$02 CHAPTER XIV.

THE BATTLE OF THE SAMPAGHA PASS.

at first there was a difficulty in finding room to send the unloaded beasts back past the convoys coming up. Gradually the Pioneers widened the road and improved its worst parts,but for days a complete block and an vatter breakdown of the transport was only averted by unceasing vigilance andunsparing effort on the part ofthe officers.

AT dawn on the morrow of Dargai the army, L\ with the second division in advance, -*■ began its march by the Chagru defile into the Khanki Valley. It had been intended to camp at Khorappa, but it was found that the only available ground there was closely commanded from the surrounding hills, and the march was continued two and a half miles further on, to more open ground, near the village of Khangarbur, on a plateau on the north shore of the Khanki River. Khangarbur was held by the Afridis, and the vanguardhad to drive them out of the village-Theygave wayat once on the advance of Westmacott's infantry, after a brief bombardmentby one of the mountainbatteries.

Stay-at-home people,who do not realise the enormous amount of work that has to be done on a line of communications, wonder why an army having once marchedand fought does not go straight on to its goal. The Afridis put their owninterpretation onLockhart'sprolonged halt on the KhankiRiver. To them it seemedthat the British commander was hesitating to face the dangers of the Sampagha Pass, and thev were encouraged to attack the campby night and to try to ambuscadeand cut up the foraging parties that leftit by day. The nightly attacks generally took the form of "sniping," sharpshooters posted on the hills using their longrange rifles to drop bullets at random into the large space covered by the encampment, or directing a well-aimed fire at any light that showed in a tent or on a mess table. On the night of the 23rd, soon after dusk, they tried to rush the pickets, and there was a sharp fight, in which the mountain guns came into action.

At dawn someof themoredaring assailants were seenlying dead within fifty yards of the camp.

The marchhad beenextremely difficult. Men and animals had moved slowly,mostly in single file, along a narrow and stone-strewn mountain track. There were frequent delays as a fallen mule or camelblocked the way,and after darkness fell, the rearguard was stillstumbling along the hillsides. When night came on,the camp was disturbed by random shots from the surrounding hills, but this annoyance did not last long, and there were luckily no casualties. Next day the concentration continued, but even when both divisions were through the defile and encamped on the river it was impossible to move forward at once. Including camp followers, some 35,000 men had been crowdedinto the Khangarbur camp, andbesides these there Were more than 20,000 animals. Nothing could be Obtained on the spot except water,' wood, and a small supply of grass. Everything'elsehact to be draggedthrough the Chagru defile frOna the other side of the Samana Range. Foodand forage for a single day amount to many tons of dead weight, and the army had not merely to be fed from day to day, but a reserve had to be accumulated before it could venture to advance into the next valley the gate of which— the Sampagha Pass— was reported to be held in force by the enemy. The difficulty of bringing up these supplies was serious. They had all to come by the rugged path through the defile, a way so narrow that Nextday theforaging parties werepersistently attacked as they returned to camp, and at dusk the fusillade from the hills beganagain. No less: than thirty-four officers andmen were killedand wounded during the evening,some as they sat at dinner, others as they lay in their tents. The only way to sleep in safety was to buildup some kindof a bulwark on the side of the tent towards the hills. Sir William Lockhart himself had a narrow escape. He was very reluctant to take any special precautions, but his staff made a wall of grain bags beside his tent. He had hardly lain down in the tent when a couple of Afridi bulletsburied themselves in the improvised wall, near his head. Apart from the losses of men, and the disabling or killing of valuable transport,