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Updated: May 13, 2025
A letter received on January both reported the Cabul force to be still in the cantonments, living utterly at the mercy of the Afghans; another arriving on the 12th told of the abandonment of the cantonments and the beginning of the march, but that the forlorn wayfarers were lingering in detention at Bootkhak, halted in their misery by the orders of Akbar Khan.
He insisted on the halt of the column at Bootkhak until the following morning, when he would provide supplies, but he demanded an immediate subsidy of 15,000 rupees, and that Pottinger, Lawrence and Mackenzie should be given up to him as hostages that the force would not march beyond Tezeen until tidings should arrive that Sale had evacuated Jellalabad.
The rear of the column would probably have been entirely cut off, but that reinforcements from the advance under Shelton pushed back the enemy, and by crowning the lateral heights kept open the thoroughfare. At Bootkhak was found Akbar Khan, who professed to have been commissioned to escort the force to Jellalabad, and who blamed our people for having marched out prematurely from the cantonments.
Monteath's camp at Bootkhak, the first halting-place on the Jellalabad road, was sharply attacked on the night of the 9th, and the assailants, many of whom were the armed retainers of chiefs living in Cabul sent out specially to take part in the attack, although unsuccessful, inflicted on Monteath considerable loss.
Monteath encamped in the valley beyond the pass, and Sale, with the 13th, returned without opposition to Bootkhak, there to await reinforcements and transports.
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