Duel in the Snows by Charles Allen

Author:Charles Allen [Charles Allen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Published: 2015-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

The first battle of Karo La

As Ottley’s men had discovered from their earlier reconnaissance, the Tibetans had built their wall about a mile and a half beyond the pass itself. They had chosen their site extremely well, for this was the narrowest point, with precipitous and quite impassable cliffs on the left and only slightly less steep mountain-side on the right, rising to a large snowfield high above. At the Red Idol Gorge it had been possible to turn the enemy’s flanks by climbing out of the gorge on each side, but here no such option seemed possible. Furthermore, the Tibetans had put up a series of sangars in front of and above the wall at both ends – one large one on the left and seven smaller ones on the right – making it difficult to approach without being fired upon from both flanks. The correct tactic would have been first to demolish these side sangars with artillery, but all Brander had were the Gurkhas’ two museum pieces, Bubble and Squeak. To give them some cover, a company of Gurkhas under Major Row was sent up the mountain side on the left and a company of Sikhs up on the right, both with the aim of trying to dislodge the Tibetans from their forward sangars, while below them Bubble and Squeak and the two Maxims were brought as far forward as they could be without becoming easy targets for the men in the sangars. Two companies of 32nd Sikh Pioneers then advanced down the river bed towards the centre of the wall, followed by Ottley and forty of his mounted infantrymen. At about six hundred yards the wall erupted with smoke and fire. The Maxims and seven-pounders immediately came into play. ‘The roar of firearms was magnificent,’ noted William Ottley; ‘in this narrow defile every shot was echoed and re-echoed scores of times over.’

It soon became obvious to Hadow that his machine-guns were making no impact on the wall. ‘One could see nothing except the puffs of smoke,’ he observed. ‘Their loopholes were very small and quite invisible, although we afterwards found the wall spattered with our bullets all over.’ And despite being manned and fired with great enthusiasm by their Gurkha gun-crews – under the direction of their British NCO, Sergeant-Instructor Champion – the two mountain guns were equally ineffective. The heavy ammunition brought up to Gyantse consisted entirely of shrapnel, which was useless against fortifications, so Champion employed his guns as mortars, aiming high so as to lob the shells over the Tibetan defences. ‘The guns were extremely well handled,’ noted Hadow, ‘but one could never tell within a hundred yards or so where the next shell would fall, even at a range of 600 yards. Also many of the shells did not burst, as they did not always fall with the right end foremost.’ Out of seventy rounds fired, only one hit its mark and exploded.

As the Sikhs advanced up the floor of the valley the Tibetans concentrated their fire on the foremost company, pinning the men down.

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