Goorkhas crossing the Lowari Pass
The campaign now entered into the second phase; the fighting was over, but not so the work. The Government decided that the Third Brigade should proceed to Chitral. Having already reached Dir, they had covered nearly two-thirds of the distance according to the map, but the most difficult part of the journey was ahead of them. The Lowari Pass, 10,450 ft. high, was covered with deep snow, and the valleys leading up to it on both sides were known to present almost insurmountable obstacles to the passage of a large body of men and animals.
The following extract from Trans-frontier Wars (vol. i. p. 544) gives a good idea of the physical features of the country to be traversed.
"Throughout its entire length from Dir to Ashreth, the road was a mere goat-track, offering extraordinary difficulties to the passage of troops, and requiring extensive improvements before laden animals could follow it.
"The route to Gujar, at the foot of the pass, lay for eleven miles up the Dir Valley beside the tumbling snow-fed torrent that streams from the south side of the pass. The track was in general extremely difficult, frequently losing itself among the boulders that choked the bed of the stream, and rising steeply to traverse the face of a rocky bluff, only to fall again with equal abruptness on the other side. This portion of the road had to be realigned and reconstructed throughout, the river had to be bridged in three or four places, and stone staircase ramps had to be built in the water at more than one point, to enable laden animals to pass where the stream washed the foot of a precipitous cliff. From Gujar, 8,450 ft., to the summit of the pass, a distance of three miles, the track lay over frozen and often treacherous snow, at first at a fairly easy gradient, but growing steeper and more slippery as the pass was approached. Beyond the crest a great snow cornice, 15 ft. in height, overhung the head of the glen, down which the track descended for about 1,000 yards at a gradient of one in three or four, over vast drifts of avalanche snow, in which great rocks and the uprooted trunks of gigantic trees lay deeply embedded. From the foot of this descent the route lay down a steep and rocky gorge, now following the tangled bed of the torrent, now winding through fine forests of pine and cedar, or traversing open grassy glades clogged with the drainage of melting snows."
The advance
In such a struggle with the forces of nature Gatacre was at his best. No difficulty dismayed him; his own passionate belief in the power of goodwill and hard work to overcome every obstacle inspired the whole force. The men learnt to work hard because he expected it of them and seemed always present to appreciate their efforts. They learnt to endure every hardship because he endured physical discomforts as great as theirs. Some few men were attacked with frost-bite, and the General was amongst the number; it caught him across the knuckles, and put him to great inconvenience. They saw him daily riding up and down the road, ministering to their comfort and their safety; and they realised that as a master he was one whom all good workmen delight to serve, because he made himself their servant.