CHAPTER III.
THE DEFENCE OF JELLALABAD.
January-March: 1842.
Situation of the Garrison—Letters from Shah Soojah—Question of Capitulation—Councils of War—Final Resolution—Earthquake at Jellalabad—Renewal of the Works—Succours expected.
With heavy hearts did the officers of the Jellalabad garrison perform the melancholy duties, which devolved upon them, after the arrival of Dr. Brydon. Horsemen were sent out to explore the surrounding country, and to bring in, if any could be found, the bodies of the dead. Hopes, too, were entertained, that some survivors of the terrible retreat might still be concealed in the neighbourhood, or lying wounded by the wayside, unable to struggle on towards the sheltering walls of the fortress. Every effort therefore was made, and every precaution taken, to indicate to the sufferers that succour was at hand, and to aid them, in their extremity, to reach it. The stillness of the night was broken by the loud blasts of the bugle, proclaiming from the ramparts, to any stragglers that might be toiling through the darkness, the vicinity of the British camp.
But profitless were all these efforts. The few who had escaped the massacre in the passes were captives in the hands of the Afghans; and the Jellalabad officers now asked one another whether the fate of the prisoner were less to be deplored than the fate of the dead. It was hard to believe that they who had butchered thousands of their enemies like sheep, in the passes, would treat with kindness and respect the few who had fallen into their hands. The only hope was, that Afghan avarice might be stronger than Afghan revenge, and that the prisoners might be preserved, like merchandise, and sold for British gold.
They sorrowed for their unhappy countrymen; but there was ever present with them the best remedy for sorrow. They had abundance of work to do. In the midst of their grief for the destruction of the Caubul army, it was necessary to consider in what manner that great catastrophe affected themselves. They reasoned that, perhaps, for some days, the Afghans would be gorging themselves with plunder; dividing the spoil; and burying the corpses of their countrymen; but that, this done, large bodies of troops would be released, and that Akbar Khan might soon be expected to come down upon Jellalabad, with an overwhelming force flushed with victory, and eager to consign them to the terrible fate which had overtaken the British army posted at the capital. It was soon said, that the Sirdar was organising an army, at Lughman, some thirty miles distant from Jellalabad. It was necessary, therefore, to prepare for his reception.
To such good purpose had Broadfoot worked, that the defences of Jellalabad were now fast becoming formidable realities; and the officers said among themselves and wrote to distant friends, that nothing but a failure of provisions, or ammunition, could give the Sirdar a chance of carrying the place. Our fighting men, however, were too few to man the works with good effect. Sale, therefore, embodied the camp-followers; and thus enabled himself to employ his effective troops beyond the walls. Day after day, foraging parties were sent out with good results. Our great requirements were wood and grass. It was expedient to obtain these as expeditiously as possible, for the place might soon be invested; and then the garrison would be thrown back entirely on its internal supplies. About the same time, all the Afghans in Jellalabad, including 200 men of Ferris’s Jezailchee regiment, were ordered to quit the walls, in the belief that in an extremity they would certainly turn against us.
Then news came of Wild’s failure. To the younger and bolder spirits in Sale’s brigade, this was scarcely a disappointment. They had expected little from Wild’s advance. They believed, however, that the disaster would necessarily retard Pollock’s forward movement; and in this there was something discouraging. But they said among themselves that they could hold out till May, that it was then only January, and that it was hard, indeed, if Pollock could not relieve them within the next three months.
But whilst everything appeared thus plain to the younger and the irresponsible officers of the Jellalabad force, difficulties were rising up before the eyes, and doubts were assailing the minds of the responsible chiefs. Already had they begun to question, whether the Government at Calcutta had any intention to make a genuine effort, on a sufficient scale, to relieve them. All that they had heard of the views and measures of Lord Auckland led them to the painful conclusion that they would be left to their fate; at all events, until the arrival of his successor. In the meanwhile, not only was Akbar Khan collecting an army in Lughman, but Shah Soojah himself, acting perhaps under compulsion—perhaps not—was preparing to despatch troops both to Ghuznee and Jellalabad for the expulsion of the Feringhee garrisons. From the Shah nothing was to be expected beyond, at best, a little friendly delay. On the 21st of January, Macgregor received a letter from him. It contained much about the past; it alleged that if the Shah’s advice had not been disregarded, all would have gone well; that he alone could now hold the country, and that he wanted nothing from us but money.[35] This was a long, private letter—somewhat incoherent—the work of the King himself. But another also came from the King, as from the head of the government, asking the English at Jellalabad what were their intentions. “Your people,” it said, in effect, “have concluded a treaty with us, consenting to leave the country. You are still in Jellalabad. What are your intentions? Tell us quickly.” What now was to be done?
The crisis was a perilous one; the responsibility was great. Sale and Macgregor were sorely perplexed. It was plain that by continuing to occupy Jellalabad, they could do nothing to support their comrades in Afghanistan; for the Caubul army had been destroyed, and the Candahar and Ghuznee garrisons would fall back, if at all, on Scinde. They were not bound to support Shah Soojah, for the Shah himself declared that he wanted nothing but our money, and was evidently compromised with his own countrymen by our continued occupation of Jellalabad. The safety of the prisoners appeared more likely to be secured by our departure from Afghanistan than by our continuing in a hostile attitude in one of the chief places of the kingdom. And it was at least doubtful whether the policy of the Government at Calcutta would not be aided rather than embarrassed by the withdrawal of the garrison to Peshawur.
All these considerations weighing heavily on his mind, Sale determined to summon a Council of War. On the 26th of January, the Council met at the General’s quarters. It was composed of the commanding-officers of the different components of his varied force.[36] The political officer, Macgregor, was also a member of the Council. On him devolved the duty of explaining the circumstances which had induced the general to call them together. All the letters and documents bearing upon the great question were read and laid upon the table. Macgregor, acting as spokesman, declared that it was his opinion, and that also of the General, that little was to be hoped from the efforts of Government to relieve them. It was obvious that they must trust to themselves. Shah Soojah appeared to desire their departure; he had virtually, indeed, directed it. Were the members of the Council, he asked, of like opinion with himself and Sale, that it was now their duty to treat with the Shah for the evacuation of the country?
Then Macgregor read to the Council the terms of the proposed letter to the King. It set forth that his Majesty’s letter had been received; that the British held Jellalabad and the country only for the King, and that as it was his desire that they should return to India, of course they were willing to do so. But that after what had happened, it was necessary that the manner and the conditions of their withdrawal should be clearly understood. The terms upon which the garrison of Jellalabad would consent to evacuate the country were these: that they would give four hostages in proof of their sincerity; that the King should send a force to escort them in honour and safety to Jellalabad—that is, with their arms, colours, guns, &c.; that the escort should be commanded by one of the Prince’s own sons; and that carriage and supplies should be furnished for our march; that Mahomed Akbar and his force were to be withdrawn from Lughman before the British quitted Jellalabad; and that hostages should be given by the Afghans to accompany the British force as far as Peshawur, and there to be exchanged for our own hostages and prisoners; these hostages to be a son of the Newab Zemaun Khan—a son of Ameen-oollah Khan—Sooltan Jan, said to be a favourite cousin of Mahomed Akbar—with some Shinwarree and Khyburee chiefs.
Great now was the excitement in the Council; earnest the discourse. Men lifted up their voices together, in vehement debate, eager to speak, little caring to listen. Arguments were enunciated with such warmth of language, that they lost all their argumentative force. It was apparent, however, that the feelings of the majority of the Council were in favour of withdrawal. There was a prevailing sense amongst them that they had been abandoned by the Government at Calcutta; that there was no intention to maintain the supremacy of our arms in Afghanistan; that Shah Soojah did not wish them to remain there; and that, if they could make their own way to Peshawur, they would best fulfil the desires of their masters, and that their first care should be to further the views of the Government which they served. And yet their indignation ran high against that Government, which had abandoned them in the hour of their need.
But against all this there was one officer who steadfastly set his face; who had viewed with horror and detestation the proposal to capitulate, and flung the paper of terms indignantly on the ground. This was George Broadfoot, of the Sappers. Eagerly he lifted up his voice against the proposal; eagerly he declared it to be impossible that the Government should leave them to their fate, and do nothing to restore our lost national reputation in Afghanistan; eagerly he set forth to his comrades that a new Governor-General was coming, doubtless with new counsels, from England; that the Duke of Wellington was in power at home, and that so inglorious a policy could never ultimately prevail. But he lacked, in that conjuncture, the self-restraint, the moderation of language, and the calmness of utterance which might have secured for him respectful attention. They said that he was violent, and he was. Even his best friends said afterwards, that his warmth was unbecoming, and, doubtless, it weakened his cause. It was soon apparent to him that in the existing temper of the council, he could do nothing to change their resolves. He determined, therefore, to endeavour to delay the final resolution, and, with this object proposed an adjournment of the Council. The proposal was carried; the Council was dissolved, and the members went to their quarters or to their posts, to talk, or brood over what had happened, and to fortify themselves with new arguments in support of the opinions which they had determined to maintain.
The Council met again on the following day. There was much and earnest discussion; but it was painfully obvious that the majority were in favour of capitulation, and that at the head of the majority were the military and political chiefs. The proposed terms were again brought under review, and again George Broadfoot lifted up his voice against them. He was told by his opponents in the Council that the warmth of his feelings had obscured his judgment; but, resolute not to weaken his advocacy of so great a cause by any frailty of his own, he had submitted his views to writing, and had invited the sober criticism of his calmer friend Henry Havelock.[37] With this paper in his hand, holding his eager temperament in restraint, he now did resolute battle against the proposal for surrender. First, he took the votes of the Council on the general question of the propriety of any negociation; and then, one by one, he combated the separate terms of the proposed treaty of surrender. But, two only excepted, his comrades were all against him. Backhouse, a man of fiery courage and of plain discourse, though recognising the force of much of Macgregor’s reasoning, voted against withdrawal. Oldfield said little, but that little, with his vote, was against capitulation. Havelock, who attended only as the General’s staff, was without a vote; but his heart was with those who voted for the manlier and the nobler course.
The chief spokesmen were, George Macgregor on the one side, and George Broadfoot on the other. The former, enunciating the views of his military chief, contended that the Jellalabad garrison had been abandoned by the Government; that after Wild’s failure, no movement for their release was likely to be made; that there was no possibility that their little force could hold its own much longer, and that it could not retreat except under terms with the victorious enemy. He believed that the terms, of which he had spoken, would be strictly observed. Macnaghten and Pottinger had failed to take hostages from the Afghans, and therefore our army had been destroyed; but hostages being given, it was urged, the treaty would never be violated, and on the arrival of the force at Peshawur, our prisoners would be surrendered. Moreover, as Macgregor had contended from the first, the British troops held Jellalabad, and every other post in the Afghan dominions, only on behalf of Shah Soojah; and if the Shah directed our withdrawal, we had no right, it was said, to remain, especially when our own Government apparently desired the speedy evacuation of the country.
But this Broadfoot denied. He denied that the British troops held Jellalabad only on behalf of Shah Soojah; he denied that the British Government—under whose orders alone, he contended, the force could with propriety be withdrawn from Jellalabad—had directed, or were likely to direct, the immediate evacuation of Afghanistan. He denied that the brigade could not hold out in Jellalabad; he denied that it could not make good its retreat to Peshawur. He declared that hostages had been given before, at Tezeen—that still our camp had been attacked;[38] and that, so long as the enemy held our hostages and prisoners in their hands, there was really little additional security in such a resource. Sale said that he would execute an Afghan hostage if the terms of the treaty were violated. “Would you do this,” asked Broadfoot, “if the enemy threatened to kill, before our faces, two English ladies for every man that we put to death?” It was urged, by another officer, that if the British troops did not evacuate Jellalabad, our hostages at Caubul would be murdered. “Then,” contended Broadfoot, “in such a warfare, the most barbarous must be most successful. Whoever is prepared to execute his hostages and prisoners must gain his object, and triumph by the mere force of his barbarity.”
And thus, point after point, Broadfoot combated the arguments of those who supported the policy of capitulation; and at last took his stand boldly upon “first principles.” When it was said that a body of troops, thus abandoned by Government, were entitled to look to their own safety, he replied, that they had a right to save the troops only when, by so doing, they would confer a greater benefit on the state than by risking their loss. And when mention was made of the views of the Governor-General, the chief officer of the state, he declared that there was a higher duty still which they were bound to discharge. If, as had been contended, the Government of India had abandoned them, the covenant between them was cancelled by the failure of the higher authority. But they had a duty to perform towards their country—a duty which they could never decline. And it was plainly their duty, in the conjuncture which had arisen, to uphold the honour of the nation. In these views Havelock openly concurred; though, for reasons already stated, he took little part in the debates.
The terms of the proposed capitulation were carried, with but one exception. It was determined that hostages should not be given. Macgregor volunteered himself to be one; and both he and Sale contended vehemently in support of the proposal; but the voice of the assembly was against it. Its rejection detracted little from the humiliation of the surrender; and Broadfoot stood forward in the hope of persuading his comrades to reconsider the remaining terms. He dwelt especially on the discredit of demanding the withdrawal of Akbar Khan from Lughman, as though they stood in fear of the Sirdar; he urged upon them the expediency of requiring the surrender of all the British prisoners in the hands of the Afghans, as a preliminary to the evacuation of Jellalabad; and he implored them to consider whether, if they were determined to abandon their position, they could not give some dignity to the movement, by imparting to it the character of a military operation, deceiving the enemy as to real intention, and fighting, if need be, their way down to Peshawur. All these proposals were overruled. At a later date, the last received some support from men who had before condemned it.
And so, slightly altered in its phraseology—which Broadfoot had denounced as too abject—the letter was carried through the Council and prepared for transmission to the Shah. After the votes had been given, Broadfoot sarcastically congratulated them on the figure that they would make if the relieving force arrived just as the brigade was marching out of Jellalabad, under the terms of a humiliating convention. In such a case, Dennie, who had not the clearest possible perception of the obligations of good faith in such matters, declared that he would not go. Upon which he was told that he would be “made to go;” and the Council broke up amidst greater hilarity than had inaugurated its assemblage.
The letter was despatched to Shah Soojah, and, amidst varied and contending emotions, the members of the Council awaited a reply. In the meanwhile some of them recorded their reasons for the votes they had given; and all earnestly considered the course to be pursued when the expected answer should be received from Caubul. There could be little difference of opinion upon this score. It was determined that, if the answer received from the Shah should be a simple and unconditional acceptance of the proposed terms, the garrison must at once evacuate Jellalabad, and, if faith were broken by the enemy, fight its way to Peshawur; but that, if the answer should be evasive or clogged with reservations and conditions, they would be at liberty to adopt any course that might seem most expedient to them.
The answer came. It called upon the chief officers at Jellalabad, if they were sincere in their proposals, to affix their seals to the letter. A Council of war was held. Sale and Macgregor urged the members to put their seals to a copy of the original paper of terms. Broadfoot, pleading that the nature of the Shah’s letter, expressing a doubt, as it did, of their sincerity, liberated them from all foregone obligations, proposed that the whole question of capitulation should be reconsidered. He then offered to the acceptance of the Council the draft of a letter, stating that as the Shah and his chiefs had not answered their former communication—either by accepting or rejecting the proposed terms—that they should be referred to the Governor-General. There was much warm discussion. The proposed letter was pronounced violent, and eventually rejected. Another letter to the same effect, but more temperate in its tone, was proposed by Backhouse, and also rejected. Sale denounced, in strong language, the opposition of these men; some still more vehement discussion followed, and the council was adjourned.
An hour afterwards the members re-assembled, they who had felt and spoken hotly had cooled down; and the debate was resumed more gravely and decorously than it had broken off. Colonel Dennie and Captain Abbott had, by this time, determined to support the proposal for holding out, and Colonel Monteith, who had before recorded his opinions in favour of the course recommended by Major Macgregor, now prepared a letter, which, though couched in much less decided terms than those proposed by Broadfoot and Backhouse, was not a renewal of the negotiation. After some discussion this was accepted by the council, and a messenger was despatched to Caubul with the important missive. It left them free to act as they should think fit;—most happily it left them free, for the next day brought tidings from Peshawur that large reinforcements were moving up through the Punjab, and that strenuous efforts were to be made for their relief. It was clear that the government had not abandoned them to their fate. It was now equally clear to all, that it was their duty to hold out to the last hour. There was no more talk of withdrawal.[39]
This was on the 13th of February. The garrison were in good heart, and the fortifications of Jellalabad were rising rapidly around them. In spite of all opposition at Caubul—in spite of the counsels of Alexander Burnes, who heartily despised the enemy—in spite of a sneering remark from the envoy, that the sappers would have nothing to do but to pick a few stones from under the gun-wheels, Broadfoot had insisted on taking with him a good supply of working tools, some of which he had ordered to be made for him, by forced labour, in the city; and had sent an urgent indent on the march for further supplies.[40] It seemed, he said afterwards, “as though Providence had stiffened his neck on this occasion;” for now at Jellalabad, he found himself with implements of all kinds and with large supplies of blasting powder, able alike to make and to destroy. And gallantly the good work proceeded, in prospect, too, of an immediate attack, for Akbar Khan, with the white English tents which proclaimed our disgrace, was within a few miles of the walls which we were turning into formidable defences.
But a great calamity was now about to befall the Jellalabad garrison. On the morning of the 19th of February the men were busied with their accustomed labour. With their arms piled within reach, they were plying axe and shovel, toiling with their wonted cheerfulness and activity at the defences, which they had begun to look upon with the satisfied air of men who had long seen their work growing under their hands, and now recognised the near approach of its completion. They had worked, indeed, to good purpose. Very different were the fortifications of Jellalabad from what they had been when Sale entered the place in November.[41] They were now real, not nominal defences. The unremitting toil of nearly three months had not been without its visible and appreciable results. It seemed, too, as though the work were about to be completed just at the time when the defences were most needed. Akbar Khan was in the neighbourhood of Jellalabad, and every day Sale expected to be called upon to meet the flower of the Barukzye horse on the plain. But on this 19th of February, when the garrison were flushed with joy at the thought of the near completion of their work, a fearful visitation of Providence, suddenly and astoundingly, turned all their labour to very nothingness. There was an awful and mysterious sound, as of thunder beneath their feet; then the earth shook; the houses of the town trembled and fell; the ramparts of the fort seemed to reel and totter, and presently came down with a crash.[42] On the first sound of the threatened convulsion the men had instinctively rushed to their arms, and the greater number had escaped the coming ruin; but it is still among those recollections of the defence which are dwelt upon by the “illustrious garrison” in the liveliest spirit of jocularity, how the field-officer of the day—a gallant and good soldier—but one who had more regard for external proprieties than was generally appreciated in those days, was buried beneath a heap of rubbish, and how he was extricated from his perilous position by some men of the 13th, under circumstances which even now they enjoy in their retrospect with a relish which years have not impaired.[43]
But although the earthquake which threw down the walls of Jellalabad, wrought in a minute more irreparable mischief than a bombarding army could have done in a month, in nowise disheartened by this calamity, the garrison again took the spade and the pick-axe into their hands, and toiled to repair the mischief. “No time,” says Captain Broadfoot, “was lost.advanced in two heavy columns The shocks had scarcely ceased when the whole garrison was told off into working parties, and before night the breaches were scarped, the rubbish below cleared away, and the ditches before them dug out, whilst the great one on the Peshawur side was surrounded by a good gabion parapet. A parapet was erected on the remains of the north-west bastion, with an embrasure allowing the guns to flank the approach of the ruined Caubul gate; the parapet of the new bastion was restored, so as to give a flanking fire to the north-west bastion, whilst the ruined gate was rendered inaccessible by a trench in front of it, and in every bastion round the place a temporary parapet was raised. From the following day all the troops off duty were continually at work, and such was their energy and perseverance, that by the end of the month the parapets were entirely restored, or the curtain filled in where restoration was impracticable, and every battery re-established. The breaches have been built up, with the rampart doubled in thickness, and the whole of the gates retrenched.”—Such, indeed, was the extraordinary vigour thrown into the work of restoration—such the rapidity with which the re-establishment of the defences was completed, that the enemy, seeing soon afterwards no traces of the great earthquake-shock of the 19th of February, declared that the phenomenon must have been the result of English witchcraft, for that Jellalabad was the only place that had escaped.
If Akbar Khan, who at this time was within a few miles of Sale’s position, knew the extent to which the defences of Jellalabad had been weakened, he committed a strange oversight in not taking advantage of such a casualty. The garrison felt assured that the Barukzyes would not throw away such a chance; and they made up their minds resolutely for the encounter. Intelligence had just been received of the publication of the government manifesto of the 31st of January; and this spasmodic burst of energy and indignation, welcomed as an indication of the intention of the Supreme Government to wipe out at all hazards the stains that had been fixed upon the national honour, fortified and re-assured the heroes of Jellalabad, who had so long been grieving over the apparent feebleness and apathy of the official magnates at Calcutta.[44]
Sale published the proclamation in garrison orders; and the result did not belie his expectation. Like the chiefs of the Jellalabad force, the junior officers and men had felt, with acute mortification, the neglect to which they had seemingly been subjected.[45] But now, that Lord Auckland had declared that he regarded the disasters that had befallen us merely as so many new opportunities of demonstrating the military power of the British Empire in the East, the hearts of the brave men, who had been so long defying the enemy that had destroyed Elphinstone’s army, again began to leap up with hope and exultation; and as they saw their defences rising again, almost as it were by supernatural agency, before their eyes, they began rather to regret the caution of the Barukzye chief, which seemed to restrain him from venturing under the walls of Jellalabad.
There seems, indeed, to have been in the Afghan camp a strange shrinking from anything like a hand-to-hand encounter with the intrepid soldiers of Sale’s brigade. The reluctance of Akbar Khan to near the walls of Jellalabad is a painful commentary upon the arrogance and audacity of the Afghans, who a few weeks before had been bearding Elphinstone and Shelton under the shadow of the Caubul cantonments. Akbar Khan now seemed resolute to risk nothing by any dashing movement, that might decide, at once, the fate of the Jellalabad garrison. Instead of assaulting the place he blockaded it.
He seemed to trust to the efficacy of a close investment; and so moved in his troops nearer and nearer to our walls, hoping to effect that by starvation which he could not effect by hard fighting in the field. And so, for some time, he continued, drawing in more and more closely—harassing our foraging parties, and occasionally coming into contact with the horsemen who were sent out to protect the grass-cutters. Not, however, before the 11th of March was there any skirmishing worthy of record. Then it was reported that the enemy were about to mine the place. Sungahs had been thrown up on the night of the 10th, and the enemy were firing briskly from behind them. It was plain that some mischief was brewing; so on the morning of the 11th, Sale, keeping his artillery at the guns on the ramparts, sent out a strong party of infantry and cavalry, with two hundred of Broadfoot’s sappers. Dennie commanded the sortie. As they streamed out of the Peshawur gate of the city, Akbar Khan seemed inclined to give them battle. But ever as the enemy advanced the hot fire from our guns drove them back. They could not advance upon our works, nor protect the sungahs which our skirmishers were rapidly destroying. It was soon ascertained that the story of the mine was a mere fable; ammunition was too scarce to be expended on any but necessary service; so there was nothing more to be done. Dennie sounded the recall. The British troops began to fall back upon their works; and then the enemy, emboldened by the retrograde movement, fell upon our retiring column. No sooner had our people halted and reformed, than the Afghans turned and fled, but still they wrought us some mischief, for they wounded Broadfoot; and those were days when an accident to the garrison engineer was, indeed, a grievous calamity. Not a man, however, of Sale’s brigade was killed. The carnage was all among the enemy.
The remainder of the month passed quietly away—but the anxieties of the garrison were steadily increasing. Provisions had become scarce; ammunition was scarce; fodder for the horses was not to be obtained. It was obviously the design of the enemy to reduce the garrison by a strict blockade. It would be difficult to exaggerate the eagerness with which, under such circumstances, they looked for the arrival of succours from Peshawur. Excellent as were Pollock’s reasons for not proceeding to the relief of Jellalabad until his force was strengthened by the arrival of the European regiments on their way to Peshawur, it is easy to understand, and impossible to condemn, the eagerness with which Sale and Macgregor continued to exhort him to advance for their succour.[46]
Pollock had expected that the dragoons would reach Peshawur by the 20th of March; but on the 27th they had not arrived; and the General wrote to Jellalabad, explaining the causes of delay, but still hoping that he would be able to commence his march on the last day of the month. “There appears,” he wrote, “to be nothing but accidents to impede the advance of the dragoons. They were five days crossing the Ravee. I have sent out 300 camels to help them in; and I hope nothing will prevent my moving on the 31st. God knows I am most anxious to move on, for I know that delay will subject us to be exposed to very hot weather. But my situation has been most embarrassing. Any attempt at a forward movement in the early part of this month I do not think would have succeeded, for at one time the Hindoos did not hesitate to say that they would not go forward. I hope the horror they had has somewhat subsided; but without more white faces I question even now if they would go. Since the 1st we have been doing all to recover a proper tone; but you may suppose what my feelings have been, wishing to relieve you, and knowing that my men would not go. However desirable it is that I should be joined by the 31st Regiment, your late letters compel me to move, and I hope, therefore, to be with you by about the 7th. I cannot say the day exactly, because I want to take Ali-Musjid. When that is taken, your situation may, perhaps, become better.”[47] The dragoons reached Pollock’s camp on the 30th, and on the following day he began to move forward.