Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly decided to limit the strength of the Relief Column to 400 men of the 32nd Pioneers, two guns of the Kashmir Mountain Battery, 40 Kashmir Sappers and 100 of the Hunza and Nagar levies. The column started in two parties. As far as Gupis, which was reached on the 26th and 27th, mule transport was used, but this was here exchanged for coolies and ponies; owing, however, to desertions among the coolies the loads had to be reduced—there were no tents and each man had an allowance of 15 lbs. of baggage—while only six days’ supplies could be taken with the column. [Sidenote: Crossing the Shandur] Ghizr was reached on the 30th and 31st March, and the march to the Shandur Pass was commenced. The snow was now so deep that the battery mules and the ponies could not proceed; Colonel Kelly therefore withdrew 200 of his men under Captain Borradaile to Teru and returned himself with the rest of the column to Ghizr where the supply question did not present such difficulties. Borradaile was next day to attempt to cross the Shandur Pass, reach and entrench himself at Laspur, return the transport, and try and open communications with Mastuj. Snow fell heavily during the next twenty-four hours and no start could be made until 11 a.m. on the 3rd, by which time the guns and a detachment of the Kashmir Rifles had joined Borradaile. The pass was crossed under extraordinary difficulties, the infantry reaching Laspur on the night of the 4th, and the guns and Kashmir Infantry the following afternoon. A reconnaissance on the 6th revealed the presence in the neighbourhood of the enemy, who were reported also to be entrenched near the Chakalwat defile some thirteen miles further on. On this day Colonel Kelly arrived with fifty Nagar levies, and next day fifty Puniali levies also came in. Some idea of the severity of the climate may be gathered from the fact that among the troops there were sixty-three cases of snow blindness and forty-three of frost-bite. The second part of the column, delayed at Ghizr, was unable to reach Laspur until the 9th, but Colonel Kelly, considering it inadvisable to wait, pushed on to Gasht with the remainder of his party, and after reconnoitring the enemy’s position, determined to attack. The enemy’s position was naturally very strong and the sangars well placed; these blocked the valley on either side of the river and were continued up to the snow line, while the right of the position was further protected by a mass of fallen snow descending into the water. On the 9th Colonel Kelly advanced towards the enemy’s position at Chakalwat; the Hunza levies were sent up the heights on one side to get above and fire into the sangars; while the Puniali men ascended on the other flank to drive the enemy from their stone shoots on the slopes above the river.