When the late Amir came to the country from Russia, he brought with him an admiration of the Russian spy system, and incorporated it into his system of government. Consequently, every fourth man was a “reportchee” (spy), who sent in his private reports to the Amir. These spies were of all classes and ranks, and every large house had one or two spies among the servants who reported all they saw and heard, and as it is the custom of the country for servants to sit in the same room as their master, where they sit near the door to show their inferior position, and as they are allowed to express their opinion on any subject which their master and his friends may be discussing, they of course hear all that is said at any time, and should they be sent out of the room while their master speaks to any guest in private, then that itself would be unusual and suspicious enough to warrant reporting to the Amir. The Amir had spies in the houses of his sons, and among the women of their harems, and spies in his own harem too, while his wives and his sons in their turn, had their spies among his servants, who informed them of all that concerned themselves. It was an expensive system, and one of which the spies unscrupulously took advantage to make false reports against those they hated or feared, and have them put out of the way. Also for monetary considerations they would similarly dispose of another man’s enemy.
The offence which in the eyes of the late Amir was the most deadly and unforgivable was the writing by any one of reports concerning himself and his country to the Indian Government, and this was the favourite accusation of those of his spies who had an enemy to dispose of, and they showed a good deal of cunning in the preparation of the plot whereby their victim should be doomed, without chance of escaping the Amir’s vengeance, and devoted to it much thought and time. Their schemes were usually outlined on the plan of following up their own report to the Amir, which gave details of how they became cognizant of the fact of the accused reporting to the English Government, and gave as proof the bogus letter or report alleged to have been found by them, by other reports, which they obtained by sending to their friends in India, and elsewhere, a draft of what they wanted written to the Amir, with instructions to copy it and send on to him a few weeks later. By these means they managed to get letters to the Amir from different places, each accusing their victim of being an English spy. And when one letter after another came, each one confirming the other, naturally the Amir was deceived, and it was not long before the accused was in prison, and there became lost, for his fate, though guessed at, was seldom known; the custom being to remove such men at night, either by poison, bayonet, or cutting the throat.
The method of cutting a man’s throat is simple but effective; two men hold the man’s arms, and force his head back, while another, or two more if the man is a strong one, hold his legs. The officer in charge then slices with his sword backwards and forwards across the man’s throat until the gash is considered deep enough, and then the man is thrown on the ground and left to kick, as a fowl does under similar circumstances, until death occurs. In some cases the head is severed from the body in the same way, when the Amir’s orders are to that effect.
In other cases, when a man is ordered to be executed by having his throat cut, his grave is dug ready, and when the knife has done its work, he is thrown into it, and the earth is shovelled in at once, so that he is buried before death occurs.
False reporting, when found out, was a great crime in the eyes of the Amir, and such men were speedily punished with death. In some cases where a man has been wrongly killed, the old well was given the offenders to consider their crimes in. I was once in the Amir’s durbar, when fifteen or sixteen prisoners and others were brought in. Those who were prisoners were accused of false reporting, and the other men were their accusers, and six or seven of the prisoners had been submitted to the torture of the “fanah,” which is administered as follows:—A post, about six inches in diameter, is split into two pieces in the direction of its length, and the two halves are put together again, and bound with rope for one half of the length, so that when finished it somewhat resembles a huge clothes-peg. The bound end of the post is firmly fixed in the ground, with the split part projecting above the surface, and the foot of the person to be tortured is tied to the upper end of it with thin cords, which pass round both the foot and the post, and a V-shaped wedge is inserted in the slit at the top. Then, when the wedge is hammered down, it makes the two halves of the post widen out, and puts a strong tension on the cord, which binds the foot and post together. When using this instrument of torture the wedge is tapped down until the cord exercises a slight pressure on the foot, and then the questions concerning the matter requiring confession are asked, and if the tortured one refuses to speak, the wedge is hammered down a little further, making the pressure of the cord still tighter on the foot, and so the wedge continues to be hammered down until the sufferer reveals all he knows (and sometimes much that he does not know, in order to save further torture), or until the toes are practically severed from the foot, when the other foot is similarly treated. There are many who have lost their toes through mortification setting in afterwards, under the torture of the “fanah,” without confessing what they knew, and this speaks well for the endurance of the average Afghan, but the boast of the true Afghan is that he can endure pain, even to death, without a sigh or sound, and some do so. Another form of torture is to cover the top of the head with dough, which is turned up at the edges to form a cup, and into the cup so formed, boiling oil is poured; the agony as the brain begins to bake may be imagined. There are other forms of torture also, but these cannot be described.
In this case the men who were brought before the Amir, after undergoing the “fanah” torture, were hardly able to stand, and their feet were swathed in bandages and rags, and one of them fell in a faint while the examination was on, but the Amir said he was shamming, and told the guards with them to make him stand up; so they struck him savagely with the butt ends of their rifles, and kicked him back to consciousness, but he looked ghastly ill, and swayed about as he stood. Eventually, after the hearing of much contradictory evidence, several were ordered to be hanged, and the others to be imprisoned, pending decision as to their punishment. One of the condemned men stopped as he was being led away, and cursed the Amir, wishing him every evil he could think of; but the guards struck him across the mouth several times, and dragged him out. The Amir looked at the man with his teeth showing in the savage grin he had when angered, but, after a few moments, smiled and turned to me, and spoke on other matters, apparently having dismissed all thought of what had taken place from his mind. But to sentence a few men to death, and listen to their views on the matter as they were led away, was no new experience for the Amir. Many men cursed him as they were being executed, for one of the national traits of character is vindictiveness.