United States or Panama ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The enemy, after receiving some well-directed volleys and correctly played shells, were seen to vacate 'A' sangar by twos and threes until it was finally emptied. During our advance to the fan, shots were heard in the direction of the hills, Lieutenant Beynon having come into contact with the enemy in their sangars up the hillside, who were driven from ridge to ridge.
The guns were then carried across, and, the whole line of sangars having been vacated, the column was re-formed on the fan; the line taken in crossing enabled the enemy to get well on their way to Mastuj; the advance was then continued to a village a mile and a half farther along the river, where a halt was made.
There were not even trenches, for the Turks' defence work here consisted only of stone walls, technically known as sangars. During the commencing stages we were not even shelled. Shortly after dawn, our heavy artillery opened the ball by shelling the advanced posts of the enemy. At seven o'clock the whole line moved forward.
"The configuration of the ground was as follows: The road from the river after leaving Gasht brought us on to an alluvial fan, the ascent to which was short and steep; it was covered with boulders and intersected with nullahs; the road led across this fan and then along the foot of steep shale slopes and shoots, within five hundred yards of the line of sangars crowning the opposite side of the river bank, and totally devoid of any sort or description of cover for some two miles; it could also be swept by avalanches of stones set in motion by a few men placed on the heights above for that purpose.
Once on that slope, we could pretty well play skittles with the sangars below, as we could even now see clearly into them. Unfortunately, the ground between looked frightful, a series of ridges like the teeth of a saw, the northern faces being covered with snow, which made the going particularly treacherous.
I chaffed old Humayun, when he came back, on his shooting powers, and he grinned in response. I now noticed rather a commotion among the garrison of the sangars across the Nisa Gol nullah; the men began turning out, and one or two ran towards the higher sangars, evidently passing on some news. Presently I saw a crowd of men, mostly mounted, with others on foot carrying flags.
We conjectured an armistice. Through a telescope we could see little black specks on the centre of the hill; they appeared to be building sangars. The Naval Cone Redoubt, having the best telescope, report that the walls are facing this way. In that case the black specks were probably British, and yet not even in the morning sun did we get a word of certainty. We hardly know what to think.
"The enemy's position consisted of a line of sangars blocking the roads from the river up to the alluvial fan on which they were placed. The right of the position was protected by a snow glacier, which descended into the river bed, and furthermore by sangars, which extended into the snow line up the spur of the hills.
They took every precaution to guard against surprise. Lieutenant Fowler was sent to scale the heights on the left bank, so as to be able to look down into some sangars on the opposite side. With some difficulty, he found a way up the hillside. When he was examining the opposite cliff a shot was fired, and about two hundred men rushed out from the village and entered the sangars.
Instead of that, we have allowed our adversary to increase the number of artillery works and rifle sangars, girding us about until his grip is so strong that even cavalry scouts cannot push five miles from camp in any direction without having to run the gauntlet of shells or Maxim bullets.
Word Of The Day