ENOUGH DONE FOR HONOUR.
The morning of the day after the battle of Charasiah saw the cavalry
all in their saddles for an early movement. The dead had not been
buried as yet,
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Flew o'er them, impatient for their hour,
when about five o'clock, in a cold and bitter wind, Colville was sent
with instructions for the Lancers and Bengal cavalry to move off.
They did so at a rapid pace, and entering a narrow part of the
Sung-i-Navishta pass, pursued a winding and stony road where the deep
Logur stream flows between rocks and slabs of granite, and there
seized a number of guns and brought them into camp.
Though Cabul had been abandoned by the insurrectionary troops, whom
the results of Charasiah had stricken with terror, a considerable
body of fresh Afghan forces, who had returned from Kohistan, had
formed an entrenched position on a high hill which overlooks the Bala
Hissar, and to dislodge them was necessary before entering the city;
so, with eight squadrons of horse, General Massy swept round it
northward to watch the roads that led to Bamian and Kohistan, while
General Baker made a direct attack in front.
During the events of the day Leslie Colville had been conscious of a
blow on his left shoulder, received in a skirmish, and believed it to
be inflicted by some soldier in swinging his musket about. But it
proved to be a juzail ball, almost spent, and lodged in the flesh,
out of which it was cut by Robert Wodrow, who bathed and dressed the
wound for him.
The enemy failed to meet Massy and fled in the night, abandoning
their camp and twelve pieces of cannon; and under Massy and Colonel
Gough the cavalry went in pursuit, through that difficult ground
which lies in the vicinity of Cabul, and is encumbered by isolated
forts like that of Mahmoud Shah, and loopholed garden and orchard
walls, all affording sure cover for skirmishers.
To keep as far as possible from these the cavalry rode by the way of
the Siah Sung, or Black Rock. As they proceeded, on their left rose
the grand and picturesque masses of the Bala Hissar, towers joined by
curtains rising above each other in succession, round, square, and
octagon, all crenelated, and glowing in the red radiance of the
morning sun, where not sunk in shadow. Loftily these masses rose
above even the smoke of the great city, the background of all being
the ridgy crest of the Tukt-i-Shah, or Emperor's seat, and the great
rocks of Asmai, on which hordes of the enemy were gathered.
The heights there are precipitous, a thousand feet above the valley
of Cabul, and there the dark figures of the Afghans, with their arms
glittering in the sunshine, could be seen, clustering thick as a
swarm of bees against the grey granite of the cliffs, up the eastern
flank of which our infantry, with the Highlanders as usual in the
van, were now creeping with some light mountain guns.
When the shells of the latter began to explode among the Afghans they
raised yells of derision, waved their standards, and danced like
madmen; and, heavy though the cannonade, they manifested no design of
abandoning the heights of Asmai.
Leaving two squadrons of the 12th and 14th Bengal Regiments to watch
their movements, General Baker led the rest of the cavalry brigade
into the plain of Chardeh--where a clear and beautiful stream
flows--and then the horses were watered, while the din of cannon and
musketry showed that the attack and defence of Asmai were proceeding.
Baker now rode on to watch a camp that had been formed at a village
round Deh Muzang, _en route_ to which his native guides abandoned
him, but were overtaken and shot on the spot. The whole district was
now encumbered by half-dispersed hordes of the enemy, which, as the
cavalry overtook them, resisted more or less, and after the sun set
the duty became full of peril in unknown ground. Thus, when darkness
fell, many of the dragoons went astray; some fell into ambuscades,
and several were killed or wounded before the villages in the Plain
of Chardeh, where they were to bivouac for the night, were reached.
Among the latter who suffered was Wodrow's reckless and light-hearted
comrade, Toby Chace, whom, when Leslie Colville came up with Baker's
staff, he found dying of a dreadful tulwar wound, inflicted in combat
against great odds after his horse had been shot under him.
This was just outside the village named Killa Kazi, which was
surrounded by a very high loop-holed wall, within which the native
cavalry had dismounted for the night, each trooper lying beside his
horse.
Toby's wound had been given by one dreadful slash, and extended from
the chest to the thighs, laying the body so completely open, that
water as he drank it from Robert Wodrow's wooden bottle, actually
trickled from his viscera, yet he was wonderfully composed, and by
his own medical skill Wodrow, who supported Toby's head, knew that it
was all over with him.
'Ah, Bob, I'll be gone in a brace of shakes,' said he, speaking
slowly at long intervals, and while his teeth chattered with agony
and the dew of death glittered on his forehead in the bright
moonlight; 'the folks in England, who live at home at ease, know
nothing of this sort of thing, thank God! Take my silver flask, Bob,
and keep it--keep it in memory of poor Toby Chace. It is all I have
now worth offering you. A girl gave it to me in--in happier times at
Ascot, one whose shoes I was not worthy to tie--but she married
another fellow anyhow.'
After this his voice died away, his senses seemed to wander, and
whispering, with a sudden tenderness of manner, 'Mother, kiss me,' he
turned his face to the right and ceased to live.
After a time Robert Wodrow, carefully and tenderly as a brother would
have done, rolled the dead hussar in a horse-rug and buried him under
one of the tall poplar-trees that shade the village wall, and there
he was left in his lonely grave, when next morning the cavalry rode
off: for a reconnaisance.
So narrow were the paths they had to pursue that they proceeded in
single files till they struck on the great road to Ghuznee and swept
along it at a gallop, finding at every pace of the way abandoned
tents, baggage, cooking utensils, and dying Cabul ponies--the
abandoned spoil of the Kohistanies, Ghilzies, Logaris, and others who
had come to fight the British, but had lost heart and fled.
Four days afterwards Leslie Colville found himself entering Cabul,
when Sir Frederick Roberts rode into it publicly, accompanied by the
son of the Ameer, for Yakoub Khan, imbrued as his hands were with the
blood of the Embassy, and inculpated with the actors in its
destruction, was too cunning to accompany the British forces, at the
head of whom rode the squadron of the 9th Royal Lancers.
Possession of Cabul was now taken in the name of Queen Victoria. The
royal standard was hoisted on the Bala Hissar; our Horse Artillery
guns thundered forth a salute, and three ringing British cheers rang
along the ranks for the Empress of India.
The punishment of the perpetrators of the outrage at the Residency,
the terrible explosion at the Bala Hissar, and the fighting that
ensued at the Shutargardan Pass and the Sirkai Kotal, lie somewhat
apart from our narrative; but we cannot omit that which ensued at the
Khoord Cabul and other defiles.
On the 7th of the month after the capital was taken, Macpherson's
Flying Column marched down the savage valley, clearing it of
straggling bands of the enemy, from the tomb of Baba Issah to the
banks of the Cabul river, but not without a sharp fight at the former
place, where Mahmoud Shah and a band of select and most desperate
Ghazis had taken post and resisted to the last, courting that death
in battle to which they had vowed and devoted themselves.
'Everyone who said "Lord, Lord!" two hundred years ago was deemed a
Christian,' says Charles Reade; 'but there are no earnest men now.'
However, Mahmoud Shah and his Ghilzies, like the Mahdi and his
followers in Egypt, were terribly in earnest about their work of
religion and slaughter.
Shouting 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' they resisted with juzail and
tulwar, shield, pistol, and charah, till they were all shot down, and
lay over each other piled in one great heap, all clad in white, but
gashed and bloody, and among the last who fell was Mahmoud Shah, who
was last seen, with his back to the holy tomb of Baba Issah, standing
across the dead body of his favourite white Arab, with eight of the
5th Ghoorkas dead at his feet, an empty horse-pistol in his left
hand, a blood-dripping tulwar in his right, and six bayonet wounds in
his body,
'The least a death to nature!'
By this time there had been hanged in Cabul more than sixty Afghans
for complicity in the slaughter of the Embassy.
The European troops were now quartered in the barracks of Yakoub
Khan's late army in the adjacent cantonments at Sherpore, and soon
after an amnesty was granted to all who had fought against us, while
a proclamation was issued by Sir Frederick Roberts to the effect
that, in consequence of the abdication of the Ameer, 'and of the
outrage at the British embassy, the British government were now
compelled to occupy Cabul and other parts of Afghanistan, and he
invited the Afghan authorities, chiefs, and sirdirs to assist him to
enforce order in the districts under their control, and to consult
with him conjointly. The population of the occupied districts
would--it was added--be treated with justice and benevolence; their
religion and customs would be respected, and loyalty and good service
to the British crown would be suitably rewarded. On the other hand,
all offenders against the new administration would be severely
punished.'
'We have restored order in Cabul, and punished all the guilty,' wrote
Leslie Colville to Mary. 'I have resigned my appointment on the
staff, deeming that I have _done enough for honour_, darling; and now
I am coming home!'
And now we must return to Ellinor and her fate, while Colville is
speeding homeward as quickly as steam could carry him over land and
sea.