Following
the Ghuznee road across the Chardeh valley, he was to march to Urgundeh,
in the vicinity of which place it was expected that he would find Mahomed
Jan's levies, which he was to attack and drive backward on Maidan, taking
care to prevent their retreat to the westward in the direction of Bamian.
On the following day General Baker marched out with a force made up of
900 infantrymen, two and a half squadrons, and four guns, with
instructions to march southward toward the Logur valley, deal with the
tribal gathering there, then bend sharply in a south-westerly direction
and take up a position across the Ghuznee road in the Maidan valley on
the line of retreat which it was hoped that Macpherson would succeed in
enforcing on Mahomed Jan. In that case the Afghan leader would find
himself between two fires, and would be punished so severely as to render
it unlikely that he would give further trouble. To afford time for Baker
to reach the position assigned to him Macpherson remained halted during
the 9th at Aushar, a village just beyond the debouche of the Nanuchee
Pass, at the north-western extremity of the Asmai heights. On that day a
cavalry reconnaissance discovered that the Kohistanee levies in
considerable strength had already gathered about Karez Meer, some ten
miles north-west of Cabul, and that masses of Afghans presumably
belonging to the force of Mahomed Jan were moving northward in the
Kohistan direction, apparently with the object of joining Meer Butcha's
gathering at Karez.
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