""I was the Trumpeter upon that dreadful day"" Topic

"Private Charles Duly (1857-1936) was a fascinating character who wrote a short memoir of his life, mostly made up of his time in the 9th Lancers during the Afghan War. By trade he was an acrobat, and unable to enlist in the 30th Regiment, he soon found himself performing for the officers of the 9th Lancers and was taken under the wing of Lord William Leslie de la Poer Beresford, who eventually got Duly accepted as a trumpeter in his regiment. Soon he found himself in India, and then crossing the border into Afghanistan for the war in 1878.

The Anglo-Indian force did not have many defeats in the two campaigns that constituted the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The most well-known was Maiwand in July 1880, but there was also something of a disaster on 11 December 1879 near Kabul (the action is variously referred to as the Chardeh Valley, Killa Kazi, Baghwana or Arghandi) when four guns had to be abandoned, and the British retreated in disarray. Here Trumpeter Duly gives an honest account of his experience, openly admitting his fear, but also telling how he saved a wounded soldier from the advancing tribesmen – something that could have quite possibly earned him a Distinguished Conduct Medal if it had been witnessed by the right officer, or maybe even a Victoria Cross if he had been the right officer himself. It was during this battle that the Reverend James Adams won his Victoria Cross, for saving not one, but three men from a water-filled ditch as Afghan warriors advanced just feet away, but there were many such acts by men during the confusion.

General Massy lost some credibility due to his unplanned run-in with the Afghan force and for losing his artillery pieces, and Colonel Macgregor gained some by being the officer who retrieved them. What followed was the British withdrawl into the Sherpur cantonment, surrounded by a huge Afghan force, and many days of siege and fighting, finally beaten off by General Roberts on Christmas Eve 1879…"
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Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

I think I remember a painting of a British battalion being finally overwhelmed by tribesmen on the retreat from Afghanistan to North India. Not sure which war this was. The scene was mentioned in a "Flashman" book.

That was the 1st Afghan War.

"Last Stand of the 44th at Gandamak"

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