IN THE LUGHMAN VALLEY.
The death of the Ameer, and succession of his son, Yakoub Khan, were
now confirmed beyond all doubt at Jellalabad; but troubles and
skirmishes seemed to be on the increase, and no man's life was safe.
In the country of the Shinwarris, a district on the Afghan frontier,
a surveying party was attacked near Maidonak, though escorted by old
Spatterdash and his Punjaub Infantry. To the natives it seemed that
knocking little pegs into the ground, sticking up little flags, and
taking the altitude of heights by a theodolite could only be the
blackest sorcery. Other instruments which were looked through in a
mysterious manner, with the notes made on paper, were all deemed
damnable charms, and indications of talismanic power, and the sirdar
named Mahmoud Shah, who was roving in that quarter, together with
Abdullah Mir, another adherent of Yakoub Khan, reminded the
people--as all Muslims believe firmly in magic--of the evil wrought
by the wicked genie Sacar, the inveterate foe of Solomon, of Eblis or
Degial, who, according to the Koran, was that enemy of the human race
who accomplished the downfall of Adam, and much more nonsense to the
same purpose; so the surveying party were furiously attacked by a
band of fanatics, armed with tulwar, dagger, and juzail, in a
solitary place near the base of the Suffaidh Koh.
In the conflict that ensued a non-commissioned officer was killed, a
captain of the Royal Engineers wounded perilously by the blade of a
charah, a subaltern of native infantry received a ball through his
shoulder, and several Sikhs were killed; but Spatterdash laid about
him vigorously with his tulwar, split one or two heads through the
long floating loongees like pumpkins, and brought the party off;
after which General Tytler, at Maidonak and Girda, burned the two
villages, blew up seven fortified towers, and seized hostages, to be
kept in irons till a heavy fine was paid.
In due time Colville got his V.C. for the affair with the Mohmunds,
and Robert Wodrow was recommended for promotion, and, as the coming
general war in the heart of Afghanistan was likely to make many a
vacancy, if spared, he was sure to get it.
In consequence of the skirmish at Maidonak and threatened attacks by
the hostile tribesmen in the vicinity of Jellalabad and the Lughman
Valley, early in March an expedition was ordered into the latter
quarter, under Major-General Jenkins, and with it Colville went on
the staff. It proved a very successful movement, with many important
political consequences.
The first news he heard of it was after a supper in old Spatterdash's
bungalow.
'Turn in if you can, lads,' said he, when the cantonment ghurries
clanged midnight; 'and I must have a nap, too. We get under arms
before daylight to-morrow.'
'For what?' asked Colville.
'To fight, of course. Have you not seen the general orders?'
'No--I was at polo all afternoon with the 10th. But to fight--where?'
'That depends upon where we find the enemy, who are gathering as
usual for mischief; so let us have a nightcap of _brandy-pawnee_, and
then to roost.'
Colville stretched himself in a corner of the bungalow, and was soon
in the Land of Nod. 'The soldier off duty and the sailor when his
watch is over have the faculty for getting snatches of sleep at a
moment's notice, which is denied to most other mortals, and a blessed
gift it is.'
An hour before dawn the bugles sounded, and the troops detailed for
the expedition fell in.
It was then known that the destination of the force was the Lughman
Valley, where the sirdar Mahmoud Shah was the active and ruling
spirit.
Considerable annoyance and mortification were felt by Colville at the
frequently recurring mention of this personage's name, the Hadji spy
in Jellalabad whom he had succoured and protected, a circumstance for
which he had been much quizzed and 'chaffed,' for, as Lever has it,
'a little bit of fun goes a long way in the army.'
'A fine fellow to have fostered, Colville,' said Colonel Spatterdash,
as he mounted; 'd--n him, he is worse than a Peshawur scorpion, and
we all know what it is, for size and venom.'
While the infantry rolls were called, the companies proved, and the
battalions formed, the battery of artillery were also getting in
order; the horses were champing their bits, pawing the ground, and
laying back their ears as if impatient for the trumpet call. The
gunners stood by them--one examining the harness finally to see that
all was right, another altering his stirrup-leathers by a hole or
two, a third adjusting a comrade's accoutrements, a fourth grasping
the bow of his saddle ready to mount at the blast of the trumpet,
after which he knew his horse would no longer remain still; while the
trumpeter stood near the commanding officer, breathing into the
mouthpiece of his brass instrument, occasionally as if to keep it
ready for sounding.
Anon the men are mounted or on the limber-seats; the trumpet rings
out, the word _march_ is given; the drivers ease the reins and close
their legs to the riding horses, throwing their whips gently over the
necks of the off-horses so as to ensure their starting together; and
it is a rule in artillery that the spurs are for the ridden horse,
the whip for the off one, and to be applied over the shoulder or
neck, but never in the rear of the pad.
So the guns went clattering to the front, and the infantry broke into
columns of march, with a cavalry advance-guard, just as the sun began
to lighten the summit of the Suffaidh Koh and other snow-clad
mountains.
The Lughman Valley lies north of Jellalabad, and is overlooked by the
Himalayas, though extending to the lower ridges of the Hindoo Koosh,
while Kaffiristan borders it on the east.
Colville, of course, rode with the staff, and the ill-fated Louis
Cavagnari accompanied it.
Many narrow valleys, with torrents traversing their boulder-strewn
beds, and sides covered with beautiful vegetation, were passed in
succession, with several villages, each marked by an enormous chunar
or Oriental plane--perhaps by two or three placed near each other for
shade, where the Moollah might bring forth his Koran, and recite it
for the information of others.
As the troops proceeded the rocks around them seemed to grow darker
and darker, owing to the lead ore among them, while enormous boulders
of every kind of stone were strewn about far away from their original
beds out of which the torrents of ages past had torn them.
Shaggy goats and broad-tailed doombas, or Persian sheep, were seen
grazing near the villages, where at first the people came forth
peacefully to gaze with wonder upon the Feringhees. No untoward
event occurred, till a tribesman drew near where a party of hussars
were halted, carrying a sharp axe concealed behind his back, and
evidently bent on mischief, as he was known by his white dress to be
a Ghazi, or fanatic devoted to death.
With his weapon, he was about to aim a blow that must have proved a
deadly one on an unsuspecting corporal, when, quick as thought,
Robert Wodrow, who had his sword drawn, clove his head to the teeth.
This was a signal for strife. Alarm fires soon began to shoot up
redly on several eminences; yells and shouts came upon the mountain
wind from armed parties mustering fast among the rocks and eyries and
ere long a sputtering fire of juzails, or native rifles, was opened
on the column, and men began to drop dead or limp about wounded.
Out of these lofty places the tribesmen were shelled, but not without
difficulty, and ultimately driven by the rifle-fire of our
skirmishers into a narrow, rocky defile, which proved a kind of
natural cul-de-sac, out of which there was little or no exit; and
there into the wedged mass, shell after shell at a thousand yards
went smoking and whistling till it plumped and exploded among them
with terrible effect; but it was necessary to teach these treacherous
people a lesson, and a severe one it proved.
Four days the expedition remained in the Lughman Valley, and on the
fourth, when passing on the downward route the place where the
conflict had ensued, and where rifle and shell fire had decimated the
enemy, Colville, who for a considerable time past had been somewhat
unused to strife and slaughter, looked with a kind of horror upon the
scene around him.
Save the vultures and carrion crows no living creature had ventured
to approach the gorge where the dead, and dying yet lay--a picture of
human anguish and human passions indescribable.
The bodies of the torn and mutilated lay thickly there, either stark
and stiff in the refuge of death, or writhing and struggling, as if
to escape the doom of those beside them.
If this scene seemed dreadful by day, more dreadful and ghastly did
it seem to those in the rear of the column, who passed it after
nightfall, and the moon shed its cold light over the Katcha
mountains, and the rear-guard of Hussars, under Redhaven, had to pick
their way amid bodies lying half-naked, in every conceivable
position, with dark and bloody faces on the broad and ghastly grin,
distorted and battered limbs, with clenched hands and staring open
eyes; while some of the dead sat bolt upright against rocks and
boulders, with jaws dropped, and stiffened fingers grimly pointing at
vacancy.
The next expedition towards the Lughman Valley was marked by a
terrible disaster, the story of which went through the length and
breadth of the British Isles.