The ladies were no longer carried in litters and palanquins,
for their bearers were mostly dead; they sat in the bullet fire packed
into panniers slung on camels, invalids as some of them were--one poor
lady with her baby only five days old. Mess stores were being recklessly
distributed, and Lady Sale honestly acknowledges that, as she sat on her
horse in the cold, she felt very grateful for a tumbler of sherry, which
at any other time would have made her 'very unladylike,' but which now
merely warmed her. Cups full of sherry were drunk by young children
without in the least affecting their heads, so strong on them was the
hold of the cold.
It was not until noon that the living mass of men and animals was once
more in motion. The troops were in utter disorganisation; the baggage was
mixed up with the advance guard; the camp followers were pushing ahead in
precipitate panic. The task before the wretched congeries of people was
to thread the stupendous gorge of the Khoord Cabul pass--a defile about
five miles long, hemmed in on either hand by steeply scarped hills. Down
the bottom of the ravine dashed a mountain torrent, whose edges were
lined with thick layers of ice, on which had formed glacier-like masses
of snow. The 'Jaws of Death' were barely entered when the slaughter
began. With the advance rode several Afghan chiefs, whose followers, by
their command, shouted to the Ghilzais lining the heights to hold their
fire, but the tribesmen gave no heed to the mandate.
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