The chiefs of certain hill tribes, Kuzzilbashs, Ghilzyes, and other
robbers and bandits by profession, had been accustomed to receive
subsidies to induce them to refrain from robbing any caravans or parties
travelling in the neighbourhood of their territories. The expenses of
the war in Afghanistan had been enormous; and it becoming necessary to
retrench, it was unwisely determined to begin by cutting off the pay of
these chiefs. They resented the measure, and assembling in vast
numbers, took every opportunity of attacking the British troops passing
through the defiles of their mountainous country. Sale's brigade had
reached Jugdulluck with little opposition; but on the next march it was
seen that the heights were bristling with armed men, and a heavy fire
was poured in with terrible effect from all the salient points on which
the mountaineers had posted themselves. Sale threw out his flanking
parties, and the light troops, skirmishing well up the hillsides,
dislodged the enemy, whilst a party under Captain Wilkinson, pushing
through the defile, found that the main outlet had not been guarded, and
that the passage was clear. The march was resumed, but the enemy were
not yet weary of the contest. Reappearing in great numbers, they fell
furiously upon the British rearguard, and for a time the men thus
suddenly assailed were in a state of terrible disorder. The energetic
efforts of the officers, however, brought them back to a sense of their
duty. Broadfoot, Backhouse, and Fenwick rallied and reanimated them.
But the British loss was heavy; upwards of 100 were killed and wounded,
and among them fell the gallant Captain Wyndham, of the 35th Native
Infantry. Although lame from a hurt, at the moment of peril he had
dismounted to save the life of a wounded soldier, by bearing him from
the combat on his charger. When the rearguard broke before the onset of
the Ghilzyes, unable to keep pace with the pursued, he turned, fought,
and, overpowered by numbers, fell beneath the swords and knives of an
unsparing foe. The force halted at Gundamuck. The political managers
of affairs in Afghanistan fancied that this would prove the termination
of disturbances in that country. Unhappily the storm which was to break
with such fearful violence was only now gathering.