Immediately the junction of the two columns had been effected the retirement to camp commenced; a mountain battery was posted at the Chagru Kotal, and another, with a battalion, on the Samana Sukh, to cover the withdrawal—a difficult operation and attended with considerable loss, for the path was very steep and broken, and the enemy pressed the rearguard closely. They do not, however, appear to have pursued beyond the heights, and the further retirement of Sir Power Palmer’s force to Shinawari via the Chagru Kotal was unmolested. Our total casualties this day amounted to one officer and seven men killed, five officers and twenty-nine men wounded. The reports which he had received, as to the relation of the Dargai position in occupation by the enemy to the use of the road over the Chagru Kotal, seem to have convinced General Yeatman-Biggs, now again commanding his division, that passage could not safely be attempted unless the tribesmen were dislodged from the heights on the left flank. He, therefore, proposed to Sir William Lockhart on the 19th, that the advance be made by way of Gulistan, the Samana Sukh, and the Talai Spur;[121] but this suggestion was negatived, and the previous arrangement for the advance to Kharappa over the Chagru Kotal was to stand, Sir William considering that the well-known anxiety of the enemy as to their flanks, would cause them to evacuate the Dargai position on our troops arriving at the junction of the Narikh and Chagru ravines; at the same time the G.O.C.-in-Chief admitted that “it would be necessary to clear the Dargai heights overlooking the road to the west.” It seems, then, that what Sir William Lockhart suggested was a frontal attack on the Dargai position, combined with a threatening of the flanks by continuing the advance towards Kharappa.