General Charles Gough had left Luttabund in the early morning, and upon arriving at Butkhak had been able to communicate by heliograph with General Roberts. The heliograph flashing away to the east in the Cabul plain must have warned Mahomed Jan of the near approach of our reinforcements, and the clouds of dust rising between Butkhak and the Logar river showed him that troops were moving onwards, and would perhaps take him in rear. In any case the villages east of Sherpur were, in two or three hours, nearly empty of men; the plain beyond was covered with Afghans streaming towards Siah Sung and Cabul. The Kohistani section, to the number of fully 5,000, went away to the north, homewards, taking their women, whom they had brought down, to witness their triumph, with them. It was now our turn to attack instead of being attacked. The guns shelled the fields wherever parties of men were within range; two guns of F-A and an 18-pounder making grand practice at so close a range as 300 yards; and the cavalry were sent out by way of the Bemaru gorge to cut up the fugitives. First of all went the 5th P.C. with four guns of G-3, R.A., which shelled the villages near Bemaru. By one o’clock the enemy were completely broken. The 5th P.C. were fortunate to get among a detached body on the north side of the lake. When their first charge was over, thirty Afghans were lying dead on the plain. The 9th Lancers joined them, and soon our horsemen were charging over the Siah Sung slopes. The main body of the enemy had got well away to the city, but all stragglers were hunted down in the nullahs in which they took shelter, and then despatched. Two or three lancers or sowars were told off to each straggler, and the men, dismounting, used their carbines when the unlucky Afghan had been hemmed in. Following in the wake of the 9th Lancers and the 5th Punjab Cavalry came the Sappers, with every engineer officer in camp, their orders being to blow up and burn all the villages and forts lately occupied by the enemy. The cavalry had cleared the fields and open ground of all Afghans, but in the villages some fanatics remained, and these, fastening themselves up securely in houses or towers, were blown up by the mines laid by the engineers. Lieutenant Murdoch had a very narrow escape. Entering a fortified village he kicked open the door of a house, and was greeted with a volley from three or four men inside. He was wounded in the neck, but not dangerously, and as the Afghans refused to surrender, the blasting charge was laid near the house, and they were killed when the mine was fired. A sad accident occurred in another fort. Captain Dundas, V.C., and Lieutenant Nugent, Royal Engineers, had constructed three mines which were to destroy the walls and towers; and all being ready they went back to light the fuses. The sappers were drawn up outside under their European non-commissioned officer, and noticed that two of the mines exploded almost instantly. Their officers were still within the walls, and when the dust and smoke cleared away, they were still missing. Search was made, and the bodies of Captain Dundas and Lieutenant Nugent were found lying under the _débris_. Both officers were dead. It is conjectured that the time-fuses, instead of burning slowly, flared up like a train of powder, and that the mines exploded a few seconds after the fuses were lighted. We have thus lost two good officers by an accident which might have been prevented if the equipment of the Sappers had not been cut down by the parsimony of the Government. So few fuses were sent up from India when the force advanced upon Cabul that the engineers had to make others, and these were of course defective. It was two of these which were being used when the explosion occurred. While the cavalry were covering the operations of the Sappers, several thousand men marched from the Bala Hissar and opened fire upon the 9th Lancers and the 5th Punjab Cavalry on Siah Sung. Several men were hit, and Captain Gambier, of the 5th Punjab Cavalry, was wounded by a bullet passing through his thigh. The Cavalry withdrew under the heavy fire directed against them, and for a few hours the Afghans remained on the heights with banners planted. They retired to the city at nightfall, and all the villages between Sherpur and Cabul are now quite deserted.