Finally
one of the two relief columns had to pass through two hundred miles of
unmapped and unexplored country, inhabited by armed fanatical tribes
fiercely opposed to the passage of the troops while the other, weak in
numbers, and marching _en l'air_ hundreds of miles from any support, was
a veritable forlorn hope.
It speaks highly for the mobilisation arrangements of the Indian Army
that within eleven days a corps of all arms, twenty-five thousand
strong, had derailed at a little roadside station, and under Sir Robert
Low had marched forty-two miles to the frontier, fought a decisive
action, and forced the first barrier of mountains on its road to
Chitral. Unhappily it does not lie within the region of this story to
relate how the gallant forlorn hope under Colonel Kelly, overcoming
stupendous difficulties, made its way to the succour of the sore beset
garrison, but history has already done justice to that gallant
achievement. Here, in a regimental narrative we are naturally restricted
to the column to which the Guides belonged.
On the opening day of the campaign it fell to the Guides' infantry to
turn the right flank of the enemy, having, supported by the 4th Sikhs,
captured after five hours' hard fighting a commanding mountain, to this
day called the Guides' Hill, which completely dominated and turned the
Malakand position. It was next day, however, that a weak squadron of the
Guides' cavalry had the opportunity of performing a notable service.
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