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Nicholson to Ghazni, to join the garrison there under Colonel Palmer. When Ghazni was attacked in December 1841 by the Afghans, young Nicholson took a prominent part in the defence. The garrison was greatly outnumbered, and eventually had to withdraw to the citadel; there it held out until the middle of March, when Palmer felt compelled to make terms, and an agreement was signed with the Afghan leaders, by which a safe-conduct to the Punjab frontier was secured for the British troops. The British force was then placed in quarters in a part of the town just below the citadel. Afghan treachery followed. The British troops were attacked on 7 April. Lieutenants Crawford and Nicholson, with two companies of the 27th native infantry, were in a house on the left of those occupied by the British, and received the first and sharpest attack. They were cut off from the rest; their house was fired by the enemy, and they were driven from room to room, fighting against odds for their lives, until at midnight of 9 April they found themselves exhausted with fatigue, hunger, and thirst, the house nearly burnt down, the ammunition expended, the place full of dead and dying men, and the position no longer tenable. The front was in the hands of the enemy, but Nicholson and Crawford did not lose heart. A hole was dug with bayonets with much labour through the wall of the back of the house, and those who were left of the party managed to join Colonel Palmer. The British troops, however, were ultimately made prisoners, the sepoys reduced to slavery, and the Europeans confined in dungeons and very inhumanly treated. In August they were moved to Kabul, where they joined the other British captives, were kindly treated, and after a few days moved to Bamian. In the meantime Major-general (afterwards Sir) George Pollock [q. v.] and Major-general (afterwards Sir) William Nott [q. v.] were advancing on Kabul, the one from Jalalabad, and the other from Kandahar, and the prisoners, having opened communication with Pollock and bribed their gaolers, on 17 Sept. met the force which Pollock had sent to rescue them.

On the return of the army to India, Nicholson was made adjutant of his regiment on 31 May 1843. In 1845 he passed the interpreters' examination, and was given an appointment in the commissariat. In this capacity he served in the campaign in the Satlaj, and was present at the battle of Firozshah. On the termination of the war Nicholson was selected, with Captain Broome of the artillery, to instruct the troops of the Maharaja of Kashmir. The appointment was made by the governor-general, Lord Hardinge [see Hardinge, Henry (DNB00), first ], at the request of Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence [q. v.] Nicholson had made the acquaintance of both Henry and George Lawrence in Afghanistan; the latter had been a fellow captive, and the former, now at the head of the council of regency of the Punjab, had not forgotten the young subaltern he had met at Kabul.

Nicholson reached Jammú on 2 April 1846, and remained there with Maharaja Guláb Singh until the end of July, when he accompanied him to Kashmir. The Sikh governor, however, refused to recognise the new maharaja, and Nicholson only avoided capture by hastily making his escape by one of the southern passes. Lawrence himself put down the insurrection, and in November Nicholson was again settled at Kashmir, officiating in the north-west frontier agency. In December Nicholson was appointed an assistant to the resident at Lahore. He left Kashmir on 7 Feb. 1847, and went to Multan on the right bank of the Indus. Later he spent a few weeks with his chief, Henry Lawrence, at Lahore, and in June was sent on a special mission to Amritsar, to report on the general management of that district. In July he was appointed to the charge of the Sind Ságar Doab, a country lying between the Jhelam and the Indus. His first duty was the protection of the people from the chiefs; his next, the care of the army, with attention to discipline and drill. In August he was called upon by Captain James Abbott to move a force upon Simalkand, whose chief had in vain been cited to answer for the murder of women and children at Bakhar. Nicholson arrived on 3 Aug. and took possession. He was promoted captain on 20 March 1848. In the spring of 1848 Mulraj rebelled, and seized Multan. As the summer advanced the rebellion spread, and Nicholson, who at the time was down with fever at Peshawar, hurried from his sick bed to secure Attak. He made a forced march with sixty Peshawar horse and 150 newly raised Muhammadan levies, and arrived at Attak just in time to save the place. From Attak he scoured the country, putting down rebellion and bringing mutinous troops to reason. But he felt uneasy at leaving Attak, and, at his request, Lawrence sent Lieutenant Herbert to him to act as governor of the Attak Fort. On Herbert's arrival on 1 Sept., Nicholson at once started off for the Margalla Pass to stop Sirdar Chattar Singh and his force, and turn them back. The defile was commanded by a tower, which Nicholson endeavoured to storm, leading the