_Events on the Chitral-Gilgit Line._—We may now conveniently describe the events which took place on the line of communications between Chitral and Mastuj, and all that befell the small bodies of reinforcing troops and the convoys, which were struggling westward through a very difficult and actively hostile country.
On the 26th February the following instructions had issued from the British Agent: “Lieutenant Edwardes, commanding at Ghizr, to hand over that garrison to Lieutenant Gough, and to come on to Chitral, there to take command of the Puniali levies which had been ordered up from Gilgit; Lieutenant Moberley, commanding at Mastuj, was directed to order Lieutenant Fowler, R.E. (expected shortly to reach Mastuj with a party of Bengal Sappers and Miners), to continue his march to Chitral; and to send on a supply of Snider ammunition to Chitral by a suitable escort making ordinary marches.” These two last-mentioned orders were received at Mastuj on the 28th February, and on the following day the ammunition was sent off to Chitral under escort of forty of the Kashmir Rifles. On the 2nd March, however, disquieting news reaching Mastuj as to the state of affairs on the road, Lieutenant Moberley was in doubt as to whether he should not recall the ammunition escort, but it was ultimately permitted to proceed. On this date Captain Ross was expected at Laspur with 100 of the 14th Sikhs, and Lieutenant Moberley wrote asking him to come straight through to Mastuj in a single stage; this Captain Ross did, reaching Mastuj on the 3rd.
He marched on again the following day to support the ammunition escort, which had been obliged to halt at Buni owing to the onward road having been broken down; and on the 5th the force at Buni was further strengthened by the arrival there of twenty men of the Bengal Sappers and Miners, accompanied by Lieutenants Fowler and Edwardes.
The possibility of the road being designedly broken had been foreseen by the British Agent, who had caused certain orders to be issued to meet such an eventuality; but as these never reached Lieutenant Moberley, to whom they had been addressed at Mastuj, it seems unnecessary here to recapitulate them.
On the 5th March Captain Ross returned with his Sikhs to Mastuj, while on the next day the combined detachment—two British officers, twenty Bengal Sappers and forty of the 4th Kashmir Rifles—marched on to Reshun, a large, straggling village situated on a sloping plain on the left bank of the Chitral River. Here news came in of fighting at Chitral, but the night passed quietly, and at noon on the 7th the two officers, with the twenty sappers, ten rifles and a number of coolies, moved off to repair a break reported about three miles distant. Reaching a narrow defile near Parpish, sangars were noticed on the high cliffs; these were at once occupied by the tribesmen, firing became general, four of the little party were hit, one being killed, and a retirement on Reshun was now ordered.