Chapter XVII: "a Gate of Empire"

Mr Agha Khan had undertaken to send me early on a certain morning a "suitable" vehicle in which to drive to the Khyber Pass. It proved to be a heavy old phaeton with a pair of big lumpy horses and a driver named Junno Kuchwan. It was not possible to get any other conveyance without some hours' delay, and as the "fitten" as he called it was already behind time (it was 7.15 a.m.), I started in it for Jamroud and the famous Pass.

A military expedition was just over but convoys of stores had still to return, and when I obtained permission to enter the Khyber and make a painting of the fort of Ali Masjid, the pass had not yet been re-opened.

Four miles from Peshawar and five from Jamroud I stopped near some big tamarind trees. The place, a military border police fort, was called Harising Poor, and from it I could see the big fort of Jamroud on the level plain and to the left, violet in the morning light, the hills of the Khyber through a V-shaped dip in the horseshoe of mountain that nearly {240} surrounds the Peshawar country. Very far to the right, snow mountains watched over the nearer hills and away to the left, where raiders come from above, was a small blockhouse where twenty-five men were kept.

As I drove nearer to Jamroud the native hamlet appeared, with a tall tower of the usual village type, at some distance from the Fort, and the long wall of the Sarai where passing caravans, coming from Central Asia and Afghanistan, stop on the last night before they reach Peshawar.

I saw a company of the Khyber Rifles being drilled in an open space near the Sarai. I watched them marching in fours--marching in fours to a flank and company opening fire in close order. The men were Afridis of various tribes and the Subadar, the senior native officer of the company, was a Malikdin Khel Afridi--all good fighters, cunning thieves and as light-hearted as children. A great Jirga was about to be held at Peshawar and armed tribesmen were dribbling in to attend it.

Before going on to the mouth of the Pass I looked into the Sarai. The men in it were mostly Kabulis waiting to go up and not down. They were taking tea, sugar and general supplies from Peshawar, having sold there the raisins they had brought in from Afghanistan. Their camels were of the long-haired Central Asian {241} type, stronger than the Indian camels and very different in appearance.

My permit having been examined at the fort, and a khaki clad sepoy of the Khyber Rifles told off to accompany me by way of escort, I drove on towards the mouth of the pass. The road enters by a sweeping curve along which the wind blew strongly. Here the "fitten" horses began to jib, and in spite of all Junno Kuchwan could do they flatly refused to go forward. Kuchwan, who had been on foot for some time, at last began to heave rocks at the horses which was still unproductive of the desired result. It became clear that we could never reach Ali Masjid with these animals, and there was nothing for it but to get back to Jamroud and try for a chance "tumtum," having come out from Peshawar earlier in the morning. We found, however, there were only two and both were booked for immediate return. It seemed hopeless and I was beginning to arrange for the next day when the officer in command of the fort pointed out another "tumtum" just emerging from the pass and exclaimed, with an eager twinkle in his eyes, and a peculiar straightening of the back, "There's a lady in it."

There were two ladies in it--they had driven from Landi Kotal, having made the journey from Kabul in eleven days. The younger said she was a lady doctor just leaving the Amir's {242} service, and they were both persuaded to let me have their vehicle and drive on themselves to Peshawar in my phaeton.

In addition to my Hindoo servant I had now with me the sepoy escort, and throughout the rest of the journey there was a running squabble because the tumtum driver contended that he ought to walk. The rifleman was a Kuchi Khel Afridi, and his most obvious characteristic was a passion for shaking hands with me. Whenever vituperative argument seemed extra strong, the Kuchi Khel appeared to cap the other man's invention and turned to shake my hand grinning and nodding his head. This occurred at about three minute intervals during the afternoon. I might be gazing at the landscape or noting cave dwellings on the hillside--when I would feel my hand suddenly seized and wrung hastily; he was a very friendly man this Afridi!

We passed altogether quite a number of people along the road. In one place where I was walking some tribesmen invited me to share their food, and I ate with them--bread, coarse brown sugar in lump and Indian corn. Then I passed an officer of the Amir's army with a convoy of mules bringing the goods and chattels of the lady doctor.

The fort of Ali Masjid crowns what looks like a steeply sloping squat cone of hill in the {243} middle of the pass, about half-way that is between Jamroud and Landi Kotal, with the main line of hills on each side. It is of tawny yellowish stone of much the same colour as the ground. I climbed up to it from the roadway but found no one within. Hot and dusty with the clamber I walked round the walls, banged at doors and shouted loudly to any who might be inside, but to no purpose, and it was only later that I learned how it was that no one was stationed up in the fort itself. The reason was that the camp remaining from the expeditionary forces was pitched below by the side of the road on what had been a few wheat-fields belonging to an adjacent village of cave-dwelling Kuchi Khels.

My permit demanded early return that I might be at Jamroud again well before dark, and after an hour or two I started back little knowing how soon I was to see Ali Masjid again.

What happened was that we came to a place where there was a sick camel on the road, and the tumtum horses both took it into their heads to shy violently and become generally rampant. The bamboo shafts of the vehicle were not very strong and when, through the sudden plunging, they both suddenly snapped short off at the body of the tumtum and left two splintered ends I, being in front, was thrown upon one of the {244} rearing ponies. I managed to get clear without any hurt and none of us were harmed as much as the driver himself, who was a bit bruised and had one finger torn. His face, by the way, was disfigured by an old scar which he said was through a former break-down.

Now whatever it was the tumtum driver said to the sepoy at this juncture it roused his deepest feelings, and a torrent of execration raged between them. It was clear that the whole affair was being laid upon the Afridi's shoulders, and I don't know how long he would have kept his hands off the driver if two young officers on their way back to the camp had not reined up to know what was the extent of the damage. Dusk was not far away and they insisted that I must ride back to Ali Masjid and spend the night in camp with the 59th Scinde Rifles Frontier Force. I say insisted, but I was nothing loth.

At first, however, it only seemed to be a case of "out of the frying-pan into the fire," for the native bred horse called up for me started off at a hurricane pace, refusing to obey the reins. I left the officers far behind, and every time the road turned I was at some difficulty to keep in the saddle. The more I pulled the faster the horse went. I wondered afterwards whether this impetuosity was intended as an expression of joy at his new burden or annoyance. He {245} gave in at last and gradually became amenable, but I am convinced that no warrior of any of the conquering armies that have entered by the Khyber Pass ever rode so swiftly towards India as I galloped away from it.

Heaped about the camp was a great quantity of booser bales, and in the wind, which was steadily rising, the chopped straw of the booser blew everywhere. The very walls of the mess were built of booser bales for there was no tent--only enough sailcloth to make a roof (absence of tents and "travelling light" generally had greatly helped the success of the recent expedition). After dinner, with the wind still rising higher and higher, straining at every cord, tearing and ripping everything that could be torn or ripped, howling so loudly that even coughing camels could not be heard through it, most of us sat talking while the surgeon and another played picquet by the light of a hurricane lantern.

There had been some of the enemy's people among our own troops (they had had option) and stories were told of them. One tower in the Bazar valley belonged to a Jemadar among the party about to demolish it. "Would you like us to let your tower stand?" he was asked. "Oh! smash it up, sahib, I shall get compensation." Apart from personal or family feuds it really matters little to the Afridi which side {246} he is on so long as there is a sure chance of fighting; he loves it more than life. When they came to the Jirga what was the first question asked by the "enemy"? Some Zakkha Khels went up to the General and asked him, "Did we fight well, sahib?"

It was said that compassionate members of Parliament, knowing as much of a Zakkha Khel's mode of life as that of the ruling class in Mars, had begged at Westminster that their gardens and orchards might not be destroyed, and that their women and children might not be turned into the _streets_. These things cheered the camp at Ali Masjid, however irritating they might have been to authority. The women and children had all been moved to places of safety before the expedition started. A blind about "manoeuvres" was well understood in the Peshawar bazaar, though the unusual rapidity of the movements did surprise, and, as objected at the Jirga, the use of smokeless powder was baffling.

At first no newspaper correspondents were allowed to come near, but one or two young men who reached the expedition later certainly did their little part to increase hilarity. One reported that Lala Chena (which he did not know was another name for Ali Masjid) was destroyed with heavy loss, and another that a regiment of Goorkhas (who pride themselves on doing {247} everything possible quietly by signs) entrained with much noise and shouting.

"If I'm charged for transport on this kit I refuse to go on service again," said a man with a green eyeshade. Four conversations were going on at the same time and all were fighting with the noise of the wind. "Fourteen aces and fourteen queens," called Hubby the surgeon from the depths of his sheepskin coat. "I expect Hubby's going to pay for his transport," cried another, and one, reading from regulations--"Any class of transport animal may be provided except elephants." And one telling yarns of Tommies and the vernacular--"I dunno wot 'ee says, sir. Look 'ere, I'll call my mate--'ee can bowl over bat" (bol, _i.e._, speak, and bat, _i.e._, language). And of thirsty Tommy on a railway platform--"Now, then, bring that there pani--don't be lumba or I'll break your confounded seer," and again--"Know their lingo? No, sir, I axes 'em once in English and then I brings the lakri."

Of camels--"We were going along a very narrow path with a steep drop on one side of a thousand feet or so and a sheer rise on the other. Suddenly one of the camels slipped and rolled down. We halted and looked over the edge and saw the poor beast ever so far below. I sent some men down to cut off what baggage had remained on the animal and to collect as much {248} as possible of the rest, and the man who looked after the camels went down to cut the tail off to show the owner that he had not sold this one. He took his knife out and was just getting 'home' when that camel gave a spring and made for the ledge. We loaded him up again and--Oh, yes, the tail was all right!"

Then of Afridi feuds and of the sepoy who would go on firing after an officer rode up and told him to stop as the distance was much too great. How he entirely ignored the officer and continued to fire, and then to a sharp remonstrance only said: "Do let me have one more shot, sahib; it's my uncle."

Among these hillmen there are very binding unwritten laws. No man may kill his brother while he holds the plough in his hand. The blood-feud is the life of the Afridi, but they prefer some reason in the start. Thus when a certain rifleman ran amuck, and it was necessary that he should be shot, some of his relatives appealed to the officer in command, begging that to them might be given the killing of him since were it done by any not of his own family a feud must be started and many deaths ensue.

At night I was given the luxury of a hospital dhoolie, whereby I was much better sheltered from the wind than the others. Officers and men vainly sought sleep, and booser whirled everywhere about the camp. The young moon swung {249} in the starlit sky: signallers at a blockhouse flashed their tiny sparks to a party up on the ridge: in the darkness of the hills unseen and far rested a hoof-mark of Mohammed's steed. I put my head out for a last peep at Orion and soon was in a dreamless slumber.

In the morning I was out early watching the camels in the wind and later, in a little shelter, I painted a portrait of Nasir Khan, a Subadar of the 59th Scinde Rifles and a Eusaf Zai Pathan. He had a beard of fiery red, which I was told is the result of using black dye and not being able to renew the treatment.

On the hillside above the camp was a Kuchi Khel village of cave-dwellings. I asked my sepoy escort to climb up to it with me but he firmly declined, explaining that it was his own village and that he had a feud on, so one of the officers accompanied me.

The hill, called Asrog, which means the veins of the horse, was now in bright light. The fort on the round molehill shape in the middle of the pass appeared sharply against a drift of cloud. Beyond it, towards Landi Kotal, the silhouette of mountain was black purple, with two growing patches of yellow light, where the sun got through behind the fort. And all the while the wind, the Khyber wind, hustled and tore and screamed through the camp.

The loose shale glistened in the sun and the {250} low bushes looked silver grey as I again left Ali Masjid, following the little stream that spates in June when the snows melt. Then these caves on the hillside will be empty and the Kuchi Khels will be all away up in the Tirah hills.

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