The general could not travel fast, and it was more than six months before they reached Cabul. Havelock, now Persian interpreter to Elphinstone, was much disturbed at the condition of things that they found on their arrival, and at the folly which had lost us the support of the native hill tribes, who had hitherto acted as our paid police and guarded the passes leading into the Punjaub. So when Sale's brigade, with a native regiment, a small force of cavalry and artillery, and a few engineers under the famous George Broadfoot, marched eastwards up the river Cabul, they discovered that the passes had all been blocked by the mountaineers, who were ready to spring out and attack the English from all sorts of unsuspected hiding-places. Now Havelock had not drawn his sword since the end of the Burmese war, and directly he saw a chance of fighting he had begged to be allowed to accept the appointment of staff-officer offered him by Sale. This was given him, and the troops had only gone a few miles from Cabul when the fighting began, and Sale was severely wounded. It is impossible to tell all the details of the march, but much of the burden of it fell on Havelock's shoulders, as Sale could not go about and see after things himself. Here, as always, he proved himself, as Kaye the historian says, 'every inch a soldier.' 'Among our good officers,' wrote Broadfoot at the time, 'first comes captain Havelock. The whole of them together would not compensate for his loss. He is brave to admiration, invariably cool, and, as far as I can see or judge, correct in his views.' All along the march up the Cabul these qualities were badly needed, for it was necessary to watch night and day lest the little army should be taken unawares by the hill tribes. At last the rocky country was left behind, and they halted in the rich and well-wooded town of Gundamak, to rest for a little and to wait Elphinstone's orders. The letters, when they came, told a fearful tale. The Afghans had risen in Cabul; Burnes, the East India Company's officer in Afghanistan, had been murdered, together with other men, among them Broadfoot's brother, and though there were five thousand British troops stationed only two miles away, as Havelock well knew, they had never been called out to quell the insurrection. Under these circumstances Elphinstone implored Sale to return without delay to Cabul. * * * * *