AMANULLAH

were Ali Ahmed Jhan and Nadir Khan, late Commander-
in-Chief of the Afghan Army, and now fresh from his
French military training, a sick man, but a fine soldier.

The behaviour of these two in the hotel almost
approached comedy. They lived in rooms at cither end
of the long verandah. They had meals in their own
rooms. Once each day a big touring car drew up out-
side Nadir Khan's room, and he would go into Peshawar
on some mysterious and lengthy business. Once every
day Ali Ahmed Jhan took a walk in the garden. But he
took care to do so while Nadir Khan was out.

The reason for their unfriendliness was simple. They
were, in a sense, rivals. For one had but recently left
Afghanistan with his bare life, and the other was pre-
paring to enter the dangerous country once more — this
time, however, to conduct a stern campaign which
eventually led him right on to the throne, ousting the
water-carrier's son for ever.

The story of Ali Ahmed Jhan is of very different calibre.
I talked to him one day in his room, after having pene-
trated the strict guard which had been lent him by the
British authorities. And, inside his room, I was aston-
ished to find him in very jovial mood over a half-
finished bottle of whiskey, which he drank neat and with
considerable gusto,

The strict religious law prohibiting the Afghan any
alcohol is usually observed, but it was the more sur-
prising to find this ex-governor of the capital consuming
a good Scotch brand with every evidence of expertness.
He even asked me to have one — at nine o'clock in the
morning.

It was only after our brisk and amusing conversation,
however, that I learned that his epicurean taste had once
already nearly cost him his life.

When revolution was at its height, and bands of