Amongst the officers playing polo were Lieutenants Rattray and Minchin, who belonged to the garrison of Chakdara some seven or eight miles up the Swat Valley.  To return to their posts they had therefore to pass right through the tide of armed men flowing down the valley in great numbers.  Yet as illustrating the chivalrous nature of the wild hillmen, a trait somewhat unusual amongst the more fanatical Pathans, the officers were allowed to pass unmolested, and indeed here and there a friendly voice bade them make good speed home.  The British officer’s custom of being out and about doing something, instead of sitting permanently at home studying or playing chess, stood him in good stead on this occasion, giving, as it proved, a good four hours’ warning in advance.

It was not till after ten o’clock at night that the carefully planned attacks on the Malakand and Chakdara were delivered simultaneously by great swarms of tribesmen, with a resolution and bravery worthy of the highest admiration.  At the Malakand there were many anxious moments, for the position was an extended one, and, by the nature of the ground, difficult for a small garrison to preserve from penetration.  It was a night of individual heroism, a soldier’s battle, where little knots of men under their officers fought independently, and with undiminished courage, though often cut off from all communication.  No less brave was the enemy, and it was not until dawn that he reluctantly withdrew.  This was the first of five nights and days through which the British garrison had to stand this stern ordeal.

The first thing to be done when daylight made concerted movements possible, was to contract the perimeter of defence, so as to make it more tenable by the number of troops available.  The original garrison was now augmented by the arrival of the Guides, horse and foot.  It was with considerable reluctance that Colonel Meiklejohn, who had himself been wounded by a sword-cut, decided on abandoning what was known as the North Camp, a position some distance below and isolated from the Malakand.  This camp had been established both to allow the cavalry and pack-animals to be near water, of which there was scarcity on the Malakand itself; and also for sanitary reasons, so as to keep so large a number of animals out of a restricted area.  The abandonment of this camp, necessary though it was, undoubtedly had an extraordinarily heartening effect on the enemy.  All night they had fought desperately, and lost heavily, without apparently gaining any result; but the retirement of the troops from the North Camp, besides leaving in their hands the large tents and heavy baggage of all sorts, impossible to move at short notice, showed that the garrison also had felt the stress of battle.

Strongly reinforced, and with new heart, so soon as night fell the tribesmen renewed their attack.  As illustrating the desperate nature of the fighting, out of one picquet of twenty-five men of the 31st Punjab Infantry, the native officer and eighteen men were killed or wounded; while out of another picquet, consisting of the Guides and forty-five Sikhs, twenty-one were killed or wounded; and all this was done in close hand to hand fighting.  Lieutenant Lockhart thus describes the scene: