is
said to have occurred about noon at Maiwand. However that may be,
Burrows decided to remain on the defensive, perhaps because the hostile
masses were too dense and too full of fight to warrant the adoption of
dashing tactics.

After the sun passed his zenith the enemy began to press on the front
and flanks. Burrows swung round his wings to meet these threatening
moves; but, as the feline and predatory instincts of the Afghans kindled
more and more at the sight of the weak, bent, and stationary line, so
too the _morale_ of the defenders fell. The British and Indian troops
alike were exhausted by the long march and by the torments of thirst in
the sultry heat. Under the fire of the Afghan cannon and the frontal and
flank advance of the enemy, the line began to waver about 2 P.M., and
two of the foremost guns were lost. A native regiment in the centre,
Jacob's Rifles, fled in utter confusion and spread disorder on the
flanks, where the 1st Bombay Grenadiers and the 66th line regiment had
long maintained a desperate fight. General Nuttall now ordered several
squadrons of the 3rd Light Cavalry and 3rd Sind Horse to recover the
guns and stay the onrushing tide, but their numbers were too small for
the task, and the charge was not pressed home. Finally the whole mass of
pursued and pursuers rolled towards the village of Khig and its outlying
enclosures.

There a final stand was made. Colonel Galbraith and about one hundred
officers and men of the 66th threw themselves into a garden enclosure,
plied the enemy fiercely with bullets, and time after time beat back
every rush of the ghazis, now rioting in that carnival of death.
Surrounded by the flood of the Afghan advance, the little band fought
on, hopeless of life, but determined to uphold to the last the honour
of their flag and country. At last only eleven were left. These heroes
determined to die in the open; charging out on the masses around, they
formed square, and back to back stood firing on the foe. Not until the
last of them fell under the Afghan rifles did the ghazis venture to
close in with their knives, so dauntless had been the bearing of this
band[322].

[Footnote 322: Report of General Primrose in Parl. Papers, Afghanistan,
No. 3 (1880), p. 156.]

They had not fought in vain. Their stubborn stand held back the Afghan
pursuit and gave time for the fugitives to come together on the way back
to Candahar. Had the pursuit been pushed on with vigour few, if an