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We struck the nullah close opposite the empty sangar No. 15, and from there followed the edge till we were well within sight of the sangars in the middle of the maidan, without having found a place where we could get down, but we noticed a track which led up the opposite bank.
We crept closer and closer to one of the small sangars, firing into it as we crept, until there was only one Englishman left alive in it. He called out 'Water! and I ran to give him my flask. When I got close to him he pointed his gun at me and fired. I sprang aside, and the bullet ploughed up my arm. My chum then shot him dead.
General Gazelee's division moved along the hills, and halted at the village of Ghandaki. In the afternoon a reconnaissance pushed forward, and returned with the news that the pass appeared to be simple, and the road a good one. Tribesmen were seen upon nearly every crest. They were apparently building sangars upon the roadway. General Gazelee was to make his attack next morning.
In one attack made just after daybreak the enemy succeeded in getting into a short length of line, but men of the 2/15th Londons promptly organised a counter-attack and, advancing with fine gallantry, though their ranks were thinned by a tremendous enfilade fire from artillery and machine guns, they regained the sangars.
Then we numbered our party three British officers, my orderly, and eleven Sappers, the latter armed with Snider carbines only; my orderly was the only one with a bayonet. There was a low ridge in front of us hiding the enemy's sangars, so we lined this with the Sappers, till we could see what the game was.
The General himself came out with me, and I pointed out to him that the cliffs were so steep just beneath the sangars that we might take the men who garrisoned them by surprise, and that in any case they could not fire upon us, while sharpshooters from the cliffs on our side of the nullah could hinder the enemy from leaving their sangars and rolling down stones.
There was only one pause in the conversation, and good old Stewart chipped in with "D'ye think, now, there's any chance of another fight?" After tiffin, we went round and saw all the sights of interest, and generally interviewed the lions. We saw Harley's mine, the gun tower, the enemy's sangars, the hospital, and we did not forget poor Baird's grave, which was just outside the main gate.
Some scattered sangars still held their own, though the Boers had passed them. One such, manned by fourteen privates of the Manchester Regiment, remained untaken, but had only two defenders left at the end of the bloody day. With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery, the one which had already done so admirably at Lombard's Kop, again deserved well of its country.
The enemy thronged too closely round us, we were attacked by night and by day, and stone sangars, in which the Swatis lay after dark, were built between us and the tower. We sent up water to the tower for the last time at half-past nine on a Saturday morning, and it was not until half-past four on the Monday afternoon that the relieving force marched across the bridge down there and set us free."
On the 13th, hearing that the enemy were occupying the Nisa Gol, a position some six miles from Mastuj, he reconnoitred up to it, and found some sangars, which he destroyed, but no enemy. A reinforcement of sixty sepoys came in that day from Ghizr.
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