Chapter XV: 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.