r-General Massy as president,
for the trial of those Chiefs and soldiers accused of having taken
part in the actual massacre.[4]

Up to this time (the middle of October) communication with India had
been kept up by way of the Shutargardan, and I had heard nothing of
the approach of the Khyber column. It was so very necessary to open up
the Khyber route, in view of early snow on the Shutargardan, that I
arranged to send a small force towards Jalalabad, and to move the
Shutargardan garrison to Kabul, thus breaking off communication with
Kuram.

Colonel Money had beaten off another attack made by the tribesmen
on his position, but as they still threatened him in considerable
numbers, I despatched Brigadier-General Hugh Gough with some troops to
enable him to withdraw. This reinforcement arrived at a most opportune
moment, when the augmented tribal combination, imagining that the
garrison was completely at its mercy, had sent a message to Money
offering to spare their lives if they laid down their arms! So sure
were the Afghans of their triumph that they had brought 200 of
their women to witness it. On Gough's arrival, Money dispersed the
gathering, and his force left the Shutargardan, together with the
Head-Quarters and two squadrons of the 9th Lancers, which had been
ordered to join me from Sialkot, and afterwards proved a most valuable
addition to the Kabul Field Force.

I was sitting in my tent on the morning of the 16th October, when I
was startled by a most terrific explosion in the upper part of the
Bala Hissar, which was occupied by the 5th Gurkhas, while the 67th
Foot were pitched in the garden below. The gunpowder, stored in a
detached building, had somehow--we never could discover how--become
ignited, and I trembled at the thought of what would be the
consequences if the main magazine caught fire, which, with its 250
tons of gunpowder, was dangerously near to the scene of the explosion.
I at once sent orders to the Gurkhas and the 67th to clear out, and
not to wait even to bring away their tents, or anything but their
ammunition, and I did not breathe freely till they were all safe on
Siah Sang. The results of this disaster, as it was, were bad enough,
for Captain Shafto, R.A. (a very promising officer), a private of the
67th, the Subadar-Major of the 5th Gurkhas, and nineteen Natives, most
of them soldiers, lost their lives.

A second and more violent explosion took place two hours and a half
after the fir