looking, five-towered fort at Chitral on the evening of the 3rd of March 1895. Sher Afzul, the usurping chief of the little mountainous state in the north-west of India, was approaching with a large force, and some two hundred of the 4th Cashmere Rifles had gone out under Captain Townshend to try conclusions with the rebels. After several hours’ brisk fighting in the villages nestling at the foot of the hills, the troops had withdrawn to the fort, but some men of one section still remained to be accounted for. Captain Baird, with about a dozen Ghurkhas, had not returned. He was lying somewhere out in the darkness, on the hillside, where the white-robed Chitralis were still firing. And with him was Surgeon-Captain Whitchurch, who had bravely hastened to his assistance on hearing that the captain was wounded. “Where is Whitchurch? Where is Baird?” Captain Gurdon and the other members of the little garrison asked the question of each other anxiously from time to time, hoping that the missing men had found their way into the fort. The surgeon especially was needed, for Captain Townshend’s reconnoitring party had brought many wounded back with them. But the answer still came, with an ominous shake of the head, “Not in yet.”