CHITRAL AND THE N.W. FRONTIER CAMPAIGN. 510 sight everyprecaution was taken;a strongrearguard, broken up into several pickets, with the reservenear the column,covered the movement.

TheDorsets retired alongthe spur that formed the west side of the valley runningup to Saran Sar. The headquarters and the Sikhs were moving along the other side of the valley. Five companies of the Northamptons, many of these companies far below their original strength,were covering the retirement,falling back one by one to the lowerground. Four companies had gone down, and the fifth (G Company) was following them, when suddenly from a little pine wood at close range on their left a well-aimed fire was opened. The enemy had Lee-Metfords, and night fell, were closing in and firing from every point of vantage, they chose for their line of retreat a nullah, or rocky gully, at the bottom of the valley This at first gave them shelter,but among its windings, and with lateral gullies opening now on one side, now on the other,it was not easy to keep the true direction,or tobe always in touch with the flanking regiments on the higher ground. The tribesmen, who knew every inch of the valley, saw their chance and took it. They cut in between the companies, fired into them at close quartersfrom the crest of the ravine,and more than once nearly succeeded in cutting off their retreat. When at last in the darkness the camp was reached it were using the recently-captured cartridges with the Dum-Dum bullet; and at first it was very difficult to say exactly where the fire was coming from. So many men were hit that more than half the company was put out of action, for on the steep mountain ground it took four or five men to carry each fallen comrade. While the wounded were being got safelyon to improvised stretchers the men rallied bravely round their captain and fired into the pines, and the nearest company hurried back to their assistance. General Westwas found that Lieutenant Macintyre, a sergeant, and eleven men of the regiment weremissing. Nothing could be done for them that night, and it washoped that they might hold out somewhere till daylight, when a search party could go to their help.

Inthemorning thebrigade went out and found all the missing men lying dead together at the bottom of a ravine. They had all been killed by rifle fire,and after death the bodies had been slashed with sword cuts, but they were not otherwise mutilated. There is no LIFUTENANT A- H. MACINTYRE.

{Photo:Aibert Smith,Jersey.)

macott sent the 36th Sikhs back from the valley to cover the retreat of the Northamptons, who, carrying their dead and wounded, retired through the line formed by the Sikhs. By this time tin enemy wasshowing in crowdsalong the hiss,and a dropping fire was coming from severaldirections.

As soon as the Northamptons had got something of a start,Colonel Haughton, of the 36th Sikhs, withdrew his regiment to its original .position on the flank. By this time the sun had set, and darkness was coming on, but it was supposed that all was going well,for theNorthamptons,retiring along the valley,had the Sikhs to cover one flank and the Dorsets the other. -Unfortunately, not being so used to mountain warfare as the frontier regiments, some of the companies of the Northamptons made a fatal mistake. Encumbered with wounded,and hard pressed by the enemy's riflemen, who, as the doubt that many of them could have escaped over the rocks if they had chosen to abandon the wounded and shift for themselves, but they deliberately decided to die where they stood ratherthandesert theirfallencomrades.Through all the long retreat from Saran Sar the men of the Northampton Regiment had shown the same spirit of devoted courage. Half the difficulty and danger of that terrible evening arose from the necessity- of saving the wounded.

The losses were heavy. Two British officers werekilled;Lieutenants WaddellancTMacintyre of the Northamptons. Three British and one native officer were wounded. Of the rank and file, the Northamptons had seventeen killedand twenty-nine wounded;the Dorsets, two killed and six wounded; the isth Sikhs,onekilled and three wounded; and the 36th Sikhs, three wounded. The total loss was twenty-two killed