"The same afternoon Brigadier-General Gatacre with the Buffs, the 4th Goorkhas, half of No. 4 Company Bengal Sappers and Miners, No. 2 Derajat Mountain Battery, and the Maxim guns of the Devonshire Regiment pushed on to Barwa, _en route_ for Dir and Chitral, with twenty days' supplies. * * * * * "On the afternoon of April 20 Brigadier-General Gatacre sent a message back to me that Major Deane, chief political officer, had received news that the garrison of Chitral was reduced to great straits, and that the mines of the enemy had reached to within ten yards of the fort, and he suggested that he should advance rapidly with a small body of five hundred men. "To this I consented, as being the only way of passing quickly through the intricate country we were now traversing, and the only chance of rescuing the garrison."[2] [2] See Sir Robert Low's _Despatch_, April 19, 1895. {133} [Sidenote: The Flying Column] The excitement and joyful anticipation amongst those who were to compose the Flying Column were intense. One of them writes: "We had intended pushing on over the Lowari Pass without baggage animals, the paths being unfit for even mules without much tedious and lengthy preparation. Every officer and man was to have carried ten days' supplies on his back, and I had already broken up the General's mess stores into suitable 40-lb. loads for hillmen to carry for us. In order to do this I only got to bed at our Janbatai camp at 1 a.m. and had to be up at 3 a.m.; so you can imagine it was impressed on my mind. "The dear General was, I fancy, awake all night, partly on account of the painful abscess that had been lanced that evening; but in spite of this he marched with us all next day, standing in his stirrups, because of the pain of sitting; and indefatigably urged on our bridging and road-making parties. After our arrival at Dir, having marched twenty miles and made the road and bridged the streams _en route_, the General would not rest or dine till the last of the transport mules had been piloted with lamps over a very difficult and rocky part of the path, just outside Dir. I fancy we dined at about 9.30 p.m.; but this was no unusual thing, for the General always insisted on seeing to the comfort of his brigade before his own, and I hardly ever managed to induce him to sit down to dinner till some time between 9 and 10 p.m." But much to the chagrin of the five hundred they were a flying column for twenty-four hours only, for on the 22nd news was received that the siege, which had lasted forty-six days, had {134} been raised. It was afterwards ascertained that Colonel Kelly had reached the fort at 2 p.m. on the 20th, and that Sher Afzul and his supporters had fled the previous day. The General says nothing of his personal disappointment in the letters of this date, but when he was in the fort a month later, he writes: