314 LHASA
bits of work done by the garrison. In utter darkness,
before the dawn, Colonel Brander sent out a small
column, composed of three hundred rifles, four guns,
and a maxim. Their objective was this hamlet, where
the Tibetans had been strengthening a position, and
mounting guns for the previous two or three days. This
danger at all costs had to be prevented. Pala enfiladed
nearly the whole of our defences, and was barely 1,200
yards away to the north-east. The relative positions of
Chang-lo, Pala and the jong were, roughly speaking,
those of the points of an equilateral triangle | the road
from Gyantse to Lhasa runs through P a la ; and the
occupation of this post gave us practical command
of all direct communications with the capital. For
more reasons than one the place had to be taken, and
Colonel Brander’s scheme was in its conception admirable.
The guns were posted on an eminence, a quarter
of a mile away to the north-east, which completely
dominated the village. After skirting round the village
to the south-east his plan was to develop an attack in
the first place upon the house which was nearest to the
jong. For this purpose Captain Sheppard and Captain
O’Connor were deputed, with half-a-dozen men, to open
the assault by blowing in the wall of the next house,
which wholly commanded it. At the same time Lieut.
Garstin with Lieut. Walker, R.E., were sent a few yards
further to breach the house itself. Major Peterson, with
two companies of the 32nd Pioneers, was to follow up
the explosions with an instant rush. This was the plan ;
what actually happened was entirely different.
The column moved slowly through the darkness,
until its leading ranks were within fifty yards of the
high road to Lhasa. At that moment a small party
of three unsuspecting Tibetans tramped slowly along
it, and though Colonel Brander believed that not one
of his men was actually seen, it is possible that, in
some way, these men were able to give the alarm to the
defenders of the post. Certainly there seems to be
no reason to charge any member of the attacking
Pala village from Chang-lo.
column with carelessness, or even an accident. But
the Tibetans were on the alert, and, as soon as the first
figures were visible in the obscurity, a hot fire was
poured upon them from the roofs of all the houses in the
village-. The two storming-parties had by this time
reached a low wall, thirty yards from the house to be
attacked, and there was nothing else to be done but
to make a dash for it. Captain Sheppard, followed