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Updated: June 12, 2025
There are two places to cross it, one the regular road to Chitral, which zig-zags down the nullah near the mouth, and the other a goat track about half-way between the road and the hills. Both of these had sangars covering their approach on the enemy's side of the nullah, and any attempt to rush them would have led to great loss of life.
There was certainly plenty of cover; but just before the cutting was reached the iron bridge across the Onderbrook Spruit had to be crossed, and this was evidently commanded by the enemy's riflemen. Beyond the railway and the moving trickle of men the brown dark face of Inniskilling Hill, crowned with sangars and entrenchments, rose up gloomy and, as yet, silent.
The Levies were billeted in the houses which had lately been occupied by the enemy, and we soon had pickets out round the fort. In showing the Levies the houses they were to occupy, I examined the enemy's system of loopholes and sangars, and found they were very well made indeed.
The men of the bold 75th went beyond Enab in the dark, and also out along the old Roman road towards Biddu to deny the Turks a point from which they could see the road as it fell away from the Enab ridge towards the wadi Ikbala. That night many men sought the doubtful shelter of olive groves, and built stone sangars to break the force of a biting wind.
Here I found several sangars which covered the approaches to the bridge, and soon had them down, and then went on to the village of Khogazi, which was about a mile ahead. We swept through that village in the usual manner from end to end, finding only one man who turned out to be a Gilgiti; he had been carried into slavery several years previously, but had married and settled down.
Accordingly, the remainder of the night was not devoted to sleep, but to the intensive building of sangars on the new defensive line, and the preparations of bivouac areas in such few spots as might be under cover from view and from fire. When morning came, the enemy commenced to shell, but the night had not been wasted, and our fellows had made themselves secure.
On April 6th they were very active, making two large sangars close to the main gate. Near these, and only fifty yards away from the gun tower, they were also hard at work, all day, in the summer house to the east of the fort.
From this bend the pass was strongly defended, the whole range on the west side being held by the enemy. The 4th Sikhs were sent along the heights to guard the left flank of the advance, and climbing up the sides cleared many sangars of the enemy with great gallantry. The Guides Infantry had an equally arduous task on the hills. Meanwhile the force advanced up the valley.
We are inclined to believe, however, that the Boer losses from artillery fire have been greater than ours, partly because their shots have been widely distributed in a speculative way with no particular object in view, while ours have been aimed directly at the enemy's batteries, or at sangars, to which their gun-crews retire between the rounds; and partly, if not mainly, because our naval guns fire common shell with bursting charges of black powder, the effect of which though not so violent locally as that of the Boer shells, charged with melinite explosive is spread over a much wider area.
The manner in which the front line was held in the mountains by the Turks as well as by ourselves, was as follows. Strong sangars were constituted on the forward slope of a hill or ridge.
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