With Kelly to Chitral | Page 7

laden or unladen animals could not cross the pass, we saw no reason to suppose that men could not, and therefore, at Teru, which we reached by four o'clock, a halt was made, and two hundred Pioneers, with Borradaile and Cobbe, and the Sappers under Oldham, were detailed to remain there with the Hunza Levies, and to try and force their way across the pass the next day. Borradaile was to receive all the coolie transport, which he was to send back as soon as he got across the pass, in order that we might follow with the remainder of the troops. His orders were to entrench himself at Laspur, which was the first village across the pass, and if possible open communications with Mastuj.
The guns were immediately sent back to Ghizr, and we set to work to sort out the kits of Borradaile's party from the remainder. The unavoidable confusion at first was something dreadful. First of all, the kits had to be unloaded, then those of Borradaile's party separated and put on one side; the remaining kits were then loaded on the ponies and sent off, as fast as the ponies could be loaded up, back to Ghizr. The ammunition had to be divided, and as much as possible given over in the way of supplies. All this time we had to have a ring of sentries round to stop the coolies from bolting, but as soon as we had got the ponies off, the coolies were collected, and sat down in the snow under a guard. Borradaile's party were then told off into the different houses, and the coolies likewise, still under guard, the ammunition and supplies stacked, and the job was done.
By this time it was about seven o'clock, getting dark, and also beginning to snow. All of us, officers and men, were covered with slush and mud from head to foot, and dripping wet. Smith, who was going with Borradaile's party, had, however, managed to get a fire going in one of the houses, and had got some tea ready, bless him! We had a cup all round, and wished Borradaile and his party good luck. The remainder of us plunged out into the darkness and snow and splashed back to Ghizr. The men, who had started some time before us, were comfortably in their former quarters when we reached Ghizr.
On the way we met Stewart, who had just returned from his coolie hunt, and was seated on a rock, like Rachel mourning for her children, only in his case he was murmuring, not because the guns were not, but because they were back in Ghizr. "His guns were going over that pass even if he had to carry them himself, you may bet your boots on that! and begad, I'll set the gunners to cut a road; and d'ye think now the snow would bear the mules at night when it was frozen at all?"
We got back to the huts we had left in the morning by 8.30 P.M., and there was a general demand for something hot. Our servants, luckily, had been sent back straight, so it was not long before we had something to eat; that was our first meal since 5.30 A.M., and it was now about 9 P.M. We had marched some sixteen miles through snow, and been on foot for some fifteen hours, and here we were back in the same place we had started from. Since midday we had been pretty well wet through, and the wind and cold had peeled the skin off our faces till it hung in flakes; still we were lucky in having a roof over our heads, as it had now started to snow in earnest. After dinner we weren't long before turning in.
We were up early the next morning, but Stewart and Gough were up still earlier, and were making sledges and trying experiments with loads. They came in flushed with success, swearing that they had dragged the whole ammunition of the guns by themselves across half a mile of snow, and that they would have the guns over the pass in no time. Unluckily, the snow was still falling, and as Borradaile had all the available coolie transport, we were forced to wait till he could send it back. By noon he sent in a letter by one of the levies, saying he had been unable to start, as heavy snow was still falling, but would try the next day.
Shah Mirza now came up to me and said that there was a mullah in the village who had an infallible charm for stopping the snow, and a present of a few rupees would no doubt set it in motion. I promptly inquired how it was the mullah was not carrying a