The advance was to learn from the few stragglers
who reached it the ghastly truth that it now was all that remained of the
strong brigade which four days before had marched out from the Cabul
cantonments. The slaughter from the Afghan fire had blocked the gorge
with dead and dying. The Ghilzai tribesmen, at the turn into the pen at
the other end of which was the blocked gorge, had closed up fiercely.
Then the steep slopes suddenly swarmed with Afghans rushing sword in hand
down to the work of butchery, and the massacre stinted not while living
victims remained. The rear-guard regiment of sepoys was exterminated,
save for two or three desperately wounded officers who contrived to reach
the advance.
The remnant of the army consisted now of about seventy files of the 44th,
about 100 troopers, and a detachment of horse-artillery with a single
gun. The General sent to Akbar Khan to remonstrate with him on the attack
he had allowed to be made after having guaranteed that the force should
meet with no further molestation. Akbar protested his regret, and pleaded
his inability to control the wild Ghilzai hillmen, over whom, in their
lust for blood and plunder, their own chiefs had lost all control; but he
was willing to guarantee the safe conduct to Jellalabad of the European
officers and men if they would lay down their arms and commit themselves
wholly into his hands.
Pages:
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138