AMANULLAH

whole military station was to be pounced upon, the
arsenal blown up, headquarters burned to the ground,
and all communication destroyed, both with the punitive
force and the second lines of defence down country.

The official, quietly receiving his pay as a fairly
senior officer of the British service, had completed his
plans in every detail. Peshawar was as good as lost,
and with it the lives of several hundred British men
and women. But fortunately a stroke of luck uncovered
the plot before it had reached fruition. Once more
Peshawar had been saved from the tribesmen, and,
with its discovery, the last trick of Amanullah had been
played*

The second Afghan War was over. The British force
did not seek further engagements in that inhospitable
land where so many soldiers had laid down their lives.
Licking his wounds, Amanullah withdrew his troops to
their bases, Dacca had been disappointing to him,
and though he was fully satisfied with the conduct of
his men, he had realised for the first time the might of
a fully trained and superbly equipped white force* It
was his first inkling of the value of strategies. lie had
counted on a victory without compromise as soon as a
British force left its defences on their own side of the
border.

He would never have attempted to force the formid-
able defences of the Khyber. But he had congratulated
himself beforehand on the defeat of the troops who had
marched across those parched plains to meet his army
in their comfortable quarters at Dacca. The blow to
his ambition was severe and the lesson one that would
last a long time.

Still, carefully preserving the remnant of his pride,
he marched back to Kabul with his old demands ready
on his lips and pressed them stronger than ever before

58