France--And After

Nothing so very remarkable happened to Godfrey during those ten years of his life in India, or at least only one or two things. Thus once he got into a scrape for which he was not really responsible, and got out of it again, as he imagined, without remark, until Isobel showed her common and rather painful intimacy with its details, of which she appeared to take a somewhat uncharitable view, at any rate so far as the lady was concerned.

The other matter was more serious, since it involved the loss of his greatest friend, Arthur Thorburn. Briefly, what happened was this. There was a frontier disturbance. Godfrey, who by now was a staff officer, had been sent to a far outpost held by Thorburn with a certain number of men, and there took command. A reconnaissance was necessary, and Thorburn went out for that purpose with over half of the available garrison of the post, having received written orders that he was not to engage the enemy unless he found himself absolutely surrounded. In the end Thorburn did engage the enemy with the result that practically he and his force were exterminated, but not before they had inflicted such a lesson on the said enemy that it sued for peace and has been great friends with the British power ever since.

First however a feeble attack was made on Godfrey's camp that he beat off without the loss of a single man, exaggerated accounts of which were telegraphed home representing it as a "Rorke's Drift defence."