While I was making my report to the bewildered General, Brigadier Archdale Wilson pushed up to us, buckling on his sword-belt, and ordered me to mount at once and follow the Sappers and keep them in sight till he could come up with some of the Carabineers and guns. By this time the Sappers, who, I firmly believe, had at first no intention whatever of mutinying, but had been seized by sudden panic through groundless fear of an attack by the European troops, were swarming in flight over the plain, some in uniform, some in native clothes, but all armed with their muskets.
The shot which I had heard had been fired, as I subsequently learnt, by an Afghan, and had killed the Commanding Officer, Major Fraser. The action of this one man compromised all his comrades. However loyally disposed they might have been, they must have felt that now appearances were so fatally against them that no quarter could be hoped for from the enraged European troops who surrounded them; and that instant flight offered the only slender chance of escape from destruction.
As my little party galloped after them I was stopped by an artillery officer, evidently senior in rank to myself, who ordered me to halt and asked me where I was going. I told him that the Brigadier-General had ordered me to follow the Sappers who had mutinied and killed Alfred Light. "That is hardly possible," he said, "seeing that I am Alfred Light. These Sappers are not mutinying at all, but are going with permission to destroy a neighbouring village of budmashes. You stop where you are. I will take the responsibility." Taken quite aback by all this, I was still remonstrating with him when the Brigadier-General rode up, furious with me for having halted, and ordered me on again. I was glad to leave Alfred Light to settle the question of my delay with him, and dashed on in pursuit. Soon we overtook about fifty men, who took refuge in a grove of trees surrounded by a wall; and there I kept guard over them till the arrival of the Brigadier-General with a squadron of Carabineers and some guns. A few rounds were fired into the grove, but without much effect, and then dismounted Carabineers and a number of officers skirmished into it, and pursued the Sappers from tree to tree. The poor fellows fought with the energy of despair. No quarter was given, and all were destroyed, except two who were made prisoners by myself, and who, I believe, were afterwards retained in the service, and proved perfectly loyal.