The Relief of Chitral

by G. J. Younghusband; Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

But the enemy were now in hundreds on the mountain side firing and hurling down stones upon the little straggling party, who painfully worked their way upward. Captain Baird was mortally wounded in the stomach, many other of his men were also hit, and the party had to be drawn off. Lieutenant Gurdon could not remain long to look after his wounded comrade, for he had to collect the men and conduct their retirement upon the main body.

News was given to Dr. Whitchurch of the misfortune to poor Baird, and a small escort was left to help him home, as no general retirement had yet taken place. All that he could do Dr. Whitchurch did for Baird; but now, as darkness was closing in, it was seen that our troops were retiring, that the enemy were swarming round on all sides, and that even the retreat to the fort was threatened. Whitchurch collected together about a dozen sepoys, and then set off to carry the wounded officer back to the fort. The enemy had penetrated in between him and the main body, and were firing from the houses and garden walls on the way to the fort. The direct road back was therefore quite blocked to him, and Dr. Whitchurch had to take a circuitous route of three miles round. They were exposed to fire for almost the entire way, and had it not been for the darkness nothing could have saved them. On more than one occasion Whitchurch had to lay down his burden, and, at the head of the men he had collected, charge the enemy to drive them from a wall and make a way. Then he would go back, pick Baird up again, and carry him through. Several of the party were killed—how many cannot be correctly ascertained, for in the darkness and confusion it was impossible to ascertain the exact number of his party—and just as they reached the fort, and when in a few minutes more they would have been in safety, Captain Baird was hit for the third time, and wounded in the face. Dr. Whitchurch and the brave Kashmir troops who had remained with him had by their devotion and gallantry brought back their wounded comrade to the other British officers, only to die, indeed, on the following morning, but to die with his brother officers by his side, and where he could be buried by them with the last solemn rites.

"It is difficult to write temperately about Whitchurch," wrote Mr. Robertson in reporting this action to Government, and men who have themselves gained the Victoria Cross have said that never has it been more gallantly earned than on this occasion by Surgeon-Captain Whitchurch.

The total losses in this day's engagement were twenty-three men killed and thirty-three wounded out of 200, of whom only 150 were actually engaged; and it was with this newly-raised Kashmir regiment depressed by these severe losses, and with their own hearts saddened by the death on the following morning of their brave comrade, that the British officers commenced the defence of the Chitral fort against an enemy correspondingly elated at their success.

The Chitral fort is eighty yards square, with walls twenty-five feet high and about eight feet thick. At each corner there is a tower some twenty feet higher than the wall, and outside the north face on the edge of the river is a fifth tower to guard the water-way. On the east face a garden runs out for a distance of 140 yards, and forty yards of the south-east tower is a summer-house. On the north and west faces were stables and other outhouses.

The fort is built of rude masonry kept together, not by cement or mortar of any description, but by cradle-work of beams of wood placed longitudinally and transversely so as to keep the masonry together. Without this framework of wood the walls would fall to pieces.

It is situated on the right bank of the Chitral River, some forty or fifty yards from the water's edge, and it is commanded from nearly all sides for Martini-Henry or Snider rifle fire, for mountains close by the river rise above the valley bottom. The fort is thus situated for the purpose of maintaining water, and at the time of its construction breech-loading rifles were not in possession of the people of the country, so that the fort could not then be fired into.

The strength of the garrison of the beleaguered fort was 99 men of the 14th Sikhs, 301 men of the Kashmir Infantry, with the following British officers: Surgeon-Major Robertson, British Agent; Captain C. V. F. Townshend, Central India Horse, commanding British Agent's Escort, and Commandant of the fort; Lieutenant Gurdon, Assistant to the British Agent; Lieutenant H. K. Harley, 14th Sikhs; Surgeon-Captain Whitchurch, 24th Punjab Infantry; Captain Campbell, Central India Horse (badly wounded).