The Road to Malakand

Perhaps you've noticed the long silence from our correspondent Lt Churchill. When last we saw the young subaltern in late July...

Churchill was standing on the lawn at the Goodwood races, enjoying balmy weather and winning money, when the report of this decision buzzed through the crowd. He was electrified. On meeting Sir Bindon at Deepdene the year before, he had extracted a promise that, should the general take the field again, Winston would join him. Churchill had three weeks of leave left, but he instantly wired Blood, reminding him of his pledge, and caught the next boat to India, the S.S. Rome, leaving behind, in his haste, a batch of new books, his polo sticks, his pet dog Peas, a Primrose League badge old Mr Skrine had lent him in Bath, and, of course, a sheaf of bills.

He spent most of the next several weeks traveling, but at last reached his destination - the front lines. "Having realised that if a British cavalry officer waits till he is ordered on active service, he is likely to wait a considerable time," he reports, "I obtained six weeks' leave of absence from my regiment, and on the 2nd of September arrived at Malakand as press correspondent of the PIONEER and DAILY TELEGRAPH, and in the hope of being sooner or later attached to the force in a military capacity."

The army lieutenant hiring on as a newspaper war correspondent was a bit novel - but not necessarily frowned upon. As William Manchester explains it, "there were no restrictions on officers writing for the press." Furthermore, "If officers found themselves in peaceful billets, they looked for war elsewhere, took leave to get there, and paid their own expenses. The colonel commanding the Fourth Dragoon Guards enlisted as a private in the King's Own Scottish Borderers so he could join the storming of the Malakand Pass."

A few more details on his summer travels from Britain to India, from Churchill:

It was the hottest season of the year, and the Red Sea was stifling. The hand-pulled punkahs, for in those days there were no electric fans, flapped vigorously to and fro in the crowded dining-saloon and agitated the hot food-smelling air. But these physical discomforts were nothing beside my mental anxieties. I was giving up a whole fortnight's leave. At Brindisi no answer had come from Sir Bindon Blood. It was sure to come at Aden. There I danced about from one foot to the other till the steward had distributed the last of the telegrams and left me forlorn. However, at Bombay was good news. The General's message was "Very difficult; no vacancies; come as correspondent; will try to fit you in. B.B."
<...>
I sped to the Bangalore railway station and bought a ticket for Nowshera... I had the curiosity to ask how far it was. The polite Indian consulted a railway time table and impassively answered 2,028 miles. Quite a big place, India! This meant five days' journey in the worst of heat... early on the sixth morning after I had left Bangalore I stood on the platform of Nowshera, the railhead of the Malakand Field Force.

September had come. As for establishing himself as a war correspondent, on 5 September he wrote to his mother...

"Herewith two letters for the D.T. (Daily Telegraph), I do not know what terms you have made with them - but should certainly not be less than £10 per letter. Having read please forward - and decide whether they should be signed or not. I am myself very much in favor of signing - as otherwise I get no credit for the letters..."

It was perhaps unwise of Churchill to leave the financial arrangements to Lady Randolf - never one to treat money with any high seriousness except when it was short - for she secured only £5 per letter. ("Haggling about the price," she observed, "would not have done.") To add insult to injury, she opted for anonymity as well. Churchill was incensed.

"I will not accept less than £10 a letter and I shall return any cheque for less sum. I particularly asked for that amount au moins and when I think of the circumstances under wh those letters were written, on the ground in a tent temperatures 115° or after a long days action or a by a light which it was dangerous to use lest it draw fire - when I was tired and hustled and amid other circumstances - I think they are cheap at the price..."

"As Dr Johnson says," he added, "'no one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.'" In the end, however, he had no choice but to accept the price.

For "They were paid almost nothing," William Manchester writes of Britain's soldiers, "No man could afford a commission unless he possessed a private income of at least £150 a year for an infantry office and as much as £700 in the cavalry."

Having at last arrived at Nowshera, our correspondent discovered that General Blood had departed on an expedition against the Bunerwals - though his absence ended just five days after Churchill's arrival. "But," Churchill reports, "it seemed a very long time to me." He spent part of that time equipping himself for the task ahead...

I had to buy two good horses, engage a military syce (groom), and complete my martial wardrobe in many particulars. Unluckily for them, but very conveniently for me, several officers had been killed in the preceding week, and their effects, including what they had stood up in, were, in accordance with Anglo-Indian campaigning custom, sold by auction as soon as the funeral (if any) was over. In this way I soon acquired a complete outfit. It struck me as rather grim to see the intimate belongings of one's comrade of the day before - his coat, his shirt, his boots, his water-bottle, his revolver, his blanket, his cooking-pot - thus unceremoniously distributed among strangers. But after all it was quite logical and in accordance with the highest principles of economics. Here was much the best market. All transport charges were already defrayed. The dead man disposed of his assets on what were virtual monopoly terms. The camp auctioneer realised far better prices than any widow or mother could have done for the worldly effects of Lieut. A.B. or Capt. X.Y. And as it was with the officers, so also was it much more frequently with the private soldier. Still I must admit that I felt a pang when a few days later I first slung round my shoulder the lanyard of a gallant friend I had seen killed the day before.

And now the conclusion of Lt Churchill's account of General Blood's confrontation with the Bunerwals:

THE GATE OF SWAT
Lt Churchill

The Bunerwals belong to the Yusaf section, of the Yusafzai tribe. They are a warlike and turbulent people. To their valley, after the suppression of the Indian Mutiny, many of the Sepoys and native officers who had been in revolt fled for refuge. Here, partly by force and partly by persuasion, they established themselves. They married women of the country and made a settlement. In 1863 the Bunerwals came into collision with the British Government and much severe fighting ensued, known to history as the Ambeyla Campaign. The refugees from India renewed their quarrel with the white troops with eagerness, and by their extraordinary courage and ferocity gained the name of the "Hindustani Fanatics." At the cost of thirty-six officers and eight hundred men Buner was subdued. The "Crag Picket" was taken for the last time by the 101st Fusiliers, and held till the end of the operations. Elephants, brought at great expense from India, trampled the crops. Most of the "Hindustani Fanatics" perished in the fighting. The Bunerwals accepted the Government terms, and the troops retired. Since then, in 1868, in 1877 and again in 1884 they raided border villages, but on the threat of an expedition paid a fine and made good the damage. The reputation they have enjoyed since their stout resistance in 1863, has enabled them to take a leading position among the frontier tribes; and they have availed themselves of this to foment and aggravate several outbreaks against the British. Their black and dark-blue clothes had distinguished them from the other assailants of Malakand and Chakdara. They had now withdrawn to their valley and thence defied the Government and refused all terms.

(click map for larger version)

As Sir Bindon Blood and his escort approached the top of the pass, a few shots were fired by the watchers there, but there was no opposition. All the Bunerwals had hurried over to defend the southern entrances to their country, which they conceived were in danger of attack from Brigadier-General Wodehouse's force at Rustum. The general reached the Kotal, and saw the whole valley beneath him. Great villages dotted the plains and the aspect was fertile and prosperous.

The unguarded Karakar Pass was practicable for troops, and if the Government would give their consent, Buner might be reduced in a fortnight without difficulty, almost without fighting.

Telegrams were despatched to India on the subject, and after much delay and hesitation the Viceroy decided against the recommendation of his victorious general. Though the desirability of settling with the Bunerwals was fully admitted, the Government shrank from the risk. The Malakand Field Force thus remained idle for nearly a fortnight. The news, that the Sirkar had feared to attack Buner, spread like wildfire along the frontier, and revived the spirits of the tribes. They fancied they detected a sign of weakness. Nor were they altogether wrong. But the weakness was moral rather than physical.

It is now asserted, that the punishment of Buner is only postponed, and that a few months may see its consummation. [Written in 1897.] The opportunity of entering the country without having to force the passes may not, however, recur.

On the 26th of August the force returned to Thana, and the expedition into Upper Swat terminated.

"Since the return of the column from the Upper Swat a period of waiting has supervened," Churchill wrote in the first of his letters destined for the Daily Telegraph.

"Naturally, there is much discussion in the camp as to future movements A reconnaissance has displayed the whole of the Buner valley - a valley containing large numbers of rebellious tribesmen - and naturally everyone has been eager to invade so promising a country. But from Simla an order has arrived that the Bunerwals are to be spared. Great disappointment has been succeeded by trenchant criticism. Forbearance is construed by the natives as fear, and Buner's successful defiance of the Government will ring along the frontier, and find echo in every bazaar in India..."

"Meanwhile rumours run through the camp of movements here and marches there, all ultimately pointing to a move against the Mohmands... Of the progress of these movements, of the resistance that may be encountered, of the incidents that occur, I hope to give some account in my subsequent letters..."

"Hitherto the course of events has been recorded in the impersonal style of history," he wrote - but henceforward he would provide an eyewitness account.

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