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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.
In the house which had lately been occupied by Mahomed Issar, their commander-in-chief we found the trunk of a tree which the enemy were converting into a cannon. It didn't require cannon to bring the walls of Mastuj down, a good strong kick would have been quite sufficient.
The garrison, however, now received the news that a relief force had already arrived at Mastuj; in consequence of which they were saved from a further diminution of their scanty rations, which was already under discussion. The officers were comparatively well off, as they had plenty of horse flesh; but this the sepoys would not eat.
On the 5th of March, Lieutenants Edwardes and Fowler left Mastuj with orders to join the British agent at Chitral, and they had with them 20 Bengal Sappers and 40 men of the Kashmir Rifles, conveying sixty boxes of ammunition and seven days' rations.
Hostilities had already begun. A native officer had started, with forty men and sixty boxes of ammunition, for Chitral; and had reached Buni, when he received information that his advance was likely to be opposed. He accordingly halted and wrote to Lieutenant Moberley, special duty officer with the Kashmir troops in Mastuj.
Robertson and Mastuj had ceased; and troops were at once ordered to assemble, to march to his relief. It was clearly impossible for our agent to retire as, in order to do so, he would have to negotiate several terrible passes, where a mere handful of men could destroy a regiment. Thus it was that the Pioneers had been ordered to break up their cantonment, and advance with all speed to Gilgit.
Transport and supplies were an everlasting source of worry, as it generally is with every army, great or small. We soon got a return of the supplies in Mastuj. I forget how many days it was, but none too much for our force and the Mastuj garrison. Bretherton was sent back to bring up supplies from the rear, and messengers were sent to order in the villagers.
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.
Moberly now handed over the company of Kashmir troops to my tender charge and departed back to Mastuj, so now I had the command of the Levies and one company added to my numerous other duties, so generally I was pretty well on the hop.
Between Rahman and Mastuj the country is pretty much the same, a narrow valley running between high, stony hills, their tops covered with snow and their feet with boulders; then the bed of the valley more or less rocky, and the river winding from side to side, and below the main level of the valley, at depths varying from fifty to two hundred feet, the sides nearly always sheer cliff; at intervals were nullahs, down which ran streams of snow water from the hills to the river, or fans of alluvial deposit brought down by floods in previous years.
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