588 
SOME SITES OF BATTLE. 
attempt could be made to offer them resistance. It was a marvellous 
coup. 2000 Austrians laid down their arms. Zach was captured. The 
leading brigades of his army were utterly dispersed. Napoleon saw his 
opportunity and ordered an advance. The French swept the Austrians 
back like chaff across the Marengo plain into the Bormida. And 
Napoleon slept that night upon the battle-field, as he said he would, 
thanks to Kellermann. We can forgive him much, but we cannot 
forgive him his treatment of the cavalry leader who won the battle of 
Marengo for him, and thereby made him Emperor. 
There is a hill, a league or so the other side of Gundamuk, and on its 
highest point a cairn of stones. Past its foot the road from Kabul to 
Peshawur runs, a rugged, rocky track. A highway this has been for 
ages leading down towards Hindustan. Alexander of Macedon came 
this way, and Tamerlane and many another Tartar conqueror long 
since forgotten. But the story of the hill is not forgotten, nor will 
it be. 
On its broad, stony summit the remnants of the British garrison of 
Kabul, retreating to India, fought their last fight and left their bones 
some fifty years ago. All told, they barely numbered threescore souls, 
44 th officers and men mostly, with a few horse gnnners. Ten days in 
the Afghan defiles in mid-winter, harrassed unceasingly by cut-throat 
Ghilzais and Pathans, had brought the British fighting force to this. 
The little band halted, it would seem, upon the road below parleying 
with the Afghans. Jellalabad was still distant 20 miles or more, and 
the only hope of reaching it lay in obtaining a safe conduct from the 
enemy. Akbar Khan had over and over again sent messages of friend¬ 
liness, and from the treatment which the prisoners received, it seems 
not impossible that the Afghan Sirdars, whatever the tribesmen may 
have wished, hoped rather to capture and disarm the British force than 
to destroy it. 
Smatterings of Oriental speech picked up by the soldier on the Indian 
plains do not go far confronted with an Afghan. Somehow a mis¬ 
understanding arose. It may have been all a mistake; it may have 
been deliberate treachery. Some inquisitive Pathan may merely have 
reached out his hand for a musket to have a look at it; an attempt 
may really have been made to carry out disarmament by force. What¬ 
ever was the cause of it, a sudden dispute ended in a melee. Fire was 
opened on the British from the hill. They charged and drove the 
Afghans off it with the bayonet. And then they formed a rallying 
square, hoping only to account for plenty of the enemy before the 
curtain dropped upon the tragedy. 
They had not long to wait. The infuriated Afghans, swarming up 
the hill sides, hurled themselves upon the square. Ammunition, almost 
exhausted before this closing scrimmage, was all shot away. Then they 1 
fought with the cold steel, with stones and fists. It was a thrilling 
finish to the retreat from Kabul, this final stand upon the height near 
Gundamuk. With the exception of a very few—one an officer, who 
had the Regimental colour of the 44th wound round him—who were 
taken prisoners, all were slaughtered fighting to the end. What the 
future may have in store for us among these Afghan hills, who can tell? 
But it will bring forth nothing to be prouder of. 
