To Pollock, this appeared a mere idle threat. He still clung to the belief that there was a party in Caubul able and willing to prevent the departure of the prisoners; and when Troup, accompanied by Lawrence, came down again to Jellalabad, he found the General still less inclined than before to promise to withdraw his army. He had, indeed, already moved a brigade forward to Futtehabad—two marches in advance of his old position; and Sale, who commanded this brigade, had written that it was “a good place for a fight.”[254] All that Pollock, therefore, could now promise was, that he would not advance beyond that point before the expiration of a certain number of days. The negotiations had, by this time, become the merest sham. It was obvious that Pollock could not proceed with them to a successful issue without encumbering himself with conditions which would have hung as a millstone round the neck of a military commander, eager to drive his battalions into the heart of the enemy’s country. The Governor-General wrote to him that “all military operations must proceed, as if no negotiations were on foot;” but Akbar Khan had rendered this impossible, by demanding, as a condition of the delivery of the prisoners, that all the British troops should withdraw from Afghanistan.[255]
Weary of these protracted negotiations, Pollock was now eager to advance upon Caubul. He was only waiting the arrival of specific information from Candahar relative to the movements of his brother-general. “As I have offered to meet him,” he wrote to a friend in high place, “he will find some difficulty in resisting the _glorious_ temptation; but if he does resist, he is not the man I take him for.”[256] The glorious temptation was not resisted. The two Generals were worthy of each other. Nott had determined to retire to India by Ghuznee, Caubul, and Jellalabad; and in the middle of the month of August, a messenger, long expected and most welcome, brought the cheering intelligence into Pollock’s camp.[257]
On the 20th of August, Pollock began to move from Jellalabad. On that day the advanced guard under the General himself reached Sultanpore, on its way to Gundamuck. At the latter place he intended to assemble the whole of the troops which he had selected to accompany him to the capital[258]—in all, about 8000 men. On the 23rd, Pollock, with the advance, reached Gundamuck. About two miles from that place lies the village of Mammoo Khail. Two hostile chiefs, having sent away all their women and children, had mustered a strong body of the Ooloos, and were occupying this position. Pollock at once determined to dislodge them; and ordered up from Sale’s camp in the rear Broadfoot’s sappers and a squadron of dragoons. On the following morning the brigade advanced, and the enemy began to retire. Then, dividing his infantry into two columns, with a wing of her Majesty’s 9th Foot at the head of each, Pollock entered the village. The enemy had abandoned their positions there, and at another village, called Koochlee Khail; but they rallied and returned to occupy a range of heights within musket-shot of the latter place, and from these commanding eminences, they kept up, for some time, a hot fire from their jezails. But Colonel Taylor attacked them on one side; Broadfoot, with his sappers, on the other.[259] The heights were carried. The forts and villages were taken, and the enemy dispersed. The chiefs fled to Caubul with a few followers. Mammoo Khail and Koochlee Khail were destroyed by fire; and the fruit-trees were cut down.[260]