For Name and Fame; Or, Through Afghan Passes

by G. A. Henty

"Oh! We can't be going to attack in the dark," Will said. "I expect we have got a long march before us; and are going to work round, somehow, and take them in rear."

"Well, I hope whoever is acting as guide can see better in the darkness than I can; else we are safe to lose our way, and may find ourselves anywhere, in the morning.

"Confound it!" The exclamation was elicited by the speaker stumbling over a boulder, and nearly going on to his head.

"Silence in the ranks, there!" an officer said, close by.

Each regiment was followed by its ammunition mules, and hospital doolies--the latter being covered stretchers, or palkies, carried by natives. Besides these were dandies--or chairs--slung upon mules. This greatly added to the difficulty of a night march for, even in the daytime, the presence of baggage animals in a column, upon a narrow road, greatly hinders the troops and, at night, the delays occasioned by them are naturally very much greater.

For the first three and a half miles the column marched away from the enemy upon the Khotal, and the surprise of the soldiers increased at every step they took. At the end of that time they arrived at the village of Peiwar. Here they turned to the left and, after crossing several ravines, and stony water courses, arrived on a cultivated terrace; and kept along this till they reached a very stiff nullah, twenty feet deep.

The night was bitterly cold, the bank of the nullah was extremely slippery, and the boulders in the water course below coated with ice. The difficulty of getting the loaded animals across, in the darkness, was therefore very great. The passage of the various water courses caused great delays; and it was difficult to keep the column together, in the dark. At each passage, the rear was immensely delayed while the leading troops were passing; and these again had to be halted, while those behind them struggled over the difficulties. The men suffered much from cold, as the pace was so slow that they could not warm themselves; and the mounted officers specially suffered, in their hands and feet.

At midnight the ravine leading up to the Spingawi Pass was reached; but so dark was it that the 2nd Punjaubees, separated by a few yards from the regiment in front of them, marched straight on instead of turning up it; and the 22nd Pioneers, and the four artillery guns carried on elephants--being behind them--naturally went astray, also. Brigadier General Thelwall, who commanded the column, was at the head of his brigade; and was, for some time, unaware of the absence of two of his regiments but, after halting and finding that they did not come up, sent back a mounted officer who, after a two-mile ride, came up with the missing troops, and guided them back to the point where they had left the route.

From the foot of the ravine to the top of the pass is six miles in distance and, dark as it was in the open, it was still more so in the ravine, shadowed by the steep hills on either side. As the ascent continued the road became worse; the boulders being larger, and the holes and dried-up pools deeper. The darkness, and the prevailing white color of the stones, prevented the difference of level being observed; and many of the men had heavy falls, as the steep sides of these pools were often from two to four feet deep.

After marching for a mile and a half up the ravine, the report of a rifle was heard in the ranks of the 29th Punjaubees--who were leading the column--followed instantly by another discharge. Colonel Gordon--commanding the regiment--halted; and he and the general tried, in vain, to discover who had fired. No one could, or would, identify them; and this seemed clearly to prove that the rifles had been fired as a signal to the enemy, for they had not been loaded before the column started. The Punjaubee regiments contained many hill tribesmen--men closely connected, by ties of blood and religion, with the enemy whom they were marching to attack.