We got the Levies and our kits off early, and about noon Colonel Kelly and I started on some borrowed ponies, which we rode as far as we could and then sent back. Having caught up the Levies, we tramped forward along the track made by the first column, occasionally finding deserted sledges and bits of broken spades. The snow was now somewhat firmer than when the first party had crossed, owing to the top of the snow thawing slightly in the sun every day and being frozen hard again every night; all the same, the slightest divergence from the track plunged us up to our waists in snow.
The only one of our party who could walk on the snow without difficulty was my bull-terrier "Bill," a spotted dog of doubtful ancestry. He had been given to me as a bull-terrier when he was only a little white rat of a thing, and I had raised him at Bunji on tinned milk. He was a most uncanny dog (the joke is unintentional), and it was commonly believed in the force that his father was a tom cat. Poor Bill! Before he got to Laspur he was so snow blind that until we got to Mastuj I had to open his eyes for him every morning and bathe them with hot water before he could see, and he was hardly well again a month later.
We got into camp that night before dusk, pretty well fagged and wet, and as soon as the coolies came in with our kits, we scraped a hole in the snow and pitched the colonel's small tent. In camp we found a few men who had been placed in charge of some ammunition that had been left behind for want of transport. This guard were mostly suffering a bit from snow blindness, but were otherwise all right, as they had run up shelters and had plenty of wood and their bedding. When I got at my kit, I took out a bottle of quinine and dosed our servants and orderlies all round, so that they should not have any excuse for getting fever, and then took some myself for the same reason. We then laid out our bedding in the tent, while the servants went into the hut, and turned in immediately after dinner, and had a very comfortable night.
We were up before dawn the next morning, and, as we had slept in our clothes, it was not long before we had had breakfast and struck camp. By 6 A.M. we were climbing the ascent to the pass. There was a wind whistling straight in our faces, and I had no idea anything could be so cold; it simply went clean through you, and I quite expected to hear my ribs sing like an Aeolian harp. When we got on to the pass, the sun rose and the wind dropped quite suddenly, and presently we had taken off our greatcoats on account of the heat. After going about an hour, I began to suffer from mountain sickness, a curious and distinctly unpleasant sensation, very much like having a rope tied tightly round one's chest and back, and the shortness of breath necessitating a halt every hundred yards or so. Colonel Kelly did not suffer from it at all, but trudged along without a halt the whole way. That is the only time I have ever suffered from mountain sickness, and I have crossed the Shandur both before and since, as also other passes, without feeling any inconvenience.
By noon we had almost reached the highest point of the pass, and were skirting the larger lake, when we met the coolies of Borradaile's party returning with an escort of some of the Kashmir troops. They all seemed pretty lively in spite of the poor time they had been having; but as they are used to crossing the Shandur at all times of the year, I daresay our sympathy was a good deal wasted.
We were soon descending into the Laspur valley, and we had hardly dropped three hundred feet before all sense of sickness left me, and I felt as fit as possible. A short way out of the village we were met by a patrol which Borradaile had sent out to meet us, and by two o'clock we were in camp, where we found Oldham in command, Borradaile having gone on a reconnaissance down the valley. The previous day news had been brought in that the enemy were assembled in the valley, and a small party had gone out, as I have already related. On the morning of the 6th April, Borradaile accordingly determined on another reconnaissance, this time taking the guns with him, they being carried by Laspuri villagers, who no doubt thought the game very poor fun. Gough went with the party, Oldham remaining in command of the post, which was garrisoned with the maimed, the halt, and the blind—in other words, with men suffering from frostbite and snow blindness, of whom there were some twenty-six of the former and thirty of the latter; those men of the Kashmir troops who were fit to march being sent back across the pass as escort to the coolies.
When the reconnoitring party had gone some three miles down the valley, they came across the old camp fires of the enemy. At Rahman, two miles farther on, they left the snow behind, much to everybody's delight, and by one o'clock entered the village of Gasht, some eleven miles from Laspur, and about half-way to Mastuj, the Levies crowning a small knoll in the middle of the valley at the lower end of the village. From here they reported they could see the enemy some three miles farther down the valley, who were evidently engaged in building sangars and entrenching themselves. A short council of war was held as to the advisability of attacking them, but, considering that the force consisted of only a little over a hundred men and some fifty Levies, besides the two guns, and also the time of day, it was decided to return to camp, which was reached by dark. The day's work was highly creditable to all concerned; the march to Gasht and back had been some twenty-two miles, and information had been obtained of the position in which we might expect opposition from the enemy. On getting into camp, Borradaile's party found Colonel Kelly and myself waiting their arrival, eager to hear their news.
CHAPTER IV
FROM LASPUR TO GASHT
That night we had beef for dinner. This may appear a trivial fact, but it meant a great and blessed change from the eternal mutton we had been living on, none of us having tasted beef for quite six months, except in its condensed or tinned state, which does not count. Gilgit is a dependency of Kashmir, whose ruling family, being Hindus, strongly object to cow-killing, and therefore the law runs that no cows are to be slaughtered; hence none of us since crossing the bridge at Kohalla had tasted fresh beef. But now we were in Chitral territory, and a Mussulman country, so we were free to kill cows, but did so unostentatiously, as nearly all our force were Hindus. The dark deed was accomplished thus: on the houses being searched on the arrival of the first party at Laspur, an innocent little calf was found in one of the houses, and quick as thought then and there despatched. I will not reveal the murderer's name, because I do not know it. All traces were removed, and for the next few days we enjoyed hot roast beef.