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We were getting along famously now, so Colonel Kelly decided to advance the next day without waiting for Peterson's detachment, as our first object was to open communication with Mastuj.
I knew the place as one of the worst bits in the whole road between Mastuj and Chitral, but I also knew it could be passed by crossing the river at Khogazi and climbing the hills on the right hand, and down on to the Chitral river above its junction with the Yarkhun river.
The rearguard was in by 5 P.M. that day, the first time since we had left Mastuj that it had come in before dark. Things were looking up.
But the occupation of such a line could have but one possible object, which would be to conceal the actual line of further advance. Each of these places may be said to dominate a pass to India over the Hindoo Kush. Opposite Sarhadd is the Baroghil, leading either to Kashmir or to Mastuj and the Kunar valley. Faizabad commands the Nuksa Pass.
Baird was next ordered up to Chitral and relieved by Stewart, R.A. On 21st February, Ross and Jones and the detachment of 14th Sikhs left Gilgit en route for Mastuj. The Hunza and Nagar Levies came in to Gilgit on the 7th March. I issued Snider carbines and twenty rounds ammunition to each man, and they left the next day.
The supply of ghee, which forms so prominent a part in the diet of the natives, had already given out; and the sepoys had nothing but a scanty allowance of flour to maintain life. The news that the relief party had arrived at Mastuj greatly cheered the garrison. That relief would come, sooner or later, they had no doubt; but they had not even hoped that it could be so near.
Later that night we sent back a messenger with an account of the day's fighting and the relief of Mastuj to Gilgit, but the messenger a levy shortly returned, having been fired on, and returned the fire, so it was evident that a good many of the enemy were still sneaking about. We officers slept in the fort that night, four or five of us in a room.
Moberly was coming out the next day in command of a company of Kashmir troops; after the expected fight, he would return to Mastuj to resume command, and the Kashmir troops would be put under my charge.
Mastuj is of the ordinary type of country fort, square, with a tower at each end and one over the gateway, curtains between each tower about eighteen to twenty feet high, and the towers another fifteen feet higher still.
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.
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