The Afghans, in the mean while, in possession of the city, continued to harass the garrison in the citadel, by firing upon them whenever they showed their heads above the walls. This continued till the middle of the month of January, when, it appears, that some suspension of hostilities supervened. It was believed that the English at Caubul had entered into a treaty with the Afghan Sirdars; and that Shumshoodeen Khan would shortly arrive with orders from the existing government to assume possession of the place. Weeks, however, passed away, and the new governor did not make his appearance.[129] About the middle of February he arrived, and summoned Palmer to surrender. Unwilling to submit to the humiliating demand, and yet hopeless of the efficacy of resistance, the English officer contrived to amuse the Sirdar until the beginning of March. Then the patience of Shumshoodeen Khan and the other chiefs was exhausted; and they swore that they would recommence hostilities with unsparing ferocity if the citadel were not instantly surrendered. So, on the 6th of March, Palmer and his men marched out of the citadel. The enemy had solemnly sworn to conduct them in safety to Peshawur, with their colours, arms, and baggage, and fifty rounds of ammunition in the pouches of each of our fighting men.
But it soon became only too miserably apparent that the enemy had sworn falsely to protect Palmer and his men. The British troops had scarcely taken up their abode in the quarter of the town which had been assigned to them, when the Afghan chiefs threw off the mask. On the day after their departure from the citadel, when the Sepoys were cooking their dinner, the Ghazees rushed with sudden fury on their lines. Three days of terror followed. House after house, in which the English officers and their suffering Hindostanee followers endeavoured manfully to defend themselves, was attacked by the infuriated enemy. Fire, famine, and slaughter were all working together to destroy our unhappy men. At last, on the morning of the 20th, the survivors were huddled together in two houses which had been assigned to the head-quarters of the force—soldiers and camp-followers, men, women, and children, crammed to suffocation in every room, all hourly expecting death. The enemy were swarming around. The citadel guns, which had been useless in our hands, but were now most effective in those of the enemy, were sending their round-shot “crashing through and through the walls.”[130] Hour after hour, and still the enemy seemed to pause, as though unwilling to shorten, by a last annihilating attack, the sufferings of their victims.[131] But Shumshoodeen Khan had begun to relent. He was in council with the other Sirdars; and it was determined that the wretched men, who were now so wholly at their mercy, should be admitted to terms. The Ghazees were still crying aloud for their blood. But the chiefs assured the officers of their safety, if they would lay down their arms and place themselves in their hands. The Sepoys had by this time thrown off all authority, and determined to make their own way to Peshawur.[132] So the British officers, under a solemn oath from the chiefs that they should be honourably treated and conducted in safety to Caubul, laid down their arms, and trusted to the good faith of the Afghan Sirdars.[133] The Sepoys, in the mean while, were endeavouring to prosecute their insane scheme of escaping across the open country to Peshawur. Snow began to fall heavily. They wandered about the fields helpless and bewildered. Many of them were cut down or made prisoners by the enemy; and to all who survived, officers and men alike, a time of suffering now commenced, all the circumstances of which are burnt into their memories as with a brand of iron.
The fall of Ghuznee was a great disaster and a great discredit. Among the officers of Nott’s division it was regarded as more disgraceful than the loss of Caubul. Want of water was said to be the cause of Palmer’s surrender; but it was believed that he might have retained possession of the great well by running a covered way down the mound; and it is still asserted that if he had taken the more decided step of expelling the treacherous inhabitants from the town, he might have held out until he was relieved from Candahar. This at least would have given him both firewood and water. And it is not improbable that Afghan cupidity would have prevailed over Afghan resentment, and that grain and other provisions would have been brought in to him in return for bills on the British Government. But Palmer wanted decision; and Ghuznee was lost.
In the mean while, Khelat-i-Ghilzye was gallantly holding out against the enemy. Situated between Ghuznee and Candahar, about eighty miles from the latter city, this isolated fortress stands upon a barren eminence, exposed to the wintry winds and driving dust-storms—one of the dreariest and bleakest spots in all the country of Afghanistan. It had been originally garrisoned by the Shah’s 3rd infantry regiment, a party of forty European artillerymen, and some sappers and miners; but Maclaren’s brigade, on its return towards Candahar, had dropped some 250 Sepoys of the 43rd Regiment at Khelat-i-Ghilzye to strengthen the garrison; and now, commanded by Captain John Halkett Craigie, of the Shah’s service, this little party prepared to resist the assaults of the investing enemy and the cruel cold. For months the cold was far more irresistible than the enemy. In that bleak, exposed situation, the icy winds were continually blowing from the north. “The lower the temperature sunk, the higher blew the north wind.” The barracks were unfinished; there were neither doors nor windows to keep out the chilling blasts; and there was a scanty supply of firewood in store. How the Hindostanee soldiers bore up against it, it is difficult to say, for the European officers declare that they “never experienced a winter so continuously cold.” There was an abundance of grain in store; but all the surrounding country was against them, and the wheat could not be ground. After more than two months of ineffectual labour they at last constructed serviceable hand-mills. The Europeans often lived for days together upon bread and water; but not a murmur arose. The winter passed wearily away. The enemy were inactive. But with spring came a renewal of active work on either side. The garrison were labouring to strengthen their defences, and the enemy, as the year advanced, began to draw more closely round the fortress, their numbers and their boldness increasing together. After a time, they began to dig trenches round the place, and, covered by the loopholed parapets, to keep up a hot fire upon the garrison, which it was impossible to return with good effect. But Craigie and his men had no thought of surrender. They held out, cheerfully and uncomplainingly, thankful if they could get a shot at the enemy when the parties in the trenches were being relieved.
Such was the condition of the garrisons of Ghuznee and Khelat-i-Ghilzye when disastrous intelligence from the southward reached Nott and Rawlinson at Candahar. They had been, for some time, looking forward with the greatest anxiety to the arrival of a convoy from Sindh, which was to throw treasure, ammunition, hospital stores, and other necessaries into the garrison, and increase the number of their available troops. Brigadier England, who commanded the Sindh field force, was at Dadur towards the close of February, and there he received instructions to move on through the Bolan Pass, to assemble a strong body of troops at Quettah, and thence to push his succours through the Kojuck with all expedient despatch. Major Outram was then in Sindh, earnest amongst the earnest to retrieve our lost position in Afghanistan, and active amongst the active to carry out the work of throwing troops into the country which had witnessed our abasement.[134] “All my endeavours in this quarter,” he wrote on the 15th of March, “have been to urge forward movements, and at last I have managed to send up every disposable man. Brigadier England marched from Dadur on the 7th (of March), and must be at Quettah by this time. The remainder of his troops intended for service above will march about the 23rd or 24th, so that he will have assembled at Quettah by the end of the month (including the garrison) one troop of European Horse Artillery, six guns; half a company of Bombay European Artillery; Major Sotheby’s company of Bengal European Artillery; her Majesty’s 41st Foot; three regiments of Native Infantry and a flank battalion of the same; two squadrons of Native Regular Cavalry, and 200 Poonah Horse. Of the above, two regiments of Native Infantry and half a company of artillery will be required to garrison Quettah. All the remainder will be available to reinforce General Nott, and will march on Candahar with that view in the first week of April, I trust, with everything that is required by the Candahar garrison, namely, twenty lakhs of treasure, ammunition, and medicines. I hope, however, that Brigadier England will, in the mean while, push on a detachment with a portion of these supplies to meet a brigade at the Kojuck, which General Nott talks of sending out to receive what can be afforded.”[135]
On the 16th of March, Brigadier England arrived at Quettah. On the following day, he wrote to Lieutenant Hammersley, the political agent at that place: “The 22nd is at length fixed as the day of my departure from hence, and in truth I do not see how it could advantageously be hastened, owing to the numerous demands made on my small means. I propose, unless other intervening events should change such purpose, to move as far as Hykulzye on the 24th, and there await intelligence from the northern extremity of the Kojuck Pass. This you must manage for me. I could move at once to Killa-Abdoollah; but it seems to me advisable to try the influence of our presence in the Pisheen valley, in the matter of supplies and camels. The amount of treasure I take to Candahar will not exceed four lakhs, and about one-third of a lakh of musket ammunition; we have not carriage or protection for more at a time.” On the following day he wrote again to Lieutenant Hammersley, stating that he was determined to halt in the Pisheen valley, unless General Nott had actually sent two or three regiments to the Kojuck to meet the treasure; and Hammersley, when he forwarded a copy of this letter to Outram, wrote that there were officers in England’s brigade who openly prophesied that the detachment would be sacrificed between Quettah and the Kojuck Pass.[136]
On the 26th of March, the Brigadier moved forward on the Pisheen valley, taking with him five companies of her Majesty’s 41st Regiment, six companies of Bombay Native Infantry, a troop of the 3rd Bombay Cavalry, fifty men of the Poonah Horse, and four Horse-Artillery guns. Early on the 28th he “arrived at the entrance of a defile which leads to the village of Hykulzye,” at which place he “had intended to await the remainder of the brigade now in progress to this place through the Bolan Pass.”[137] It was plain that General Nott had no intention to send any troops to the southward to co-operate with England’s detachment;[138] and it soon became apparent that the latter would have done well to have retained his position at Quettah until reinforced by the troops moving up from the southward. England found himself near the village of Hykulzye, knowing nothing about the country, and nothing about the movements of the enemy. Colonel Stacy accompanied the force as its political director. He had, some days before, informed the General that he might expect to meet the enemy at Hykulzye; but as they approached that place no intelligence of their position was to be obtained, and not before England was close upon them had he any knowledge that they were in his front. Mahomed Sadig had come down determined to dispute our progress, and was now posted, with his troops, behind some sungahs on the Hykulzye heights.
England halted the column, and rode forward with his staff to reconnoitre the enemy’s position. After the lapse of about a quarter of an hour he returned, and the force was ordered to advance. The Horse-Artillery guns were now opened on the hills to the left, whilst Major Apthorp, with the light battalion, was instructed to storm the hills to the right. Leslie’s battery played with good effect, throwing its shrapnel among the enemy; but the infantry column was disastrously repulsed. The enemy rose up suddenly from behind their sungahs and poured in such a destructive fire upon our columns that the light companies fell back. Captain May, of the 41st, was shot dead. Major Apthorp,[139] who commanded the light companies, was carried, desperately wounded, to the rear. A sabre-cut had laid open his skull, and another had nearly severed his right arm. Of a party of less than 500 men nearly a hundred were killed or wounded. The enemy fought with uncommon gallantry, and many of them were bayoneted or shot on the hill. Among them were five or six of their chiefs. Mahomed Sadig himself, who had been behind the defences, but had quitted them on the advance of our light battalion, and joined the horsemen on the hill, received a bayonet-wound on the shoulder.
Our men, after their repulse, soon rallied, and were eager again to be led to the attack. But England had determined to retreat. Colonel Stacy volunteered to lead a party of a hundred men up the hill and to carry the defences; but the gallant offer was declined.[140] Three times he pressed it upon the General, but with no effect. It was believed by the latter that the Hykulzye defences could be carried only by a strong brigade, and one, too, equipped with mortars. So he wrote to General Nott, urging him to send a force so equipped to meet him; and in the mean while fell back upon Quettah.[141] And there he began to entrench himself, as though he were about to be besieged by an overwhelming force.
No satisfactory reasons have yet been assigned for this unhappy miscarriage. But excuses have been urged in abundance. It was alleged that the defences at Hykulzye were impracticable—that they had been two months in course of erection—that the General had received no plan of them from the political authorities—that he was not, in fact, aware of their existence—that he had been deceived by false accounts of the number of the enemy—that strong reinforcements had come down from Candahar—and that the Sepoys did not support the European soldiers at Hykulzye. But upon a careful examination of all these charges and assertions, it does not appear that one can be maintained.