from Gordon Sinclair's Khyber Caravan
I discovered a copy of Gordon Sinclair's Khyber Caravan in my father's basement and devoured it one Christmas. Gordon Sinclair was a Canadian news icon, a globetrotting reporter and broadcaster who was sent to India in the mid 1930's to dig up "interest pieces" for the Toronto Star. The book "Khyber Caravan" is the report of his trip and it's an interesting travelogue of the young reporter's voyages through India, from the Khyber to the coast and back again. (He was on the spot covering the massive Quetta earthquake, the result of which he describes in detail.)
In the book he describes a group called the Tochi Scouts who patroled the frontier with Afganistan and attempted to help mediate peace between the warring tribal groups in that area. Here's how Gordon describes them....
"Twenty two white officers controlling 2000 [native] snipers drawn from every tribe on the frontier, who spy out the distant hills and actually guard the army when it's on the march!
"The scouts, whose headquarters are at Miramsha, are the only branch of the service who can, and do, wheel into action on their own responsibility without the okay of politicians. As we all know, the army dare not fire a shot until war lords give them the nod. The scouts say hang the politicians, lets at 'em and at 'em they go.
"Probably nothing explains the swashbuckling attitude of the rank and file of Tochi Scouts so well as their sentries. Britain's army all across the frontier, sometimes, as at Peshawar and Razmak, concentrated in gangs of 7000 and more makes every sentry patrol every beat with his loaded rifle chained to his wrist and waist, so that a raider, even though he butchers the sentry, can't get away with the precious shooting rod.
"The scouts, spread over a far wider and far tougher area than any brigade, use tribesmen as sentries, don't bother to chain man to gun and have never lost a rifle."
He goes on to discribe the role of the scouts as "umpires" in local tribal disputes, settling things between warring factions through negotiated peace treaties. They would apparently fingerprint all the important personages who would be attending the negotations in the weeks leading up to the negotiation. Then the tribes would show up, unarmed, and under machine gun survilance from the fort. They were then called forward by name and admitted to the fort one at a time, after being searched, fingerprinted again and matched to the list of expected arrivals. They would match death for death between the two groups, settle up with reparation payments made between them and then the war was over (for now).
How would you use the Tochi Scouts?
Tell me about it! ehpeaell@yahoo.com
The Tochi Scouts