Chapter 10: The Peiwar-Khotal. At ten o'clock at night, on the 1st of December, the troops detailed for the attack mustered in the camp. The assembly took place without sound of bugle, and even the necessary words of command were given in a low tone. Through the still night air the Afghans on the hills, little more than two miles away, would have heard the stir. It was a very dark night, although the stars shone clear. "Where can we be going?" William Gale asked the soldier next to him. "We are going right away from the pass, instead of towards it." "So we are!" the soldier replied. "I am blest if I know what we are up to, and it's so precious dark that I can scarcely see the file before me. I hope we ain't going to fight in the dark, anyhow. What would be the good of being a marksman, when you cannot see the end of your own rifle, let alone the man you are firing at?" "Oh! We can't be going to attack in the dark," Will said. "I expect we have got a long march before us; and are going to work round, somehow, and take them in rear." "Well, I hope whoever is acting as guide can see better in the darkness than I can; else we are safe to lose our way, and may find ourselves anywhere, in the morning. "Confound it!" The exclamation was elicited by the speaker stumbling over a boulder, and nearly going on to his head. "Silence in the ranks, there!" an officer said, close by. Each regiment was followed by its ammunition mules, and hospital doolies--the latter being covered stretchers, or palkies, carried by natives. Besides these were dandies--or chairs--slung upon mules. This greatly added to the difficulty of a night march for, even in the daytime, the presence of baggage animals in a column, upon a narrow road, greatly hinders the troops and, at night, the delays occasioned by them are naturally very much greater. For the first three and a half miles the column marched away from the enemy upon the Khotal, and the surprise of the soldiers increased at every step they took. At the end of that time they arrived at the village of Peiwar. Here they turned to the left and, after crossing several ravines, and stony water courses, arrived on a cultivated terrace; and kept along this till they reached a very stiff nullah, twenty feet deep. The night was bitterly cold, the bank of the nullah was extremely slippery, and the boulders in the water course below coated with ice. The difficulty of getting the loaded animals across, in the darkness, was therefore very great. The passage of the various water courses caused great delays; and it was difficult to keep the column together, in the dark. At each passage, the rear was immensely delayed while the leading troops were passing; and these again had to be halted, while those behind them struggled over the difficulties. The men suffered much from cold, as the pace was so slow that they could not warm themselves; and the mounted officers specially suffered, in their hands and feet.