Nor was it only the Afghans who felt the
tightening strain; it was an anxious moment for the British, too, for
given one slight slip, one weakhearted corner, and the whole thin line
might have been swept away by the onslaught of those fierce masses.
It was then that Jenkins used a curious and expensive, but, as it
proved, effective expedient. He ordered the Guides' cavalry to mount,
and, exposed at close range to the enemy's fire, to patrol quietly from
one end of the line to the other, as a sort of moving reserve; a
demonstration, in fact, that even if the enemy managed to break through
the thin line of the infantry at any point, it would only be to fall on
the dreaded swords of the cavalry. The behaviour of the men during this
trying ordeal was above all praise; and indeed it requires high
qualities of nerve and courage to walk one's horse up and down for a
couple of hours under a hail of bullets, without being able to return
the compliment in any way.
The enemy's numbers had increased to five thousand, and still Jenkins's
little force held on with dogged courage, and though it could not make
an inch of way, it refused to concede one. It was now past one o'clock,
and the strain lay heavy on our men after seven hours of this bull-dog
business; when the twinkle of the cheerful heliograph from Kabul gave
fresh heart to all, and almost immediately afterwards the advance
skirmishers of General Macpherson's column came into view, and the
situation was saved.
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