In retiring before such an enemy an almost exaggerated deliberation is required, for the least appearance of hurry, much more so of confusion, will open the sluice gates and let in such a stormy torrent of warriors, that science must perforce give way to weight of numbers. The story of the day's fighting may thus be briefly told. The Guides had completed their mission on which they had been despatched, and were now retiring down the spurs of a lofty hill which forms the angle where the Jandul River flows into the Panjkora River. This hill is to the south of the Jandul River, whilst the bridge head was to the north of it. Thus, to reach their entrenched position the Guides had to retire down the mountain they were on and to cross the Jandul River. At about noon two dense columns of the enemy were seen coming down the Jandul Valley, one column keeping to the right bank, and the other to the left bank of the Jandul River. The first column, breasting the mountain out of range of the Guides and mostly hidden from them by an intervening spur, reached the summit and attacked the regiment strongly as it retired. The second column sweeping down the valley prepared to assail the Guides in flank and rear, hoping to completely cut off their retreat. Foot by foot--to the spectators it seemed almost inch by inch--the different companies retired alternately down the ridges they occupied, fiercely assailed on all hands yet coolly firing volley after volley, relinquishing quietly and almost imperceptibly one strong position only to take up another a few yards back, the splendidly-directed fire of the Derajat Mountain Battery doing invaluable service. So good indeed was the fire discipline of the troops engaged under these trying circumstances that not a shot was fired except by word of command. Meanwhile two companies of the regiment, which had been left to hold the bridge head, moved out to check the advance of the enemy's second column, which, making a detour, was moving with determination into the flank and rear of the retreating force. The whole of the 2nd Brigade, a battery of artillery, and a Maxim gun, were now ordered out and placed in a strong position on the east bank of the Panjkora (the Guides being on the west bank), whence in the later stages of the retirement their fire could be of material assistance. Owing to the very broken nature of the mountain sides, and the excellent cover afforded to skilled skirmishers, our loss was exceedingly small till the foot of the hill was reached. Here the regiment had to cross several hundred yards of level ground, on which the green barley was standing waist high, and then cross the Jandul River, here about three feet deep, to make its way through more fields to the bridge head. Unhappily, just as the regiment left the last spur, the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel F. D. Battye was mortally wounded, dying, as he would perhaps most wish to, at the head