At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

It was this cantonment, it will be remembered, that was held by the British at the time when Lord Roberts occupied Kabul during the second Afghan war.

The Afghans had planned a sudden night attack in which their whole force was to move suddenly at a given signal upon the cantonment. As Lord Roberts’ force was exceedingly small, considering the great extent of the cantonment, it was thought by the Afghans that an easy victory would result. The signal was to be the sudden lighting of a beacon on the Asmai mountain. But there are never wanting those among the Afghans who, for a sufficient bribe, will reveal anything, and the British were ready when the attack came. The rush was met by a continuous and deadly fire, and after strenuous but vain efforts to gain an entry, the Afghans retired, leaving great numbers of their comrades dead on the field.

The gate we entered was protected outside by a semicircular curtain. Built along the inner side of the wall were buildings one story high, with a massive pillared colonnade or verandah and flat roof. There were wood-faced, clay-beaten steps at intervals leading to the roof, so that it was possible for troops defending the cantonment to take their stand on the roof and fire through the loopholes.

Just inside the gate was a bazaar of small shops, where fruit, vegetables, and bread were for sale; and soldiers in every style of dress, Turkoman, Kabuli, Hazara, were grouped about. Some were seated on the ground playing cards, some smoking the chillim or hubble-bubble, others digging in little vegetable or flower-gardens. These were created with great pains around irregularly arranged huts which formed the north side of the street leading along by the colonnade. These huts and the rooms under the colonnade were used as barracks. The soldiers seemed to stare with more curiosity than the townspeople had shown, and as we rode along towards the hospital one suddenly stepped forward and seized my bridle. I thought it was a piece of insolence, and raised my riding-whip to cut him across the face, when it occurred to me that perhaps it would be as well not to risk a close acquaintance with the ready knife of an incensed Afghan. My guard seized the man and hustled him out of the way with many loud words, to which he replied vigorously. Not understanding Persian, and an interpreter not being with me, I could not enquire what it was all about, so I rode on. All the centre of the cantonment was a huge open gravelled space, and here troops were drilling. The words of command were in Afghani or Pushtu, not Persian, but the titles of the officers were moulded upon English titles: Sergeant was pronounced Surgeon; Captain, Kiftan; General, Jinral; and there was Brigadier and Brigadier-Jinral.

The hospital was in an enclosed garden within the cantonment, and was entered by low but heavy double gates. A series of rooms was built along the inner side of the walls of the garden in the usual Afghan style. There was no connection between the rooms except by a verandah, and there was no upper story. Each room was about eight feet by ten, and as none of them had windows, but were lighted simply by the door that opened on to the verandah, they were nearly dark.

In the garden were a few trees, and in the centre a square sunk tank for water: this, however, was empty. There was a cook house or kitchen, with its coppers and ovens heated by charcoal, where the cook baked the bread and prepared the diets for the patients: Pilau (rice and meat), kabob (small squares of meat skewered on a stick and grilled over charcoal), shôrbar, or broth, and shôla, which is rice boiled and moistened with broth. There were two dispensaries, one containing native drugs and one a few European drugs. There were, of course, no female nurses: each sick soldier was looked after by a comrade.

Storekeepers and their Ways.

The Hakim on his daily round wrote on a slip of paper the date and the name, diet and medicine of the patient he prescribed for. This was handed to the attendant of each patient, whose duty it was to procure the medicine from the dispensary and the food from the cook-house. I never heard of an attendant eating the food intended for a patient. One hakim, the cook and dispenser lived in the hospital. The slips of paper were taken to the mirza, or clerk, who copied the daily diets on to one paper and the medicines on another. The papers were then put away in the stores. No daily totals were taken, so that if fraud were suspected on the part of a storekeeper, dispenser, or cook, and the Amîr ordered a rendering or auditing of accounts, the matter took a year, a year and a-half, or two years before it was completed. However, as I found later, the order in Afghanistan to “render an account” is usually synonymous with “fine, imprisonment, or death.”

The next morning at the out-patient hospital when the Armenian interpreter appeared, I told him of the soldier seizing my bridle in Sherpur, and asked him to enquire what the man wanted. He seemed rather startled when I told him, and at once turned to the sergeant of the guard to enquire about it. It was nothing after all, simply the man, guessing I was the Feringhi doctor, wanted me to see a sick comrade. They apologized for him, saying he was not a Kabuli but an uncouth “hillman” who knew no better. However, an order from Prince Habibullah arrived in the afternoon that I was not to attend at Sherpur till he had communicated with His Highness the Amîr.