The Afghan War of 1879-80: Being a Complete Narrative of the Capture of Cabul, the Siege of Sherpur, the Battle of Ahmed Khel, the Brilliant March to Candahar, and the Defeat of Ayub Khan, with the Operations on the Helmund, and the Settlement with Abdur Rahman KhanHensman, Howard
History
The Afghan War of 1879-80: Being a Complete Narrative of the Capture of Cabul, the Siege of Sherpur, the Battle of Ahmed Khel, the Brilliant March to Candahar, and the Defeat of Ayub Khan, with the Operations on the Helmund, and the Settlement with Abdur Rahman Khan
cavalry fight had been watched through telescopes by several officers
with General Macpherson, who had heard the artillery fire. Sending his
baggage under a strong guard of infantry, and a squadron of the 14th
Bengal Lancers, under Colonel Ross, by way of the upper road nearest
Kohistan, General Macpherson marched through a break in the hills and
debouched into the Chardeh Valley. The appearance of his troops away in
their rear seems to have influenced the movements of the enemy, who
turned off from the road to Sherpur, and, swinging their left flank
round, made direct for Dehmazung, with the evident intention of getting
into the city, and occupying the Bala Hissar Heights above it. General
Roberts, upon seeing the new movement, sent off a message by his
aide-de-camp, Captain Pole-Carew, to Brigadier Hugh Gough, commanding at
Sherpur, ordering 200 men of the 72nd Highlanders to double out to the
gorge.
After the second charge, in which the 9th Lancers lost several men shot
down, Captain Gough’s troop did rear-guard work, dismounting and firing,
so as to hold the enemy a little in cheek. Only such Lancers as were
wounded, or had their horses disabled, were sent back to Sherpur, by way
of the Nanuchi Kotal, the rest escorting General Roberts to Dehmazung.
Once the broken squadron of the 9th were got together, they settled down
resolutely to their work of keeping the enemy in play, and their
carbines were used with good effect until Dehmazung was reached. Here
they got cover, and, with the sowars of the 14th, opened a smart fire
upon Mahomed Jan’s force as it streamed up towards Cabul. Alone and
unaided they could not have hoped to stem the rush, and matters were at
a crisis when Colonel Brownlow, with the 200 rifles of the 72nd
Highlanders, arrived. The Highlanders were in the nick of time: Colonel
Brownlow doubled out a company to occupy Dehmazung, the 9th cheering
them lustily as they saw the welcome relief, and soon from the roofs and
walls of the village rapid volleys were being poured into the Afghan
ranks. The enemy streamed down upon the village “like ants on a hill,”
as a Highlander described it, but Colonel Brownlow’s admirable
disposition of his handful of Highlanders soon checked the rush. The men
were told not to throw away a shot; the Martinis soon blazed out in one
persistent line of fire—and such a fire, that even Ghazis shrank from
encountering it. In less than half an hour the enemy were forced back,
and they then split up into two parts—one going on to the south, to
Indikee village, and thence scaling the Takht-i-Shah Peak and the
heights to the south of the Bala Hissar fortified ridge, the other
facing round to the west, as if to get upon the hills south of Kila
Kazi. Their entrance into Cabul had been frustrated, and all that was
left to them was to raise their standards on the hills they had occupied
and flourish their knives in defiance at distant Sherpur. This they did,
as we could see plainly enough through our binoculars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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