The Report of the Commission of Inquiry upon the Massacre—The Suspicion
against the Amir Yakub Khan—The Report forwarded to the Government
of India—Probable Deportation of the Amir to India—Gatherings of
Tribesmen at Ghazni—The Necessity of collecting Supplies for the
Winter—The Khyber Line of Communications—No Supplies obtainable from
Peshawur—Slowness of the Khyber Advance—Projected Expedition to
Ghazni—The Reason of its falling through—The Strength of the Army of
the Indus—General Baker’s Excursion to the Maidan Valley—The Chardeh
Valley in Winter—Sir F. Roberts joins General Baker-The Destruction
of Bahadur Khan’s Villages in the Darra Narkh.
SHERPUR, _18th November_.
One part of the important work which the British force came to Cabul to
fulfil has been done: the Commission appointed to inquire into the
circumstances of the massacre of our Envoy and the after-events,
culminating in the battle of Charasia, has completed its task, and
to-day the report was duly signed by Colonel Macgregor, Dr. Bellew, and
Mahomed Hyat Khan. For the past two days Sir F. Roberts has had the
report before him, and has telegraphed a summary of it to the Government
of India, who will thus be put in possession of its main features
several days before the text of the document can reach them. In due
course the Government will, no doubt, furnish a connected narrative of
the events of the early part of September, and the world at large will
then be able to judge on what basis of proof our suspicions against
Yakub Khan and his most favoured ministers have rested.[26] The
Commission began examining witnesses on the 18th of October; so that it
is exactly a month to-day since the first step was taken towards
compiling the mass of evidence now understood to have been recorded. I
have before pointed out very fully how difficult was the work which lay
before the Commissioners: there was scarcely any clue to be laid hold of
which would lead them direct to their chief point—the cause of the
outbreak of the Herat regiments; and they had to take such witnesses as
were forthcoming, and to trust to later evidence to clear away the
darkness in which they were at first groping. The consideration shown to
the Amir seemed, to the suspicious minds of the Cabulis, a sign which
foreboded his future restoration, or that of his near relatives; and
those who were well inclined to us shrank from declaring their
partisanship too boldly, for fear of after-consequences, when the
Barakzai family should again be all-powerful in the country. There was a
slight dissipation of this feeling when the Proclamation of October 28th
was issued, announcing Yakub Khan’s voluntary abdication, and ordering
all chiefs in Afghanistan to look to the Commander of the British force
at Cabul for their authority in future; but we are known to be so
eccentric a people that there still lurked uneasiness in many minds, and
mouths were sealed that might reasonably have been expected to be open.
The actual presence of the late sovereign in our Camp—even though he was
known to be under a close guard—was too powerful an influence to be
easily swept away: if he had been hurried away to India in disgrace, the
atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty would have cleared up. But our ideas
of justice are too strict to be warped by passionate anger, and it was
resolved to give Yakub Khan as fair a chance of defending himself as he
could possibly expect. That he lost his personal liberty by listening to
foolish councillors, who thought he might gain something by flight, was
nothing to us. One cannot always guard a man against his own stupidity.
Having, then, to keep Yakub Khan with us, we had to do as best we could
in gaining means of judging what were his relations with the men who
stood forth as leaders of the rebel army, and how far he had sympathized
with their plans. In endeavouring to trace out the palace intrigues
which Nek Mahomed, Kushdil Khan, and others had set on foot, the
Commission had often to rely upon men themselves tainted with suspicion;
and when this was the case the statements had to be carefully weighed
and critically compared with facts which were attested beyond doubt. To
dwell, as I have dwelt before, upon the strong point of an Afghan, and
the strongest of a Barakzai—the capacity for lying—would be merely to
repeat an old story: the lies might contain in them a germ of truth
shining out as a silent protest against the mass of falsehood; and many
of these germs have, after careful nursing, borne such fruit, that very
tangible results have been arrived at. In spite of the religious
antipathy always manifested by Mussulmans against Christians, increased
a thousandfold when it is thought a Mussulman’s life is in danger; in
the face of a strong feeling against the restoration of a Barakzai Amir
on the one hand, and of the feudal reverence shown towards the dynasty
on the other; in silent but cautious calculation of those opposing
influences, the Commission felt its way forward. Such men as professed
friendship for us were invited to tell us all they knew, and that _all_
seemed so little that it was disheartening to listen to it; such others
as were Yakub Khan’s faithful followers were asked to give their version
of events, and their garbled stories were just as disappointing. Towards
the close of the inquiry, however, there was more tangible matter to be
used as a lever by which to force disclosures; and I believe that such
fair evidence as will fully justify Yakub Khan’s deportation to India
was obtained. That it will justify more I cannot venture to hope, and I
must guard myself against misconception by saying that officially no
sign has been given as to the conclusions of the Commission. There are
inferences which observant men cannot fail to draw from little episodes
in a camp-life so limited as this, and the rigorous attention paid to
the safe-keeping of Yakub Khan is but one in a string of collateral
circumstances which have been interesting us since the Proclamation in
the Bala Hissar and the arrest of the Wazir and his fellow-ministers. We
may be all wrong in our surmises as to what will occur: there is only
the charmed circle of three, who have had to shape the conclusions now
before the Government of India, in which speculation may be safe; but we
believe in our prescience, and are proportionately happy. The final
decision on so important a step as the punishment of a sovereign
supposed to have been guilty of treachery—whether of the blackest kind,
or merely of the nature arising from pusillanimity and indecision—must
rest with the highest authorities; and if we were tempted to chafe at
our helplessness in having the knowledge of all that has transpired
withheld from us, we should be consoled at once by the thought that it
is the voice of the Government alone which can pronounce the final
sentence. That the Commission will have spoken freely, and not have
shrunk from any startling conclusions it may have been driven to, I am
fully convinced—they are not the men for half measures who have composed
it—and in the full expectation that their recommendations will be
carried out, even if the end is more than usually bitter, all of us who
have sojourned before Cabul since we camped on Siah Sung Ridge, on 8th
October, are content to rest until everything is made known.
-----
Footnote 26:
Contrary to expectation, no such narrative has ever been published.
-----
The latest arrivals in Camp are Mahomed Syud, Governor of Ghazni, and
Faiz Mahomed, the Afghan General, whose name became so familiar when Sir
Neville Chamberlain’s Mission was turned back in the Khyber. Faiz
Mahomed was then in command at Ali Musjid, and his interview with
Cavagnari just below the fortress is matter of history. He does not seem
to have shared in the rebellion, and his adherence to Yakub Khan was
never shaken. Mahomed Syud was compelled to leave Ghazni, as he found
himself powerless to control the local _moollahs_, who have been
preaching a _jehad_ on their own account, and have gathered together
several thousand tribesmen from the villages in the district. There are
but few trained sepoys in their ranks, and, although they have made the
road between Ghazni and the more northern districts very unsafe, their
efforts are too insignificant to be at present seriously regarded.
_21st November._
“Nae, nae! I’ll nae fa’ out till I’ve washed ma’ hands in th’ Caspian!”
These were the words, not of any veteran soldier looking forward to
crossing bayonets with the Russians, but of a plucky little drummer boy,
of the 92nd Highlanders, when toiling painfully along the road to Cabul.
The lad had his heart in the right place at any rate; and if the
strength of an army is to be judged by its marching powers, we have rare
material in our ranks. It is a long cry from Cabul to the Caspian; but
the drummer boy may have many years of soldiering before him; and if
ever the Gordon Highlanders form up on the shores of Russia’s inland
sea, to that boy should belong the honour of leading the van. But we are
only at Cabul, and it now seems beyond doubt that we shall not advance
any further this year. The winter has come down upon us with a
suddenness that we little expected from the mildness of the last season;
and 20° of frost have warned us that bivouacking out would be nearly
impossible for well-clad soldiers, and would be certain death to
hundreds of camp-followers. The news of the disturbances on the Ghazni
Road may, perhaps, call forth the remark, that after Cabul had been
captured, and the country around cowed into order, a rapid march to
Ghazni should have been ordered. There is much virtue in sudden and
striking displays of force in an enemy’s country, particularly when the
enemy is disorganized by defeat, and is debating as to the possibility
of waging guerilla warfare. But there are considerations which must
override even rapidity of action, and the first of these is the
provision of supplies on which an army can subsist when far removed from
its base of action. Cabul was practically in our possession on the 9th
of October, though the formal march into the Bala Hissar did not take
place until three days later; and our cavalry and spies had shown us
that no organized resistance was being prepared within many miles of the
capital. The rebel regiments had melted away; the city people were
cowering in abject submission; and the local tribes had seen that their
day had not come and were once more in their homesteads, nursing their
wrath and their _jhezails_ until the Kafirs should be delivered into
their hands. Sir. F. Roberts was at this time quite cut off from India,
so far as a connected line of communication went; the Shutargardan post
was the only link between Cabul and Kurram, and that was beset by an
army of hill-men. From that direction he might hope, by relieving the
garrison, to get one convoy through; but beyond that point he could not
go. The great height of the Shutargardan Pass precluded all hope of
keeping troops there during the winter. He had come from Ali Kheyl with
but a few days’ provisions; and it was plain that, unless supplies came
by way of the Khyber, the army must rely upon the country for food for
its 18,000 soldiers and followers. That one might have reasonably
expected a long string of baggage animals to be moving westwards from
Peshawur at the end of October did not seem so preposterous as men with
General Bright’s column would now have us believe. To say that Peshawur
was swept clean of all transport animals for Kurram, is begging the
question. The Kurram Valley Force was only half-equipped when it began
the advance upon Cabul, and northern India still held many thousands of
mules, donkeys, camels, and their kind. We hoped that some of the energy
our own Commander had shown would have been displayed in the “Army of
the Indus,” and that a few troops at least would have kept pace with us,
or, say, have moved on a parallel line five marches in rear. If this had
been done, and a well-equipped brigade of 2,500 men had been pushed
forward to Jugdulluck, the massing of 12,000 men in rear might have been
postponed—for a few months, say,—and some of the transport (swallowed up
by regiments who will never be wanted west of Peshawur) then liberated.
But to look to the Khyber for supplies was soon found to be an expensive
amusement. The troops would starve before a seer of _atta_ or grain
passed Jumrood. We could live from hand-to-mouth for a week or two; but
there were the four months of winter to be thought of; and it became
merely a question of arithmetic whether a brigade strong enough to march
to Ghazni could be spared, with all its equipment of baggage animals and
followers, and at the same time four months’ supplies could be bought up
and swept into our Camp by those left behind at Cabul. There seemed just
a chance of this being done, if our broken reed in the Jellalabad Valley
could be propped fairly straight for a few weeks. The work of collecting
grain, forage, and all other supplies, was begun in earnest; and we
resigned ourselves to hard labour until the troops from the Shutargardan
should come in, and our communications _viâ_ Jugdulluck be well
established. Expeditions to Kohistan and Ghazni were looked upon as
certain of accomplishment in the near future. We knew that Jellalabad
had been occupied by the advanced brigade of General Bright’s force on
October 12th, and it was only sixty miles from that post to the point
beyond Jugdulluck, where they would join hands with the Cabul Army. The
end of October would surely see them within a few marches of us. But it
had been apparent from the first that drag-ropes were upon the “Army of
the Indus,” and that every tug forward made by Brigadier Charles Gough
was responded to by a double tug behind. The end of the month came; the
convoys from the Shutargardan were well on their way, the troops under
Brigadier Hugh Gough had also started; and the Jugdulluck route seemed
about to be opened. On 1st November Brigadier Macpherson was at Butkhak,
and four days later he shook hands with General Bright at Kata Sung.
Then it was decided at head-quarters here that a force should visit
Ghazni. The mass of our supplies were being stored away in Sherpur;
General Macpherson could march his brigade back after garrisoning
Luttabund and Butkhak; Cabul would not be denuded of troops; and from
Sherpur to Peshawur the road would be guarded by an overwhelming force.
But the programme went all wrong: the broken reed, after being
straightened for twenty-four hours, failed us. The Khyber advanced
brigade had no supplies; General Macpherson had to cross into Tagao to
feed his force; and we, in Sherpur, saw the 15th November—the day fixed
for our departure for Ghazni—come and go, and still the army remained
stationary. The weather, too—an element that can never be despised in
our calculations in a semi-barren country like Afghanistan—had punished
our delay by declaring against us. Snow and sleet fell in and around
Cabul, and no man knew when the next storm might come. So the Ghazni
expedition fell through; and if the ruffians who are now trying to make
capital out of our failure to visit the place, succeed in their efforts
to cry a _jehad_, the blame for any mischief that may ensue cannot be
thrown upon the Cabul Army, but upon the short-sighted policy which
could leave it to its own resources, while nominally moving a supporting
force in a parallel line in order to secure its alternative
communications. Foreign military critics have reflected severely upon
the want of skill shown in the plan of the campaign, and have condemned
the rashness of the Shutargardan-Cabul advance, without support from the
Khyber. But the supports were said to be there, and General Roberts
could not know that they would be steadily kept back, and would be
unable to take up their share of the alternative road a month after he
had captured the position they were both supposed to be converging upon.
Supports which travel at the rate of two or three miles a day are worse
than useless.
When it is considered what the numerical strength of the Khyber
supporting column is, one cannot understand the timidity of the advance.
There may have been tribes in front, in flank, and in rear; but so there
were on the Shutargardan route, and tribes far more capable of mischief
than Afridis and Shinwaris. Yet the menace at Budesh Kheyl, Ali Kheyl,
the Shutargardan, and on either flank at Charasia, did not check the
forward movement of an army half the strength of that supposed to have
been put in motion from Peshawur simultaneously with the advance from
the Kurram side. Looking at General Bright’s force at the end of
October, we find that, inclusive of troops at Nowshera and Peshawur, he
had under his orders over 16,000 men, viz., British troops: 148 officers
and 4,287 men; Native troops: 147 British officers and 11,795 men. These
included five batteries of artillery and one mountain battery, and six
cavalry regiments, three British and three Native. Out of the total, two
batteries were in Peshawur; and there must also be subtracted the
following regiments, which had not crossed the old frontier:—11th Bengal
Lancers (356), part of the 17th Bengal Cavalry (338), 1-17th Foot (443),
1-25th (715), part of 51st (209), 1st Native Infantry (774), 22nd Native
Infantry (638), and 39th Native Infantry (609). Deducting all these,
there was left a force of 11,800 men actually moving on, or garrisoning
the Peshawur-Gundamak line; supports equal, it might have been supposed,
to any work required of them. That there were conflicting ideas as to
the object with which such a body of troops had been sent from India,
must have been apparent even to a superficial observer; but upon whom
the responsibility of playing with such an army rests, no one here
pretends to say. The local rank of Lieutenant-General, which has at last
been given to Sir F. Roberts, brings these 11,800 men under his command,
and their future movements are likely to be directed in sympathy with
the advanced army at Cabul. For the next few months they will probably
be required to do little more than keep the road; but during the winter
their transport equipment and commissariat arrangements—defects in which
are said to have been the chief cause of their tardy movements—will have
to be so far put on a footing of efficiency that, if the necessity
arises in the spring for the Cabul Army continuing its march westwards,
they will be able to keep pace with its movements. There are good men
and tried soldiers enough in the Khyber Force to do all that is
required, if they are allowed scope for their energies, and are not
trammelled and crippled at every step by those influences in the
background, which I have already described as being “drag-ropes” upon
their freedom of action. General Roberts has now in his command—that of
Eastern Afghanistan—two divisions of 8,000, and 11,800 men,
respectively: in all, nearly 20,000 troops, whose movements he controls
from his headquarters at Sherpur. Matters of detail on the Khyber side
are left, as before, to local commanders. I have dwelt at length upon
the shortcomings of the Peshawur column, not so much because very
serious results have followed its laggard advance, but as showing how
helpless the small force here would have been if, in case of a check, it
had looked for support to “the Army of the Indus.”
General Macpherson’s brigade returned to Sherpur cantonments yesterday,
having left at Luttabund 300 of the 23rd Pioneers and half the 28th
Punjab Native Infantry. Before the brigade marched in, a strong body of
troops had been warned for service, their destination being the district
of Maidan, twenty-five miles distant on the Ghazni Road, where large
supplies of grain and _bhoosa_ are said to have been collected for us by
the sirdars employed to purchase it on our account. Over 100,000 maunds
of _bhoosa_ are still wanted to complete our winter supply; and as the
villagers have not sufficient carriage to bring in their supplies so
long a distance, we must needs go out ourselves. Every available baggage
animal will be employed for the next week or ten days in carrying in
this forage; and as there are rumours innumerable of gatherings on the
Ghazni Road further south, it has been determined to run no risk with
reference to our valuable mules and _yaboos_. A string of between 2,000
and 3,000 animals needs to be well protected, and the brigade which
marched out this morning under General Baker was therefore very strong.
It was made up as follows:—500 of the 92nd Highlanders; 400 of the 3rd
Sikhs; 400 of the 5th Punjab Infantry; two guns, G-3, Royal Artillery;
four guns Kohat Mountain Battery; one squadron 9th Lancers, two
squadrons 5th Punjab Cavalry, and two squadrons of the 14th Bengal
Lancers. The display of so large a force half-way to Ghazni is sure to
have an excellent effect upon the surrounding country. Sir F. Roberts
rides out to-morrow to join General Baker at Maidan.
A Divisional order was issued to-night, directing the public reading of
an order of the Commander-in-Chief dismissing Subadar Mahomed Karim
Khan, 1st Punjab Infantry, from the service for having failed in his
duty to the Queen-Empress on the occasion of the attack upon the
Residency. This man is a Logari, and was on furlough at Cabul in
September. On the morning of the outbreak he was in the Residency, and
after the lull following the first collision of the Herat troops with
the Guides—while the Afghans went for their arms—he was sent with a
message to the Amir by Sir Louis Cavagnari. This he does not seem to
have delivered with the spirit that might have been expected from a
soldier in our service; and afterwards, when Gholam Nubbi, Cavagnari’s
_chuprasse_, found money and horses for him to carry the news of the
disaster to the British Camp at Ali Kheyl, he behaved in a dastardly
way. He changed clothes with Gholam Nubbi and started out, but only went
as far as Beni Hissar. There he stayed for two days, and then returned
to Cabul, where he hid himself for five days in the Kizilbash quarter.
Afterwards he quietly made his way to his own village; and, upon our
troops appearing at Kushi, came into camp and told some wonderful
stories of what he had done. These were afterwards proved to be false,
and the Military Commission when trying prisoners found that his conduct
had been really that of a poltroon. They recommended his dismissal from
the service, and he has now been summarily discharged, all arrears of
pay being forfeited. This is another striking instance of the shifty and
untrustworthy nature of our Pathan soldiers, for Karim Khan was an old
native officer.
CAMP MAIDAN, GHAZNI ROAD, _24th November_.
The Lieutenant-General Commanding is now out on a visit to the force
under Brigadier-General Baker, which is collecting supplies of forage
from the villages along the Ghazni Road. Leaving Brigadier-General
Macpherson in command at Sherpur, Sir F. Roberts, accompanied by his
personal Staff and Colonel Macgregor, Chief of the Staff, with a small
escort of ten men of the 14th Bengal Lancers, rode through the Cabul
gorge on the afternoon of the 22nd, and, following the road which
traverses the Chardeh Valley, made for the village of Argandeh, about
sixteen miles away. The Chardeh Valley, which we passed through, gave
evidence on all sides of that fertility which has earned for it the name
of the “Garden of Cabul;” but it is so late in the year that only autumn
tints mark the fields on either side. Here and there the young wheat is
shooting up, but the small green blades are scarcely strong enough to do
more than chequer the general area of brownness. The long lines of
willows and poplars which line the hundreds of watercourses threading
the valley, are mere skeletons of trees; their leaves rustling down in
eddying circles as the cold wind sweeps blusteringly from the snowy tops
of the Pughman Hills. The valley is shut in on all sides by high
mountain ranges, the hills which guard Cabul from approach on the west
seeming to rise perpendicularly from the plain. The range above Indikee
village is overtopped by the sheer cliffs which dominate the plain
between Zahidabad and Charasia, and these are already covered with snow,
which gleams out in startling whiteness above the barren rocks in the
foreground. Far away to the north lies the Hindu Kush, with its long
undulating sky-line similarly snow-laden, the lower intermediate hills
of Kohistan being still mere brown masses jostling each other in grand
confusion. Looking towards Bamian the view is bounded scarcely ten miles
away by the Pughman spur, which boasts of several lofty peaks rising in
sullen grandeur from the hills about Argandeh. For fully twelve miles,
or about as far as Kila Kazi, the road is an extremely good one; stones,
the curse of Afghanistan, being few and far between. After this the dry
bed of a snow-fed stream has frequently to be crossed or followed, and
boulders are not uncommon. Guns, however, could be got along without
much trouble, and if necessary a new track on a higher level, across the
cultivated land, could be laid out. The road ascends gradually the whole
way, and when near Argandeh a _kotal_ is gained, about a mile and a half
across and two or three miles long. It is now a bare plain without tree
or shrub, but for the most part is under cultivation, the fields of
course lying fallow during the winter. To the right or north the hills
are rather precipitous, and in a sheltered curve at their base the
village of Argandeh lies. It is fully a mile from the road, and all
about it are terraced fields said to yield magnificent crops of wheat
and barley. The high pitch to which irrigation attains in Afghanistan is
strikingly exemplified in this district, the water-channels being so
arranged that the distribution of the water is admirable.
Sir Frederick Roberts rested for the night at Argandeh, and yesterday
morning rode on to Maidan. Striking the Ghazni Road a mile from
Argandeh, we followed its course over the _kotal_ and soon began to
descend. The hills on either side were as bare as any in Afghanistan,
and the plain between them was only partially cultivated. After about
four miles a _chowki_ (watch-tower) was reached on a little rise, and
looking to the south we saw the district of Maidan stretching before us.
It is a beautiful valley, landlocked on every side, the Cabul river
running through it about a mile from the foot of the western hills. The
valley must be at least four miles across; and, with the exception of
low rolling downs, covered with stones and rocks, for about a mile on
its eastern flank is as flat as its name, Maidan (open plain), implies.
Twenty or thirty walled enclosures and villages on the banks of the
Cabul stream stand out from amid poplars, willows, and plane trees,
which fringe the banks of the sparkling little river, and for many
square miles nothing is seen but endless corn-fields, each with its
little boundary of mud, along which the water slowly wanders as it does
its work of irrigation. The road falls rapidly from the _chowki_, and a
few hundred yards below bifurcates, the main route to Ghazni going
straight to the south over the rolling downs I have mentioned, and a
bridle-path leading down to the villages of the plain. General Baker’s
camp is pitched at Naure Falad, two miles from the _chowki_, down in the
plain near the first of the fortified enclosures, its rear being guarded
by a high rocky ridge. From the summit of this a splendid view of Maidan
is obtained, and the extraordinary fertility of the valley fully
appreciated. To the west the ridge runs sharply down into the plain, and
the valley is there narrowed to half a mile, but it opens out again to
the north among the hills. The main road to Bamian, which strikes off
from the Ghazni Road before the _chowki_ in the _kotal_ is reached, runs
across this part of the valley and enters the Ispekhawk Pass, a few
miles further on.
Yesterday afternoon a small party of cavalry were fired upon in the
Darra Narkh, a valley running in the Bamian direction, and to-day
Bahadur Khan, who was responsible for the action, and who is known to be
harbouring Afghan soldiers, has been visited and punished. He had
already given much trouble. General Baker, since his arrival in Maidan,
has found much difficulty in inducing the _maliks_ of the villages of
the district to bring in corn and _bhoosa_. They have given the tribute
grain and forage readily enough, but have evaded furnishing the amount
we required in addition to this. Every maund was paid for at a forced
rate, which, I may state, was far higher than the normal prices; but the
village headmen hung back, and, though profuse in promises, made but
little effort to meet our wants. Several of them were very insolent in
their bearing, and no doubt thought to worry us out by their
procrastination. But General Baker is not the stamp of man to have his
orders disobeyed, and by confining some of the _maliks_ to the camp for
a few days, he had gradually brought them to their senses. One _malik_,
however, trusting to the obscure valley in which he lived, wherein
Europeans had never been known to penetrate, was obstinate. This was
Bahadur Khan, whose fort is about eight miles from the Maidan villages,
along the branch road which leads to Bamian. He not only refused to sell
any of his huge store of grain and forage, but insolently declined to
come into camp. He was known to have great influence among the tribesmen
in his neighbourhood, and it was reported that some sepoys of the Ardal
regiments were living under his protection. When Sir F. Roberts heard of
the contumacy of this _malik_, he agreed with General Baker that it
would be well to fetch him in by force, and at the same time to arrest
any sepoys found in his villages. To accomplish this double object the
cavalry were sent out yesterday, with the result already stated, that
they were fired upon by a large body of men, including some 200 sepoys
armed with Sniders. It was necessary to make an example of Bahadur Khan,
and at the same time to break up the tribal gathering, which, if left
alone, might grow to serious proportions. Our foraging parties would
probably have been roughly handled in scattered villages, all of which
boast of towers and fortified enclosures, if the rumour had been allowed
to circulate that our cavalry had been driven back.
Tents having been struck at daybreak, the baggage of the force was
packed up and placed within a fort near the Cabul river, under a guard
of 300 men, drawn equally from the 92nd Highlanders, 3rd Sikhs, and 5th
Punjab Infantry, with a squadron of the 14th Bengal Lancers and a troop
of the 9th Lancers. The two guns of 9-3[prev G-3], R.H.A., were also
left behind, as the road to the villages was known to be difficult for
wheeled guns. The troops which marched out were 400 of the 92nd, 300 of
the 3rd Sikhs, 300 of the 5th N.I., a troop of the 9th Lancers, a
squadron of the 14th B.L., and four guns of the Kohat Mountain Battery.
General Baker was in command of this compact little column, which was
not encumbered with transport animals, as a rapid march was intended.
Sir F. Roberts, with Colonel Macgregor, also rode out with his personal
escort. It was bitterly cold in the early morning, and all but the
swiftest running streams were coated over with ice. The troops carried
with them one day’s cooked provisions, but were otherwise in light
marching order. A point was made for a little to the south-west, where
the Darra Narkh stream falls into the Cabul river, and then a due
westerly course was followed up the narrow valley through which the
former stream runs. The usual mountainous country was seen on either
hand, high hills closing down on the valley, and presenting treeless
slopes barren of all verdure. The two rivers had to be crossed by fords,
and the men went through the icy-cold water as carelessly as if wading a
stream in summer. The sepoys stripped off their _putties_, and made
light of the floating ice which barked their shins, while the
Highlanders in their kilts seemed rather to enjoy the bracing cold. The
road was fairly well-defined and ran through cultivated fields, with an
occasional fortified homestead or country villa relieving the monotony
of the landscape. Information was brought from time to time of the
movements of Bahadur Khan, it being at first stated that he had 2,000 or
3,000 men ready to meet us. About seven miles from the camp the road was
commanded by a high ridge on the left, and beyond this, we were told,
lay the open valley in which the cavalry had been attacked. This ridge
was at its highest point 800 or 1,000 feet above the roadway, and on the
previous evening had been lined with men. Now it appeared quite
deserted, and the cavalry swept round it and waited in a friendly
village until the infantry could come up. A local _malik_ volunteered
the news that Bahadur Khan and his followers had taken all their movable
property away during the night and had fled to the hills. When the
Lancers first appeared round the ridge and pushed forward into the
horseshoe-shaped valley, they saw fifty or sixty men on some low hills
to the north, a gunshot from Bahadur Khan’s chief fort; and as these
moved down the slopes, it seemed probable that a body of tribesmen might
be lying hidden behind the crests. Possibly the Ghilzais expected that
only cavalry were again about to pay them a visit, and were emboldened
to come to the lower levels. As soon as the advanced company of the
Highlanders appeared on the road, the “enemy,” if fifty are worthy of
the name, drew off hurriedly to the highest hill, a couple of miles
distant, and watched our movements. General Baker directed one company
of the 92nd to advance in skirmishing order, and occupy a rocky hill
overlooking Bahadur Khan’s fort, and commanding it at 700 or 800 yards,
and sent a company of Sikhs round to the north, with orders to drive out
any men who might be occupying the lower hills. It was soon seen that
the place was quite deserted, and not a shot was fired from any of the
hills. The whole valley lay before us dotted over with fortified
homesteads, surrounded by grain-fields already green with sprouting
corn. It seemed wonderfully fertile, and extended over many square
miles; other and smaller valleys penetrating between the hills wherever
there was a break in their continuous line. The exact extent of these
minor valleys could not be estimated, but native report stated that the
fertility was equal to that of the rich plain stretching away to the
north-west for five or six miles. When it was seen that no opposition
was to be offered, the Sikhs doubled down upon the fort from the low
hills above it, and at the same time another company raced across the
fields from the southern entrance to the valley, all being anxious to be
in “at the loot.” It was a pretty sight watching the sepoys doubling
along and spreading out as the fort and the village near it were gained.
Clouds of dust with the gleam of lance-heads shining out soon arose
further to the left in the heart of the valley, showing where the
cavalry were galloping off to more distant homesteads. All Bahadur
Khan’s villages, some ten in number, were marked down to be looted and
burnt, and Sikhs and sowars were quickly engaged in the work. The houses
were found stored with _bhoosa_, straw, firewood, and twigs for the
winter as well as a small quantity of corn, and as there was not time to
clear this out, and we could not afford to leave a force for the night
in such a dangerous position so near to the hills, orders were given to
fire the villages and destroy the houses and their contents. No better
men than Sikhs could he found for such work, and in a few minutes
Bahadur Khan’s villages were in flames, and volumes of dense black smoke
pouring over the valley, a high wind aiding the fire with frantic
earnestness. The villagers had carried off all their portable property,
not even a _charpoy_ remaining, but the Sikhs ransacked every place for
hidden treasure, and smashed down the earthen corn-bins in hope of
gaining a prize. These corn-bins seemed quite a feature of every house.
They are three or four feet square and made of sun-dried clay, often
fancifully ornamented with scroll-work. They stand on a raised platform
in the living-room, and have near the bottom a small hole in which a
piece of rag is stuffed. This answers to the tap of a barrel, for when
the rag is withdrawn the grain pours out, and the daily supply can he
drawn just as we would draw a tankard of beer in an English farm-house.
Indian corn, from which rich _chupaties_ (unleavened cakes) are made, is
chiefly stored in this way, and near the bins stand the grinding-stones,
at which the women of the house prepare the flour for the household.
Generally an adjoining room is turned into a kitchen, the earthen floor
being skilfully burrowed to form ovens, and round holes cut out on which
to place the _dekchies_ which serve for Afghan pots and kettles. Such of
the rooms as I went into were dark and dirty enough, small square holes
in the walls serving as windows, and the roofs being made up of thick
logs laid a foot apart, and covered over with twigs, on which a foot of
mud had been plastered. The Sikhs fired house after house, and every
room was soon converted into a huge reverberating furnace, the fire
having no means of escape through the roofs, which were very strong.
Nearly all the houses were two-storied, with narrow wooden or mud
staircases, and many a sepoy in his haste first fired the lower rooms,
stored with wood or _bhoosa_, and then rushed upstairs intent on loot,
soon to be driven down again by the smoke and flames from below. The
search after household goods was varied by exciting chases after the
fowls, ducks, and donkeys of the village. Sikhs and _kahars_, who had
come up with the _dandies_ (stretchers for wounded men), scrambled over
housetops, and through blinding smoke, to capture the dearly-prized
_moorgie_, while below an unoffending donkey would be chased frantically
round awkward corners and over frozen watercourses, where pursuers and
pursued alike came to grief. A donkey when captured was laden with such
little loot as the men thought worth while carrying off. Each fowl had
its neck wrung on the spot, was thrown into a convenient bit of fire in
some blazing house, and having been singed clean of its feathers, was
cooked in a few minutes, and eaten with infinite enjoyment. The cavalry
were fortunate enough to secure fifty sheep and a few cows, which were
driven to camp. After two or three hours had been spent in firing the
various villages owned by Bahadur Khan, the order to fall in for the
homeward march was given, and leaving the valley draped in smoke and the
fire still working its will, the troops filed off for Maidan. They
reached camp by evening, having marched seventeen miles over difficult
ground and through half-frozen streams without mishap. As the rear-guard
left, a few men appeared on the heights of the north and fired a few
shots at long ranges, but these were merely in bravado.[27] We could
learn nothing of the body of tribesmen and the 200 sepoys, and it is
believed they have dispersed. The punishment of Bahadur Khan will have a
great effect upon the whole district of Maidan, as it will show the
_maliks_ that they are not safe from our troops even in their most
obscure valleys. General Baker remains in the neighbourhood of Maidan
until next week, all the available transport animals from Sherpur being
now engaged in carrying to our cantonments the large quantities of corn
and _bhoosa_ collected. Our winter supply of forage seems likely to be
assured.
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Footnote 27:
This is a plain statement of the foray in the Darra Narkh, and our
indignation was greatly aroused afterwards by seeing sensational
articles in English papers describing how old men, women, and children
were turned out to die in the snow. There were _no_ old men, women,
and children seen, and _no_ snow. There were forty or fifty other
villages in which they had taken refuge long before we arrived.
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