hard-grained, practical nature, is that he is given to visions and
epileptic fits. He is visited by the fairies, to use his own expressive
phrase. I knew a fine old subadar who believed that these visitations
came to him because he had shot a pigeon on a mosque. He became a prey
to remorse, and made ineffectual pilgrimages to various shrines to
exorcise the spirit. How much of this subconscious side of the Pathan is
responsible for his state of mind when he runs amok would be an
interesting point for the psychologist. The man broods over some injury
or wrong and he is not content until he has translated his vision into
fact. Sometimes he goes to work like the Malay, killing in a hot, blind
fury. But there is often method in the orgy. It is an orgy of blood, one
glorious hour, perhaps, or a few rapturous seconds in which vengeance is
attained and satisfaction demanded of collective humanity, and the price
to be paid for it, the Pathan's own life, is perfectly well understood.
Take the case of Ashgar Ali. He learnt that a disparaging report as to
the work of his brother had been sent in to the O.C. of the battalion by
one Fazal-ud-din, a non-commissioned Pathan officer. Fazal-ud-din slept
with him in the same tent, and Ashgar Ali lay brooding and sleepless all
night. Before daybreak he had devised a plan. In the darkness he removed
all the rifles from the tent and hid them outside. He waited till the
moon rose. Then standing by the door he shot the betrayer through the
head as he slept. He shot another Pathan by his side who leapt to his
feet, awakened by the report. Then he slipped away stealthily to the
little round knoll which he had marked out for the catastrophe of his
drama. Here he kept up a steady fire at any human shape that came within
range, a stern dispenser of justice in full measure making good the
errors of a too-biased Providence. It was a calculated adjustment of
right and wrong, and he kept a cool head as he counted up his tally. He
saw his Colonel stalking him, an iron-grey head lifted cautiously from
behind a hummock at fifty yards, an easy target. But Ashgar Ali called
out, "Keep away, Sahib. I have no quarrel with you. My account is with
the men. Keep away, or I must shoot." Snipers were firing at him at long
range; a sepoy was creeping up behind, and almost as he spoke he rolled
over and lay still.
A Pathan murder, as viewed by the assassin, generally stands for
judgment and execution at the same time. There must be some such system
among a people who have no Government or police. When a Pathan comes
over the frontier and is arraigned by our code for a crime sanctioned by
his own there is trouble. It is a tragic matter when law, especially if
it is the Indian Penal Code, defeats the natural dispensations of
justice. A splendid young Pathan, the pick of his battalion, was tried
for shooting a man in his company. The act was deliberate, and to the
Pathan mind justified by the provocation. The man who was put away
meanly denied an obligation of honour. The Pathan shot him like a dog
before a dozen witnesses, and no doubt felt the same generous thrill of
satisfaction as he would have done in passing judgment in his own land.
But to the disgust of the regiment, and more especially of the British
officer, who understood the Pathan code, the upholder of honour, one of
the best and straightest men they had, was hanged.
The great difference between the Pathan and the Sikh is that the Pathan
is for himself. He has a certain amount of tribal, but no national,
pride. His assurance is personal. Family pride depends on what the
family has done within the memory of a generation; for there is little
or no distinction in birth. The Pathan is genuinely a democrat, the Sikh
only theoretically so. In strict accordance with his code the Sikh
should be democratic, but whatever he may profess, he is aristocratic in
spirit. His pride is in the community and in himself as one of the
community. The prestige of the Khalsa is always in his mind. The
Pathan's pride is there, but is latent. It leaps out quickly enough when
challenged. But when the Pathan is boastful it is in a casual manner.
Normally he does not bother his head about appearances. He is more like
an Englishman in taking things as they come. But the Sikh is always
acquisitive of honour. One cannot imagine Sikhs turning out old kit in
order to save the new issue for handing in to the quartermaster when
they "cut their name." Yet the Pathan, with his eye on the main chance,
is quite content to go shabby if when he retires he can get more for his
equipment on valuation. On one occasion on manœuvres, when a Pathan
company had carried their economy in this respect a bit too far, their
company commander got even with them in the kind of way they respect.
Haversacks, water-bottles, coats, bandoliers, were laid on the ground
for inspection. Then he sent them off to dig the perimeter. While they
were digging some distance away, he went round quietly with an Indian
officer and weeded out all the unserviceable kit. Then he sent for the
men to come back. "I'm going to make a bonfire of these things," he
said, "and what is more, you are going to dance round it." That young
officer had the right way with the Pathan, who can enjoy a joke turned
against himself better than most people. They danced round the fire,
hugely amused, and no one resented it.
It must not be imagined that the Pathan is of a careful or saving
disposition. He is out to enjoy himself, fond of all the good things of
life, open-handed, and a born gambler. The money he would have saved on
his new kit would probably have been gambled away a few days after he
had "cut his name." I knew a regiment where some of the young Pathans on
three and a half months' leave never went near their homes, but used to
enlist in the coolie corps on the Bolan Pass simply for the fun of
gambling! Gambling in the regiment, of course, was forbidden. But here
they could have their fling and indulge a love of hazard. Wages were
high and the place became a kind of tribal Monte Carlo. If they won,
they threw up the work and had a good time; if they lost, it was all in
the day's work. The Pathan is very much a bird of passage in a regiment.
He is a restless adventurer, and he is always thinking of "cutting his
name." He likes a scrap on the frontier, but soldiering in peace-time
bores him after a little while. It is all "farz kerna," an Orakzai said,
"make believe," like a field-day. "You take up one position and then
another, and nothing comes of it. One gets tired." Raids and
rifle-thieving over the frontier are much better fun. The Pathan had the
reputation of being the most successful rifle-thief we had rubbed up
against in a campaign until we met the Arab in Mesopotamia. The Arab,
when he goes about at night, seems to be leagued with Djinns; but in
stealth, coolness, invisibility, daring, the Pathan runs him close. A
sergeant of the Black Watch told me a characteristic story of how a
Pathan made good a rifle he had lost in France. There had grown up a
kind of _entente_ between the Black Watch and Vaughan's Rifles, who held
the line alongside of them. It could not be otherwise with two fighting
regiments of like traditions who have advanced and retired together,
held the same trenches and watched each other closely for months.
The Black Watch had been at Peshawar; some of them could speak
Hindustani, and one or two Pushtu. Their scout-sergeant, MacDonald, lost
his rifle one night. He had stumbled with it into a ditch during a
patrol, and left it caked with mud outside his dug-out when he turned in
in the small hours. When he emerged it was gone, gathered in by the
stretcher-bearers with the rifles of the dead and wounded, for
MacDonald's dug-out was beside a first-aid station, and his rifle looked
as if it belonged to a man who needed first aid.
He had to make a reconnaissance. There was a rumour that the enemy had
taken down the barbed wire in the trenches opposite and were going to
attack. It was the scout-sergeant's business to see. Luckily there was
grass in no-man's-land knee-deep. But he wanted a rifle, and he turned
to his good friends the Pathans as a matter of course.
"Ho, brothers!" he called out. "Where is the Pathan who cannot lay his
hands on a rifle? I am in need of a rifle."
It was, of course, a point of honour with the 58th Rifles to deliver the
goods. Shabaz Khan, a young Afridi spark, glided off in the direction
from which the scout-sergeant had come. MacDonald had not to wait many
minutes before he returned with a rifle.
A few minutes afterwards he was slipping down the communication trench
when he heard an oath and an exclamation behind him.
"By ----! There was eight rifles against the wall ten minutes ago, and
now there's only seven, and nobody's been here."
It was the stretcher-bearer sergeant. MacDonald examined his rifle and
found the regimental mark on the stock. He went on his way smiling. The
Black Watch were brigaded with the 58th Rifles at Peshawar. "I
remember," Sergeant MacDonald told me, "when the Highland Brigade Sports
were held there, one of our fellows was tossing the caber--it took about
six coolies to lift the thing. I thought it would impress the Pathans,
but not a bit of it. I asked the old Subadar what he thought of
MacAndrew's performance, and he said, 'It is not wonderful that you
Jokes'--'Joke' was as near as he could get to Jock--'should do this
thing. Are you not Highlanders (Paharis) like us, after all?'"
There is a marked difference in temperament among the Pathan tribes. The
Mahsud is more wild and primitive than most, and more inclined to
fanaticism. There are the makings of the Ghazi in him. On the other
hand, his blood-feuds are more easily settled, as he is not so
fastidious in questions of honour. The Afridi is more dour than the
other, and more on his dignity. He has not the openness and cheerfulness
of the Usafzai or Khattak, who have a great deal of the Celt in them.
The Afridi likes to saunter about with a catapult or pellet bow. He will
condescend to kill things, even starlings, but he does not take kindly
to games. He is a good stalker and quite happy with a rifle or a horse.
He excels in tent-pegging. But hockey and football do not appeal to him
as much as they do to other sepoys, though he is no mean performer when
he can be induced to play. This applies in a measure to all Pathans. An
outsider may learn a good deal about their character by watching the way
they play games. One cannot picture the Afridi, for instance, taking
kindly to cricket, but a company of them used to get some amusement out
of net practice in a certain frontier regiment not long ago. An officer
explained the theory of the game. The bat and ball did not impress the
Pathan, but the gloves and pads pleased his eye with their suggestion of
defence. Directly the elements of a man-to-man duel were recognized
cricket became popular. They were out to hurt one another. They did not
care to bat, they said, but wished to bowl, or rather shy. The Pathan
likes throwing things, so he was allowed to shy. Needless to say the
batsman was the mark and not the wicket. A good, low, stinging drive to
the off got one of the men on the ankle. Shouts of applause. First blood
to the Sahib. But soon it is the Pathan's turn to score. His quick eye
designs a stratagem in attack. By tearing about the field he has
collected three balls, and delivers them in rapid succession standing at
the wicket. The first, a low full-pitch, goes out of the field; the
second, aimed at the Sahib's knee, is neatly put into the slips, but the
batsman has no time to guard the third, hurled with great violence at
the same spot, and it is only the top of his pad that saves him from the
casualty list.
The Pathan is more careless and happy-go-lucky than the Punjabi
Mussalman, and not so amenable to discipline. It is his jaunty,
careless, sporting attitude, his readiness to take on any new thing,
that attracts the British soldier. That rifle-thief of the 58th was dear
to Sergeant MacDonald. But it is difficult to generalize about the
Pathan as a class. There is a sensible gulf fixed between the Khattak
and the Afridi, and between the Afridi and the Mahsud. I think, if it
were put to the vote among British officers in the Indian Army, the
Khattak would be elected the pick of the crowd. A special chapter is
devoted to him in this volume, and as his peculiar virtues are
discoverable in some degree among other classes of Pathans, the Khattak
chapter may be regarded as a continuation of the present one. There used
to be an idea that the cis-frontier Pathan, by reason of his settled
life and the security of the policeman and the magistrate round the
corner, was not a match for the trans-frontier Pathan who adjusted his
own differences at the end of a rifle. But the war has proved these
generalizations unsafe. The Pathan is a hard man to beat whichever side
of the border he hails from; but in a war like this he is all the better
for being born a subject of the King.
THE DOGRA
Chance threw me among the Dogras after a battle, and I learnt more of
these north-country Rajputs than I had ever done in times of peace.
Everybody knows how they left Rajputana before the Muhammadans conquered
the country and so never bowed to the yoke, how they fought their way
north, cut out their own little kingdoms, and have held the land they
gained centuries ago by the sword. I have travelled in the foothills
where they live, both in Kangra and Jammu, and can appreciate what they
owe to a proud origin and a poor soil. But one cannot hope to learn much
of a people in a casual trek through their country. The Dogra is shy and
does not unbosom himself to the stranger. Even with his British officer
he is reserved, and one has to be a year or more with him in the
regiment before he will talk freely of himself. But the confidence of
the British officer in the Dogra is complete, and his affection for him
equals that of the Gurkha officer for "the Gurkha." "He is such a
Sahib," the subaltern explained. "You won't find another class of sepoy
in the Indian army who is quite such a Sahib as the Dogra."
[Illustration: THE DOGRA.]
And here I must explain that I am only setting down what the subaltern
told me, that I tapped him on the subject he loved best, and that I am
making no invidious comparisons of my own. One seldom meets a good
regimental officer who does not modify one's relative estimate of the
different fighting stocks of the Indian Army. Still one can
discriminate. What the subaltern told me about the gallantry of the
Dogras I saw afterwards repeated in "Orders" by the General of the
Division. There were other regiments which received the same praise, and
if I had fallen among these I should have heard the same tale.
"The first thing we knew of that trench," the subaltern explained, "was
when the Turkey-cock blazed off into us at three hundred yards. Thank
heaven, our fellows were advance guard."
I smiled at the boy's delightful conceit in his own men. His company
were sitting or lying down on the banks of a water-cut in the restful
attitudes men fall into after strain. They were most of them young men,
clean-shaven with neat moustaches, lightly built but compact and supple,
of regular features, cast very much in a type. Some were smoking their
chillums, the detached bowl of a huqah, which they hold in their two
palms and draw in the smoke between the fingers through the aperture at
the base. The Dogra is an inveterate smoker and will have his chillum
out for a final puff two minutes before going into the attack. I was
struck by their scrupulous neatness. The morning had been the third day
of a battle. The enemy had decamped at dawn, but in the two previous
days half the regiment had fallen. Yet they seemed to have put in a
toilet somehow. Their turbans, low in the crown with the shell-like
twist in front peculiar to the Dogra, were as spick and span as on
parade. They looked a cool crowd, and it was of their coolness under the
most terrible fire that the subaltern spoke. One of them was readjusting
his pagri by a mirror improvised out of a tin he had picked up in the
mud, and was tying it in neat folds.
"The Dogra is a bit fussy about his personal appearance," the subaltern
explained. "He is a blood in his way. I have seen our fellows giving
their turbans the correct twist when they are up to the neck in it
during an advance.
"It was the devil of a position. The Turkey-cock lay doggo and held his
fire. We didn't see a sign of him until he popped off at us at three
hundred yards. Their trenches had no parapets and were almost flush with
the ground. In places they had built in ammunition boxes which they had
loopholed and plastered over with mud. They had dotted the ground in
front with little mounds which they used as range-marks, and they had
every small depression which offered any shelter covered with their
machine-guns."
And he told me how the Dogras pressed on to the attack over this ground
with a shout--not the "Ram Chandra ji ki jai" of route marches and
manœuvres, but with a "Ha, aha, aha, aha, aha," a sound terrifying in
volume, and probably the most breath-saving war cry there is.
A great many of the regiment were new to the game, mere boys of
seventeen, and the old hands had piqued their vanity, reminding them
that they had never been in battle and expressing a pious hope that they
would stand their ground. The subaltern had to pull some of these
striplings down who exposed themselves too recklessly. He pointed out to
me one Teku Singh, "a top-hole fellow." In the trench a machine-gun
jammed, Teku Singh clambered out to adjust it. The subaltern called to
him to keep his head down. "What does dying matter, Sahib?" he answered,
echoing at Sheikh Saad the spirit of Chitore. "The only fit place for a
Rajput to die is on the field of battle." Teku Singh was modestly
smoking his chillum on the bund.
The Dogra's is an unobtrusive gallantry. He is no thruster. He has not
the Pathan's devil-may-care air, nor the Sikh's pleasing swagger. When a
group of Indian officers are being introduced to an inspecting general
or the ruler of a province, you will find it is the Dogra who hangs in
the background. Yet he is intensely proud, conservative, aristocratic.
The subaltern's description of Teku Singh at home reminded me of the
hero of the "Bride of Lammermuir," that classic and lovable example of
the impoverished aristocrat, whose material poverty is balanced by more
honourable possessions. I have seen the land the Dogra cultivates. It is
mostly retrieved from a stony wilderness. His cornfields are often mere
sockets in the rock over which a thin layer of earth has gathered. His
family traditions forbid him to work on the soil and compel him to keep
a servant, though he has been known to plough secretly by night.
Under-fed at home, he will not accept service save in the army. There
are families who do nothing but soldiering. There is no difficulty about
recruits. "When a man goes home on leave," the subaltern explained, "he
brings back his pals. There is always a huge list of umedwars
(candidates) to choose from. It is like waiting to get into the
Travellers or the Senior Naval and Military."
Most of the men in the regiment were Katoch Dogras from the Kangra
district, the most fastidious of all. They won't plough, and won't eat
unless their food is cooked by a Katoch or a Brahmin. There are families
who will only join the cavalry. The plough they disdain, as they boast
that the only true weapon of a Rajput is the sword; when driven by
hunger and poverty to cultivate their land themselves, they do it
secretly, taking out their oxen by night and returning before daylight.
The head of the house has his talwar, or curved Indian sword with a
two-and-a-half-foot blade. It is passed down as an heirloom from father
to son, and is carried on campaigns by the Dogra officer. I have seen
them in camp here, though they are not worn in the trenches. The Dogra
has a splendid heart, but his physique is often weakened by poverty. It
is extraordinary how they fill out when they come into the regiment. It
is the same, of course, with other sepoys, but there is more difference
between the Dogra recruit and the seasoned man than in any other stock.
The habit of thrift is so ingrained in them that it is difficult to
prevent them stinting themselves in the regiment. The subaltern had a
story of a recruit who left his rations behind on manœuvres. It was the
General himself who discovered the delinquent. Asked for an explanation
the lad thought awhile and then answered bashfully, "Sahib, when I am
fighting I do not require food."
Every Dogra is shy and reserved and very sensitive about his private
affairs. When his name is entered in the regimental sheet roll, the
young recruit is asked who is his next of kin.
"Wife," he will say bashfully.
"What age?"
He is not quite certain, thinks she is about twelve.
"How high is she?"
"About so high." He stretches his hand four feet from the ground.
He is dreadfully bashful as he makes this gesture, afraid the other
recruits should hear, just like a boy in the fourth form asked to
describe his sister's complexion or hair.
Needless to say, the Dogra seldom, if ever, brings his wife into
cantonments. Exile must be harder to him than to many as he is the most
home-loving person. His only crime is that when he goes to his village
he sometimes runs things too close, so that an accident by the way, a
broken wheel or swollen stream, makes him overstay his leave.
"I wish I could show you Moti Chand," the subaltern continued. "He was a
mere boy not turned seventeen. This show was the first time he had been
under fire; he was one of the ammunition-carriers and had to go from the
front trenches to the first-line transport and bring back his box. He
made two journeys walking slowly and deliberately as they all do, very
erect, balancing the ammunition-box on his head. When he came up the
second time I told him to hurry up and get down into the trenches. 'No,
Sahib,' he said, 'Ram Chand, who was coming up beside me, was killed. I
must go back and bring in his box.' He brought in the box all right, but
was shot in the jaw. I think he is doing well.
"I can tell you, you would like the Dogra if you knew him. He is
difficult to know and his reserve might make you think him sulky at
first, but there is nothing sulky or brooding about him. He never bears
a grudge; he is rather a cheery fellow and has his own sense of humour.
As a shikari----"
The subaltern sang the praises of Teku Singh and Moti-Chand in a way
which was very pleasant to hear. He told me how their families received
him in Kangra, every household insisting that he should drink tea, and
he ended up by repeating that the true Dogra was the most perfect sahib
he knew.
It was no new experience for me to hear the Dogra praised. Their
fighting qualities are well known, and they have proved themselves in
many a frontier campaign, more especially in the capture of Nilt (1891),
and in the defence of Chitral and in the memorable march to the relief
of the garrison. And one had heard of the Dogra officer, Jemadar Kapur
Singh, in France, who held on until all but one wounded man had been put
out of action, and then rather than surrender shot himself with his last
cartridge. Besides the three Dogra class regiments, the 37th, 38th, and
41st, there are many Dogra companies in mixed-company battalions, and
Dogra squadrons in cavalry regiments. They may not make up a large part
of the Indian Army, but they contribute a much larger part in proportion
to their numbers than any other stock.
When next I met the subaltern the regiment had been in action again and
he had been slightly wounded. He took me into his tent and showed me
with pride what the General had written about his Dogras. One of them,
Lance-Naik Lala, had been recommended for the Victoria Cross; he was the
second sepoy in Mesopotamia on whom the honour was conferred.
"You'll see I haven't been talking through my hat," he explained. "Lala
was at it all day and most of the night, and earned his V.C. a dozen
times. It seemed certain death to go out to ----; the enemy were only a
hundred yards off."
"Lance-Naik Lala insisted on going out to his Adjutant," the
recommendation ran, "and offered to crawl back with him on his back at
once. When this was not permitted, he stripped off his own clothing to
keep the wounded officer warmer, and stayed with him till just before
dark when he returned to the shelter. After dark he carried the first
wounded officer back to the main trenches, and then, returning with a
stretcher, carried back his Adjutant."
This was at El Hannah on the 21st January. There was a freezing wind and
the wounded lay out in pools of rain and flooded marsh all night; some
were drowned; others died of exposure. It was a Dogra-like act of Lala
to strip himself, and to make a shield of his body for his Adjutant, an
act of devotion often repeated by the sepoy in Mesopotamia; and the
Adjutant was only one of five officers and comrades whom Lala saved that
day.