Good old Stewart came up as pleased as Punch at having had his first
fight. Said he, "And d'ye think now that me shells killed many of the
beggars? sure and their corpses ought to be just thick." He was pained
to hear that in all probability we should not catch up the enemy again
that day, I really think nothing less than twelve hours' hard fighting
every day, with short intervals for refreshments, would satisfy him.

One of the guns, when being brought up the cliff, had slipped off the
coolies and fallen down to the bottom again, breaking off the foresight,
but Stewart mended it during the halt.

At the same time, the Sappers were hard at work pulling down a house for
materials to build a bridge, but before it was actually begun, we heard
that the river could be forded again lower down, so the bridge was not
built. By this time the men were sufficiently rested, the whole column
had closed up, and orders sent back for the baggage to come on.

Off we started, the Punyal Levies working down the right bank, the
Hunzas on the left, the main column following the left bank of the
stream. By 4 P.M. we reached the ford and crossed to the right bank, the
water not being much above our knees. And almost immediately after, we
saw some men drawn up on the spur we were approaching; they turned out
to be the Mastuj garrison, who, on finding the besieging force halting,
had come out to find out the reason. If they had only heard our guns and
turned out at once, they would have cut the line of retreat of our
opponents, and the whole crew must have been wiped out. Unfortunately
the fort of Mastuj is built far down the reverse slope of a fan, and
although some of the sentries reported they heard firing, it was thought
they must be mistaken.