It might almost have been a section of the barracks at Chatham.

But Shere Ali raised his head, and, over against him, on the opposite side of a natural gateway in the hills, rose the steep slope and the Signal Tower.
"I was here," said the Doctor, who stood behind him, "during the Malakand campaign.

You remember it, no doubt ?" "I was at Oxford.

I remember it well," said Shere Ali.
"We were hard pressed here, but the handful of men in the Signal Tower had the worst of it," continued the Doctor in a matter-of-fact voice.

"It was reckoned that there were fourteen thousand men from the Swat Valley besieging us, and as they did not mind how many they lost, even with the Maxims and our wire defences it was difficult to keep them off.