SHARP WORK.

Kumara Times, Issue 1046, 7 February 1880, Page 4

SHARP WORK.

At the village of Shah-jui, near Candabar, after the affair which cost that notorious freebooter, Sahib Jan, his life, there was a sharp hand-to hand encounter with a handful of men under Captain Sartorius, V. 0., and some of the enemy. It has thus been described by an eyewitness : The head-man of the village was asked if he thought they would surrender if their lives were promised them ; but he replied that they would not believe in our promises, and that they had made up their minds to “do or die.” The battery tried firing “ double shell ” at high elevation ; and one of these was well pitched—its effects were afterwards discovered—one of the bodies being evidently killed by a fragment. It was finally determined to take the place by assault; and for this purpose Captain Sartorius, with eight of his company , (59th Regiment), advanced slowly up the hill, their progress being covered by others of the 591 h Regiment and Reloochees, who kept firing at the top, to prevent the enemy from showing himself till the last moment. To onlookers this was an anxious time : as indeed, it must have been to the little storming party. We saw Captain Sartoreous a couple of yards in advance and to the right of his men, sword in band, nearing the top of the cone. Directly the Ghazis (for there is no doubt these were fanatics, who had determined to kill some of us, or die in the attempt, so desperate were they) saw him, they darted out from their place of concealment—a sort of basin dug out from the apex of the cone—and sprang down on the soldiers like fiends. Captain Sartorius guarded the first tulwar cut with his revolver which he had in his left hand, receiving a nasty cut in so doing. He and one of his assailants closed, and , tumbled together to the bottom of the hill. He received another wound on the right hand, losing his sword. Neither of the antagonists were disabled ; luckily Sartorius was up first, and seizing a rifle with fixed bayonet, which he found on the ground near him, he managed to transfix the Ghazi, who however, in spite this, stooped down and with his dyin g effort, picked up a stone which he flung in Satorius’s face. When the Affghans rushed over the top, the 59th men, who behaved admirably, met them first with a volley and then with the bayonet, and in this manner despatched most of them, one soldier losing his life, however. He received a terrific tulwar wound through the skull. Some two or three of the enemy ran down the back of the hill, but in so doing were wounded by the fire of soldiers on the adjacent slope. Fourteen dead bodies were found at the foot of the hill. To the onlookers at about 500 yards there appeared to be a sudden collision on the brow of the hill, followed by a simultaneous rolling down of assailed and assailing, for it was so steep that the slightest impetus from above prevented ascent. Two men of the 59th were in this way slightly bruised, but, except the poor fellow who was killed, none were wounded. The coolness and pluck displayed by this handful of men and their leader in what was undoubtedly a very awkward business, is worthy of the greatest praise ; and I have no doubt that Captain Sartorius will be recommended for some special mark of favor.