After attending the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he was commissioned in September 1875 as a lieutenant in the 15th Foot (East Yorkshire Regiment).

[1] Chase was 24 years old, and a lieutenant in the Bengal Staff Corps, serving with the 28th Bombay Native Infantry (Pioneers), British Indian Army during the Second Afghan War.

On 16 August 1880 at Deh Khoja, near Kandahar, Afghanistan, Chase, with the help of Private Thomas Elsdon Ashford, rescued a wounded soldier and finally brought him to a place of safety.

The citation in the London Gazette of 7 October 1881 stated: For conspicuous gallantry on the occasion of the sortie from Kandahar, on the 16th August, 1880, against the village of Deh Khoja, in having rescued and carried for a distance of over 200 yards, under the fire of the enemy, a wounded soldier, Private Massey, of the Royal Fusiliers, who had taken shelter in a blockhouse.

In August 1889 he re-joined the 28th Bombay Infantry, with which he took part in the 1889–90 Chin-Lushai expedition; and on the north-west frontier in 1897–8, including the Mohmand and Tirah campaigns.