Campaign of the Indus: In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay DivisionHoldsworth, T. W. E.
History
Campaign of the Indus: In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division
Holdsworth, T. W. E.
Afghan Wars
main body followed in another hour, with a strong rear-guard, to pick up
stragglers, &c. These precautions ought to have been taken before, and
poor Adams would have been saved. I know very little of this march, as I
remember I slept through the whole of it, until morning, on horseback,
being terribly fatigued and worn out. The morning was delightfully cool,
with a fresh bracing breeze from the north. You may well imagine how we
enjoyed it, after the terrible relaxation of the night before. We
reached our ground about seven, at a place called Nonsherah. Here we
heard some bloody-minded reports of the Beloochees, who had been
plundering the artillery and left wing of the 19th, which were here the
day before. They seemed, however, to have made a pretty good
retaliation, and four Beloochees' heads were stuck upon the walls of the
town, in proof of the soldiers' vengeance. In consequence of there being
a good baggage-guard, the Beloochees made themselves tolerably scarce
during this march, although the ground was very favourable for them.
However, they now and then took long shots from the nullahs, &c., that
were near the road, but without doing any damage. At last, a soldier,
from the baggage-guard company of the 17th, having occasion to fall out,
and going into a nullah for his purpose, unexpectedly found himself
cheek by jowl with thirty of these rascals. He was knocked down, but
bellowing out most lustily, his section came up, and being joined by
another section of the Queen's, they shot about six of them dead, and
put the rest to flight, having rescued the 17th man. The robbers at this
place were _rather_ forward, and actually walked off with some camels
that were out feeding close to the rear of our encampment, in the middle
of the day. They were, however, all recovered very soon by the
Irregulars, and those of the robbers who could not manage to escape,
managed to get their heads broken by these surwars; and intelligence
having been received that a whole gang, with their families, were
encamped near us, a party of fourteen, and one jemadar, of the 1st Light
Cavalry, were sent out, who coming unexpectedly upon them, the robbers
advanced to shew fight, when the jemadar gave the word to fire, and each
trooper brought down his bird. The rest immediately took to their heels,
and owing to the nature of the ground (it was among the hills) effected
their escape. The troopers returned to camp with the swords and shields,
&c., of the fallen. From this place we marched again the next morning,
and a short and easy march brought us to Dadur.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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