The Unveiling of Lhasa

by Edmund Candler

We then learnt the story of the attack on the post. It appears that the day after Colonel Brander left for the Karo la (May 3) certain wounded and sick Tibetans that we had been attending informed the mission that about 1,000 armed men had come down towards Gyantse from Shigatze, and were building a wall about twelve miles away. It was added that they might possibly attack the post if they got to know that the garrison had been largely depleted. This news seemed to be worth inquiring into, and, accordingly, next day Major Murray sent some mounted infantry to reconnoitre up the Shigatze road. The latter returned with the information that they had gone up the valley some seven or eight miles, but had found no signs of any enemy.

The very next morning the post was attacked at dawn. It appears that the Shigatze force, about 1,000 strong, was really engaged in building a wall twelve miles away. Hearing that very few troops were guarding the mission, its commander—who, I hear, was none other than Khomba Bombu, the very man who arrested Sven Hedin's dash to Lhasa—determined to make a sudden attack on the post. He marched his men during the night, and about an hour before sunrise had them crouching behind trees and inside ditches all round the post.

The attack was sudden and simultaneous. A Gurkha sentry had just time to fire off his rifle before the Tibetans rushed to our walls and had their muskets through our loopholes. The enemy did not for the moment attempt to scale, but contented themselves with firing into the post through the loopholes they had taken. This delay proved fatal to their plans, for it gave the small garrison time to rise and arm. The brunt of the Tibetan fire was directed on the courtyard of the house where the tents of the members of the mission were pitched. Major Murray, who had rushed out of bed half clad, first directed his attention to this spot. The Sikhs, emerging from their tents with bandolier and rifle, in extraordinary costumes, were directed towards the loopholes. Some were sent on the roof of the mission-house, whence they could enfilade the attackers. Elsewhere various junior officers had taken command. Captain Luke, who, owing to sickness, had not gone on with the Karo la column, took charge of the Gurkhas on the south and west fronts. Lieutenant Franklin, the medical officer of the 8th Gurkhas, rallied Gurkhas and Pioneers to the loopholes on the east and north. Lieutenant Lynch, the treasure-chest officer, who had a guard of about twenty Gurkhas, took his men to the main gate to the south. There were at this time in hospital about a dozen Sikhs, who had been badly burnt in a lamentable gunpowder explosion a few days previously. These men, bandaged and crippled as they were, rose from their couches, made their painful way to the tops of the houses, and fired into the enemy below. About a dozen Tibetans had just begun to scramble over the wall by the time the defenders had manned the whole position, which was now not only held by fighting men, but by various members of the mission, including Colonel Younghusband, who had emerged with revolvers and sporting guns. A few of the enemy got inside the defences, and were immediately shot down.

Our fire was so heavy and so well directed that it is supposed that not more than ten minutes elapsed from the time the first shot was fired to the time the enemy began to withdraw. The withdrawal, however, was only to the shelter of trees and ditches a few hundred yards away, whence a long but almost harmless fusillade was kept up on the post. After about twenty minutes of this firing, Major Murray determined on a rally. Lieutenant Lynch with his treasure guard dashed out from the south gate. Some five-and-twenty Tibetans were discovered hiding in a small refuse hut about fifteen yards from the gate. The furious Gurkhas rushed in upon them and killed them all, and then dashed on through the long grove, clearing the enemy in front of them. Returning along the banks of the river, the same party discovered another body of Tibetans hiding under the arches of the bridge. Twenty or thirty were shot down, and about fifteen made prisoners. Similar success attended a rally from the north-east gate made by Major Murray and Lieutenant Franklin. The enemy fled howling from their hiding-places towards the town and jong as soon as they saw our men issue. They were pursued almost to the very walls of the fort. Indeed, but for the fringe of houses and narrow streets at the base of the jong, Major Murray would have gone on. The Tibetans, however, turned as soon as they reached the shelter of walls, and it would have been madness to attack five or six hundred determined men in a maze of alleys and passages with only a weak company. Major Murray accordingly made his way back to the post, picking up a dozen prisoners en route.

In this affair our casualties only amounted to five wounded and two killed. One hundred and forty dead of the enemy were counted outside the camp.

During the course of the day Major Murray sent a flag of truce to the jong with an intimation to the effect that the Tibetans could come out and bury their dead without fear of molestation. The reply was that we could bury the dead ourselves without fear of molestation. As it was impossible to leave all the bodies in the vicinity of the camp, a heavy and disagreeable task was thrown on the garrison.

Towards sundown the enemy in the jong began to fire into the camp, and our troops became aware of the unpleasant fact that the Tibetans possessed jingals, which could easily range from 1,800 to 2,000 yards. It was also realized that the jong entirely dominated the post; that our walls and stockades, protection enough against a direct assault from the plain, were no protection against bullets dropped from a height. So for the next four days, pending the return of the Karo la column, the little garrison toiled unceasingly at improving the defences. Traverses were built, the walls raised in height, the gates strengthened. It was discovered that the Tibetan fire was heaviest when we attempted to return it by sniping at figures seen on the jong. Accordingly, pending the completion of the traverses and other new protective works, Major Murray forbade any return fire.

Such was the position of affairs when the Karo la column returned. One of Colonel Brander's first acts, after his weary troops had rested for an hour or two, was to turn the Maxim on the groups who could be seen wandering about the jong. They quickly disappeared under cover, but only to man their jingals. Then began the bombardment of the post, which we had to endure for nearly seven weeks.

This is the place to speak of the bombardment generally, for it would be tedious to recapitulate in the form of a diary incidents which, however exciting at the time, now seem remarkable only for their monotony. It may be said at once that the bombardment was singularly ineffective. From first to last only fifteen men in the post were hit. Of these twelve were either killed or died of the wound. Of course, I exclude the casualties in the fighting, of which I will presently speak, outside the post. But the futility of the bombardment must not be entirely put down to bad marksmanship on the part of the Tibetans. That our losses were not heavier is largely due to the fact that the garrison laboured daily—and at first at night also—in erecting protecting walls and traverses. Practically every tent had a traverse built in front of it. It was found that the hornwork in which the mules were located came particularly under fire of the jong. This was pulled down one dark night, and the mules transferred to a fresh enclosure at the back of the post. Strong parapets of sand-bags were built on the roofs of the houses. Every window facing the jong was securely blocked with mud bricks. It will be realized how considerable was the labour involved in building the traverses when it is remembered that the jong looked down into the post. The majority of the walls had to be considerably higher than the tents themselves. They were mostly built of stakes cut from the grove, with two feet of earth rammed in between. After the first week or so the enemy brought to bear on the post several brass cannon, throwing balls weighing four or five pounds, and travelling with a velocity which enabled them to penetrate our traverses—when they struck them, for the majority of shots from the cannon whistled harmlessly over our heads.

Practically, we did not return the fire from the jong. All that was done in this direction was to place one of Lieutenant Hadow's Maxims on the roof of the house occupied by the mission, and thence to snipe during the daylight hours at any warriors who showed themselves above the walls of the jong. Hadow was very patient and persistent with his gun, and quickly made it clear to the Tibetans that, if we were obliged to keep under cover, so were they. But our fire from the post was probably as ineffective as that of the enemy from the jong, for the Tibetans build walls with extraordinary rapidity. Working mostly at night in order to avoid the malignant Maxim, the enemy within a few days almost altered the face of the jong. New walls, traverses, and covered ways seemed to spring up with the rapidity of mushrooms.