The council of war summoned by Sale was unanimous in favour of
non-compliance with this mandate. Broadfoot urged with vigour that an
order by a superior who was no longer a free agent and who issued it
under duress, could impose no obligation of obedience. Sale pronounced
himself untrammelled by a convention forced from people 'with knives at
their throats,' and was resolute in the expression of his determination
to hold Jellalabad unless ordered by the Government to withdraw.
More and more ominous tidings poured in from Cabul. A letter received on
January both reported the Cabul force to be still in the cantonments,
living utterly at the mercy of the Afghans; another arriving on the 12th
told of the abandonment of the cantonments and the beginning of the
march, but that the forlorn wayfarers were lingering in detention at
Bootkhak, halted in their misery by the orders of Akbar Khan. Those
communications in a measure prepared the people in Jellalabad for
disaster, but not for the awful catastrophe of which Dr Brydon had to
tell, when in the afternoon of the 13th the lone man, whose approach to
the fortress Lady Butler's painting so pathetically depicts, rode through
the Cabul gate of Jellalabad. Dr Brydon was covered with cuts and
contusions, and was utterly exhausted. His first few hasty sentences
extinguished all hope in the hearts of the listeners regarding their
Cabul comrades and friends.
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