The force was now again in motion. It was agreed that they should push on to Tezeen, there to await certain tidings of the evacuation of Jellalabad. Between Boot-Khak and Tezeen lies the stupendous pass of Koord-Caubul. For a distance of five miles it runs between precipitous mountain-ranges, so narrow and so shut in on either side that the wintry sun rarely penetrates its gloomy recesses.[239] Into the jaws of this terrible defile the disorganised force now struggled in fearful confusion. In vain did Akbar Khan issue his orders; in vain did his principal adherents exert themselves to control the hordes of fanatic Ghilzyes, who poured upon our struggling rabble a deadly fire from their jezails. Nothing could restrain the fierce impetuosity of our cruel assailants. Pent in between the incumbent walls of the narrow pass, now splashing through the mountain torrent, now floundering through the snow which filled the hollows, or was banked up beside the stream, the wretched fugitives fell an easy prey to the Ghilzye marksmen, who shot them down from the hill-sides. It was not a time to think of saving anything but human life. Baggage, ammunition, public and private property, were abandoned;[240] and the Sepoys suffered their very firelocks to be taken out of their hands. The massacre was fearful in this Koord-Caubul Pass. Three thousand men are said to have fallen under the fire of the enemy, or to have dropped down paralysed and exhausted, to be slaughtered by the Afghan knives. And amidst these fearful scenes of carnage, through a shower of matchlock balls, rode English ladies on horseback, or in camel panniers, sometimes vainly endeavouring to keep their children beneath their eyes, and losing them in the confusion and bewilderment of the desolating march. Many European officers perished in the Koord-Caubul Pass. Among them was Captain Paton, the assistant adjutant-general—a good and gallant officer who had lost an arm in action at Caubul. Here, too, fell, mortally stricken, Lieutenant Sturt of the engineers, a very fine young officer, who, though severely wounded at the commencement of the outbreak, stabbed in the face at the door of Shah Soojah’s presence-chamber, had exerted himself with overflowing zeal and unfailing activity, whenever his services, as the only engineer at Caubul, were required; and whose voice, when others counselled unworthy concessions, had ever been lifted up in favour of the noblest and the manliest course. He lingered some little time, in agony of body, but unbroken bravery of spirit, and died on the 9th of January, attended by his wife and mother-in-law; the daughter and wife of Sir Robert Sale.