Hugh Gough, with the rank of Brigadier-General, and Major Mark Heathcote as his assistant, were placed in charge of the lines of communication.
Before leaving Simla I paid a farewell visit to Lord Lytton.

I found him in a state of deep distress and depression.

To a man of his affectionate disposition, the fate of Cavagnari, for whom he had a great personal regard, was a real grief.

But on public grounds he felt still more strongly the collapse of the Mission and the consequent heavy blow to the policy he had so much at heart, viz., the rectification of our defective frontier, and the rendering India secure against foreign aggression--a policy which, though scouted at the time by a party which later became all-powerful, has since been justified by the action of successive Governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, until at the present moment our frontier is gradually becoming what Lord Lytton, with his clear foresightedness and intelligent appreciation of our responsibilities and India's requirements, would then have made it.
In answer to my request for instructions as to the line I should take about our future relations with the Afghans, Lord Lytton said: 'You can tell them we shall never again altogether withdraw from Afghanistan, and that those who help you will be befriended and protected by the British Government.' While I was with Lord Lytton, a telegram[10] was brought in from Captain Conolly, reporting the details of the attack upon the Embassy, as given to him by the messenger who had been entrusted by the Amir to deliver the two letters addressed to me.

In this telegram Conolly solicited instructions as to what he was to communicate to the Amir in reply to His Highness's request for aid, and inquired whether he was at liberty to make terms with one Badshah Khan, an influential Ghilzai Chief, who had come to Alikhel to offer his services.
The following telegram was sent in reply by the Foreign Secretary: 'Your telegram 6th.