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As the midday gun was fired in the cantonment the flash of the heliograph from the peak told that the Takht-i-Shah was won. While Baker was sweeping the spur and climbing the lofty peak of the main ridge, his reserve, which remained in the plain, was in sharp action against masses of assailants from the city and other bodies from the villages about Beni Hissar.
The most northerly portion of the ridge described is known as the Sher Derwaza heights, which Macpherson had occupied on the morning of the 12th, and his brigade it was which furnished the little force already mentioned as charged to attempt the task of storming the Takht-i-Shah. For several hours Morgan's two mountain guns industriously shelled that peak, and then the infantry made their effort.
The shorter and more northerly of those runs down to the Balla Hissar, the longer and more southerly obtruding itself into the plain as far as the village of Beni Hissar. This latter spur quits the main ridge no great distance south of the Takht-i-Shah peak, and on the 12th the Afghan reserves were massed in rear of the peak, both on the main ridge and on this spur.
A detachment was left to maintain the isolation of some 2000 of the enemy who had been cut off; and then swinging to their right Baker's regiments swept along the summit of the spur toward the main ridge and the Takht-i-Shah, the Highlanders leading. As they advanced they rolled up the Afghan line and a panic set in among the enemy, who sought safety in flight.
Was it likely that they would scatter resignedly, leaving untouched the rich booty of the city that had been almost within arm's-length as they looked down on it from the peak of the Takht-i-Shah, and whose minarets they were within sight of on the spur and in the villages of Beni-Hissar? Was that ever likely?
After half-an-hour of futile effort the Afghans saw fit to abandon the attempt to force the gorge, and inclining to their right they occupied the Takht-i-Shah summit, the slopes of the Sher Derwaza heights, and the villages in the south-eastern section of the Chardeh valley.
During the next two days the Guides' infantry took part in the great assaults on the Takht-i-Shah, and the Asmai heights, with the 72nd and 92nd Highlanders; and in these Captain Fred Battye was dangerously wounded, and Captain A.G. Hammond was awarded the Victoria Cross.
The Afghans fought stubbornly in defence of a lower hill they held in advance of the Takht-i-Shah, but after a hard struggle they had to abandon it to Macpherson's resolute men. But the exertions of the latter to ascend the peak were baulked by its rugged steepness and the fire of the Afghans holding the sungahs on its face.
L'audace, encore l'audace, et toujours l'audace is the game to be played by the commander of disciplined troops against Asiatic levies, and no man was more sensible of this than the gallant soldier who now from the bastion of Sherpur could see the Afghan standards waving on the summit of the Takht-i-Shah.
Indeed he was impressed so thoroughly by the force of the maxim as to allow himself to hope that some 560 soldiers, of whom about one-third were Europeans, backed by a couple of mountain guns, would be able to carry by assault the lofty peak, strongly held by resolute Afghans in protected positions, supported by several thousands of their fellows lying out of sight until an attack should develop itself, to meet which they were at hand to reinforce the garrison of the Takht-i-Shah.
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