The number of followers with which Umra Khan had entered Chitral territory had been gradually increasing, as his star appeared to be in the ascendant, and his total strength was now estimated at between 5000 and 8000 men. On the afternoon of the 3rd March Sher Afzul reached the neighbourhood of Chitral at the head of an armed force, and took up a position in some villages about two miles to the south-west of the fort. At 4.15 two hundred men of the Kashmir Rifles were sent out, under Captains Campbell, Townsend and Baird, to check the enemy’s advance.
Captain Campbell proposed to attack the position in front, while fifty men under Captain Baird made a flank attack along some high ground to the west. The enemy were found to be well armed and strongly posted; the Kashmir troops were met with a very heavy fire, and the attempts to carry the position by assault failed. It was rapidly getting dark, and Captain Campbell commenced to retire, being followed up closely by the enemy. The main body sustained heavy losses, but gained the fort under cover of the fire of a party of the 14th Sikhs; Captain Baird’s detachment became, however, isolated, Baird himself was mortally wounded, being carried back by Surgeon Captain Whitchurch, and this party only made its way back to the fort after desperate fighting, in which several were killed and many wounded. On this day, out of 150 men actually engaged, twenty-five were killed and thirty wounded. Captain Campbell was severely wounded, and the command of the troops in Chitral fort now devolved upon Captain Townsend. On this day the siege of Chitral fort may be said to have commenced, and for many weeks no news of the garrison reached the outer world.
The Chitral-Gilgit Line
Events on the Chitral-Gilgit Line.—We may now conveniently describe the events which took place on the line of communications between Chitral and Mastuj, and all that befell the small bodies of reinforcing troops and the convoys, which were struggling westward through a very difficult and actively hostile country.
On the 26th February the following instructions had issued from the British Agent: “Lieutenant Edwardes, commanding at Ghizr, to hand over that garrison to Lieutenant Gough, and to come on to Chitral, there to take command of the Puniali levies which had been ordered up from Gilgit; Lieutenant Moberley, commanding at Mastuj, was directed to order Lieutenant Fowler, R.E. (expected shortly to reach Mastuj with a party of Bengal Sappers and Miners), to continue his march to Chitral; and to send on a supply of Snider ammunition to Chitral by a suitable escort making ordinary marches.” These two last-mentioned orders were received at Mastuj on the 28th February, and on the following day the ammunition was sent off to Chitral under escort of forty of the Kashmir Rifles. On the 2nd March, however, disquieting news reaching Mastuj as to the state of affairs on the road, Lieutenant Moberley was in doubt as to whether he should not recall the ammunition escort, but it was ultimately permitted to proceed. On this date Captain Ross was expected at Laspur with 100 of the 14th Sikhs, and Lieutenant Moberley wrote asking him to come straight through to Mastuj in a single stage; this Captain Ross did, reaching Mastuj on the 3rd.
He marched on again the following day to support the ammunition escort, which had been obliged to halt at Buni owing to the onward road having been broken down; and on the 5th the force at Buni was further strengthened by the arrival there of twenty men of the Bengal Sappers and Miners, accompanied by Lieutenants Fowler and Edwardes.
The possibility of the road being designedly broken had been foreseen by the British Agent, who had caused certain orders to be issued to meet such an eventuality; but as these never reached Lieutenant Moberley, to whom they had been addressed at Mastuj, it seems unnecessary here to recapitulate them.
The Fighting at Reshun
On the 5th March Captain Ross returned with his Sikhs to Mastuj, while on the next day the combined detachment—two British officers, twenty Bengal Sappers and forty of the 4th Kashmir Rifles—marched on to Reshun, a large, straggling village situated on a sloping plain on the left bank of the Chitral River. Here news came in of fighting at Chitral, but the night passed quietly, and at noon on the 7th the two officers, with the twenty sappers, ten rifles and a number of coolies, moved off to repair a break reported about three miles distant. Reaching a narrow defile near Parpish, sangars were noticed on the high cliffs; these were at once occupied by the tribesmen, firing became general, four of the little party were hit, one being killed, and a retirement on Reshun was now ordered.
Eight more men were hit during this retirement. On arrival at an entrenchment which had been thrown up by the rest of the party near the village, the position was found too exposed, and a cluster of houses—affording better cover—was seized, and the work of improving the defences was at once proceeded with.