(Ranald Macdonell's "Letters of Reminiscence")

At last our marching orders came, and were hailed with the greatest delight by both officers and men, who had all been chafing at our detention in the plains.   Hope deferred had made the monotonous routine of cantonment life irksome in the extreme, so it was with feelings of the greatest relief and satisfaction that we started on our march from Ferozepore to Peshawar, under the command of Colonel Blair.

Our orders were to push on without delay to join the force which was on the point of starting for the relief of the army returning from Cabul   And we did "push on";  accomplishing long marches through that dry and sandy country, swimming our horses over four of its formidable rivers, (Sutlej,  Ravi, Chenab, and Jhelum);  the fifth (Indus), we crossed on a bridge of boats, and we succeeded in reaching Peshawar in December.

Some little time before this (1841), Colonel Wild, with an insufficient force, a paucity of food, and a few defective guns borrowed from Avitabile the Sikh general, had attempted to press  on to the rescue of the garrison at Jelalabad under Sir Robert Sale, but was driven back, with loss, to Peshawar.   Owing to this reverse it was decided that further re-inforcements must come up from India ere a second attempt could be made.   It was now the depth of winter, and heavy snow lay on the ground:  the cold was intense.

Whilst at Peshawar I had my first experience of an earthquake, and very laughable though it now appears, it was no laughing matter at the time.   I was standing smoking and talking to a brother officer on the fort wall when I suddenly felt it rock backwards and forwards, but the idea of an earthquake never occurred to me;  I attributed the rocking sensation more or less to my own imagination, and thought I must be going to have a  fit!  "What a fearful earthquake!" exclaimed my friend at last.   "An earthquake!"  I cried, "thank Heaven it is an earthquake, for I thought I had a fit!".

There were several very severe shocks in succession,  which caused considerable damage to Peshawar, and as we afterwards heard, almost levelled the defences of Jelalabad to the ground.   This great earthquake occurred in February 1842.

Our force at Peshawar, as nearly as I can recollect, consisted of:-

• 3rd Dragoons
• 3rd Irregular Cavalry under Captain Tait, brother of  the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1st Light Cavalry
• 10th Light Cavalry
• 5th Light Cavalry (detachment only)
• A brigade or two of infantry
• A number of native infantry regiments
• Artillery
• Sappers and Miners

The command of the army going to the relief was given to General Pollock of the Bengal Artillery.

The Army of the Indus had marched from Ferozepore on the 10th of December 1838, to restore Shah Sujah to the throne, in place of Dost Mahomed who had "given undisguised support to the Persian designs in Afghanistan".   Dost Mahomed fled from Cabul on our approach, and was made prisoner with his son at Bokhara.   After a time he effected his escape and again collected his troops, but being once more defeated, he surrendered to Sir William Macnaughten.

Shah Sujah was re-instated as Amir in 1839, and about two years later the order was given for the breaking up of "the Army of the Indus", and the return of the troops to India.   This decision brought defection, defeat, and disaster in its train, which misfortunes we were all keenly desirous of now retrieving.

Before dawn on the 5th April, 1842, General Pollock's force advanced to the mouth of the Khyber Pass, which we found blocked up by a strong barricade of boulders and thorny bushes.  This our gunners soon blew down, and while the infantry clambered  up the steep and rugged hillsides, contesting every inch of ground, but gradually driving the enemy before them, and at last "crowning the heights" on either side of the Pass, we held on our way below.   At night we bivouacked in the Pass, lying on the ground at our horses' heads.

We got to Jelalabad in about ten days, and to our bitter disappointment found that General Sale, who was besieged in that fort, had the very day before our arrival, sallied forth and defeated Akbar Khan, Dost Mahomed's son.   The old Jacobite song with which the 13th Light Infantry (Somerset LightInfantry) played us into camp, "Oh, but ye've been lang o'coming!" had a touch of sarcasm in its welcome that was not soothing to our wounded spirits.

Leaving the 10th B.L.C. and several other regiments in an entrenched camp at Gandamak to keep open communications and to collect supplies, the rest of the army went on to Cabul, and having rescued the prisoners, and destroyed a great part of the city, it returned to India.

The prisoners - over a hundred in number - were in the charge of a native chief named Salah Mahomed who turned traitor to his country, accepting a bribe of a pension for life, and a grant of land, (or perhaps money to buy it.)   He hoisted the English flag and handed over the prisoners to Sir Robert Sale, whose wife was among the number.   It was said that Akbar Khan had decreed that the prisoners were to be taken to Turkestan and  there sold into slavery.

While encamped at Gandamak we came one day on the spot in a certain valley where the Army of the Indus, in fleeing from Cabul, had made its last stand.   The place was completely covered with skeletons;  there were many hundreds of them.   The  bodies had been stripped of their clothing, and their skins were perfectly dry on their bones, and yet some of them were recognized by their old comrades.   It was a sad sight, and sadder still was the thought of that terrible flight in the depth of an Afghan winter, without tents or almost any protection from the bitter frost and snow.   It was calculated that 4,500 men and 12,000 camp-followers perished then, shot down, frost-bitten, or exhausted with cold and fatigue.   Only one man, - Dr. Brydon, -  a friend of mine, escaped to Jelalabad, of all the large body of  men that left Cabul.

We could not leave the skeletons as they were, so we made a huge cairn of them;  so light were they, that I and others carried one in each hand.

General Avitabile, an Italian under Ranjit Singh, now ruled in the Khyber country with a rod of iron;  but he was very kind to the English army under Pollock, entertained the officers, and advanced money to Pollock, getting in return for the same, bills on England, which transaction Avitabile found very profitable, as he could not otherwise have got his money out of the country.   (Ranjit Singh's other Italian General I met in Calcutta, in 1855, when dining with Dr. Falconer who had charge of the Botanical Gardens there at that time.)

Pollock, having made his mark on the rebellious city by destroying its great market-place, marched out of Kabul at the head of the combined forces, and returning to India the way they had come, crossed the Sutlej on the 17th of December.   Thence the 10th B.L.C. marched to Meerut, the station to which the regiment was now posted.

The silver medal struck in commemoration of this campaign was of the simplest design;  on the face of it was simply inscribed "Cabul 1842" with a laurel wreath around the name, and on the reverse the significant words, "Victoria Vindex"