Chapter XIV: 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.