Part One, Archie, 1974, 1945, Chapter 5, The Root Canals of Alfred Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal, Summary

Archie and Samad met during World War II when both were very young. Archie was a driver on a tank and Samad was the radio man. Archie had never seen a man of Samad's nationality and spent the first few weeks they were in the tank together staring at him. Samad was offended by this behavior, but was drawn to Archie because he was the mildest of the men in the tank with him. Samad was an angry young man because he had seen himself as a soldier capable of becoming a hero like his great grandfather Mangal Pande, but an accident while with the Bengal corps caused him to lose the use of one...