his life. Early career On reaching India in July 1839, Nicholson was ordered to join the 41st Native Infantry at Benares on temporary attachment. After spending four months being drilled on the realities of military life, he was transferred in December, as a regular Ensign, to the 27th Native Infantry based at Ferozepore. Nicholson's arrival in India had been too late to participate in the initial invasion of Afghanistan as part of the First Anglo-Afghan War. However, in November 1840, the 27th Native Infantry was ordered up to relieve one of the infantry units already in Afghanistan as part of the British occupying force and marched through the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan in January 1841. After initially being garrisoned in Kabul, Nicholson's regiment was moved to Ghazni where he first met Neville Bowles Chamberlain who would become the first of the close band of friends Nicholson would form throughout his time in India. The British force's relatively peaceful occupation duties were soon superseded by Afghan anger against the rule of Shah Shujah Durrani, who had acceded to the throne thanks to British support. Following the outbreak of a revolt led by Wazir Akbar Khan, the main British garrison at Kabul was besieged and annihilated as it tried to retreat from Afghanistan in January 1842. This defeat left smaller British garrisons scattered throughout Afghanistan, including Nicholson's at Ghazni, besieged by Afghan tribesmen during the freezing winter of 1841. Although the garrison at Ghazni was well supplied, Nicholson's commander, Colonel Palmer, capitulated after the Afghans promised safe passage out of Afghanistan. The Afghans, however, immediately disregarded this promise and attacked the British. Nicholson was, with two other junior officers, separated from the rest of the garrison and led two companies of infantry in fortified buildings as they held off the Afghan attack for two days. The British soon ran out of food and water but Nicholson initially refused to surrender as it would mean abandoning his Indian sepoys to their fate. However, after being ordered to lay down his arms by Colonel Palmer, Nicholson was forced to watch in tears as his sepoys were slaughtered after refusing to convert to Islam. Nicholson – together with ten other British Army officers – was held captive at Ghazni in a filthy, ordure-ridden, lice-infested cell between 10 March and 19 August 1842. With the approach of the British "Army of Retribution", the captive officers