In 1841 William Brydon was posted to
Afghanistan as the assistant surgeon of Shah Shuja's Contingent—a British officered infantry force recruited in India to provide protection for the British-backed ruler in Kabul. This mercenary unit formed part of a combined British and Indian army which occupied the city in August 1839. In January 1842, following the killing of the two British representatives there, it was decided to withdraw the British force in Kabul. The nearest British garrison was in
Jalalabad, away, and the army would need to go through mountain passes with the January snow hindering them. Under the command of
Major-General William George Keith Elphinstone, 4,500 British and Indian soldiers plus 12,000 civilian
camp followers, including wives and children, set out for
Jalalabad on 6 January 1842, on the understanding that they had been offered safe passage.
Afghan tribesmen intercepted them and proceeded to
attack them during the next seven days. Brydon recorded in his diary that as early as the first night of the retreat many of his
sepoys were crippled by
frostbite and had to be abandoned in the snow. The
final stand took place at
Gandamak on the morning of 13 January 1842, in the snow. Twenty officers and forty-five British soldiers, mostly of the
44th Foot, found themselves surrounded on a hillock. The Afghans attempted to persuade the soldiers that they intended them no harm. Then the
sniping began, followed by a series of rushes.
Captain Souter wrapped the
regimental colours around his body and was dragged into captivity with a sergeant named Fair and seven privates. The remainder were shot or cut down. Surgeon Brydon was one of twelve mounted officers who had become separated from the remnants of the main column before the final stand at Gandamak. This small group had ridden to Futtehabad, but half had been killed there while six escaped. All but Brydon were killed, one by one, further along the road as their horses became exhausted. Both Brydon and his pony were wounded in the course of encounters with small Afghan parties. On the afternoon of 13 January 1842, the British troops in Jalalabad, watching for their comrades of the Kabul garrison, saw a single figure ride up to the town walls. It was Brydon. Part of his skull had been sheared off by an Afghan sword, and he survived the blow because he had stuffed a copy of ''
Blackwood's Magazine'' into his hat to fight the intense cold weather. The magazine took most of the blow, saving the doctor's life. Brydon became widely, if inaccurately, known as being the only survivor of the entire army. In fact, he was not the only European to survive the retreat; about 115 British officers, soldiers, wives and children were captured or taken as hostages and survived to be subsequently released. Included, was the wife of
Sir Robert Sale,
Lady Sale, though not
Elphinstone, who died in captivity. Nor was Brydon the only European to survive the trek from Kabul to Jalalabad without spending time in captivity; by Brydon's own account, and that of others, a "Greek merchant", a Mr Baness, also made it to Jalalabad, arriving two days after Brydon but surviving for only one day. In addition a small number of Indian
sepoys reached Jalalabad on foot over the subsequent weeks. One sepoy,
havildar Sita Ram, escaped from Afghanistan after 21 months of slavery and rejoined his former regiment at
Delhi. About 2,000 sepoys and an unrecorded number of camp followers were eventually found in Kabul and brought back to India by
Pollock's "Army of Retribution" following their occupation of the city. The episode was made the subject of a famous painting by the Victorian artist
Lady Butler, who portrayed Brydon approaching the gates of the Jalalabad fort perched on his exhausted horse which, according to Brydon, collapsed and died when put in a stable after arrival in the city. The painting is titled
Remnants of an Army (see separate article). ==Subsequent career and death==