Sir Bindon Blood offered them medical aid for their
wounded, but this they declined. They could not understand the motive,
and feared a stratagem. What the sufferings of these wretched men must
have been, without antiseptics or anaesthetics, is terrible to think of.
Perhaps, however, vigorous constitutions and the keen air of the
mountains were Nature's substitutes.
Thus the episode of the Mamund Valley came to an end. On the morning of
the 12th, the troops moved out of the camp at Inayat Kila for the last
time, and the long line of men, guns and transport animals, trailed
slowly away across the plain of Khar. The tribesmen gathered on the
hills to watch the departure of their enemies, but whatever feelings of
satisfaction they may have felt at the spectacle, were dissipated when
they turned their eyes towards their valley. Not a tower, not a fort was
to be seen. The villages were destroyed. The crops had been trampled
down. They had lost heavily in killed and wounded, and the winter was at
hand.
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