21 FRONTIER CAMPAIGNING

Chapter 21 FRONTIER CAMPAIGNING

SOME of the finest fighting material of the Indian Army comes from the Pathan tribes, both on the British side of the border and across it in Tirah and Waziristan, and very pleasant fellows some of these Pathan warriors are. Often when wandering about the frontier have I received the hospitality of some outpost or stayed with the native officer in some blockhouse, and listened to them recounting tales of active service or of their mountain homes. Many of these native officers are old students of the frontier mission schools, and these extend a doubly hearty welcome. Some are serious religious inquirers, and, from having traveled and mixed with all kinds of men, are able to examine the claims of Christianity with less prejudice than the priestly class. A notable instance is that of Delawar Khan, who was a Subadar of the famed Corps of Guides. He was at one time a notorious robber on the Peshawur frontier, and a price had been set on his head. The Rev. R. Clark relates of this man that once a Government officer met him in a frontier village beyond the border, and offered him service in the Guide Corps if he would lead an honest life, or the gallows the first time he was caught within our territory if he refused. The excitement of his adventurous career had a great charm for him, and the teaching of the priests had persuaded him that he was doing God’s service in his lawless course. He, therefore, scornfully refused the Englishman’s offer, saying he would continue his lawless life, in spite of whatever the Sahibs could do. After a time, however, he thought better of it, and as a price was set on his head, he determined to apply for it in person, thinking he might as well have it himself as anyone else, and so, taking his own head on his shoulders, he went and claimed the reward. The officer, knowing the kind of man he was, again offered him service, which he then accepted, and enlisted as a soldier in the Guide Corps, in which, by his bravery and fidelity, he rapidly rose to be a native officer. Ultimately he became convinced of the truth of the Christian doctrine which he had heard the missionaries preach in the Peshawur bazaar, and, with his characteristic bravery, did not hesitate publicly to acknowledge himself a Christian and receive Christian baptism. Through his example and under his protection some other soldiers in the same corps also became Christians. His death is thus related by the Rev. R. Clark in his account of his life: "A few months ago he was sent by Government on a secret mission into Central Asia. He was a Christian, and Government trusted him. He passed safely through Kabul on his way to Badakhshan. As he was traveling in disguise, a man who had heard him preach in the Peshawur bazaar betrayed him to the judge, who condemned him to be blown away from a cannon as an apostate. During the trial a copy of one of Dr. Pfander’s works dropped from his bosom. The judge took it and tore it in two. The King of the country, however, heard of it, and asked to see the book, and, having read a part of it, pronounced it to be a good book, and set Delawar Khan at liberty. Soon after, however, he died in the snow on the mountains, a victim to the treachery of the King of Chitral." A native officer in the native levies of the Kurram Valley was converted through reading a Pashtu Testament which an officer gave him, and when I visited him in his home in Shlozan, in the Kurram Valley, I found that he was in the habit of reading the book to some of his neighbours who came together to listen; and although up to that time he had never met a missionary, he had made much progress in Christian experience and knowledge of the Bible.

I had a pupil in the mission school who enlisted in one of the frontier regiments. He was the son of a Mullah of the Khattak tribe. After he had been in the regiment about a year he wrote me a letter saying that he desired Christian baptism, and was looking forward to the day when he would be standing by my side preaching the Gospel to his fellow-countrymen. This was through the influence of a Christian officer in his regiment. Not that the officer tried to convert his men far from it but the beautiful transparency of his character and the sincerity of his religion drew his men irresistibly to him, and several desired to become Christians. A Pathan becomes very much attached to an officer whom he admires, and will bear any hardship or danger for him, and therefore it is not surprising that some have become desirous of adopting his religion. For a long time there was a sect on the frontier called the Nikal Sains, who formed a kind of schismatic Christian sect owing to their devotion to Nicholson, of Delhi fame, which amounted in their case almost to a worship of him. On one occasion a Pathan soldier in a frontier regiment came to me, urgently begging me " to make him a Christian." He was so ignorant of what Christianity meant that I could only offer to give him instruction, but he was so much on outpost duty that this was very difficult. He knew that in order to become a Mussulman it was sufficient to repeat the Kalimah in a mosque, and he thought that there must be some corresponding Christian formula, and that by repeating it in our church he might become a Christian. He thought, further, to prove his sincerity to me by saying he was ready to wear a topi (hat) instead of a turban. His desire apparently rose merely from an admiration of his Christian regimental officers. In the Tochi Militia there was a Wazir Subadar, a fine fellow, who had seen much active service, and would soon be retiring. One day he was murdered, possibly by a Sepoy whom he had been obliged to punish.

Shortly afterwards his son came to me, earnestly begging me to admit him to the Christian Church. Apparently it was to escape from the duty that devolved on him as a Muhammadan of revenging his fathers death by another murder. He was not a coward by any means, but knew he would be killing an innocent person, for the real murderer was beyond his reach, and he recoiled from committing such a crime, and he knew that our teaching was against revenge, and therefore desired to become a Christian. As he was a soldier, I would not act without a reference to his commanding officer, and as he was excited and suffering from much mental tension, I thought it better to wait. Ultimately he did shoot a man, who may have been his father’s murderer or not, and I believe was sentenced to penal servitude for life in consequence.

There is something peculiarly attractive, I think, about the frontier regiments. They have very hard service, constant outpost duty, few nights in bed, with ever the danger of the Pathan rifle thief and ambuscades. And yet officers and men are always cheerful, hospitable, and full of the spirit of camaraderie. Even the Sikhs and Pathans seem to lay aside their hereditary feuds, and fight and work heartily together, shoulder to shoulder. Some of the most striking tributes to the influence of the Christian rule of England are seen in this fellowship between different races and religions. In the little frontier wars one sees Pathan soldiers side by side with the stalwart Sikhs, or, it may be, the little Gurkhas with the tall Panjabi Muhammadans. Much the same is seen in the playing-fields of our mission schools, where Christians, Muhammadans, Hindus, and Sikhs are as loyal to one another as if they had never had a religious difference. A scene I shall always remember was the funeral of a young Sikh student, who was a brilliant member of the school football eleven, and was carried off one summer recently by sudden illness. His Muhammadan, Christian, and Hindu fellow-students vied with each other in showing honour to his memory, and accompanied the body to the burning-ground on the banks of the Kurram River. For the Muhammadans at least this would have at one time been considered as most inconsonant with their religion. The fine, tall Sikh soldiery of the frontier regiments are some of the nicest men one could have to deal with; the native officers are such perfect gentlemen, and so gentle and docile when conversing about their Sikh religion or the Christian Scriptures, that it is difficult to realize what lions they are in the fight, and how they are the heroes of so many a frontier epic. A Sikh soldier is always ready to talk on religious matters, and delights in singing the beautiful theistic hymns of Kabir and Nanak and others of his countrymen ; and they will sit round untiringly, listening with unflagging interest for hours, while I talk or read to them from the Christian Scriptures. In the frontier war of 1897 no Sikh regiment covered itself with greater glory than the 36th, which was quartered at Fort Lockhart when the Afridi rising first broke out. I was in camp on the Samana Range, outside Fort Lockhart, that August just before the outbreak, and these fine soldiers used to sit round me on the rocks outside the fort while we talked of the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of those of Guru Nanak, which present so many points of resemblance to them. A few weeks later, and many of those very men had died fighting bravely on the rugged mountains and defiles of Tirah, on which we were then looking down.

One incident will bear repetition, as possibly some of the very men to whom I was then speaking were the heroes of it. A few hundred yards from Fort Lockhart is a small fort called Saraghari, which commands one of the eminences of the Samana Range. This was occupied by a handful of these Sikhs under a native officer. Looking down westward from the Samana Range are the terraced valleys and a labyrinth of the rugged mountain ranges of the Afridis ; and so suddenly did these tribes respond to the tocsin of war when Seyyid Akbar and his associate Mullahs sounded it all through Tirah that the various forts on the Samana were surrounded by the lashkws before it was possible to reinforce or withdraw the little garrison of Saraghari. The garrisons of Forts Lockhart and Gulistan had, in fact, their hands full with the tribesmen who had entrenched themselves in sangars all around, from which they kept up such a fire that no one could show himself. The Afridis saw that the post of Saraghari was the most easily won ; the fort itself was smaller and less strongly built, and contained only a small garrison of their hereditary enemies, the Sikhs.

There was a signaler in the little garrison, and he signaled over their dire straits to Fort Lockhart, but from there the answer was returned to them that it was impossible to send reinforcements they must fight to the end. For them to retreat was impossible, for the few hundred yards between the two forts was swept by the Pathan bullets, while their riflemen swarmed in the sangars and behind the rocks all along. Not a man could have lived to reach a distance of twenty yards from the fort. The Sikhs knew that the Pathans would give them no quarter, so they prepared to sell their lives dearly. The Afridis worked nearer and nearer, and many of the brave defenders fell. The signaler signaled to Fort Lockhart, " Five of us have fallen " ten, twelve, and finally there was only the signaler left. The Pathans swarmed over the walls with their exulting " Allahu Akbar !" and the throat of the last wounded Sikh was cut ; so the noble garrison fell at their posts to a man. The fort has never been rebuilt, but there is a monument at the place to record this gallant bit of frontier warfare, and another monument to them was erected in the centre of their holy city, Amritsar, not far from the Golden Temple, their chief place of worship. Here I made the acquaintance of the gallant officers of this regiment, who were in a few weeks to bear the brunt of the severest of the fighting and hardships of that campaign. I read service on the last Sunday before hostilities commenced, and among the officers who attended was their brave commander, Colonel Haughton, whose commanding presence and bravery made him an easy target later on for the tribesman’s bullet, but not before he had covered himself and his regiment with glory.

I will here record two little episodes, which are of common enough occurrence on the frontier, but illustrate the dangers that the sentries run when on duty among such cunning and stealthy rifle thieves as the Pathans ; and show also that, wily though he is, the Pathan is not infrequently caught by an equally wily native police or levy officer. A regiment had marched into Bannu, and, there being no quarters available, were encamped on the parade ground. The night being dark and rainy, sentries had been doubled, and were much on the alert. Suddenly two of them were stabbed from behind by Pathans who had crept into the lines unnoticed, and watched their opportunity for running their long Afghan knives into the chest of the unsuspecting soldiers. The thieves got off with both rifles, and, though a hue and cry was raised, no trace of them was found.

Once I was spending a night in a levy post on the frontier, when the native officer in the command of the post got information through a spy that an Afridi was about to cross the frontier, having in his possession a number of cartridges that had been stolen from the lines of a British regiment in Peshawur. A train was just about to arrive from Kohat, and the officer went down to meet it. All the passengers seemed quite innocent ; some traders returning from market, a few soldiers going on leave, and some camp followers, appeared to be all who had arrived. There was, however, a Mullah with a Qur’an, which he was carrying rather ostentatiously, and a wallet, which was less obvious, under the folds of his shawl. Here was his man. He went up to him. The Mullah was indignant at the supposition he had merely been into Kohat to buy a few household trinkets. He was marched off to the levy post all the same, and, on turning out the contents of his wallet, eighty-one Lee-Metford cartridges were disclosed. That night the Mullah spent in the cells reciting passages in the Qur’an with a long and monotonous intonation which kept me awake a long time with its weirdness. I suppose, however, it may have been meant to procure some indulgence for his offenses, or to serve as a proof of his sanctity; but it certainly did not soften the heart of his captor, the native officer, himself a Muhammadan and a Pathan; nor, I trow, did it mitigate his subsequent punishment.

I was once traveling in the garb of a Mullah from Kohat to Peshawur. I had walked through the Kohat Pass, and reached a village called Mitanni, about sixteen miles from Peshawur. I was tired, and finding here a tumtum about to start for Peshawur, I obtained a seat therein for one rupee. Two other Peshawuris were fellow-passengers, but were not present when I paid the driver my fare. On the road the driver stopped at a village, and his place was taken by another man. The first driver omitted to tell him that I had already paid my fare, so when we got near Peshawur he demanded it.

I told him I had already paid the other driver, but he would not believe it. Unluckily the other passengers were unable to corroborate my statement; an altercation ensued in the bazaar at Peshawur, and he wanted to keep my bedding in lieu of the fare. As a crowd was collecting, it was decided to settle the case by driving me to the police-station. The driver began volubly to tell the police inspector how "this Bannu Mullah has got into the tumtum at Mitanni, and now refuses to pay his fare."" The inspector asked me a question or two, and took in the situation, and then told the driver to take me to my destination, and the case would be seen into, if necessary, when the other driver arrived. Before alighting I told the driver who I was, and that I was sorry he seemed to put so little faith in the word of a Mullah. " Ah, Sahib," said he, " this is an evil age, and even if the Mullah swears on the Qur’an, we can only believe what we see." When traveling in native garb one often sees the reverse of the picture, and is able to see common events in new lights. Officers of the Government while on tour are often quite unconsciously a great tax on the village where their camp is itched. Their servants take provisions from the people at merely nominal prices, or even without payment at all. Many officers, knowing how villainously some native underlings will extort when they get the opportunity, often insist on all payments being made before them according to a fixed scale. Even then the men find other ways of living in clover at the expense of the villagers. This was brought home to me one night when I was stopping at a village called Moach. The police officer of the district was in camp there, but I arrived late, and went to the house of a native, where an old patient of mine visited me, and, finding me hungry and tired, went off to get me some milk. He sent it me by the hand of a young boy, who had to pass by the camp of the police officer, where his cook was preparing his dinner. By his side was a saucepan containing several pints of milk which had been ordered for the great man’s supper, each house bringing its share according to a roster kept for the purpose at the police-station. The cook saw the boy coming with the milk, and said to him :

" Come along ; pour it in here."

" But I have not brought this for the Police Sahib. I have brought it for "

" Nonsense! Who else here wants milk ? All the milk has been ordered for the Sahib. Pour it in, or I will send you to the lock-up."

I got no milk for my supper, and I do not suppose the officer had more than would go into a custard-pudding and a cup of cocoa; but his myrmidons they knew how to look after themselves, and enjoyed a good time.