The Second Afghan War medal to Lieutenant Hector Maclaine, “E” Battery “B” Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, captured at Maiwand and murdered in Ayub Khan’s camp at the very moment of victory during the battle of Kandahar

Afghanistan 1878-80, 1 clasp, Kandahar (Lieut. H. Maclaine, E. Batt: B. Bde. R.H.A.) some light surface marks, otherwise good very fine £5000-6000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals.

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Hector Maclaine, the eldest son of William Osborne Maclaine, D.L., J.P., of Kyneton, Gloucestershire, and Anna, daughter of John Thurburn, J.P., of Murtle, Arberdeenshire, was born on 24 November 1851 at Murtle. Educated at Eton and Woolwich, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery on 6 January 1872 and served with the 5th Brigade, R.A., before proceding to India in October 1873. He served with Battery B/18 at Haidarabad and Karachi and returned home with that battery in 1874 when it was redesignated I/2. He served with I/2 at home until receiving his ‘jacket’ in July 1878. Two months later he sailed for India in charge of drafts for ‘E’ Battery, ‘B’ Brigade, R.H.A., which he joined at Mhow and accompanied to Kirkee. In December 1879, this ‘aggressive young officer’ volunteered for active service in Afghanistan and on Christmas Day was sent to the Khyber to join Battery I/C. He served with the latter battery at Daka and returned with it to India, whence he rejoined E/B, which in the meantime had left Kirkee in February 1880 for active service at Kandahar.

Maclaine caught up with E/B a little way beyond Sibi and marched with it through the Bolan Pass to Kandahar which was reached on 10 April 1880. In June, having been laid up with fever for five weeks, he was sent in charge of invalids to Baba Wali, and while there received notice that E/B was ordered out to join General Burrows’s Girhisk Field Force, which, in support of Afghan troops under the Wali of Kandahar, was to deter local tribes from rallying to the standard of Ayub Khab, the claimant to the Kabul throne, who was approaching from Herat in the west. On 10 July, six days and eighty miles out of Kandahar, on the west side of the Helmand River, agents reported to Burrows’ intelligence officer, Colonel St. John, that Ayub had reached Farah and dumped his excess baggage, intending to travel light from thereon. This news had a disastrous effect on the Wali’s men encamped two miles away on the eastern side of the river and set them upon the verge of mutiny. Burrows decided that they should be disarmed by his British troops, but gave orders for our own people to move to a more easily defensible camp higher up on the east bank before stirring up trouble. Although it was only a short distance to the new camp, Burrows ordered that the move should be carried out under fully operational conditions which was just as well because on the way the Wali’s men broke into open revolt and made off up the west bank with their smooth-bore guns, howitzers, and Burrows’ supplies. Burrows ordered Brigadier-General Nuttall’s cavalry brigade, to which E/B belonged, to pursue but they were at once confronted by a part of the river which was much deeper than elsewhere, which in itself was the very reason why the new camp site had been chosen.

Valuable time was lost in retracing their steps to a fordable part of the river but at length the 3rd Light Cavalry and Scinde Horse began to cross in single file. E/B found a better crossing place but none the less had considerable difficulty in making the passage. On the far side cavalry immediately set off by squadrons and six miles up river caught up with the mutinneers but unable to charge owing to the broken nature of the ground could at first only harry the rear-guard. Nuttall however pressed so hard that the mutinneers were eventually forced to abandon their flight and defend themselves by bringing their two 12-pounder howitzers and four 6-pounder smooth-bore guns into action. The cavalry being in no position to take on six regiments of infantry with artillery held off but remained poised in case there was any sign of a move from the Wali’s ex-army. E/B meanwhile had been further delayed on the west bank by cultivated ground criss-crossed with irrigation ditches, so deep that the guns could only be got over by digging ramps down one side and up the other. Finally at about 1 p.m., Maclaine’s C.O., Major G. F. Blackwood (Ritchie 1-120), got four of his guns clear and Nuttall ordered him into action. Maclaine, however, was still labouring over the ditches with his two guns of the left division of the battery, when he heard the first rounds fired by centre and right divisions. He was extremely annoyed at having missed the beginning of the battle, and by way of consolation Blackwood, allowed him to choose his own position to the left of the battery. Maclaine then expressed his individuality and asserted his ego by dropping his trails two hundred yards nearer to the enemy than the centre and right divisions!

After an artillery duel of about half an hour, the infantry came up led by H.M’s 66th Regiment. As they advanced, E/B moved forward with Maclaine doing ‘considerable exceution’ amidst the mutineer infantry, who were swiftly defeated but for the most part able to disperse north to fight another day. The Afghan drivers of the gun teams waited only long enough to slash the wheel harnesses of the smooth-bores and howitzers, which now fell into Burrows’ hands, before joining their ‘brothers’. In the absence of the original means with which to move the captured guns, E/B told off twelve of its lead horses to provide the necessary traction while the infantry supplied a number of men to hold up the shafts of the limbers in place of the slashed harnesses. But moving the vast quantity of ammunition captured with the guns, however, proved an insurmountable problem, and all but fifty rounds per gun were thrown into a deep hole in the river. It was a decision that was regretted only too soon.

The smooth-bores were formed into a battery on the 19th with Captain Slade, R.A., in command, the necessary horses and harnesses having been procured from Kandahar and elsewhere. In view of the threat posed by Ayub, Burrows, appreciating that the Helmand River line could not be held, fell back to the next area of natural defence which lay between the Khushk-i-Nakhud River and the Karez-i-Ata, finally opening a camp on the west bank of the Khushk-i-Nakhud.

On 21 July reliable information was received that Ayub’s main body had reached the Helmand and that his infantry and artillery had been distributed about the locality for a rest, while a large force of cavalry under Lui-Naib Khush-Dil Khan was believed to have joined him two days before. Fearing a night attack by these horsemen, Burrows moved his camp a few hundred yards into a walled enclosure, and the same day received via Kandahar a directive from the Commander-in-Chief stating that it was of the utmost importance to prevent Ayub from reaching the Ghazni road running through the Khagrez Valley from the junction north east of Maiwand.

At 4 a.m., the hour before first light, on 23 July, a routine patrol of the Scinde Horse ran into about 500 of Khush-Dil Khan’s cavalry making a reconnaissance in force. The patrol took up a defensive position and held off the horsemen with their carbines. Major Leach, V.C., who was on his way to Maiwand to burn corn lest it should fall into Ayub’s hands, heard their firing and reported to Burrows who lost no time in despatching Nuttall with the rest of the cavalry brigade and Maclaine’s division of E/B, which was standing to as they did every morning as a precaution against dawn attack. Nuttall’s scouts erroneously told him that the enemy horse were supported by infantry with the result that he decided to wait for reinforcements before attacking. The delay however permitted the Afghan horse to withdraw unmolested. It was another disappointment for Maclaine. The next time he went into action he decided, he would not allow the deliberations of procrastinating seniors to get beween his 9-pounders and the foe.

On the evening of the 26th Burrows heard that Maiwand was in the hands of tribesmen who were holding it for Ayub. Accordingly he resolved to evict them next day and take possession of the village and thereby block the way to Ghazni. Unaware that Ayub was already heading the same way, the force advanced early on the 27th, but at a point half way between Mashak and Karez-Ak, Burrows heard from one of St. John’s spies that Ayub too was under full march for Maiwand. The report was soon confirmed by Nuttall’s patrols and it now appeared that Ayub unhindered by baggage would reach the vital road junction north east of Maiwand first. Burrows only chance of stopping Ayub was to bring him into action on the plain between the village of Mundabad and Maiwand.

Towards 10.30 a.m. Burrows’s column approached Mundabad and he deployed his infantry into line with guns in the centre, and cavalry on the left, covering the movement with Maclaine’s horse artillery guns and a troop of cavalry in advance. Nuttall and Blackwood with a cavalry escort and Lieutenant Fowell’s centre division E/B were then sent forward to reconnoitre the village and open fire on the enemy horse seen on the skyline beyond the Mundabad Ravine. Blackwood was to cross the ravine close to the village where the banks dropped away sheer some fifteen or twenty feet. Accordingly, he told Maclaine to find an easier crossing place to the left where the banks were less steep thus ensuring that at least some guns would be speedily available on the other side to support the cavalry. Maclaine found a suitable place and began to cross at the point later used by the left hand regiment, the Bombay Grenadiers, only moving when he saw Fowell start. Fowell, having crossed, and opened fire, found that the range was too great and so limbered-up again and advanced a further 1,000 yards to the crest of the gentle slope that ran up from the ravine. It was at this point and not earlier that Maclaine in perfect accordance with orders was seen galloping forward with his division and an escort of cavalry to engage a mass of the enemy.

Later, in the light of the disaster at Maiwand, the Commander-in-Chief in India asked the surviving officers to submit reports. General Burrows, who had omitted mention of Maclaine at this stage in an earlier report, accused Maclaine of precipitating events by racing ahead of the rest of the force and going into action prematurely, thereby committing him to his rescue and the disastrous battle on the plain. Contrary to that assertion Maclaine was now only drawing level with the rest of E/B and the cavalry. Other officers who submitted reports to the C-in-C mostly avoided comment on Maclaine’s actions, with the notable exception of Major Leach who was motivated by a desire to defend the reputation of ‘a gallant officer since deceased’.

‘So far Maclaine had only acted in the way that would have been expected of him, but he had no intention of leaving matters at that. He was a young officer and a very efficient one, otherwise he would not have been selected to serve in the Royal Horse Artillery. He would have been expected to use his initiative, not merely abide by the letter of his instructions. Undoubtedly, he was also impelled by the urge to be first into action this time, after his tribulations at Girishk and against the Lui-Naib’s [Great Leader’s] cavalry. So now he headed straight for the enemy until he came within range of the Afghan horsemen, then came into action and opened fire on them.’

Burrows’s attention was now drawn to Maclaine by a member of his staff, and according to Leach’s report, Burrows showed no anxiety about Maclaine’s position, though he did not approve of the guns being sent so far forward and he sent Lieutenant Dobbs, the Acting Deputy Assistant Commissary-General, to fetch him back. Blackwood too saw him and despatched a trumpeter to recall him.

‘Dobbs was already on his way and caught up with Maclaine when he had fired four rounds and the enemy had withdrawn out of sight. He passed on Burrows’s orders. Unfortunately, even in those days, officers who happened to be in the Royal Horse Artillery or Old Etonians were sometimes disinclined to listen to subalterns in the Commissariat, and Maclaine, besides belonging to both categories, was no exception to the rule. He pointed out to Dobbs that he was in no danger whatever and would stay precisely where he was while Dobbs reported back to the Brigadier-General - who would be sure in the circumstances to issue different orders. Blackwood’s trumpeter, needless to say, was equally unsuccessful!’ Ultimately, Maclaine was eventually persuaded to return to the fold and rejoin the battery but only through the combined efforts of the Cavalry Brigade-Major, the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General, and Major Leach. By 11 a.m. the infantry had come up with the cavalry and the rest of E/B a mile north of the ravine. At ten past Maclaine came thundering back with his guns and escort, and dropped into action a defiant two hundred and fifty yards to Fowell’s left, and it was not until nearly half an hour later that ‘this extremely stubborn young officer’ was forced to his correct distance to forty yards, and even then he was well forward of the battery gun line.

For three hours E/B, with the Bombay Grenadiers moving up on its left and Jacob’s Rifles on its right, banged away firing 120 rounds from each gun as the Afghan horde began to envelope Burrows’s front which now curved round in a salient with the Grenadiers at the apex. At about 2 p.m., the roar of battle died down to an ominous rumble as Ayub prepared to launch a general advance. From a nullah opposite Jacob’s Rifles and the 66th Foot on the British right, wave upon wave of wheeling, circling, cavorting tribesmen rose up only to be mown down in hundreds by deadly volleys from the 66th. But ghazis are undettered by the prospect of death and they kept rushing at the 66th, until, momentarily flinching in the face of the disciplined fire, they changed direction across the front of Jacob’s Rifles and headed straight for E/B’s guns.

Colonel H. S. Anderson (qv) of the Bombay Grenadiers saw them coming and tried to form company squares but at the same moment his regiment was charged on its left and front. Confusion reigned in the Grenadier ranks. The guns of E/B swept the ground before them with a murderous fire of canister shot, but nothing was going to stop the ghazi rush. Captain Slade, who now commanded E/B in place of Blackwood who had been wounded, knew that he must get the guns away before they fell into enemy hands. He shouted orders for the guns to limber up and retire, and led out Fowell’s centre division himself, Fowell having been wounded. Lieutenant Osborne passed the orders for the right division to pull out, and dismounting from his horse helped the surviving Gunners to hook-in. But before he could mount again an Afghan shot him dead - but his guns galloped away to safety.

‘Maclaine either did not hear the order to retire, which is unlikely, or he knew better and still hoped to stem the rush and save the day. He fired his last round of case-shot when the enemy were but twenty yards from his gun-muzzles, and then tried to hook-in and go. It was too late. The ghazis flooded over the position, slashing and thrusting, hacking at the men. Gunners fought back furiously with handspikes and sponge-rods, anything that they could find. A limber came up, but the drivers were dragged struggling from their horses and slaughtered on the ground, while the team galloped masterless and riderless to the rear without its gun. Maclaine, himself slightly wounded, saw that the other gun had been overrun and that there was no hope of recovering it, so decided at least to save the team. But just before it left, the Number One, Sergeant Patrick Mullane, charged back in rage among the ghazis, who recoiled before his fury. He managed to grab a wounded driver from under the very knives of the tribesmen, and to carry him back and put him on the limber. They galloped away to rejoin the battery, leaving the ghazis and Kabuli infantry standing proudly around two 9-pounder guns of the Royal Horse Artillery.’

Captain Beresford-Pierse of the 66th still thought there was a chance of recovering the guns and he turned the rear rank of his left half-company around to fire volleys at the captors. But almost at once numbers of Sepoys from Jacob’s Rifles, under Colonel W. G. Mainwaring (Ritchie 1-126), crowded into his ranks causing further chaos.

Following an abortive charge by the cavalry brigade the guns fell back on Mundabad with Nuttall. Maclaine retired gunless to join Slade and the rest of E/B at the place where Blackwood had chosen his first position of the day and here the gun limbers were refilled from the ammunition echelon. The infantry, meanwhile, were streaming towards Khig. Hearing a bugle sounding the retire from that direction Nuttall decided there was no point in lingering and, having allowed the E/B’s 9-pounders to fire a couple of rounds at the advancing enemy cavalry, he gave orders for the baggage guard and the stragglers of several regiments to pull out and join the general retreat to Kandahar thirty miles away. The smooth-bores were now completely out of ammunition and were sent on ahead with Maclaine’s gunless limbers which were quickly covered with wounded and exhausted officers and men. Maclaine now in charge of Osborne’s division moved on up the ragged column, while Slade kept Fowell’s guns under his own hand.

Nuttall’s Mundabad group struggled out of the village under the fire of Afghan guns and threatened by enemy cavalry. Fortunately the Afghan horse made no attempt to cut the line of retreat and contented itself with attacks on the tail of the column. When they massed for a serious attack Slade unlimbered his two 9-pounders and fired a few rounds, and whenever, the threat did not justify bringing the guns into action the cavalry rear party would charge. Slade graphically described the scene: ‘All over the wide expanse of desert are to be seen men in twos and threes retreating. Sick men almost naked are astride donkeys, mules, ponies and camels. Horses limp along with ugly wounds. The hordes of irregular horsemen are to be seen among our baggage animals relentlessly cutting down one and all, and looting. Men can hardly speak, the wounded open their mouths and show a dried parched tongue, and with a sad expression convey to your mind but a glimpse of their intense suffering.’

By 9 p.m. the column, tortured by thirst, was strung out along the Kandahar road. In the villages the locals lit fires relaying the signal that there were infidels to be killed and loot to be had without too great an element of personal risk. Soon after 11 o’clock those who had followed the main body came up to the empty Hauz-i-Maudat water tank. A desperate search was made for the source that supplied and at length a small well was discovered a little distance from the road. When the cry went up that water had been located there was a stampede of the parched troops. But the well was shallow and only one man could drink from it at a time, and anyone not strong enough to hold his place was simply dragged off and his station usurped by another. Many soldiers got something to drink but the unfortunate followers had no rights and few of the wounded had friends strong enough to fetch water for them. And in any case it was soon necessary to push on.

Perhaps racked by self-criticism at having lost his guns, Maclaine decided to leave the road to find some alternative source of water for the wounded, and in the early hours of the 28th he struck out with Bombadier Lowe, but was soon lured into a house near Sinjiri and taken prisoner. For a week he received some pretty rough treatment but then the Khan of Kokeran, Sirdar Nur Mahommed Khan, arrived home and Maclaine was delivered into his hands. The Khan had been the Sirtip, or Cavalry Commander, in the Wali’s army and had been a great entertainer of British officers at Kandahar where in happier days Maclaine had made his acquaintance, before his defection to Ayub which had caused the Wali to annex his property and throw his young son into prison. With the advent of the Sirtip, Maclaine received better treatment and was held in the nobleman’s own bungalow. On 6 August Ayub Khan collected Maclaine from Kokeran and held him in his camp where he was treated well. Colonel St. John, having learnt of Maclaine’s imprisonment, offered Nur Mahommed Khan’s son as an exchange. But Ayub had nothing to gain by this arrangement and the offer was refused.

Having learnt of the disaster at Maiwand and that Ayub was besieging Kandahar, Roberts set out on his famous march from Kabul and at Kelat-i-Gilzai wrote to Ayub demanding Maclaine’s release, but with no result. On 1 September 1880 at the very hour of Roberts’ victory at the battle of Kahandar, Maclaine was dragged out of his tent and killed by a fanatical guard. Some Sepoys taken at Maiwand managed to escape but Maclaine was suffering from fever, and lacked the strength to defend himself. His body, still warm, was found shortly afterwards by the 92nd Highlanders. Three healed wounds on his chest bore testimony to the savage treatment he had received during the first days of his captivity at Kokeran, and beneath his collapsed tent, the Times war correspondent General Luther Vaughan (see Lot 86), reported, were found ‘such affecting relics as his pipe, the remains of his last meal, and an unfinished pencil diary’, recording the dates of his various movements.

Roberts was furious, and later recorded: “As I rode into the abandoned camp, I was horrified to hear that the body of Maclaine, the Horse Artillery officer who had been taken prisoner at Maiwand, was lying with the throat cut about forty-yards from Ayub Khan’s own tent. From what I could learn, the latter had not actually ordered the murder, but as a word from him would have prevented it, he must be held responsible for the assassination of an officer who had fallen into his hands as a prisoner of war.’ Lieutenant Maclaine was buried with full military honours at Kandahar, and a memorial window was erected in his parish church of Thornbury in Gloucestershire. Ayub Khan led two further unsuccessful revolts against the British puppet Abdur Rahman, and getting on in years finally gave himself up to the Government of India as a political prisoner at large, whiling away his twilight years thirty years after Maiwand at the pleasnt hill station of Murree in the northern Punjab.

Refs: E/B R.H.A. at Maiwand, R.A. Journal, Vol LV, No. 3 (Latham); My God Maiwand, Operations of the South Afghanistan Field Force 1878-80 (Maxwell); The Second Afghan War (Hanna); The Afghan Campaign of 1878-1880 (Shadbolt); Forty-One Years in India (Roberts); My Service in the Indian Army and After (Vaughan).