I have described one phase of our rule in Cabul, and it will be seen from it whether our policy, however defective it may be in its indistinct outlines and indefinite aims, deserves the title of “Russian.” When wounded ghazis are in our “charitable hospital,” our vengeance must surely be of the most harmless kind. We have troubled waters enough in Afghanistan, but we have also our pool of Siloam.
I give here two articles written a few weeks later, descriptive of our life in Sherpur, and also of native life in Cabul:—
We are a self-contained colony here, and a self-possessed one, too, for the matter of that, but we are by no means self-satisfied. Every man among us believes that if his advice had only been asked, the Afghan difficulty would have been settled months ago, and we should now be enjoying the delights of furlough in England, or revelling in the fascinating gaieties of the cold season in the plains. A Briton without his grumble would be unworthy of his country, and so we growl and swear against the Powers that be, and ask why, in the name of all that’s wicked, the wire-pullers in India and England do not make up their minds to settle the matter. We are so conscious of our own unrecognized powers as politicians and diplomats, that we laugh to scorn the idea that affairs cannot be put on a footing that would satisfy even the staunchest believers in a scientific frontier. The army in the old days was merely a machine which, once set in motion by the hand of a minister, ground out its life for years and years, without anything more than an occasional groan when its wheels were not properly lubricated. But, now, things are changed: every soldier is not only a fighting machine, but a thinking machine, digesting rumours and theories with marvellous voracity, and reproducing patched and piebald opinions of his own, which will intrude themselves into prominence. There can be in our ranks no “mute, inglorious” Wellingtons—or Wolseleys (for, in the eyes of many purblind people, the terms are synonymous); an officer can now through many channels criticize and smash up the strategy of a campaign, and calmly sit upon the heads of his seniors while his comrades applaud most heartily. Even the private soldier in the ranks knows full well that if he only pulls the long bow sufficiently in a letter home, some sympathizing party journal will accept his view of the situation, and upon it draw with no uncertain hand the outlines of a new policy. If the flood of criticism which is now surging about Sherpur could only be collected in one stream, and be poured upon the devoted heads of the clever politicians who hold our destinies in their hands, these gentlemen would never stand high and dry again; they would be overwhelmed once and for all. A shower bath braces the system; a waterspout drowns all upon whom it falls; and if there were not a feeling that our blundering along here, without a guiding light to show General and soldier what to do, were now coming to an end, such a phenomenon as a waterspout might arise in Sherpur. But I have before sketched this phase of an existence here: if I said “life,” my own might be endangered by the indignant army of Philistines, who only “exist;” and it is useless to revive the cry of “Loot, Love, and Liberty,” for not one of these blessings is forthcoming.