On the second day, we ascended a steep mountain by a path resembling those cut on the Missourie and Landour range, and, descending by a similar road of about ten feet in breadth and occasionally less, entered a valley of some extent, sprinkled with several little villages and some melancholy grainfields. Traversing this valley, we entered a narrow, rocky defile, and following the course of a mountain torrent by its narrow passage through the beetling rocks, arrived, unmolested by the Khyberees, at Ali Musjid, after a march of about fifteen miles.
This fort, which stands on a steep hill about three hundred yards from the gorge of the stony defile above mentioned, had been occupied, since Colonel Wade's departure, by an officer of Native Infantry with a levy of Mooltanee recruits and a few sepoys. During the summer, the place had been found so extremely unhealthy that a great portion of the garrison died, and most of those who escaped were left in a very weak state. Inside the fort itself there is no water, and this useful article was brought by the garrison from a water-course and well, about three hundred yards distant from the walls. As there were no cannon in this formidable place, the possession of the water-course became very precarious in case of the enemy attempting to cut off the communication. The Khyberees, well aware of these disadvantages, came down, latterly, nearly every night to attack the place; but were gallantly repulsed by the little garrison as often as they came, and frequently with considerable loss. Five days before our arrival, a regiment of Sikhs, from Peshawur, amounting to nearly eight hundred, although many were in a sickly state, had occupied a small stockade,[53] on an eminence, about one mile distant from Ali Musjid, for the garrison of which place they had brought supplies.
During the night, this regiment was suddenly attacked by a force of about two thousand Khyberees. The Sikhs defended themselves within their stockade for above an hour, when their ammunition being spent, and the enemy still pressing hard upon them, they quitted their entrenchments in the hopes of effecting a retreat upon Ali Musjid. No sooner had the unhappy men evacuated their stronghold than they were surrounded by their merciless foes, and nearly the whole regiment was destroyed. Not twenty men, it was believed, escaped to bear these disastrous tidings to Peshawur. The little garrison in Ali Musjid had been effectually prevented from attempting a diversion in favour of their unfortunate allies, by a force of Khyberees, which were stationed so as to intercept the communication between the fort and the stockade. Had any part of the garrison, under such circumstances, quitted Ali Musjid, they must inevitably have been overwhelmed by the Khyberees, and in the darkness of night would, in all probability, have shared the fate of the Sikhs; but no doubt was entertained in Ali Musjid that the stockade would make good its defence.
We arrived late in the afternoon, and encamped by this field of recent slaughter, which presented a dreary spectacle; the effluvia arising from the half buried bodies and limbs of the Sikhs was almost poisonous, though it seemed to give no inconvenience or nausea to the Pariah dogs and vultures who were enjoying the ample repast provided for them by and upon the lords of the creation.
An attack on our camp being anticipated at this place, orders were issued, prohibiting both officers and men from quitting the lines, and a chain of sentries were posted, in the evening, on the summit of the lower range of hills which encircled our camp.
None of my baggage having made its appearance at nightfall, I fully made up my mind to the loss of such part of the wreck as remained, and seated myself, for the night, on a rock, where, having loaded my pistols in anticipation of the Khyberees' visit, I awaited that important event.
It was a bright starlight night. All in camp were hushed in sleep, save the guardians of the lines, who testified their vigilance by striking the hours on a lugubrious sounding gong, or by the ringing of their arms as the patrols or reliefs traversed the encampment.
As I sat in contemplation of the still scene around me, the solemn thought occurred that in a very few hours, this deathlike stillness might be locked in that sleep to be disturbed only by the sound of the last trumpet. That band of eight hundred Sikhs, which lay here but five nights past, slept on, in all probability, (until aroused by the war notes of the Khyberees,) with the same careless security that my fellow-soldiers were now enjoying, and they awoke to be slain, in one short hour—
"A thing
O'er which the raven flaps her fun'ral wing."