But his soldiers, who carried
in their haversacks seven days' provisions, would gladly have marched
without any baggage at all, and the chief himself was eager to hurry
forward, for Nott had written that he expected to reach Cabul on 15th
September, and Pollock was burning to be there first. In the Jugdulluk
Pass, on the 8th, he found the Ghilzais in considerable force on the
heights. Regardless of a heavy artillery fire they stood their ground,
and so galled Pollock's troops with sharp discharges from their jezails
that it became necessary to send infantry against them. They were
dislodged from the mountain they had occupied by a portion of the
Jellalabad brigade, led by gallant old General Sale, who had his usual
luck in the shape of a wound.
This Jugdulluk fighting was, however, little more than a skirmish, and
Pollock's people were to experience more severe opposition before they
should emerge from the passes on to the Cabul plain. On the morning of
the 13th the concentrated force had quitted its camp in the Tezeen
valley, and had committed itself without due precaution to the passage of
the ravine beyond, when the Afghan levies with which Akbar Khan had
manned the flanking heights, opened their fire. The Sirdar had been
dissuaded by Captain Troup, one of his prisoners, from attempting futile
negotiations, and advised not to squander lives in useless opposition.
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