With Kelly to Chitral

With Kelly to Chitral

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Title: With Kelly to Chitral
Author: William George Laurence Beynon
Release Date: January 5, 2004 [EBook #10603]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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KELLY TO CHITRAL ***

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[Illustration: Chitral Bridge and Fort.]

WITH KELLY TO CHITRAL
By
LIEUTENANT W.G.L. BEYNON, D.S.O. 1st BATTALLION 3rd
GOORKA RIFLES
STAFF OFFICER TO COLONEL KELLY'S RELIEF FORCE
1896

GILGIT,

_21st October 1895_
MY DEAR MOTHER,
Before you read this short history of a few brief weeks, I must warn
you that it is no record of exciting adventure or heroic deeds, but
simply an account of the daily life of British officers and Indian troops
on a frontier expedition.
How we lived and marched, what we ate and drank, our small jokes and
trials, our marches through snow or rain, hot valleys or pleasant fields,
in short, all that contributed to fill the twenty-four hours of the day is
what I have to tell.
I write it for you, and that it may please you is all I ask.--Your son,
W.B.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
- INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER II
- THE MARCH BEGINS

CHAPTER III
- THE SHANDUR PASS

CHAPTER IV
- FROM LASPUR TO GASHT

CHAPTER V
- CHOKALWAT

CHAPTER VI

- THE RECONNAISSANCE FROM MASTUJ

CHAPTER VII
- THE FIGHT AT NISA GOL

CHAPTER VIII
- THE MARCH RESUMED THROUGH KILLA DRASAN

CHAPTER IX
- NEARING CHITRAL

CHAPTER X
- WE REACH THE GOAL

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Those marked with a * are from Sketches by the Author_.
*CHITRAL BRIDGE AND FORT
NIZAM-UL-MULK, MEHTER OF CHITRAL
*A "PARI" ON THE ROAD TO GUPIS
*THE SHANDUR PASS
*RECONNAISSANCE SKETCH OF THE POSITION AT
CHOKALWAT
*MASTUJ FORT
LOOKING UP THE NISA GOL NULLAH
*RECONNAISSANCE SKETCH OF THE POSITION AT NISA GOL
MAP SHOWING ROUTE OF COLONEL KELLY'S FORCES
* * * * *
*** Thanks are due to the Publishers of Mr. Thomson's The Chitral
Campaign for the loan of two blocks illustrating "Chokalwat" and
"Nisa Gol" from Lieut. Beynon's sketches.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTH WEST FRONTIER OF INDIA*]

WITH KELLY TO CHITRAL

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
"Would you like to go up to Gilgit?"
"Rather."
I was down in the military offices at Simla, hunting for a book and
some maps, when I was asked the above question. No idea of Gilgit
had before entered my head, but with the question came the answer,
and I have since wondered why I never before thought of applying for
the billet.
This was at the end of June 1894, and on the 24th August I was
crossing the Burzil pass into the Gilgit district. As day broke on the
31st August, I dropped down several thousand feet from Doyen to
Ramghat in the Indus valley, and it suddenly struck me I must have
come down too low, and got into Dante's Inferno. As I passed under the
crossbeam of the suspension bridge, I looked to find the motto, "All
hope relinquish, ye who enter here." It wasn't there, but instead there
was a sentry on the bridge, who, on being questioned, assured me that
though there was not much to choose in the matter of temperature
between the two places, I was still on the surface of the earth. He
seemed an authority on the subject, so I felt happier, and accepted the
cup of tea offered me by the commander of the guard.
Two hours later I was in Bunji, where I found I was to stay, and two
days after that, an officer on his way down to Kashmir passed through,
and almost the first question he asked me was, why on earth I had come
up to Gilgit. "Gilgit's played out," said he. Well, I had been asked that
question several times on my march up, so I may as well explain that
there are officially two chief causes which send men up to Gilgit--one
is debts, and the other, the Intelligence Branch. These, I say, are the
official reasons, but the real reason is the chance of a "frontier row." In

Simla they call them military expeditions. This accounts for the last
part of that young officer's speech. There seemed no chance of a row to
him, so he was going to other fields, and wondered