As he left, Broadfoot told the General about his own anxieties: he had tried to get the smiths and armourers in the city to manufacture some mining tools to be used in the siege of the Ghilzai forts, but they had all “refused to work for the Firangis as they were busy forging arms, for what purpose we have since learned, though Burnes said it was for the wandering tribes about to migrate.”
