Читать книгу The Battles of the World or, cyclopedia of battles, sieges, and important military events онлайн

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The divisions made a general move at daybreak, on the 12th October, to Thag Bakh, about six miles distant from Cabul; and on the entrance to the Koord Cabul Pass, Her Majesty’s 9th and 13th Regiments, together with six Native Corps of the 1st Division, manned the hills commanding the pass, to enable those in the valley below to move on unmolested. On the morning of the 13th the troops entered the Pass which led to Tezeen, about nine miles. The mountains were high and craggy, and very dark, rendering the road extremely gloomy and sad; a torrent ran in a serpentine direction from side to side, which reminded me of the Bolun; it had to be crossed twenty-eight times during about six miles. We had scarcely got well into the jaws of this awful scene of romantic vastness, whose hollow crags seemed to echo defiance to our intruding tread, when a number of the enemy made their appearance in the rear, but were kept in check. The very great height of the mountains, of a dark, reddish colour, struck one with awe, and silence seemed to reign over all; the mind was totally occupied in contemplating this fearful sight of hidden deeds; horror struck the feeling heart, when the eye fell on the skeletons of our departed comrades, who lay in most agonizing positions, indicative of their last struggle for life. Here a spot would be strewed with a few crouched up in a corner, where they had evidently fled to cover themselves by some detached rock, from the overpowering cruelty of their foe, and had been rivetted by death. There couples were lying who had died in each other’s arms, locked as it were in the last embrace of despair: numbers lay in every direction, devoid of every particle of clothes; some with the greater part of the flesh putrefied on their bleaching bones—others were clean from having been devoured by the vast number of carrion birds and beasts inhabiting these terrible regions. I at first attempted to count the number of frames as I went along, but found them so numerous that I could not find time, and my inclination sickened from the awfulness of the scene. The pass was no more than thirty feet wide at this part, and so numerous were the mouldering frames of these whose lives had been sacrificed during the last winter, that they literally covered the road—and, in consequence, the artillery and other wheeled carriages had to pass over them—and it was indeed horrible to hear the wheels cracking the bones of our unburied comrades. It was quite easy to discover the Europeans by the hair on the skulls, which still remained fresh. After a tedious, and indeed a painful march, we reached Tezeen, which opens from the narrow Pass into a much wider part, sufficient to enable us to pitch our camp. Here was a sad scene of recent strife—scarce a tent could be pitched but a skeleton or two had to be removed, just kicked aside as though it were a stump of a tree, in order to leave clear the place for the interior of the tent, and there remained unnoticed. It has often been a subject of deep reflection to me, to think how utterly reckless man can be made by habit: so used were we to these sights, that it became a mere commonplace matter to see such relics of devastation and massacre. I remember walking with a friend down the centre of the camp, and we had often to stride over skeletons, without the least observation, further than I could not help heaving a sigh, and reflecting in silence on their unfortunate end.