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Updated: June 2, 2025
In every Afghan village there is a rest-house, or serai, for strangers, and thither as a rule towards evening the village gossips also find their way; the hospitable hookah is passed from mouth to mouth, and in grave Oriental fashion they set about picking each other's gossip-pockets. "And you, brave stranger, who are you?" asked a grey-bearded, sharp-eyed old man of Duffadar Faiz Talab.
For this difficult and dangerous duty Duffadar Faiz Talab of the Guides offered his services, well knowing the great risks he was likely to incur, though, as the event proved, he materially underrated them.
Just before dawn Faiz Talab was awakened by someone rudely shaking him. "Get up, oh indolent one, the English are upon us, and we look to you to help us to defeat them. Here, take this rifle and these twenty rounds of ammunition, and come and show us how best we may arrange our battle line." Up jumped the duffadar, and hastily shook together his sleeping wits. Here was a pretty dilemma!
"Oh, say not so!" remarked one or two with polite, but not very insistent interest. "Nothing will persuade me to move," stubbornly reiterated the duffadar, devoutly praying that no one else would insist on sharing his bed of glory. The English soldiers could now be heard talking plainly, and one, speaking louder than the rest, said, "Cease firing, fix bayonets, charge!"
This weapon, pointed anywhere and anyhow at the moment, went off with a terrific report, which was followed instantaneously by a still greater explosion. The flame had caught the bag of powder, and both the gallant duffadar and his staunch opponent were blown to pieces. So died a brave soldier.
So far did intrepidity and love of adventure carry them, that four sowars, under Duffadar Khanan Khan, rode through the enemy's outposts, and with admirable coolness picketed their horses, probably without excessive ostentation, amidst the enemy's cavalry. They then separated, and went about to see and remember that which might be useful to their own commander and their own comrades in the war.
Lines, or rows of houses for labourers should be made of sun-dried bricks, and roofed with corrugated iron. For sanitary reasons they should, if possible, be divided over several sites. The manager should occasionally visit the lines, and a duffadar be appointed to see after them, and that no dirty water is thrown down in front of the doors.
At the head of the small storming party charged a duffadar of the Guides' cavalry, by name Fatteh Khan. Fatteh Khan was one of those men to whom it was as the breath of life to be in every brawl and fight within a reasonable ride. On this occasion he was of opinion that the cavalry would see little or no fighting, whereas the infantry might well be in for a pretty piece of hand-to-hand work.
He was of a Hindoo peasant family, entered my service as a workman, rose to be a duffadar or overseer, and for many years has been head overseer on my coffee estates, and he is as good as a planter as he is as a shikari. I could give many instances of his cool daring.
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