'The bodies,' wrote Backhouse in his
unpublished diary, 'lay in heaps of fifties and hundreds, our gun wheels
crushing the bones of our late comrades at every yard for four or five
miles; indeed, the whole march from Gundamuk to Cabul may be said to have
been over the bodies of the massacred army.' Pollock marched unmolested
to Cabul on the 15th, and camped on the old racecourse to the east of the
city.
Nott, in evacuating Candahar, divided his force into two portions, the
weaker of which General England took back to India by Quetta and Sukkur,
while on August 9th Nott himself, with two European battalions, the
'beautiful sepoy regiments' of which he had a right to be proud, and his
field guns, marched away from Candahar, his face set towards Cabul. His
march was uneventful until about midway between Khelat-i-Ghilzai and
Ghuznee, when on the 28th the cavalry, unsupported and badly handled in a
stupid and unauthorised foray, lost severely in officers and men, took to
flight in panic, and so gave no little encouragement to the enemy hanging
on Nott's flank. Two days later Shumshoodeen, the Afghan leader, drew up
some 10,000 men in order of battle on high ground left of the British
camp. Nott attacked with vigour, advancing to turn the Afghan left. In
reprisal the enemy threw their strength on his left, supporting their
jezail fire with artillery, whereupon Nott changed front to the left,
deployed, and then charged.
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