With Kelly to Chitral by William George Laurence Beynon
page 53 of 99 (53%)
page 53 of 99 (53%)
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some sangars, which he destroyed, but no enemy.
A reinforcement of sixty sepoys came in that day from Ghizr. The next two days were spent in trying to collect coolies for transport, and on the 16th, in spite of the non-arrival of any coolies, he set out to Buni with a hundred and fifty sepoys, each man carrying a sheepskin coat, two blankets, a hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition, and three days' cooked rations. He halted that night at Sanoghar, where he collected some fifty coolies, and learned by signal from Mastuj that Bretherton was sending some fifty Yarkhun coolies the next day--fifty Punyal Levies also joined him that evening. Starting the next morning, he reached Buni by 5 P.M., when he found Jones and the remains of the Sikhs. The return journey was begun two hours later, at 7 P.M., and carried on steadily all night, a small body of the enemy following, but not daring to attack. Mastuj was reached between 10 and 11 A.M. the next day, 18th March. By the 22nd March the enemy had surrounded the fort, and the siege began. Nothing of any event happened, the enemy contenting themselves with long-range firing, only one man being slightly wounded and two ponies killed. On the 9th of April "up we came with our little lot," and the siege was raised. Early the next morning we were up and going through the state of the supplies and available amount of transport. Transport and supplies were an everlasting source of worry, as it generally is with every army, great or small. |
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