Chapter 8 THE MARCH RESUMED THROUGH KILLA DRASAN

We were up by daylight the next morning, had breakfast, and were ready to march by 7 A.M. The wounded were sent back under Luard and the escort who had brought out the baggage, and we moved off in the opposite direction. Our order of march was always the same, each company taking it in turn to act as advance or rear guard, and every British officer, with the exception of Colonel Kelly and Borradaile, taking his turn on duty.

When my company of Kashmir troops was on rear or advance guard, I went with it; at other times I went with the Levies or Colonel Kelly, whichever seemed most useful.

Our march for this day led for some miles along a flat, grassy plain, a continuation of the Nisa Gol Maidan, then up and over a fairly high spur, and gradually down to the river bed opposite the village of Awi or Avi. Here we had a halt for the men to drink, as it was pretty thirsty work marching in these hot valleys. We passed a village or two on the opposite bank, but our side of the river was a desert of rocks and stones. There was a small bridge at Awi, so Cobbe, with fifty men and Shah Mirza as interpreter, was sent across to collect supplies from Buni, the village in which Jones had remained for a week after the Koragh affair. The main body continued along the right bank parallel with Cobbe's party.

During our halt two men had come in, bringing two ponies, which were much appreciated by Colonel Kelly and Borradaile.

When we got opposite Buni, there was a halt at the head of the column, and Colonel Kelly sent me on to find out the reason.

I forgot to mention that when we were encamped at Sanoghar, a man-Chitrali-had come in, having escaped from the enemy. His brothers were followers of Suji-ul-mulk, the little boy whom Surgeon-Major Robertson, as he then was, had made Mehter, and who was besieged in Chitral with our troops. The opposition party, represented by Mahomed Issar, Sher Afzul's foster-brother, had therefore, on capturing this man, put him in quod at Killa Drasan. He had managed to escape the day of the fight, and joined us that evening, and we promptly made use of him as a guide.

This guide now informed us that the road ahead was destroyed, and would take two days to repair, but, by turning up a spur on the right, we could get past the broken part of the road.

In consequence of this there was a halt while the Levies ascended the spur and reconnoitred the top, and very soon we saw them signalling back that all was clear. Sending back the news to Colonel Kelly, I remained with the Levies, who now turned sharp to the right and began the ascent. Humayun offered me a pony, which I thankfully accepted, and noticed that there were now two or three ponies where before there had been none. I didn't say anything at the time, but shortly after there appeared an order to say all captured ponies were to be given up to the Commissariat after the battery had had first pick. It was an awful pull up that spur. I suppose we went up at least two thousand feet. I was all right, as I had a pony, but it must have been agony for the laden coolies. Once up, the going was easy enough; open, grassy downs, gradually sloping down from where we stood to the junction of the Yarkhun and Turikho valleys, though the actual sides of the tableland dropped steeply down to the rivers. By our present divergence we had turned the flank of any position the enemy could take up between Mastuj and Killa Drasan, and had also got the higher ground, our road from here onwards being down hill.

I went ahead now with the Levies, as I wanted to find out if the fort was held at Drasan.

We got to the edge of the downs by 2 P.M., looking straight down on the fort, which was the other side of the river, but from our position we could see right down into the interior.

The place was evidently deserted, for as we were watching, I saw a man go up and try the door, but, finding it closed, he went away again. The villages all round seemed deserted, and I could only see two men driving some cattle high up in the hills.

Before I had finished my sketch, the advance guard came up, and, shortly after, Colonel Kelly. There was a short halt to let the tail of the column close up, and then we commenced the descent. We were down on the river bank in twenty minutes, and the Levies waded across, I on my pony. We found the remains of a bridge which had evidently only just been destroyed, and the material, I fancy, thrown into the river. The Levies were soon up to the fort, and we had the main gate down in a jiffy by using a tree as a battering-ram, and then the Levies went through the place like professional burglars. Before I had hardly got into the courtyard they had found the grain store, and were looting it. I put Gammer Sing on sentry duty over the entrance, and, Borradaile coming up, we inspected it, and found enough grain to last us some months. We now set the Levies to work to get beams for repairing the bridge; at first we could not find any long enough, until the Levies noticed the roof poles of the verandah. We had them out and ran them down to the river bank, opposite to where the Pioneers had drawn up on the farther bank.

It took some time to build the bridge, and it was pretty rickety when done, but it saved the men having to ford. Only one man fell into the river, but he was pulled out all right. The baggage did not arrive at the bridge till dark, and most of the coolies waded across, as there was not time for them to cross in single file on the bridge. The battery also forded, but the donkeys had to be unladen and the loads carried across by hand, and the donkeys were then driven in and made to swim. It was night before the rearguard began to cross, Cobbe, who was in command, not getting in till close on nine o'clock. A couple of shots were fired after dark, and there seemed no satisfactory explanation as to why they were fired, but nobody was hit. The coolies were all put into the courtyard of the fort and a guard on the gate, and they soon had fires going, round which they huddled.

As it was impossible to carry away all the grain we had found, I got permission to issue a ration to all the coolies, who had most of them no supplies of any description, and, telling the guard who had replaced Gammer Sing to let the coolies in in single file, I then sent some Levies to drive them up like sheep. The news soon spread that food was going cheap, and they didn't require much driving. The flour was in a bin about six feet square, by four feet high, and only a small round hole at the top. We soon enlarged that so that a man could get in. I furnished him with a wooden shovel evidently meant for the job, and gave the order for the men to file in. As each man came in he received a shovelful, into his skirt tail, and then had to march round a box and out of the door. It took some two hours to finish the job, and even then the flour was not expended, while the grain, of which there was some in more bins, had not been touched. I left the guard over the door, and got back in time to get orders out for the next day's march, by which time Cobbe and the rearguard had come in, dinner was ready, and it had begun to rain.

We were camped in front of the fort, the men in a field, ourselves alongside on a praying place overlooking the river. The Levies were on the right, the ammunition and stores piled by the quarter-guard, the coolies locked up in the fort, and the pickets all right, so we turned in. Towards morning the rain began to fall heavily, so I pulled my bedding under the fort gateway, where I found Stewart and Oldham had already got the best places; however, I found a spot between two levies, and finished the night comfortably enough. We had not done a bad day's work on the whole. Marched from seven in the morning till six at night, covering some twenty miles of hilly country, made a bridge, and occupied one of the chief forts of the country. Cobbe, with the rearguard, had had the poorest time, but he had had the satisfaction of raiding into Buni.

We woke up next morning to find a dull grey sky and the rain pouring down, everything damp and miserable, and the cook having a fight with the wood to make it burn. Our proposed march for the day being only a short one, we did not start till eight A.M. As we were moving off, a Kashmir sepoy turned up who had been one of Edwardes' party, and whose life had been saved by a friendly villager who gave him some Chitrali clothes. I told him to fall in with the company, and he came down with us to Chitral. The remainder of the flour was distributed among the sepoys, and we took as much grain as we could find carriage for, but it was very little.

A small convoy of Punyal Levies joined us that day; they had been foraging up the Yarkhun valley, and had been sent after us by Moberly. Our road led along the valley through cornfields and orchards, which, in spite of the rain, looked very pretty and green. The trees were just in their first foliage and the corn about a foot high, while all the peach and apricot trees were covered with bloom. We did not see a soul on our march, but the officer in charge of the rear-guard reported that as soon as we left Killa Drasan, the villagers came hurrying down the hill in crowds.

At one place we had a short halt on account of a battery pony, which was amusing itself by rolling down a slope with a gun on its back; it was brought back nothing the worse for its escapade, and we resumed our march.

Before getting into camp, our road led up from the lower valley on to some gentle, undulating spurs of the main range of hills; here there was a cluster of villages, and every available spot was cultivated.

On one of these spurs we camped, where three small villages or clusters of houses formed a triangle, the centre of which was a cornfield. This formed an excellent halting-place, as the men were billeted in the houses, each giving the other mutual protection. We formed our mess in part of the rooms of the headman's house, one Russool of Khusht; he was foster-father to the late Nizam-ul-mulk, but had acknowledged the opposition and joined Sher Afzul. (In the photograph he is sitting half hidden behind the Mehter's left arm, with his head rather raised.)

As we had been great friends during my first visit to Chitral,-(he was awfully fond of whisky),-I've no doubt he was pleased to hear I had been his guest in his own house, but I never had an opportunity to thank him, as he left Chitral hurriedly just before our arrival. The house is the best I have seen in Chitral, a fine stone-paved courtyard, surrounded on three sides with rooms and a verandah, a fine old chinar tree near the gateway on the fourth side. The principal rooms are high and larger than usual, but of the usual pattern. I think we got two companies of the Pioneers and ourselves into this house alone.

By three o'clock we had settled down, and were getting dry. The Levies were sent out foraging, and brought in several ponies. As our stores decreased, and more ponies were brought in, we had spare ponies for riding, and we were nearly all mounted by the time we reached Chitral. However, we had not been there ten days before the owners began turning up, and we were ordered to give them back, much to our disgust. It was quite a treat to be in camp and settled before dark, and I've no doubt the coolies were as thankful as we were. The only drawback to our food was the flour of which the chupatties were made; it was coarse to a degree, and seemed to consist chiefly of minute speckly pieces of husk, which used to tickle our throats up in the most unpleasant manner, and had a nasty habit of choking the swallower, in addition to being highly indigestible. We used at last to sift the flour through linen, and the residuum was a surprise and revelation.

We had intended to march the next morning by 7 A.M., with the intention of getting to a village called Parpish, but as it was still pelting with rain, the march was deferred, to give the weather a chance of clearing up, which it very kindly did about 10 A.M., when we started. The Kashmir Company was on advance guard that day, so I went with them, two levies leading, as usual, about a quarter of a mile ahead. We struck up country for about two miles, till we got to a kotal, or saddle, from whence we had a splendid view of the surrounding country. During a halt, Colonel Kelly came up, and I was able to point out to him the different places-Koragh Defile, where Ross's party had been cut up, Reshun, where Edwardes and Fowler had held out for a week, and Barnas, a village we reached the next day. All these places were on the opposite bank of the river and several thousand feet below us. We had, by taking our present route, avoided a very difficult and dangerous part of the country, and no doubt much disgusted the inhabitants, who, on the old route, would have had all things their own way.

By two o'clock we had reached the village of Gurka, where we were met by a deputation, from whom we demanded certain supplies to be brought to our camp on pain of severe punishment if not complied with, and by 4 P.M. we got to the hamlet of Lun, and as there was a good camping ground, good water and firewood, Colonel Kelly decided to halt there. Here also supplies were demanded, the amount depending a good deal on the number of houses and the knowledge of the locality possessed by Humayun. The Lunites paid up smartly enough, as we were too close neighbours to allow of any hesitation; but the Gurka contribution had only partly come in the next morning, so that a party of the Levies was sent back, and the Gurka villagers had the trouble of bringing the loads along to Barnas, instead of only two miles into Lun, while the headman was made to carry a box of ammunition all the way to Chitral.

Before evening the sun came out, and it was very jolly in camp. We had some nice short turf to lie on, and the night was not too cold for comfort. There were good places for the pickets, and the camp was compact and handy.