[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE SECOND BATTALION.
1883-1902.
THE BLACK MOUNTAIN EXPEDITION: THE TIRAH CAMPAIGN.
Early in 1884, the second battalion of the Royal Irish regiment began a long tour of foreign service. Its first station was at Malta, where drafts from home brought up its numbers to a total of nine hundred and sixty-seven of all ranks.[266] While at Malta, the battalion heard that the expedition, described in [Chapter xii]., was to be sent to the relief of Gordon at Khartoum, and hoped to be included in it, but the War Office decided otherwise; and though the Royal Irish were represented in the Nile column, the honour, as we have seen, fell to the first, not to the second battalion, which remained stationary till January 7, 1885, when leaving a large detachment as a reinforcement for the first battalion in Egypt, it sailed for Bombay, and early in February reached Umballa with a strength of six hundred and fifty-two of all ranks.
A month later the battalion was ordered up to Rawal Pindi to increase the number of British regiments at a durbar, which the Amir of Afghanistan was to attend. On the journey the Royal Irish were in a very alarming railway accident: part of the troop train ran off the line—three bandsmen, Moore, Tod, and Frost, were killed; Lieutenant-Colonel Dawson was seriously injured; Major Hamilton, Lieutenant Symonds, Surgeon-Major Pratt, Bandsman Hayes, and Drummer Brennan were also hurt. As soon as the durbar was over the battalion proceeded to Subathu, where, with a detachment at Jutogh, it remained until November, 1887, when it changed stations for Nowshera, with detachments at Fort Attock and Cherat. While on the march the Royal Irish were annoyed by thieves, who hung about the outskirts of the camp in the hope of stealing modern firearms, for which there was a constant demand among the hillmen beyond the frontier. To keep their rifles safe, the soldiers before going to sleep at night used to tie or strap them to their legs, but even this precaution sometimes failed. On one occasion a small detachment secured their firearms in the usual way when they turned into their “E. P.” tent; but one of the party was not well, and to let him rest comfortably a comrade slept with both his own and his friend’s rifle fastened to him. In the middle of the night the Good Samaritan woke, feeling that some one was stealthily touching him; he instantly raised an alarm, when down fell the tent, and before the men could crawl from beneath the heavy folds of canvas, the thieves made off with a rifle. On investigation it was found that the robbers had noiselessly undone all the tent ropes with the exception of the four corner ones, which, when their presence in camp was discovered, they had cut through to cover their retreat. The Royal Irish took such stern measures to prevent further thefts that the thieves for a considerable time avoided a battalion which they described as a “Shaitan ki pultan aur Sahiblog bahut zaberdust.” This may be translated freely—The Devil’s own regiment with very high-handed officers!
During the time the second battalion was at Nowshera, one of its subalterns, Lieutenant W. Gloster, did a very daring piece of work. He had become noted for his good military sketching, and was specially selected to do reconnaissance work across the border beyond our frontier post at Hoti Maidan. His instructions were those which many officers before and since have received when sent on similar enterprises: he was told that though it was most desirable that the work should be done, the government would not be responsible for him: and that on no account was he to cause trouble on the border: if he liked to apply to the Guides at Hoti Maidan for an escort he might do so, but in all probability his request would be refused. The commandant at Hoti Maidan declined to help him, saying that if an escort of the Guides showed themselves beyond our frontier the whole of the country might break into a flame. Nothing daunted, Gloster in some mysterious way made friends with several of the Headmen along the border. “How he did it,” writes the officer who describes the adventure, “I don’t know, as he couldn’t speak a word of any language but English, and his only mode of conversation with his Pathan pals was a tremendous slap on the back, and ‘How are you, old cock?’ One night he was taken across the frontier by one of his new friends, made his sketch in the early hours of the morning, and was back on British territory just as his presence was discovered and the tribesmen were assembling to cut him off.”
On July 22, 1888, Lieutenant-Colonel T. C. Wray, who had been in command since January 9, 1887, died suddenly of heart disease, and was succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel G. W. N. Rogers.
The second battalion in September, 1888, was called upon to take part in a punitive expedition beyond the north-west frontier of India. Hazara, a wild and rugged district on the left bank of the river Indus, about eighty miles east of Peshawar, had long been disturbed by the lawless conduct of some of the tribes of mountaineers inhabiting the no-man’s land beyond our border. The Akazais, the Khan Khel of the Hassanzais and the Alaiwals raided into our country, looted the villages, and killed peaceful British subjects; and though punished by the infliction of fines and by being “blockaded”—i.e., debarred from bringing their produce into British territory, they did not mend their ways. Growing bolder from comparative immunity, they brought matters to a head by attacking and killing a party of officers and men who were surveying a part of the Black mountain, within the Queen’s dominions. To avenge these two Englishmen and the Gurkha soldiers who were murdered with them; to maintain our prestige in India, and to prevent an outbreak on other parts of the north-west frontier, a considerable force was mobilised and placed under the command of Brigadier-General J. W. M‘Queen, C.B., A.D.C. It consisted of three mountain batteries (two British and one native), a company of Sappers and Miners, the 1st battalion of the Suffolk, and the second battalions of the Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Irish, and Royal Sussex regiments, eight battalions of native infantry, and a native pioneer battalion. These troops were organised in two brigades, commanded respectively by Brigadier-Generals C. N. Channer, V.C., and W. Galbraith; and to meet the requirements of mountain warfare, in which it is impossible for one man to supervise the movements of a large body of soldiers, the brigades were subdivided into two columns, to each of which a British battalion, 600 strong, and two native regiments were allotted. A native cavalry regiment, the second battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders, and a native infantry regiment formed the reserve. The Royal Irish, whom Major Brereton commanded until Lieutenant-Colonel Rogers returned from leave at home, were in the fourth column,[267] the other units of which were part of a British mountain battery, three companies of the 34th Pioneers, the 4th and 29th Punjab Native infantry, with a field hospital and a detachment of military telegraphists. The whole force, including some Kashmiri troops and three hundred of the Khyber rifles, numbered 272 officers and 12,282 non-commissioned officers and men; the strength of the fourth column was 51 officers and 2414 of the other ranks.
The immediate object of the expedition was the punishment of the Khan Khel and the Akazais, whose watch-towers and villages were perched among the crags and precipices of the range which, in some places rising to a height of more than 9000 feet, cuts off the valley of Agror from the left bank of the Indus. It was decided to penetrate into this maze of mountains from two directions: three columns of the Hazara Field force, after concentrating at Ughi, the chief British outpost in the Agror valley, were to cross the range from east to west, while the fourth column, commanded by Colonel A. C. W. Crookshank, was to assemble fifteen miles to the south-west of Ughi at Derband, our frontier village on the Indus, and push northwards up the left bank of the river.[268] As this detachment could not be expected to join hands with the main body for several days, it was accompanied by General Galbraith, who, while leaving to Colonel Crookshank the actual handling of the troops, took charge of the general operations. Though there was little definite information concerning the prospective theatre of war, it was known that the roads were impracticable for any but mule transport; so baggage was reduced to a minimum; no tents were taken, and regimental officers were cut down to fifty, the lower ranks to sixteen pounds weight of kit. The main body had with it five days’ supplies and a hundred rounds of ammunition per man, seventy on the person of the soldier, thirty on mule-back. As the fourth column to some extent was acting independently, its supply was increased to seven days, and the number of rounds carried by mules was doubled. A general reserve of a hundred rounds per man was formed at the base.
The fourth column had finished its concentration on October 1, and on the morning of the 2nd, Galbraith advanced seven miles into the enemy’s country and bivouacked at Chamb, on a site he had reconnoitred while awaiting the arrival of his troops. Here he was informed by telegraph that owing to delays in bringing up stores to Ughi he was to make no forward movement for twenty-four hours, so after his mountain guns, escorted by four companies of the Royal Irish, had driven the enemy from the neighbouring hills, he improved the track leading from his bivouac into the valley of the Indus. Before dawn on the 4th, he had secured his right flank by crowning the heights with a detachment of native infantry, and as soon as it was light the advance-guard—two companies of the Royal Irish under Captain Lysaght—began to descend into the gorge of the river.[269] At 8 A.M. the advance-guard had reached comparatively open ground, where Lysaght halted to allow the remainder of the troops to come up; then he pushed on again, and an hour later a few of the enemy opened fire from the village of Shingri. The Royal Irish extended to the left of the hamlet, two companies of native infantry made a similar movement to the right, and with little difficulty and small loss the outpost was routed and dispersed. For another mile nothing was seen of the enemy, but when the advance-guard approached the next village, Towara, the hillmen were found awaiting our attack. Across the valley, here about twelve hundred yards in width, stretched their first line: the right rested on a patch of jungle growing amidst the boulders on the river bank; the left was posted on the crags of the lowest tier of the bare and arid mountains which form the eastern wall of the gorge of the Indus. Rather less than a mile above Towara the valley was completely closed by a steep spur or under-feature, on the far end of which the village of Kotkai, built on a huge mass of broken rocks, commanded not only the spur itself, but also the bed of the river, the hillmen’s line of retreat and the only track by which the British could continue to force their way northward up the left bank. On this spur the enemy, whose total strength was computed at 4000 fighting men,[270] had established his second line in well-built sangars; and on the eastern hills lurked about a thousand sharpshooters, armed with rifle and matchlocks, whose fire upon the valley below them would cross with that of a detachment of equal strength, posted in breastworks on the heights overhanging the western bank. Against the hillmen who held this formidable position General Galbraith could bring into action only his mountain guns, a couple of Gatlings, and about fourteen hundred foot soldiers, as the remainder of his men were employed in guarding the baggage and in crowning the hills in rear of the column.