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

by Sir John William Kaye

Other reports soon came in from the city, or started up in the Balla Hissar itself, still more to terrify the King. It was alleged that the Arabs in the fort were about to rise up in a body, to massacre the troops and to give the place over to the rebels. The King, who never withheld his belief from any story however improbable, seized the chief of the Arab tribe, and ordered that no women or children should be suffered to leave the fort. But women and children of all kinds were now clamouring for egress. Collecting in crowds before the Wuzeer’s house, they importuned him, with loud lamentations, to suffer them to depart. The Wuzeer appealed to the King, who strictly prohibiting the egress of any Arab families, suffered more than seven hundred other women and children to pass out of the fort. The English officers thought, that if all the Arabs and Afghans had been removed from the fort, and all the provisions secured for the use of the fighting men, the whole force might have been saved.

The stores in the Balla Hissar had been indented upon for the use of the cantonment force, and the available supplies having been thus reduced, the troops were put upon half rations. The departure, however, of Brigadier Shelton and his escort had diminished the number of the fighting men, and now, under Major Ewart, they consisted of little more than the 54th N. I., a portion of the Horse Artillery troop under Captain Nicoll, and some details of irregular troops. At the points most exposed to attack the components of the little garrison were posted, and, kept always on the alert by reports of some threatened movement of the enemy, were always ready to give them a warm reception.

The affair of the 13th of November struck a gleam of hope into the garrison of the Balla Hissar. It seemed as though new courage had been infused into the cantonment force; and, as though to second the invigorated efforts of their comrades, the artillerymen in the citadel now began to ply their batteries with increased activity. They shelled the city, and attempted to fire it with carcases; but the houses were not of a construction to be easily ignited, and the shelling produced little effect. The residence of Ameen-oollah Khan, in the city, was to be seen from the batteries; and the gunners, knowing the old man to be one of our deadliest enemies, singled it out as a mark, and poured their iron rain upon it. But the chief removed himself and his family to another house; and the only slaughter was among the horses.

A crisis was now at hand in the fate of the cantonment force. The 23rd of November was one of the most eventful and the most disastrous in the history of the insurrection. On that day a battle was fought which ended in the disgraceful and calamitous defeat of the British troops. The enemy had been for some time making their appearance on the Beh-meru hill, and had repeatedly descended into the village, whence the British commissariat officers had been drawing supplies of grain. Irritated by the assistance which the villagers had rendered us, the insurgents had destroyed the houses, pillaged the inhabitants, and attacked our commissariat people when getting in their supplies. This was not to be endured. Again the Envoy counselled the despatch of a strong force to occupy the Beh-meru hill, and to dislodge the enemy from a position in which they were able to work us such grievous annoyance. Again the Brigadier objected. Urging that the troops were exhausted and dispirited by constant harassing duty on the ramparts, that they had been living upon half-rations of parched wheat, and were therefore physically as well as morally enfeebled, he protested against a movement which he said would have the effect of increasing the number of wounded and sick, without leading to any solid advantage. But these objections were overruled. On the 22nd a weak detachment had been sent out, under Major Swayne, but it had only added another to our list of failures. It was plain that something more must be done. A council of war was held that evening at the General’s quarters, and it was determined, after much earnest discussion, on the special recommendation of the Envoy, that a strong force should be sent out before daybreak on the following morning, to occupy the Beh-meru hills. Shelton recommended that at the same time an attack should be made on the village. It was urged that the enemy would abandon the village as soon as our troops occupied the hill. The Brigadier declared that the occupation of the hill would only make the enemy hold the village with greater pertinacity. Shelton’s advice, however, was overruled. The force went out before daybreak,[165] took possession of the hill, and posted themselves on the north-eastern extremity, which overhung the village. With a fatuity only to be accounted for by the belief that the curse of God was upon those unhappy people, they had taken out a single gun. This gun was now placed in a position commanding an enclosure of the village, where the watch-fires gave out their bright tokens that numbers of the enemy were assembled. A shower of grape was presently poured in upon the bivouac. Starting up in confusion, the enemy gave back a volley from their jezails, but, abandoning the open space, sought the shelter of the houses and towers, and there exhausted their ammunition in a vain attempt to respond to our grape and musketry. Day dawned, and it was plain that the enemy were abandoning the village. A few, however, still remained; and it was determined to carry the place by assault. A storming party was told off, under Major Swayne; but the village was not carried. The detachment seems to have gone down only to be fired at, and, after half an hour of inactivity, was recalled by the Brigadier.

The movement of the British troops, even in the dim twilight of the early morning, had been observed from the city; and soon large bodies of the enemy were moving across the plain. Horsemen and footmen streamed out in thousands to give the Feringhees battle. The horsemen stretched across the plain; the footmen covered an opposite hill, and some reoccupied the village.

The fire from the enemy’s hill, which was separated from that on which our own troops were posted only by a narrow gorge, soon became hot and galling. Leaving five companies at the extremity of the hill, immediately above the village, Shelton took the remainder of his force, with the one gun, over the gorge, to a position near the brow of that hill, on which the enemy were assembling in the greatest numbers. Here he formed his infantry into two squares, and massed his cavalry immediately in their rear. The one gun was nobly worked, and for a time, with terrible effect, told upon the Afghan multitudes, who had only a matchlock fire to give back in return. But thus nobly worked, round after round poured in as quickly as the piece could be loaded, it soon became unserviceable. The vent was so heated by the incessant firing, that the gunners were no longer able to serve it. Ammunition, too, was becoming scarce. What would not those resolute artillerymen have given for another gun? The firing ceased; and the British musketeers were then left to do their work alone. Little could they do, at such a time, against the far-reaching Afghan matchlocks. The enemy poured a destructive fire into our squares, but the muskets of our infantry could not reach the assailants. The two forces were at a distance from each other, which gave all the advantage to the Afghans, who shot down our men with ease, and laughed at the musket-balls, which never reached their position.

The nature of the country was altogether unfavourable to the British troops. Between them and the brow of the hill there was some rising ground, which prevented Shelton from seeing the movements of the enemy on the side of the hill. But from the cantonment could be seen a party of Afghans crawling from the gorge up the hill-side, and rushing with sudden fury upon our infantry masses. The unexpected attack seems to have struck a panic into the heart of our troops, who turned and fled along the ridge like sheep. Shelton, who ever in the midst of danger stood with iron courage exposed to the thickest fire of the enemy, vainly called upon his men to charge. Not a man brought down his bayonet to the position which the English soldier burns to assume when he sees the enemy before him. The Afghans had planted a standard upon the hill, only some thirty yards from the British squares; and now an officer proclaimed a reward, equal in the eyes of the common Sepoy to a year’s pay, to any one who would advance and take it. But not a man responded to the appeal. A great fear was upon them all. The officers stood up like brave men; and hurled stones at the advancing enemy.[166] But nothing seemed to infuse courage into our panic-struck troops. The enemy, emboldened by success, advanced in larger numbers, and rushed upon our single gun. Our cavalry, called upon to charge, refused to follow their officers. The artillerymen stood to their gun; two of them fell dead beside it; a third was desperately wounded; a fourth, when the enemy rushed upon it, clung to the carriage between the wheels, and miraculously escaped destruction. There, too, fell Lieutenant Laing, than whom there was not a braver soul in the field on that fatal day, waving his sword over the gun, cheering the men who were doing their duty, and calling on the rest to follow their example. But the heroic courage of the officers was thrown away upon the men. The gun was lost, and our disheartened regiments were in confused and disastrous flight.

All, however, was not then lost. Shelton ordered the halt to be sounded. The flying regiments stopped and re-formed; then turning round, faced the enemy with a shout, and seemed ready to renew the conflict. But the Ghazees now shrunk from the British bayonets. They were few in numbers; and they saw, too, a party of Anderson’s Horse coming to the charge. Taking the horses and limber with them, they abandoned the gun, and fled.

In the meanwhile the enemy’s cavalry on the plain had been thrown into confusion by the fall of their leader—Abdoollah Khan, Achetzkye. How he fell, or at what moment, is not precisely known. It was generally believed that he was wounded by a shot from our gun—but there was a whisper, of doubtful credibility, to the effect that he had been struck down by the jezail of one of his own countrymen, who is said to have claimed a reward for the act. Be the history of his fall what it may, it discouraged and alarmed the Afghan cavalry on the plain. Seeing their leader carried from the field, they fled in confusion towards the city. Ignorant of the cause of their flight, the infantry began to follow them; and the excited lookers-on in cantonments now thought the day was ours. Macnaghten and Elphinstone were standing together on the ramparts watching the enemy as they streamed across the plain. The opportunity seemed a great one. To have sent out of cantonments a body of troops to pursue the flying enemy, and render their confusion complete, would have been to have secured a victory. The Envoy urged it upon the General; but the General said it was a wild scheme, and weakly negatived the worthy proposal.