At length on January
5th, Sturt the engineer officer got his instructions to throw down into
the ditch a section of the eastern rampart, and so furnish a freer exit
than the gates could afford. The supply of transport was inadequate,
provisions were scant, and the escort promised by the chiefs was not
forthcoming. Pottinger advised waiting yet a little longer, until
supplies and escort should arrive; but for once the military chiefs were
set against the policy of delay, and firm orders were issued that the
cantonments should be evacuated on the following day.
Shah Soojah remained in Cabul. The resolution became him better than
anything else we know of the unfortunate man. It may be he reasoned that
he had a chance for life by remaining in the Balla Hissar, and that from
what he knew, there was no chance of life for anyone participating in the
fateful march. He behaved fairly by the British authorities, sending more
than one solemn warning pressing on them the occupation of the Balla
Hissar. And there was some dignity in his appeal to Brigadier Anquetil,
who commanded his own contingent, 'if it were well to forsake him in the
hour of need, and to deprive him of the aid of that force which he had
hitherto been taught to regard as his own?'
CHAPTER VII: THE CATASTROPHE
The ill-omened evacuation by our doomed people of the cantonments wherein
for two months they had undergone every extremity of humiliation and
contumely, was begun on the dreary winter morning of January 6th, 1842.
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