If Mahomed Jan could close with and overwhelm our small force, Kabul would be his; but if, by any possibility, his advance could be retarded until Macpherson should come up, we might hope to retain possession of the city.

It was, therefore, to the Afghan leader's interest to press on, while it was to ours to delay him as long as we possibly could.
Pole Carew presently returned with a message from Massy that the enemy were close upon him, and that he could not keep them in check.

I desired Pole Carew to go back, order Massy to retire the guns, and cover the movement by a charge of Cavalry.
The charge was led by Lieutenant-Colonel Cleland and Captain Neville, the former of whom fell dangerously wounded; but the ground, terraced for irrigation purposes and intersected by nullas, so impeded our Cavalry that the charge, heroic as it was, made little or no impression upon the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, now flushed with the triumph of having forced our guns to retire.

The effort, however, was worthy of the best traditions of our British and Indian Cavalry, and that it failed in its object was no fault of our gallant soldiers.

To assist them in their extremity, I ordered two of Smyth-Windham's four guns to halt and come into action while the other two continued to retire, but these had not gone far before they got into such difficult ground that one had to be spiked and abandoned in a water-cut, where Smyth-Windham found it when he came up after having fired a few rounds at the fast advancing foe.