So soon as it was light they opened a heavy but badly aimed fire on the Guides, but showed no disposition to assault.  At last, after some delay and evidently under the urgent haranguing of their priests and leaders, a mass of warriors some five thousand strong was collected under the shelter of the villages to make another effort.  But so steady and accurate was the fire of the Guides, that even these brave fanatics feared to face the open, and the attack melted away.  Sir Frederick Roberts, with the eye of the born general seizing the right moment, launched his cavalry and artillery in counterstroke and pursuit, till when the sun set that night fifty thousand of the chivalry of the Afghan nation had been swept from sight and hearing, and nothing but a vast solitude remained where teeming thousands stood lately.

Thus collect, and thus disappear, the great yeomen armies of Afghanistan.  To-day they are not; to-morrow they are assembling in their thousands from the four quarters of the compass; a few days, and they have melted away like snow.  The explanation is simple enough.  The fiery crescent goes forth, summoning the faithful, every man with his arms and ammunition and carrying in his goatskin bag food enough to last him for a week.  Commissariat or Ordnance Departments there are none; thus as each soldier finishes his food or his ammunition, or both, he hies him home again for a fresh supply; perhaps he returns, and perhaps he has had enough fighting for the present, and does not.  And so is it with all the fifty thousand.

The Guides did not see any more serious fighting till April, when, together with a wing of the 92nd Highlanders under Major White,[22] and two guns of F.-A.  Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, they fought a gallant little action with about five thousand of the enemy at Charasiab near Kabul.  Jenkins, who was in command, heard shortly after midnight that about two thousand of the enemy were bivouacked within five miles of the camp, but that they had no immediate intention of attacking.  An old soldier like the Commander of the Guides, however, takes nothing for granted, and orders were at once issued for the Guides’ infantry to stand to their arms an hour before daylight, while the Guides’ cavalry sent out patrols to feel for the enemy at crack of dawn.  And well was it that these timely precautions were taken, for as day broke the enemy’s masses were seen advancing to the attack.  To give elbow-room, and also as a preparation for all eventualities, Jenkins struck his camp, and ordered the baggage to be stacked behind a convenient mound; then sending back word of how matters stood to Sir Frederick Roberts, he with his little force prepared to face the onslaught.

  [22] Afterwards Field-Marshal Sir George White, V.C., G.C.B., &c., &c.