With Kelly to Chitral | Page 6

turned into a mess and quarters for ourselves.
We halted on the 30th March, in order to allow the second detachment
of the Pioneers and the guns to come up, as from here Colonel Kelly
intended to march in one column. Here also we picked up the Hunza
and Nagar Levies, numbering a hundred men, under their own leaders.
They were posted in the village of Teru, some four miles up the valley,
and from there could give timely warning if any hostile force crossed
the pass. Wazir Humayun led the Hunza crowd, and Wazir Taifu the
Nagar. I got to know Humayun very well indeed, and a right good sort
he is. He had formerly lived for some five years in Chitral, when Raja
Safdar Ali Khan of Hunza had made things too hot for him, but when
Safdar Ali fled when we took the country in 1891-92, he was reinstated.
Wazir Taifu I did not get to know so well, as the Nagar Levies were left
behind at Mastuj, when we went on from there to Chitral. The second
detachment under Peterson, and the guns with Stewart, got into camp
some time after midday on the 31st March.
In the meantime, every available coolie and pony had been collected,
and we calculated on being able to start the next morning, with ten
days' rations for the whole force. By 6 A.M. on the 1st April the troops
had fallen in and were ready to start, and a nice handy little lot we had.
Four hundred Pioneers, two mountain guns, forty Kashmir Sappers and
a hundred Levies. Then the coolies were told to load up, and the trouble
began. It now appeared that some hundred coolies and ponies from
Yasin had bolted during the night. We had put too much faith in
Mihrbhan Shah's influence, and all those villagers who were not
directly under his government had gone. Those hundred coolies meant
the transport of our supplies, and without them we should only have the
food actually carried in the men's haversacks. We had cut down our
baggage to the vanishing point, and the men were carrying all they
could, and we did not dare leave our reserve ammunition behind.
The column had just moved off when this state of things became
known and was reported to me. Colonel Kelly was at the head of the
column, so I snatched the nearest pony, tumbled its load on to the
ground, and went scrambling through the snow after the troops. Of

course there was nothing to be done except halt the column until the
coolies could be collared and brought back, so Stewart, who had a
battery pony with him, was sent off down the road after the absconding
coolies. They must have started the evening before, as he only caught a
few of them up fifteen miles back, and had great difficulty in bringing
them along with him. We met him as we were returning to Ghizr at
seven o'clock that evening. Stewart had scarcely gone ten minutes
before some fifty coolies were found hiding in a village; they were
soon driven out and made to lift their loads. This gave us some six
days' rations, and with it we moved off, our great object being to get
across the pass and open communications with Mastuj. After that we
could see about getting on to Chitral. Our transport consisted of country
ponies and coolies, and I remained behind to see the last off and
rearguard moving before I started myself.
About two miles from Ghizr post there was a steep ascent where the
road twisted and curled among a mass of débris fallen from the cliffs
above, and in one place the ponies had to be helped through a narrow
passage between two fallen boulders. About midday I caught up the tail
of the troops, who were already past the village of Teru, the highest
inhabited spot in the valley; there are only a few houses, and these are
scattered about in clumps a few hundred yards apart. Passing on, I
caught up the battery, and reached the leading infantry, when suddenly
the word to halt was passed down the long line.
We were now on a narrow plain, and the snow on either hand of the
track which the troops were following in single file was over my waist,
as I soon found whenever I left the path in order to reach more quickly
the head of the column. On arriving there, I found the track had
suddenly ended, and before us was the level expanse of snow-covered
valley. Attempts were being made to get the gun mules of the battery
through this, but at every step they sank up to their girths, even then not
finding firm foothold.