nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47Modern Charikar, gateway to the Panjshir, the Ghurband and the Salang tunnel. Old
Charikar was a military outpost guarding what used to be the frontier between Mughal
India and Uzbek Bukhara.On 3 November Pottinger agreed to discuss the rebels’ grievances and
arranged a meeting with them in a walled orchard outside Laghmani, but
when he and his assistant, Lieutenant Rattray, arrived at the meeting place
they realized they had walked into a trap. Rattray was shot in the back as
he fled, but Pottinger somehow managed to make it back unharmed to
Laghmani, where he watched helplessly as Rattray was dispatched by a
volley of bullets.
Codrington tried, but failed, to relieve Laghmani, so that night
Pottinger abandoned the position and managed to reach Old Charikar
without loss of life. Old Charikar was then besieged and its water supply
diverted. When Codrington mounted a sortie to secure what was left of
the water in the Ghurband canal, he was shot dead and Pottinger was
wounded in the foot. Yet despite the lack of water, the garrison held out
for more than a week and repulsed repeated assaults on the fort’s walls.
On 9 November a friendly sayyid from Istalif was allowed into the fort to
inform Pottinger of the uprising in Kabul and the death of Burnes, news
that dashed any hope of relief or rescue. By this time most of the officers
and fighting men were dead or too badly wounded to fight, ammunition
was running low and the daily water ration had been reduced to half a
teacup per man. Pottinger and Lieutenant Haughton, who had taken over
command after Codrington’s death, decided to evacuate the fort and try
to make their way back to Kabul. What Pottinger did not know was that,
on the day he ordered the evacuation, Macnaghten had brokered a deal