The Bombay cavalry
brigade was to watch the roads over the Murcha and Babawali Kotuls,
supported by infantry and artillery belonging to General Primrose's
command, part of which was also detailed for the protection of the city;
and to hold the ground from which the Cabul brigades were to advance.
General Gough was to take the cavalry of the Cabul column across the
Urgundab, so as to reach by a wide circuit the anticipated line of the
Afghan retreat.
Soon after nine A.M. the forty-pounders on the right of Picquet hill
began a vigorous cannonade of the Babawali Kotul, which was sturdily
replied to by the three field-guns the enemy had in battery on that
elevation. It had been early apparent that the Ayoub's army was in great
heart, and apparently meditating an offensive movement had moved out so
far into the plain as to occupy the villages of Mulla Sahibdad opposite
the British right, and Gundigan on the left front of the British left.
Both villages were right in the fair way of Roberts' intended line of
advance; they, the adjacent enclosures, and the interval between the
villages were strongly held, and manifestly the first thing to be done
was to force the enemy back from those advanced positions. Two batteries
opened a heavy shell fire on the Sahibdad village, under cover of which
Macpherson advanced his brigade against it, the 2d Goorkhas and 92d
Highlanders in his first line.
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