The Bara Bridge Across The Bara River, Kajuri Plains, Photograph Taken By Royal Air Force, Constructed By Royal Engineers, Khyber Pass, 1930-31 (c).
Another Inglis bridge, of somewhat similar size and design, was erected by the 5th Company at Mazarai later in the operations; but in this case there were further complications as one bank of the Bara River was high and precipitous and the other rose to a lower level in two steps.
A concrete and rubble pier was built on the lower step, and the girders launched across it to the far bank in which a very deep and long approach cutting was required. As in the case of the Bara Bridge, the last three bays of the Mazarai Bridge were counter-weighted and left permanently in cantilever—but at one end of the bridge only, instead of at both as at Bara.
The pier was made 30 feet in height in order to limit the depth of the opposite approach cutting to 16 feet; but even so the Sikh Pioneers and infantry working parties who did the excavation were obliged to remove 250,000 cubic feet of very hard soil. It is creditable to all concerned that the whole undertaking was completed in 50 days.
The construction of the Bara and Mazarai bridges was the most important engineering work executed during the occupation of the Kajuri and Aka Khel Plains, and it has been described in some detail to show what Sappers and Miners are now called upon to do in field operations.
The third and final period, from December 9th to March 31st, began with the selection of the sites for the permanent camps and posts, and the Engineer units were soon sinking tube wells and raising defences at these places. Samghakai Post, Jhansi Post, Nowshera Post and an enlarged Fort Salop came into being, while road work continued in various directions.
But in spite of a heavy program of engineering, several small punitive expeditions were sent against Afridi villages on the outskirts of the plains. One of these, in which the Rawalpindi Brigade operated against Tauda China on February i8th, will serve as an example of the usual employment of the Engineer units.
On this occasion the 3rd Company, Bengal Sappers and Miners, working with the 2nd Bombay Pioneers, demolished several towers and houses and blocked more than 100 caves with thorn trees, stones and barbed wire to which they sometimes attached mines. In a mined cave, any movement of the wire caused the charge to explode and to discourage attempts to remove the wire with a hook and a rope from a safe distance, a mine was placed occasionally at just that distance outside the cave.
The results were most satisfactory—except to the Afridis. Hostilities ceased gradually, and with the approach of the hot weather all the troops except the permanent garrison left the Kajuri and Aka Khel Plains. Peshawar was safe against further Afridi raids.”