nted with Sturt's reasons for requesting me to come in without
delay, Capt Hay was in daily expectation of the arrival of a convoy
from Bamee[=a]n with a supply of provisions, clothing, and ammunition
for the use of his regiment, and having received information from one
of the numerous spies, who gain a livelihood by supplying information
to _both_ parties, that large bodies of men were assembling in
the Kammurd valley, through which the convoy would have to pass,
determined, though he did not attach much credit to his informant, to
despatch as strong a body as he could spare to reinforce the escort.
He accordingly sent out two companies of the Goorkha regiment with
directions to proceed to the "Dundun Shikkun Kotul," there to meet the
convoy and protect them in their passage through the Kammurd valley.
Such was the scarcity of European officers, that Capt. Hay was obliged
to intrust the command of the force to the quarter-master-serjeant of
his corps; who, though unused to the management of so considerable a
party in the field, and who might have been excused if in the hour of
need his brain had not been as fertile of expedients as is generally
necessary in encounters of this kind, acquitted himself in a manner
that would have done credit to the best light infantry officer in the
service. I much regret that I cannot record his name, but before being
appointed to the Goorkha corps he was a non-commissioned officer in
the Bengal European regiment. He was one of the many victims, I fear,
of the year 1841, as I have been unable to trace his career. Hundreds
of brave European non-commissioned officers met a similar fate, and
are merely noticed as having perished in the retreat from Cabul. The
many acts of coldblooded treachery which disgraced the Affghans, and
which ought to have opened the eyes of those in power to the absurdity
in trusting to their faith, were merged in the wholesale murders of
Khoord Cabul, Jugdulluk, and Gundummuk.

I have before described the narrowness of the valley up to Kammurd and
the lofty ranges of precipitous hills by which it is flanked; and the
reader will perhaps recollect my noticing two forts on either side of
the river a little above Piedb[=a]gh. It was here that the Serjeant
halted his party after the first day's march, intending to proceed
the next morning to the Dundun Shikkun pass to meet the convoy. At
day-light he was informed that the expected convoy had not crossed the
pass, and wh