Laurie Bristow might “look like a mild accountant” but his actions bear comparison to the boy in the poem Casabianca who “stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled”.

The British ambassador in Kabul has been hailed as a “hero” for remaining behind while his counterparts at other diplomatic missions, including India’s, have been evacuated from Afghanistan for their safety.

His decision has also stood out at a time UK media reports have said several senior British officials, including foreign secretary Dominic Raab, were on holiday as the Afghan debacle erupted.

Raab has countered that the government had been working “tirelessly” on the evacuations.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that Britain would work with the Taliban if necessary. “What I want to assure people is that our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution for Afghanistan, working with the Taliban, of course if necessary, will go on,” Reuters quoted Johnson as telling reporters.

The 57-year-old Bristow, the British ambassador who was posted in Kabul as recently as June, has relocated to the airport from where he posted a video message on August 18 explaining his immediate priorities.

“Hello, my name is Laurie Bristow,” he said. “I am the British ambassador here in Kabul. I have just stepped out of the evacuation handling centre for a moment.”

He added: “We are putting everything we can into getting British nationals and Afghans who have worked with us in the past out of Afghanistan and into safety. So yesterday we got about 700 people out. We are trying to scale up the speed, the pace, in the next couple of days.”

Veteran war correspondent Robert Fox wrote in the London Evening Standard: “Her Majesty’s man in Kabul — now our man in Kabul airport — is very much the hero of the hour. He has been seen personally overseeing the processing of hundreds of papers for would-be travellers to the UK and signing many of the visas.”

Asked about his decision to stay behind, Bristow replied: “We had to take decisions about who stayed in very, very difficult circumstances at speed as the situation unravelled.”

A friend who knew Bristow from his days as deputy ambassador and ambassador in Moscow told the Standard: “He may look like a mild accountant but he’s tough, smart and very adroit.”

Bristow, the strength of whose embassy has been cut down from 500 to a handful, also tweeted: “Very proud of the team here at the airport. Colleagues from across government doing everything they can to get people to safety.”

Before being posted to Kabul, Bristow was dealing with the forthcoming climate change conference in Glasgow as “COP26 regional ambassador for China, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa”.