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One of its tasks was to open up and maintain Roberts' communications with India, so that the closing of the Shutargurdan should not leave him isolated. Another duty resting on the Khyber force was to constitute for Roberts a ready and convenient reserve, on which he might draw when his occasions demanded.
On the morning of October 2d the whole force marched from Kushi toward Cabul, temporarily cutting loose from communication with the Shutargurdan, to avoid diminishing the strength of the column by leaving detachments to keep the road open. All told, Roberts' army was the reverse of a mighty host. Its strength was little greater than that of a Prussian brigade on a war footing.
Some sharp skirmishes had been fought as the troops traversed the rugged ground between Ali Khel and the Shutargurdan, but the losses were trivial, although the General himself had a narrow escape. A couple of regiments and four guns under the command of Colonel Money were left in an entrenched camp to hold the Shutargurdan.
Meanwhile General Hugh Gough was despatched with a small force of all arms to escort to Cabul Money's gallant garrison of the Shutargurdan, and to close for the winter the line of communication via the Kuram valley. Colonel Money had undergone with fine soldierly spirit and action not a few turbulent experiences since Roberts had left him and his Sikhs on the lofty crest of the Shutargurdan.
Notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions it was not until the 1st October that Roberts' little army, having crossed the Shutargurdan by detachments, was rendezvoused at and about the village of Kushi in the Logur plain, within forty-eight miles of Cabul.
His sick and wounded sent back to Fort Kuram, General Roberts advanced to Ali Khel, and thence made a reconnaissance forward to the Shutargurdan Pass, whose summit is distant from Cabul little more than fifty miles. Its height is great upwards of 11,200 feet but it was regarded as not presenting serious obstacles to the advance by this route of a force from the Kuram valley moving on Cabul.
The authorities there rallied from the shock with fine purposeful promptitude, and within a few hours a telegram was on its way to General Massy's headquarters at Ali Khel instructing him to occupy the crest of the Shutargurdan Pass with two infantry regiments and a mountain battery, which force was to entrench itself there and await orders.
The apex at the Shutargurdan of the salient angle into Afghanistan which our possession of the Kuram valley furnished was within little more than fifty miles of Cabul, whereas the distance of that city from Lundi Kotul, our advanced position at the head of the Khyber Pass, was about 140 miles, and the route exceptionally difficult.
On 30th October the Shutargurdan position was evacuated, and on the 3d November the Cabul force received the welcome accession of headquarters and two squadrons 9th Lancers, Money's 3d Sikhs, and four mountain guns.
Sir Donald Stewart was to march one portion by the Khyber route; the other under Sir Frederick Roberts was to retire by the Kuram valley, which Watson's division had been garrisoning since Roberts had crossed the Shutargurdan in September 1879. But the Maiwand news interfered with those arrangements.
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