From Col.
Kandahar, September, 1880.
... Brooke was constantly at General Primrose about our weakness in Troops and the defencelessness of the Citadel, but he would never sanction any money being spent on it. Everything he did, or rather did not do, was bad enough, but I shall never forgive him the Deh Khoja business on the 16th August, which lost us poor Brooke's life, and the lives of so many brave men, without any object. General Primrose had ordered the assault on Deh Khoja the week before, but Brooke and Burrows got him to countermand it for the following reasons, namely:—The village was built of thick mud walls and roofs, so that it could not possibly be burned; it was known to be very strongly held by the enemy, and would therefore require a large Force to take it, and we should therefore lose a great many more men than we could spare, and if we captured it we could not hold it, as we had not enough men to man our own walls properly, and as it could not be burned, or destroyed, or held, the enemy would simply walk back into it the minute we left it; and the last and best reason was, that as there were two Forces coming to our relief, our duty was to hold Kandahar, and do nothing to endanger our position, and certainly not to go outside the walls to fight the enemy, giving up the advantage that we had. We all thought the insane idea had been given up for good, but the following week General Primrose sent for Brooke and Burrows, and told them that he had made up his mind to attack the village next morning, and told Brooke he was to command the Force. This, of course, effectually prevented Brooke saying what he thought, as he told me he could not raise objections against it, under these circumstances, as it might be thought that he was afraid, but he said, "the objections against it are greater than they were before, as it is known that the enemy have been hard at work all the week fortifying the place." Burrows ought to have done his best to oppose it, but as Brooke did not oppose, for the above reason he, said nothing, and so the attack unfortunately took place the next morning. Being on the Head Quarter Staff, I was not, of course, allowed to go, but I watched it from the walls where our riflemen covered the advance of the attacking party and our big guns. The village of Deh Khoja was only 700 yards off, and the enemy fired at us tremendously. The troops advanced under a very heavy fire, very steadily and well, and entered the village and went right through it, but the place was like a rabbit warren right through it, with very large loop-holed walls, from which the enemy kept up an incessant fire without our men being able to see them, and as soon as they were turned out of one enclosure they ran into another, and back again into those they had been turned out of, for our Forces were not strong enough to hold the enclosures as they were taken, and all this time the enemy was pouring into the village from Ayoub Khan's main Force. At last General Primrose sent to order the Force to retreat, and no doubt poor Brooke could have got away unhurt, but he stopped to bring away a wounded officer, and so lost his life. We did not recover the bodies of the killed until the 25th, 10 days after, when the village was deserted by the enemy. I went to search for poor Brooke, whom I recognised, and I buried him myself. I cannot get over his loss. We have lived together since we came here, and I have become very fond of him; I am sure he liked me, and that I have lost a good friend in him. He was a fine fellow, brave as a lion, and a thorough soldier in every way; clear-headed and with excellent judgment. It is indeed grievously sad such a fine fellow should have been lost, for he is a loss to the whole army, in such a needless manner.
From Lieut. F.
26th February, 1881.
My dear Mrs. Brooke,
... He (General Brooke) was quite against the sortie, but being put in command of it he was obliged to keep quiet. General Nuttall, who commanded the Cavalry, and who was senior to General Brooke, was ordered to co-operate with him. After our Infantry, with whom General Brooke was, had penetrated into the village, the General found that he could not hold it, and sent a note in pencil to General Nuttall, who was with the Cavalry, which was drawn up in line to the south of Deh Khoja, and thus between it and the villages to the south, asking him to cover the retreat from Deh Khoja. However, General Primrose, who was looking on from the walls just about this time, sent his orderlies, one to General Brooke, the other to General Nuttall, ordering them both to retire. General Nuttall received the order immediately after getting General Brooke's note, and instead of doing what the latter requested, retired his Cavalry at once to the City. The result was that the villagers of all the southern villages instantly swarmed round Deh Khoja, and cut off the retreat of the Infantry. These poor fellows had to run for their lives through a gauntlet of fire. General Brooke got safely out of the village, but went back with a few men to aid others, and in trying to save Captain Cruikshank, of the Engineers, was shot through the head and killed instantly. This, I believe, is the full account of the disaster, which would not have occurred, if the Cavalry had remained to cover the retreat.