AMANULLAH

he impressed. He went to a flying display, and watched,
awed, while the fighters swooped and swerved in mimic
battle. He went up in a bomber, and watched the bombs
slanting down to the targets. He saw the destruction
of a village from the air.

Only after that experience did he go away silent. He
was thinking of the new terror of the air.

" War," he said later, " is a terrible and unromantic
thing in your country."

Perhaps that was precisely the impression that was
intended to be made on his sensitive and simple brain.
He was awed. His pride was hurt when he considered
how puny and how pathetic would be his mountain
levies against the terror from the air. Warfare was no
longer the pitting of valour against valour. There were
to be no longer the heroic clashes of men against men.
War was science, and the men of his country were no
scientists. It was a bitter moment.

Not till he went down to the huge Small Arms Factory
in Birmingham did he once more revel in the romance
and adventure of warfare. Then he seized a rifle in
the shooting-range, lay down on the mats, and pro-
ceeded methodically to plant bulls on the target*
The workpeople were immensely pleased, and if the
truth be known he was immensely pleased with himself.
This was the warfare he understood — the matching of
one straight shot with another, the steady arm and the
clear vision. He decided to forget the sickening thud
of bombs dropped on shattered villages from the air,
and the cohorts of drumming planes that darkened the
sky. He handled the Lewis guns, and at every demon-
stration of British engineering skill, he pictured to
himself his beloved troops marching across the plains
of Afghanistan with these weapons worthy of their
bravery.

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