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Updated: June 5, 2025
The troops packed up their kits with great deliberation, and applications were made for transport. None was, however, available. All the camels were at Dargai, on the Indian side of the mountains. Repeated orders to hurry were sent from the Kotal. All hated leaving their belongings behind, having no confidence in the liberality of a paternal Government.
A portion of the force was told off, to work its way into the valley by the river gorge, while the main body ascended the path over the Kotal. They reached this at a quarter-past ten and, while they were waiting for the head of the column that had gone up the gorge to appear, fire was opened upon them. This, however, was kept down by the guns.
Under the persistent pressure of the British onset the Afghans fell back from position to position, north-west of Candahar; until finally Major White with the 92nd, supported by Gurkhas and the 23rd Pioneers, drove them back to their last ridge, the Baba Wali Kotal, swarmed up its western flank, and threw the whole of the hostile mass in utter confusion into the plain beyond.
Help in plenty was thus approaching as fast as eager men could march, but meanwhile the garrison had to face the danger as best they could alone. As the 31st Punjaub Infantry, who had been the last to leave the north camp, were arriving at the Kotal, about 1000 tribesmen descended in broad daylight and with the greatest boldness, and threatened their left flank.
"So you refused the escort over the Kotal?" said J that evening, as we sat over our coffee and cigars in his little stone courtyard, white and cool in the moonlight, adding, with a laugh, "Well, I don't blame you. A good story was told me the other day in Shiráz
These efforts resulted in the discovery by Major Collett of another practicable gorge further to the north leading up to a neighbouring height, the Peiwar Spingawi, whence the head of the Kotal might possibly be turned.
As the regiments climbed up, three mountain guns massed on the Chagru Kotal; and another one, which had come in with the Northampton from Fort Lockhart, opened fire. The enemy replied, at long range, upon the advance guard of the Ghoorkhas, as they went up the centre nullah. The little Ghoorkhas came steadily on and, at six hundred yards, opened fire in volleys.
They were over the Kotal at nine o'clock, and the 5th Ghoorkhas and the scouts were sent to hold the hills on the left. The Chamkannis had anticipated a sudden visit, and were in force on the left, where they had erected several sangars. The little body of scouts, eighty men strong, fought their way up the hill; and waited there for the leading company of the 5th.
Their comrades made desperate efforts to carry them off; but the storm of bullets, fired at so short a range, rendered it impossible; while the wounded who attempted to rise and return were riddled with bullets, as soon as they moved. When the fight was over, the whole force encamped on the Chagru Kotal. The assailants were unable to make out why the enemy did not defend the zigzag path.
On the back of the blade is engraved, in letters of inlaid gold, in Arabic characters "There is one God! He is Eternal!" "Victory is nigh, O true believer!" Connoisseurs say that the dagger is over a hundred years old. I have since been offered four times the amount by a good judge of Eastern weapons. A second pass, the Kotal Doktar, lay between us and Bushire.
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