With Kelly to Chitral

by Sir William George Laurence Beynon

We crossed the bridge, closed up the column on the other side, the buglers were sent to the front, and we marched on to the fort with as much swagger as we could put on.

We found the garrison in front of the main gate, and were very glad to shake hands again with all our old friends and congratulate them on their splendid defence.

We had a short halt, and then moved on, and took up a position covering the fort, with our front on a nullah and pickets facing south. Our bivouac was in a nice shady garden, with plenty of good water and wood.

When the men had settled down in camp, the officers went back to the fort, where the garrison gave us breakfast, or rather lunch. There was a great deal to hear and tell, and for the first time we began to realise what a touch-and-go time the garrison had been having. There was only one pause in the conversation, and good old Stewart chipped in with "D'ye think, now, there's any chance of another fight?"

After tiffin, we went round and saw all the sights of interest, and generally interviewed the lions. We saw Harley's mine, the gun tower, the enemy's sangars, the hospital, and we did not forget poor Baird's grave, which was just outside the main gate. Then we went back to camp, and most of us took the opportunity to write home. I also took a photograph when everyone was assembled over the homely cup of tea. The bottles on the table look like whisky, but they only contain treacle made by melting down country goor, the extract of sugar-cane. It was our substitute for butter or jam, luxuries we had not seen for weeks. Whisky was a dream of the past, and rum a scarcity. In fact, there was no difference between what we and the sepoys ate, except in the manner of cooking.

We went to sleep that night with the blissful consciousness that the next day was a halt at any rate, and I think we needed the rest. We had put on our least ragged coats to march in and make as brave a show as possible, but our kit generally was in a pretty disreputable state, and there was a good deal of work wanted in the laundry line. Most of us, also, had misgivings about our boots. I was reduced to choosing between boots with large holes in the soles or chuplies mended with string; the boots I kept for show days, as the holes didn't show, and the chuplies for ordinary work. Most of the other officers were much in the same plight.

So ended the march of Colonel Kelly's column to Chitral. Our record, on the whole, was not bad, though, of course, judging by actual distance, we had not done much; it was more the difficult nature of the ground and the altitude at which some of it was done that lent interest to the march, and I am unfeignedly glad my luck caused me to participate in it.

The next day the Kashmir troops of the garrison came out and camped with us, and revelled in the fresh air after the poisonous atmosphere of the fort. Poor chaps! they were walking skeletons, bloodless, and as quiet as the ghosts they resembled, most of them reduced to jerseys and garments of any description, but still plucky and of good heart. They cheered up wonderfully in a few days with good fresh air and sleep, and marched from Chitral quite briskly when they left.

The next day I again went round the fort and got some photos, which follow. One of the British officers of the garrison beneath the gun tower, which was set on fire, and during the extinguishing of which Surgeon-Major Robertson, the British agent, was wounded by a Snider bullet. There is also the loophole, afterwards made, from which a sentry inside the tower could fire at anyone within a few feet. Then I got Harley to show me the site of his sortie, and pretty grisly the place looked, but unfortunately the photograph I took, showing the mine lying open like a ditch to the foot of the tower, was a "wrong un." But I succeeded in getting one showing the mouth of the mine, with the excavated earth.

Then I took one of the sangars from the interior, with the little shelters used by the Pathans when not amusing themselves with rifle practice. The water tower is just visible through the foliage.