Raiders of the Sarhad

A few minutes later we saw Jiand, accompanied by two or three men ambling towards us on his camel. Immediately on his arrival Jiand assured me that, hearing I was in the neighbourhood, he had come with his followers to do me honour.

"Honour be damned!" I retorted. "What do you mean by burning the bhusa I have bought from Murad? Was that also by way of doing me honour?"

Jiand protested his innocence. Was it possible that anything that belonged to the General Sahib should, or could, be burned? And how could he (the General) so wrong him (Jiand) as to suspect him of any such offence? If the bhusa really was burned, he swore that he was innocent, and had had nothing to do with it.

"We'll soon prove whether you had or not," I returned. "I am on my way to Karsimabad to inquire into it. You will go there too, and if I find you had a hand in it, as I am convinced you had, you shall regret it to your dying day. Go on in front of me, and wait for me in Karsimabad."

With a sullen face Jiand obeyed, and our own force continued its march.

Arrived within three-quarters of a mile of Murad's place we halted at what appeared to be a favourable place to camp. This represented a hard flat piece of ground at the base of a small hill. A picket on the hill-top would command the surrounding country and so prevent surprise.

The bulk of the force was left and I went forward with an escort of about a dozen infantrymen and some fifteen cavalrymen.

At the entrance to Karsimabad I noticed a huge tree with a mud platform placed round its base, close beside the ruins of a small fort. This seemed to offer an ideal spot upon which to hold the inquiry, for the tree afforded a wide circle of shade from the burning heat.

Accordingly I sat down, with Sanders and the Sarhad-dar on either side, whilst the cavalry accompanying us dismounted and remained behind the tree. The infantry-escort formed up on our right.

Murad, who appeared greatly distressed, came forward and told me that all the bhusa he had collected for us had been burned down, thus confirming the report I had already received.

"Who did it?" I thundered. "Can you produce the man who dared to burn my property?"

To my great surprise Murad said he could. He had captured the man, a Yarmahommedzai.

Scarcely had the man been brought forward when, from every quarter, appeared men armed with rifles. A moment before the place, excepting for ourselves, had been empty. These men seemed to have sprung out of the ground, but must, actually, have been concealed in the adjoining fields. In an instant I could tell that they were picked men of Jiand's lashkar. There must have been between one hundred and fifty and two hundred of them. They came forward and squatted down in a circle close in front of us; Jiand, and his kinsman and evil genius, a man named Nur-Mahommed, placing themselves well in the foreground.

In a flash I realised the tactical error I had made in leaving the main force three-quarters of a mile away, and before I had made certain that Jiand's men had not occupied Karsimabad. These men held their magazine rifles, which were always loaded, across their knees. From where we sat, I now realised, and too late, that I could not see, or signal to, my own small force, and that, except by a miracle, it would be equally ignorant of these proceedings. I glanced quickly behind me at the fifteen or sixteen cavalrymen I had brought, saw that they had dismounted and were holding their lances in their hands, whilst their rifles remained in the buckets on the off-sides of the horses. A bad position for getting at them when dismounted and at a moment's notice.

It was obvious that I had allowed myself to be caught in a trap. We all knew it, though not one man with me showed it by the quiver of an eyelid.

I turned to the man whom Murad had brought forward and placed before me as the burner of the stacks of straw.

"How dare you burn my bhusa? What reason had you for doing it, and who told you to do it?"

Before the man, who was trembling like a leaf, had time to answer, Nur-Mahommed sprang up and shouted:

"The country is ours and everything in it. We will burn the bhusa, or burn anything we like."

And he glared at Sanders and myself in a way that left no doubt as to his meaning.

I told him angrily to sit down, as I was not talking to him. For answer he assumed a threatening attitude, and openly sneered at me for attempting to give orders I could not enforce.

I ordered a sepoy to arrest him.

What followed all happened in a flash.

The sepoy had scarcely moved a step to obey when every one of Jiand's men leapt to their feet and brought their rifles to the present.

I must confess to having acted automatically. Indeed, there was no time to think or do otherwise.

I literally roared at them. "How dare you, you dogs? Sit down this instant!"

I reached out my hands towards Jiand who was close to me, and, in a paroxysm of rage, forced him down by my side.

"Sit down!" I roared again into the dark faces of the men surrounding us.

Hesitation and doubt spread amongst that threatening crowd – and the bulk of them sat down!

They were now given no time to recover their poise. Sanders and the escort were at once ordered to disarm the men who remained standing.

Like a flash my men darted forward, only too thankful to take action instead of waiting to be shot down, and in a twinkling had wrenched their rifles from the scowling brutes who were hesitating as to whether they would shoot first or submit. They were looking to their Chief for a lead. But Jiand, that once invincible warrior, had lost his nerve, and now sat cowering, unable either to make a decision or dominate his own men.

So, whilst they stood, furtive and undecided, they were disarmed and left helpless.

"Now," I shouted, turning to those who had sat down, "get up and place your rifles against that wall, there," pointing to the wall of the mud fort. "And if there is the slightest sign of treachery I will shoot you down like the dogs you are."

Like a lot of beaten sheep they got up and obeyed.

The danger was over before we had had time fully to realise it.

I then proceeded to tell the Raiders what I thought of them in language which has since been reported as hectic. They were told that their lives and their property had been spared again and again; that over and over again their liberty had been given them when they should have been kept as prisoners. But this time their offence was beyond forgiveness and they should now have a taste of the treatment they deserved.

I then ordered my escort to seize and tie the men together, and drive them back to the camp. A certain number of the Yarmahommedzais leapt up at this, and, before they could be stopped, had bolted into the high-grown crops surrounding the place. But we caught a good sixty of them, and these were bound by their hands in groups of three by their turbans. They were then marched off to the main column, which had remained in blissful ignorance of these happenings a short three-quarters of a mile away.

Sanders and I remained where we were, and a few minutes later the Sarhad-dar returned, wiping the sweat from his face.

"That was a close shave, Sahib," he said, and I could see that his hands were shaking, despite the fact that he had behaved with the utmost bravery during the crisis. "Though so many got away, amongst those we have captured are nearly all the leading men of the Yarmahommedzais. Without them the tribe will be as men without leaders, and we need not fear them. I have searched and questioned some of them, and I have indisputable proofs that they came to capture you. They wanted you – alive, not dead, that they might be able to dictate their own terms."

"Well," I said disgustedly, "I've had enough in the way of trying to make friends with them. I know that both you and Idu have advised all along that it would be of no use, but I have hoped against hope. Now the Indian Government must deal with them, and I shall advise the Government that the best thing to do will be to send them to India and imprison them there."

The Sarhad-dar replied, with heartfelt relief, "I am thankful you have at last come to that decision. It's the only chance of obtaining peace in the Sarhad. Juma Khan has already given ample proof of his loyalty, and Halil Khan, untrustworthy as he is, would never dream of fighting the Sirkar alone. If I may advise I would suggest that whoever is ultimately set free Nur-Mahommed is never liberated. He is Jiand's evil genius. Without him you might have won over Jiand to real loyalty, but so long as Nur-Mahommed, who is a devil, is always whispering in his ear you can never trust Jiand to keep any oath."

Before we left Karsimabad I paid Murad some compensation for his straw, for he had had the best intentions.

When we reached the main column, which was now agog with curiosity, I once again combed out our prisoners, retaining some forty-three and letting the others go. It must be remembered that we were desperately short of food ourselves and I did not want a single unnecessary mouth to feed.

But I was not going back to Khwash without a supply of fodder for our animals. I, therefore, told Jiand that as he had burned the bhusa I had bought, and had refused his own at the generous price offered, I should now take his without payment.

So we made a détour by way of Kamalabad, where my men immediately started hunting for straw and wheat. We eventually found that the latter had been carefully hidden by Jiand, and in a highly ingenious way. The wheat had been put into sacks, and buried in the sand dunes. The sand had then been carefully smoothed over, leaving nothing to show that it had been disturbed.

But, before our search, I asked the Sarhad-dar, "How on earth will the men find the sacks?" fearful lest, after all, Jiand had foiled me.

"They know how to find it," he replied. "Give them the order to search for it and you'll see what they'll do. They know the trick well enough."

Accordingly, orders were issued to search for, and carry off, all the sacks of wheat and all bhusa that could be found.

In an instant they were at work amongst the sand dunes, prodding in the sand with their cleaning rods. Every now and again a man would shout "Here!" and after a few minutes' digging a sack would be dragged to light.

It was immensely interesting to watch this unearthing of plunder, and after a while I called "Give me a cleaning rod and let me try."