History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 2 (of 3) / Third Edition

by Sir John William Kaye

Night was now closing in upon the scene. The detachment had been sent out to capture the enemy’s guns. The guns were in our possession; but it would have been the mere shadow of a victory if they had not been carried off. The Envoy, who had watched the struggle with painful anxiety, despatched a message of earnest entreaty that no effort should be spared “to complete the triumph of the day,”[148] by bringing both the guns into cantonments. One of the deserted guns was easily removed by a party of the Shah’s 6th Infantry; but some Afghan marksmen were pouring in so warm a fire upon the other and larger piece, that the British soldier—all his character reversed—seeing the danger and not the honour of the exploit, shrunk from the perilous service, and refused to advance for the capture of the gun.[149] It was nearly dark. The further detention of the force would have been attended with serious risk. Eyre, therefore, spiked the gun, which it seemed impossible to carry off, and then secured the capture of the other. The six-pounder was rolled down the hill; the four-pounder was carried into cantonments.

It was eight o’clock before Shelton’s force returned to their quarters. The enemy intercepted their movements, and threatened the cantonment, but the attack was repulsed by a few rounds of grape, and a brisk fire from Mackenzie’s jezailchees. Many, on both sides, had fallen during the action of the afternoon. Major Thain and Captain Paton were severely wounded. All night, from the hill-side, came loud lamentations—the wailings of the relatives of the Afghans who had fallen in the fight. Lights were flitting about in every direction; for they were burying the dead. On the following day they were busy with the same melancholy work.

This affair of the 13th of November was set down as a success; and it was wise to make the most of it. It was the last success, even of a doubtful and equivocal character, which the unhappy force was destined to achieve. “Henceforward,” wrote one who has chronicled with no common fidelity the events of these miserable months,[150] “it becomes my weary task to relate a catalogue of errors, disasters, and difficulties, which, following close upon each other, disgusted our officers, disheartened our soldiers, and finally sunk us all into irretrievable ruin, as though Heaven itself, by a combination of evil circumstances, for its own inscrutable purposes, had planned our downfall.”

For some days the enemy remained comparatively inactive. Occasional threatenings kept the garrison on the alert; but little was done to change the posture of affairs. The Envoy, still looking for the return of Sale’s brigade, continued to write urgent letters to Captain Macgregor. On the 12th, he had written: “I have written to you four times, requesting that you would come up with Sale’s brigade as soon as possible. We are still in a very bad way, though not quite so badly off as we were four days ago. Our force is so small that we cannot act on the offensive, and we have not above a fortnight’s supplies. I am trying, through Humza, to enter into some arrangements with the Mufsids. As the Ghilzyes are occupied here, I should think you would not meet with much opposition, except, perhaps, in the Khoord Caubul Pass.” And now again, on the 14th, he wrote (and it is plain from this letter that he thought the action of the preceding day had in nowise improved their condition): “Dozens of letters have been written from this, urging your immediate return with Sale’s brigade to Caubul; and if you have not started by the time you receive this, I earnestly beg that you will do so immediately. Our situation is a very precarious one; but with your assistance we should all do well, and you must render it to us, if you have any regard for our lives or for the honour of our country. We may be said to be in a state of siege; and had we not made two desperate sallies, we should ere now have been annihilated. We have provisions for only ten days; but when you arrive we shall be able to command the resources of the country. In our action of yesterday Thain and Paton were wounded, the latter so severely that his arm has been amputated. I have still some hope of the Charekur detachment, but a faint one. I have no news from Ghuzni or Candahar. In the interior of the country they seem to be as jaghee as at the capital. Mehtur Moosa joined the rebels yesterday. We have been unmolested to-day, but it may be only the lull before the storm. Humza Khan has promised to call on me this evening. I have no idea that he will do so. I intend to make much of him. I have written to you several letters of late, so shall say no more for the present. The Ghilzye force being here, I should conceive you will experience no opposition on the road.”

The hopes expressed for the safety of the Charekur detachment were dissipated on the following day. On the 15th of November, Major Pottinger and Lieutenant Haughton came in wounded from that place, and reported that the Goorkha regiment had been cut to pieces. They had held out for some time with noble resolution; but their position was untenable for want of water. The horrors of unappeasable thirst had overcome them; they had been compelled to abandon their post; had attempted to make good their retreat to Caubul; and had perished by the way.

The story which Pottinger told must be briefly related. Before the end of October the Kohistanees and Nijrowees were in open revolt; and on the 1st of November, Meer Musjedee, with a strong insurgent force, moved across the plain of the Barakab and took up a position at Akserai, completely cutting off the communication between Charekur and Caubul.[151] Pottinger and Codrington now took counsel together. The former, as political agent on the Toorkistan frontier, resided in the castle of Lughmanee, about two miles distant from Charekur, where the Goorkha regiment was planted in some fortified barracks, the defences of which were still in course of construction. Codrington, who commanded the regiment, was, at the dawn of November, with Pottinger in the Lughmanee castle. Their position was one of great difficulty. They sent out reconnoitring parties to obtain intelligence of the precise position of the enemy; but, encumbered as they were with women and children, and almost wholly without carriage, it seemed impossible that the Goorkha regiment could be moved out of Charekur. Pottinger wrote to the Envoy for troops, called upon all the friendly chiefs to aid him, and began to strengthen his position. But it was soon apparent that no help could come from Caubul, and that the friends on whom he relied were, in fact, disguised enemies. Many Kohistanee and Nijrowee chiefs visited him on the two first days of November. Loud in their expressions of friendship, they declared their willingness to co-operate with him for the suppression of the insurrection; but when he called upon them to attack the castles of the chiefs who had gone out to join the army of Meer Musjedee, it at once became apparent that they lied. The suspicions of Pottinger were aroused. The “friends” around him were assembling in such numbers as to form an army of their own; and Pottinger, determined as he was to betray neither suspicion nor alarm, could not help feeling that a sudden attack was by no means an improbable event to proceed out of all these armed gatherings.

On the morning of the 3rd, the numbers of armed men around the Residency had increased. The reconnoitring parties had not returned. The chiefs were asking for presents, but refusing to do the service required of them. Everything seemed enveloped in an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion; and Pottinger, as he received the chiefs, who came pressing in with offers of friendship, could not help feeling that a struggle was at hand.

Before noon, he received several of the more powerful chiefs at the Residency, and at noon went out to meet the petty Sirdars, who were clustering in the garden around his house. With characteristic Afghan cupidity, they assailed him with questions respecting the amount of the rewards that would be paid for their services. Pottinger entered into some explanations which the foremost of the party seemed disposed to consider satisfactory; but, expressing some doubts as to whether their clansmen would be satisfied, they requested that the nature of the overtures might be made known to those who were removed from the circle around the British Agent. Lieutenant Rattray, the Political Assistant, had just joined Pottinger in the garden. He was now requested to explain the matter to the rest, who were standing a little way apart. Accompanied by the principal chiefs, Rattray proceeded to the place where they were assembled, and, after some conversation, they quitted the garden, and repaired to “an adjoining stubble-field, where several parties of aimed men were standing.”

It was not long before Rattray became aware that treachery was brewing. He turned to leave the field, and was immediately shot down. Pottinger was still sitting in conversation with some of the chiefs, when a man attached to the Hazerbash regiment ran up, and by hints, rather than by intelligible words, apprised him of the danger that surrounded him. The sound of firing confirmed the ominous intelligence. The chiefs rose and fled. Pottinger escaped into the castle, and from the terre-pleine of the rampart looked down, and saw Rattray lying badly wounded on the ground, and “the recent tenderers of service making off in all directions with the plunder of the Hazerbash camp.”[152]