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On the flats, then, the main body of the turning party bivouacked on the evening of November 21st, whilst the flanking regiment, after many hours of stiff climbing, during the course of which it had been threatened by a large number of Mohmands, established itself at dusk on the top of Turhai, a ridge parallel to and immediately under the Rhotas Heights.
By this time the men, who had been over thirty hours under arms, were so worn out that Colonels Newdigate and Turton reported their respective regiments, the Rifle Brigade and the 4th Gurkhas, unfit to go farther, and Macpherson, like Tytler, had to accept the responsibility of modifying the part assigned to him in the common programme, and to some extent for the same reason, viz., the danger to which his hospital and commissariat transport would be exposed if, by pushing on to the summit of the Rhotas Heights, he were to put it out of his power to protect them during the dark hours which were close at hand.
On reaching the foot of the Tabai spur leading to the Rhotas ridge, about six miles from Jamrud, four companies of the 20th Punjaub Infantry, amounting to 243 men, commanded by Major Gordon, were detached to occupy the Tabai ridge below the Rhotas summit, and there to await the arrival of the remainder of the brigade on the main ridge leading to the enemy's sangars on the summit, when a simultaneous attack would be made on it about noon.
The Rhotas peak was to be occupied, if possible, and heliographic communication established with Jamrud, for which purpose four signalers were attached to this detachment. As has been seen, the 2nd Brigade was just moving off as the 1st Brigade arrived at Lashora, and it became necessary for the 1st Brigade to halt for an hour to allow Tytler's column to get clear. But at 7:30 a.m.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon when the column, having crossed the Sapparia, or grassy flats, leading up to the watersheds, arrived at Pani Pal at the foot of the pass connecting the Rhotas Heights with the Tartara Mountain, the highest peak in this group of hills. Here a wide and varied view became suddenly visible.
One of these runs northward by a circuitous and comparatively easy route, through Mohmand territory to the Khyber. The second descends abruptly to the same pass through the gorge which separates the Tartara Mountain from the Rhotas Heights. The third follows the crest of those heights to their highest point, just over Ali Masjid.
About noon Sir Sam reached the Shagai ridge and came under a brisk fire from the guns of Ali Musjid, to which his heavy cannon and Manderson's horse-battery replied with good results. The Afghan position, which was very strong, stretched right athwart the valley from an entrenched line on the right to the Rhotas summit on the extreme left.
If the Mohmands had come down the eastern slopes of the Rhotas Heights and fallen upon them as they stumbled and groped their way along the Lashora ravine, Macpherson would have had to choose between a retreat or an advance up the steep mountain side, three thousand feet high, in pursuit of an invisible enemy, and exposed to a shower of rocks and stones missiles which every hill-man knows well how to handle.
Overnight he had detached Macpherson's and Tytler's brigades with the commission to turn the Ali Musjid position by a circuitous march, the former charged to descend into the Khyber Pass in rear of the fortress, and block the escape of its garrison; the latter instructed to find, if possible, a position on the Rhotas heights on the proper left of the fortress from which a flank attack might be delivered.
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