ground dropped away. If we spent another night in the freezing cold, said Shelton, the army must die.
So they argued and wrangled, and Elphy had his way. We stayed where we were, thousands of shivering wretches on a snow-swept road, with nearly half our food already gone, no fuel left, and some of the troops even reduced to burning their muskets and equipment to try to keep a tiny flicker of warmth in their numb bodies. The niggers died in droves that night, for the mercury was far below freezing, and the troops kept alive only by huddling together in huge groups, burrowing in among each other like animals.
I had my blankets, and enough dried meat in my saddle-bags not to go hungry. The lancers and I slept in a tight ring, as the Afghans do, with our cloaks above; Hudson had seen to it that each man carried a flask of rum, and so we kept out the cold tolerably well.
In the morning we were covered with snow, and when I clambered out and saw the army, thinks I, this is as far as we'll go.
Most of them were too frozen to move at first, but when the Afghans were seen gathering on the slopes in the dawn light, the camp-followers flew into a panic and blundered off down the road in a great mob. Shelton managed to heave the main body of troops up in their wake, and so we stumbled on, like a great wounded animal with no brain and no heart, while the crackle of that hellish sniping started afresh, and the first casualties of the day began to totter from the ranks to die in the drifts on either side.
From other accounts of that frightful march that I have read -
mostly Mackenzie's and Lawrence's and Lady Sale's(18) - I can fit a few of my recollections into their chronicle, but in the main it is just a terrible, bloody nightmare even now, more than sixty years after. Ice and blood and groans and death and despair, and the shrieks of dying men and women and the howling of the Ghazis and Gilzais. They rushed and struck, and rushed and struck again, mostly at the camp-followers, until it seemed there was a slashed brown body every yard of the way. The only place of safety was in the heart of Shelton's main body, where the sepoys still kept some sort of order; I suggested to Elphy when we set off that I and my lancers should ride guard on the womenfolk, and he agreed at once. It was a wise move on my part, for the attacks on the flanks were now so frequent that the work we had been doing yesterday was becoming fatally dangerous. Mackenzie's jezzailchis were cut to ribbons stemming the sorties.
As we neared Khoord-Kabul the hills rose up on either side, and the mouth of that awful pass looked like a gateway into hell. Its walls were so stupendous that the rocky bottom was in perpetual twilight; the dragging tread of the army, the bellowing of the beasts, the shouts and groans and the boom of shots echoed and rang from its cliffs. The Afghans were on the ledges, and when Anquetil saw them he halted the vanguard, because it seemed certain death to go on.
There was more consulting and arguing around Elphy, until Akbar and his people were seen among the rocks near the pass mouth.
Then I was sent off again, and it was to tell him that at last Elphy had seen reason: we would give up six hostages, on condition that Akbar called off his killers. He agreed, clapping me on the shoulders and swearing that all should now be well; I should come as one of the hostages, he said, and a merry time we would have of it. I was torn two ways about this; the farther away I could keep from Gul Shah, the better; on the other hand, how safe would it be to remain with the army?
It was settled for me, for Elphy himself called on Mackenzie, Lawrence, and Pottinger to give themselves over to Akbar. They were among the best we had, and I suppose he thought Akbar would be the more impressed by them. Anyway, if Akbar kept his word it did not matter much who remained with the army, since it would not have to fight its way to Jallalabad. Lawrence and Pottinger agreed at once; Mac took a little longer. He had been a trifle cool with me - I suppose because my lancers had not shared the fighting that day, and his folk had been so badly mauled. But he said nothing, and when Elphy put it to him he didn't answer, but stood staring out over the snow. He was in a sad pass, with his turban gone and his hair all awry, his poshteen spattered with blood and a drying wound on the back of his hand.
Presently he drew his sword, and dropped it point first into the ground, and walked over without a word to join Pottinger and Lawrence. Watching his tall figure moving away I felt a little chill touch me; being a ruffian, perhaps I know a good man when I see one better than most, and Mac was one of the mainstays of our force. A damned prig, mind you, and given to immense airs, but as good a soldier - for what that's worth - as I've met.
Akbar wanted Shelton as well, but Shelton wouldn't have it.
'I trust that black bastard as far as I'd trust a pi-dog,' says he.
'Anyway, who's to look after the army if I'm gone?'
'I shall be in command still,' says Elphy, taken aback.
'Aye,' says Shelton, 'that's what I mean.'
This started another bickering match, of course, which ended with Shelton turning on his heel and stumping off, and Elphy whining about discipline. And then the order to march sounded again, and we turned our faces towards Khoord-Kabul.
At first it was well enough, and we were unmolested. It looked as though Akbar had his folk under control, and then suddenly the jezzails began to crack from the ledges, and men began to fall, and the army staggered blindly in the snow. They were pouring fire into the pass at almost point-blank range, and the niggers began to scream and run, and the troops broke their ranks, with Shelton bawling, and then in a moment everyone was running or riding full tilt through that hellish defile. It was just a great wild rush, and the devil take the hindmost; I saw a camel with two white women and two children shot, and it staggered into the snow and threw them out. An officer ran to help, and went down with a ball in his belly, and then the crowd surged over them all. I saw a Gilzai mounted warrior seize on a little girl of about six and swing her up screaming to his saddlebow and make off; she kept shrieking 'Mummy! Mummy!' as he bore her away.
Sepoys were throwing down their muskets and running blindly forward, and I saw an officer of the Shah's Cavalry riding in among them, belabouring them with the flat of his sword and yelling his head off. Baggage was being flung recklessly away, the drivers were abandoning their animals, no one had any thought but to rush through the pass as fast as possible, away from that withering fire.
I can't say I wasted much time myself: I put my head down to my pony's neck, dug in my heels and went like billy-be-damned, threading through the pack and praying to God I wasn't hit by a stray ball. The Afghan ponies are as sure-footed as cats, and she never stumbled once.
Where my lancers were I had no idea, not that I cared; it was every man (and woman) for himself, and I wasn't too particular who I rode over in my flight. It was nip and tuck like a steeplechase, with the shots crashing and echoing and thousands of voices yelling; only once did I check for an instant, when I saw young Lieutenant Stuart shot out of his saddle; he rolled into a drift and lay there screaming, but it would have done no good to stop. No good to Flashy, anyway, and that was what mattered.
How long it took to make the passage I don't know, but when the way began to widen and the mass of fugitives ahead and around began to slow down I reined in to take stock. The firing had slackened, and Anquetil's vanguard were forming up to cover the flight of those still coming behind. Presently there was a great mob streaming out of the defile, troops and people all mixed together, and when they reached the light of day they just collapsed in the snow, dead beat.
Three thousand people died in Khoord-Kabul, they say, most of them niggers, and we lost all our remaining baggage. When we made camp beyond the eastern limit of the pass we were in the middle of a snow-storm, all order was completely lost; stragglers kept coming in after dark, and I remember one woman who arrived having carried her baby on foot the whole way. Lady Sale had been shot in the arm, and I can see her now holding her hand out to the surgeon and shutting her eyes tight while he cut the ball out; she never flinched, the tough old bitch. There was a major struggling with his hysterical wife, who wanted to go back for her lost child; he was
