Far from improving, the situation was speedily to become all but
hopeless. The village of Behmaroo, built on the north-eastern slope of
the ridge of the same name bounding the plain on the north-west, lay
about half a mile due north of the cantonments, part of which some of the
houses on the upper slope commanded. From this village, after the loss of
the Commissariat fort, our people had been drawing supplies. On the
morning of the 22d the Afghans were seen moving in force from Cabul
toward Behmaroo, obviously with intent to occupy the village, and so
deprive the occupants of the cantonments of the resource it had been
affording them. A detachment under Major Swayne, sent out to forestall
this occupation, found Behmaroo already in the possession of a body of
Kohistanees, who had so blocked the approaches that Swayne did not
consider himself justified in attempting the fulfilment of his orders to
storm the place; and he contented himself with maintaining all day an
ineffectual musketry fire on it. A diversion in his favour by a gun
supported by cavalry had no result save that of casualties to the gunners
and troopers; reinforcements brought out by Shelton effected nothing, and
in the evening the troops were recalled. On this ill-fated day Akbar
Khan, Dost Mahomed's fierce and implacable son, arrived in Cabul, and the
evil influence on the British fortunes which he exerted immediately made
itself felt, for the events of the following day were to bring about a
crisis in the fate of our ill-starred people.
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