The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-06-27

I ever heard on the affair was the boys
/ own. and all he said was: e was trans
/ pontine. but necessary
| from the beginning, for little bits of pure
| inspiration very seldom come 10 or are
acted upon by Stevens self-indulgent, or
| undisciplined people. have never yet come
across a V. c. who had not the strictest
notions about washing. and shaving. and
keeping himself quiet and decent on his
way through the civilized world.
Indeed, it is very curious, after on has
known hundreds OF young men and young
officers, to sit still at distance and watch
them come forward TO success in their pro-
feSSion The clean and conSiderate man al
ways seems TO take hold of circumstances
NOT WHOLLY ORNAMENTAL.
One of the latest and youngest of the V.
C.'s used to know distantly was beauti-
full being whom they called aid-de-camp to
some big official in India. SO far as an out
slider could judge, his duties consisted in
wearing a uniform faced with blue satin
and in seeing that every one enjoyed him
self at the dances and dinners. He would
wander about smiling with eyes at the
back Of his head, introducing men who
were strangers and little uncomfortable
to girls whose dance cards were rather
empty; taking old and uninteresting wom-
en- in to supper and tucking them into their
carriages afterward; or steering white
whiskered native officers all covered with
medals and half blind with confusion
through the maze of a levee into the pres
ence or the Nlceroy or commandment chlef
or whoever it was that wanted to see them
A few years later his chance came, and
he made the most of it. We were then
smoking out q nest of caravan raiders,
slave dealers and general thieves who lived
somewhere under the karakorum noun
tains among glaciers about sixteen thou
sand feet above the sea level. The mere
road to the place was too much for many
mules, for it ran by precipices and round
rock curves and over roaring snoW-fed
rivers.
The enemy-they were called Kanjuts
this time-had fortified themselves in a
man could make it. One position was on
top of a cliff about twelve hundred feet
high, whence they could roll stones directly
on the heads of any attacking force. Our
men objected to the stones much more
than to the rifle fire. They were down in a
river bed at the bottom Of an icy. pass
with some three tiers of cliH-like defenses
above them and the kaniuts were very
well armed. To make all pleasant it was
December.
This ex-aid-de-camp was a good noun
taineer, and he was told off with a hundred
natives, GoorkhaSg and Dogra Skins, 10 get
into the TOP tier of Notifications, and the
only Way Of arriving was to follow a sort
of shoot in the cliff face which the enemy
had worn out by throwing rocks down b.
daylight in peace and with guides, II
would have been good mountaineering.
He went in the dark, by eye and with
some two thousand kanJuts very much at
war with him. When he had climbed eight
hundred feet almost perpendicular he found
he must come back, because even he and
his cragsmen could, find no way.
He returned to the river bed and began
again in new place, working his men up
between avalanches that slid along and
knocked people over. When he got to the
top he had to take his men into the forts
with the bayonets and the Kukri, the little
Goorkha knife. The thing was so bold that
it broke the hearts of the enemy and prac-
tically ended the campaign, and if you
could see the photograph of the place you
would understand why.
1t was hard toenail and fingernail noun
taineering under fire, and the men behind
him were not regulars, but what wemc call
the imperial service troops-men raisM by
the neutrality-suspicious. kings and used to
defend the frontier. They enjoyed them
selves immensely, and the little abide
camp got a deserved Victoria cross. The
courage of Ulysses again, for he had to
think as he climbed, and until he was di-
rectIy under the Notifications one chance
hopping bowlder might just have planned
his men off all along the line.
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