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Updated: May 19, 2025
It was evident that the passage of the pass was to be disputed. "Starting from Dargai, the pass went through a gradually narrowing valley for about two miles; then bending to the northeast for a mile and a half, the hills on the west rising precipitously to a great height. On reaching the bend, the pass was strongly held on the west side. "The 4th Sikhs went out on the flank.
After the cannonade had been kept up for a bit, the infantry began their advance. This was, I think, the finest performance I have seen in the whole campaign. The Gordons did it; the Dargai battalion. They came up, line by line, behind our ridge and lay down along with us.
Brigadier-General Meiklejohn, feeling confidence in his ability to hold his own with the troops he had, ordered them to remain halted at Dargai, and rest the next day. The attack came with the night, but the defences in the centre had been much improved, and the tribesmen were utterly unable to cross the cleared glacis, which now stretched in front of the enclosure.
The Sikhs and Borderers, however, pushed up the hill and drove the enemy out. The defence of the pass was not so determined as had been expected, after the stand shown at Dargai. The reason, no doubt, was that though they were good skirmishers, the enemy did not care to expose themselves, either to artillery fire or close-quarter fighting.
I talked with a wounded Gordon Highlander one of those who dashed across the famous causeway of Dargai and breasted the still more glorious slope of Elandslaagte. 'We had the Imperial Horse with us, he said. 'They're the best I've ever seen. The casualty lists tell the same tale. To storm the hill the regiment dismounted less than two hundred men.
From the plain the ascent appeared to be simple but, when they started to climb, they found that it was rugged and almost impassable. There was no semblance of road, and the men had to toil up the goat paths and sheep tracks. The Dargai ridge was from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet above the spot from which they started.
Colonel Brooke, of the Connaughts, fell at the head of his men. Private Livingstone helped to carry him into safety, and then, his task done, he confessed to having 'a bit of a rap meself, and sank fainting with a bullet through his throat. Another sat with a bullet through both legs. 'Bring me a tin whistle and I'll blow ye any tune ye like, he cried, mindful of the Dargai piper.
Six officers and fifty men killed with about a hundred and twenty wounded made up the British losses, to which two guns would certainly have been added but for the gallant counter-attack of the infantry. With Dargai and Vlakfontein to their credit the Derbys have green laurels upon their war-worn colours.
It was a long, weary pull up the hill. The sappers had been working hard on the road, for the past ten days; but it was still very narrow for a whole division, and three mountain batteries. At half-past eight the force reached the summit, and the advance guard sent back news that the crest of the Dargai was held, by the enemy, in force. The enemy could be plainly made out.
The account of the first attempt to storm the Dargai position on the 20th of October, before it had been shaken by artillery fire, when the Dorsetshire Regiment suffered severe loss, roused many reflections among those who had witnessed the action of Landakai. The next morning, the 18th, the force continued their march up the valley of the Upper Swat.
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