File 3360/1916 Pt 1 'Persian correspondence (1916-17)' [‎184v] (373/804)

Send Indian to help before dark Tell the guns to fire at the corner, not to the
right as at present.” This message was also addressed to Captain Weldon with
the request that he come at once with the other machine gun and cartridges.
I immediately sent up ah South Persia Rifles Maxim mule with cartridges
and an escort. I at once kad the artillery target changed and afterwards
learned, with great effect
J sent an order to Major Bruce to send 15 dismounted sowars to act as
escort to the guns and sent up to the top my last remaining platoon of 124th
Infantry under Captain Chaldecott and Major Devere Condon with a stretcher
party
Night now came on, and I ordered Major Bruce to post a cavalry picket
on Headquarter hill north-west of the caravansarai, and, as there was
considerable firing to be heard, I sent up a section of Captain Hinde’s platoon
to assist the bringing down of the wounded. Since no target could be seen
and the position of the parties still out was uncertain the guns ceased fire after
having steadily been in action for 6 hours, firing without ceasing a total of
178 rounds from the two guns. This practically finished the engagement.
At 8-80 p.m. the wounded and most cf the parties had returned safely
to camp, but one Indian officer and 19 men 194th Infantry and one Persian
officer and about 20 men, South Persia Rifles who had been drawn away to
the right in the first attacks on the position, were still out and for some time
distant firing indicated that they were holding their own. It was quite impos
sible to support them or to locate them owing to distance and darkness.
Information was now received through Chahhadars, South Persia
Rifles officers, and spies that the enemy had been strongly reinforced and
were about to send 200 men to cut the road behind us at Dasht-i-Arjan and
Sineh Safid, both impossible positions to force with my small column. At the
same time various South Persia Rifles officers warned Lieutenant-Colonel
Hunter to be on the look-out for treachery on the part of others of the
South Persia Rifles. 20 men of the South Persia Rifles Artillery were reported
as deserted and others as havins: gone over to the enemy. The fires on the
hillsides indicating the enemy’s positions, some 2,000 to 3,000 yards distant,
gradually came lower and more and more encircled the camp.
No news was received of the promised and anxiously expected convoy of
forage and the animals had no barley and but one feed of Indian baled bhosa
left. The force at my disposal was quite inadequate to the task given it
and I decided to march at once for Khan-i-Zinian, 18 miles distant,
before I was completely surrounded. At this moment the enemy crept up in
the dark from the south to a distance of some 150 yards from camp and
made a bold attack on the Column. The cool behaviour of the 124th Infantry
picket and the 15th Lancer picket, who immediately returned the fire from a
few yards’ range, together with the moral effect of a star shell from the artillery
and a well-placed shell into a distant set of fires, drove off this attack. The
immediate desertion of practically all the Persian muleteers and the flight
towards Lasht-i-Arjan of many of our camels and mules made it unavoidable
to leave behind some forage and a few tents, as the muleteers carried off the
loading ropes with them.
Orders were given for the evacuation of the vallev. The South Persia
Rifles, to a man, went off within a few minutes of the order; not waiting
for the issue of detailed orders of march, and this incident confirmed the sus
picions (which afterwards proved not justified) that we might possibly find our
late comrades in action against us when we reached Dasti-i-Arjan and Sineh
Safid.
The South Persia Rifles went off at 10-30 p.m., and the remainder of
the Column marched quietly away at 1 a..m. on the 26th. Had it not been for
the cowardice and desertion of the muleteers and camelmen, not a particle of
baggage would have been lost.
The retirement was most orderly and the morale of the troops excellent,
but until our arrival at Dasht-i-Arjan at 3-30 a.m. to find it in occupation of
the South Persia Rifles, the march was not without great anxiety.