his three remaining guns, as the only chance left of saving them.  This he did, and having reached the village, he again opened fire from behind a low wall which enclosed the houses; but the ammunition being nearly expended, and the enemy close at hand, there was nothing for it but to limber up again and continue the retirement through the village.  At the further side, however, and forming part of its defences, was a formidable obstacle in the shape of a ditch fully twelve feet deep, narrowing towards the bottom; across this Smyth-Windham tried to take his guns, and the leading horses had just begun to scramble up the further bank, when one of the wheelers stumbled and fell, with the result that the shafts broke and the gun stuck fast, blocking the only point at which there was any possibility of getting the others across.

With a faint hope of saving the guns, I directed Captain Stewart-Mackenzie, who had assumed command of the 9th Lancers on Cleland being disabled, to make a second charge, which he executed with the utmost gallantry,[11] but to no purpose; and in the meanwhile Smyth-Windham had given the order to unhook and spike the guns.

By this time the enemy were within a few hundred yards of Bhagwana, and the inhabitants had begun to fire at us from the roofs of their houses.  I was endeavouring to help some men out of the ditch, when the headman of the village rushed at me with his knife, seeing which, a Mahomedan[12] of the 1st Bengal Cavalry, who was following me on foot, having just had his horse shot under him, sprang at my assailant, and, seizing him round the waist, threw him to the bottom of the ditch, thereby saving my life.[13]

Suddenly the Afghans stayed their advance for a few minutes, thinking, as I afterwards learnt, that our Infantry were in the village—­a pause which allowed many of our Cavalry who had lost their horses to escape.[14]

Directly we had got clear of the village the Cavalry reformed, and retired slowly by alternate squadrons, in a manner which excited my highest admiration, and reflected the greatest credit on the soldierly qualities of Stewart-Mackenzie and Neville.  From Bhagwana, Deh-i-Mazang was three miles distant, and it was of vital importance to keep the enemy back in order to give the Highlanders from Sherpur time to reach the gorge.

For a time the Afghans continued to press on as before, but after a while their advance gradually became slower and their numbers somewhat decreased.  This change in Mahomed Jan’s tactics, it afterwards turned out, was caused by Macpherson’s advance guard coming into collision with the rear portion of his army; it was of the greatest advantage to us, as it enabled the 72nd to arrive in time to bar the enemy’s passage through the gorge.  My relief was great when I beheld them, headed by their eager Commander, Brownlow, doubling through the gap and occupying the village of Deh-i-Mazang and the heights on either side.  The Cavalry greeted them with hearty cheers, and the volleys delivered by the Highlanders from the roofs of the houses in the village soon checked the Afghans, some of whom turned back, while others made for Indiki and the slopes of the Takht-i-Shah.  For a time, at any rate, their hopes of getting possession of Kabul had been frustrated.