While the attack was being made on the eastern defences, three or four thousand men had kept up an incessant fire at the southern wall, and such a rain of bullets fell about the Commissariat and 72nd Gates that many of our camp-followers in cantonments were wounded. Kila Mahomed Sharif and the King’s Garden were full of Afghans, and two 18-pounders and two mountain guns shelled them until late in the afternoon, while the marksmen behind the walls shot down such men as retreated across the open. Dead bodies were seen lying in the fields, and two or three scaling-ladders, so heavy that six men would have been needed to carry them, were scattered about on the ground less than a thousand yards away. When the Afghans on the southern side saw our cavalry sweeping over Siah Sung, they began to retire hastily to the city, and as they crossed the road 1,000 yards away from our bastions, they were fired at from the 72nd Gateway, and many were seen to fall even at that distance. The men who stopped to carry off the dead behaved in the coolest way, one Afghan returning again and again to drag off the bodies of his comrades. Earlier in the day four men were killed by a volley at 600 yards, and two or three who escaped tried to face the bullets which swept the ground about their dead. Finding it was certain death to appear in the open, they crawled behind a wall, and with a long crooked stick dragged their dead away. Several of the best marksmen of Mahomed Jan, who had come daily to the same posts and fired persistently at the ramparts, were shot to-day, our men having at last got the exact ranges. The waste of ammunition on the part of the enemy was enormous; they knew perhaps that it was their last chance, and they fired round after round all day long.

From the ladders found in the fields there can be no doubt the feint on the southern side of Sherpur would have become a real attack if the eastern line of defences had been forced; but the scaling ladders were only high enough to reach half-way up the wall, and the assaulting party could never have gained the parapet. We should have been well satisfied if they had come on, as their punishment would have been fearfully severe. On the south-west and west no attack was made: a few hundred men from Deh-i-Afghan occupied our vidette-hill towards the lake, and planted a white standard on the crest, but they never fired a shot, and a few shells in the evening warned them to retire, which they did about five o’clock. A few standards were also placed in the fields to the west, but the ghazis with them hid themselves behind little sungars they had thrown up, and did not annoy us at all. The northern line of trenches along Bemaru Heights were never assailed, the steep hillside facing Kohistan being clear of cover; and though, once, it was expected that the gorge would be attacked, and guns were ordered up to the trenches there, the appearance of the 5th P.C. on the maidan below checked such of the enemy as were working round from the village north of Bemaru. In fact, after the first unsuccessful attack, the enemy did not know what to do, and though their leaders on horseback galloped about and harangued them, they could never be got together in a cohesive body. Several of the horsemen were shot, and we are hoping that Mir Butcha, the Kohistani Chief, is among the number. At any rate, a horseman who was most energetic was struck by a volley, and immediately he fell from his horse 200 or 300 men rushed from a village near, placed him on a charpoy, and went straight away across the maidan over the Paen Minar Kotal, which is on the southern road to Kohistan. The man must have been a chief of distinction to be thus guarded, for his escort never looked back upon Sherpur, but hurried their chief away as fast as the bearers of the charpoy could walk.

To-night[To-night] we are resting on our arms, but all is quiet in the fields about Sherpur, and we look upon the investment as at an end. The brigade under General Charles Gough is halted tonight on the Jellalabad Road at the Logar river, and is holding the bridge, which after all was never destroyed by Mahomed Jan. Our reinforcements will march in to-morrow, but it is scarcely likely there will be any more fighting, as spies from the city report that the tribesmen are in full retreat. Very glad, indeed, are we to be once more free after nine days’ close confinement at Sherpur. As a soldier remarked on the walls when the Lieutenant-General was making his rounds:—“Well, I should think this is the first time in his life that General Roberts has been confined to barracks!” The confinement has harassed men and officers so much that we dread the re-action: the excitement is over now, and the exposure night after night in snow and slush must have broken down the health of many. The worst cases in hospital even now are men suffering from pneumonia: the wounded are doing well, though some of the wounds are very severe. Snow has begun to fall again, and winter has now set in thoroughly.

The casualties to-day, including followers, are thirty-two in number. General Hugh Gough was knocked over by a Snider bullet, which must have been nearly spent. It cut through his poshteen in the right breast, but was caught in the folds of a woollen vest, and fell at his feet as he shook himself together again. The returns for to-day are as follows:—

Casualties on 23rd December.
British.
RegimentsOfficers.Men.Native.Total.
K.W.K.W.K.W.
Royal Engineers11————2
F-A, Royal Horse Artillery———1——1
G-3, Royal Artillery———1——1
No. 1 Mountain Battery—————11
No. 2 Mountain Battery————1—1
9th Lancers———1——1
5th Punjab Cavalry—1———78
67th Foot———1——1
92nd Highlanders——15——6
23rd Pioneers————1—1
Guides’ Infantry—————33
Sappers and Miners1—————1
3rd Sikhs—————22
5th Punjab Infantry—————22
28th Punjab Infantry—————11
Total221921632

Of our followers one was killed and six wounded. The total casualties during the siege and on the day of the final attack were eighteen killed and sixty-eight wounded (including seven followers killed and twenty-two wounded).

CHAPTER XIX.

The Re-Occupation of Cabul—Signs of Mahomed Jan’s Occupation—Complete Dispersion of Mahomed Jan’s Army—General Hill’s Return to the City—Christmas in Sherpur—Universal Character of the late Jehad—Necessity for reinforcing the Army of Occupation—General Baker’s Expedition to Baba Kuch Kar—Examination of the Bala Hissar—Demolition of Forts and Villages about Sherpur—Cabul Revisited—A New Military Road—The Destruction of Shops by Mahomed Jan’s Force—Despondency of the Hindus and Kizilbashes—State of the Char Chowk Bazaar—A Picture of Desolation—The Kotwali—Wali Mahomed’s Losses—Ill-treatment of Women.

24th December.