The Goderich Signal-Star, 1969-02-06, Page 1141,
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GOD$1R.tC I SIGNAL -STA x 1' tJ8SDAY, PEI3
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TJIE ULUE THUMB
BY G. M.ei EOa Ross
The following 'effusion was
sparked by an obituary notice in
the Proceedings of the
Institution of Civil Engineers of
Colonel William Teague Everall,
who died on December 27th,
1967. Thus there is no reason
why the name Everall. should 'be
brought to your notice, other
than my own personal desire to -
dwell for a few , moments on the
North West Frontier of Pakistan.
Everall was one of the giants of
the. Frontier. I-fe was the bridge
designer for the North Western.
Railway, with •an office at ,
Jhelum on the Indus river in the
Punjab. His claims to fame were
bridges all over an area half the
size of Ontario, but his greatest
feat was the strategic bridge over
the Indus at Attgck, which gave
access to and from the mouth of
the Khyber Pass, one. of the
traditional passes of ingress for
the conquerors of India proper.,
Technically this bridge was
much in advance of its time, for
it carried rail and road, one
above the other, and as such was
a most impressive structures
When India had no further
use for his ser ices, he came
home to England, where he
solved many of the problems
connected with' the Mulberry
Harbours which ensured supplies
to the Allied Forces after their
landings' on the Normandy
Beaches. -
His departure ffom Indian
service was- marked by some
endearing wo?'ds from his native .
Staff: "The name of Everall
• Sahib has' become renownecland
respected throughout the
Punjab, wherever men talk -of
civil engineering....you will
become a legendary figure....Our
children's children will know '
you as a mighty builder of
_bridges....a man who compressed,.
the work of dears into
months.;..Witli only a few
Mahsud village of -Makin, might
induce a peace or at least an
easier surveillance. Bannu, on a
Metre gauge railway running
from Kalabagh on the Indus,
became the railhead for these
operations.
Bannu was far from being a
prepossessing spot in which to
find oneself. It consisted of the
usual bazaar, built in sun-dried
brick,. and occupied for themost
Part by .the usual Hindu
bunniahs. Water came from wells
which had a reputation for
drying up. A few .pepper trees
were kept alive by the rains
which always came on the 31st
of • July, to the day. The
cantonment buildings were also
in sun-dried brick; The fort, the
,telegraph office, the dak
bungalow and the few houses
occupied , by the Deputy
Commissioner and the
Commander Royal Engineersa
More recently, a fine burnt -brick
hospital had been erected, and
there was a much -patronized
medical mission bearing the
name of Pennell. The cemetery
was a forlorn spot; overgrown,
'with trees and covered in dust,
t4 yellow dust from the few
'unpaved roads. But here you
could almost trace the History of
- successive attempts to quell the
unruly Pathan.. Andwhile the
headstones did not
commemorate any famous
soldier or statesman,
nevertheless the dates upon their
worn faces, conjured up the days
when Roberts Sahib, the little
gunner, marched from -Kandahar
to Kabul, in 1842, for he was
still proudly remembered in
1922 by men 'who had marched
with him as camel sarwans. The
Second Afghan War of 1878.
The days when Durand
demarcated the boundary with
Afghanistan from Chitral to
Baluchistan in 1893, until the
day when we buried our dead
from a sanguinary ambush of a
convoy returning nonchalantly
from Datta Khel, .up. the Tochi.
It was the political -agent who
hears all-. the 'details later` from
the Pathan leaders, who boasted
of ,the thousands of rounds of
ammunition, not to mention the,
Lee Enfield rifles, they had
captured. Enough to arm every
- tribesm'an within call. And while
- their womenfolk disfigured the
. corpses,.it was *counted ho'W '
the Sahibs hull' ought like tigers
before being despatched.
'Bannu. was -no upstart. It had
been - -a settlement long before
the British appeared. . But in
1920 imagine dust, moist heat,
little shade, ' bhail gharris
trudging along in 'clouds of dust;
Indian soldiers drilling or playing
hockey -on the hard mud maidan
outside the fort. About this date
there. were other living names
with which to conjure._ Sir John
Matfey, the Governor of the.
Province at 'Peshawar; George
Cunningham, the political agent,
Tochi, stationed at Miranshah;
Andrew Skeen; a ---renowned'
frontier general, who always
inspired the' greatest confidence
irr his troops; Bruce Scott;,
commanding the Tochi Scouts at�l
IV_Iirarishah_and.. j_ust albout�.ta,.,be
'ieved by Claude Erskine of
the Guides; Fitzpatrick,- the
resident in Waziristan. It ' is '
exceptions, the Brea ridges of
the Punjab are im ressive and
enduring monumen s to your.
name."4'
* *•,
•- - The Khyber is not the only
way invaders can enter India
from the west: It just happens to
be convenient. There . is the
' Tochi valley for example, which
„debouches into the _ plains at
r Bannu. But during the years
1,920 to 19 4, a foreign invader
was no „I�g �K.'f€ared; it was
rather ti►'''t` bit.'''stirred up
u
N among the Waziri and., Mahsud
tribesmen by the:.Fakir of Ipi. It
was he who, from time to time,
rekindled the 'jehad', the holy
'war, against the,.British and the
peaceful , reminders of the
Punjab; a continuation of the
guerilla war which had persisted
for 400 years, off and on; a war
which was never won and never
lost, but - which became a
running' sore in the flank of
India and therefore of the
British Raj. Perhaps it should be
added that the Fakir was given
an obituary in the London
`Times',, so great was his fame.
Thus, when the Government
of India decided to- try once
• more to pacify tho wild country
• • to the west, occupied by these
tribes, .t-. as....trighi. th t the'
i � of r ` a the
\hu !d ig \ .s elf rel
establishment of a tronghold at
Razmak, .right against the
'r.
interesting to'` recall what some
of these achieved in later life
Maffey, the first Lord Rugby,
was Governor General of 'the
Sudan. Cunningham, after being
political secretary to the
Viceroy, Lord` Irwin, became a
much , loved Governor of the
North West Frontier Province.
Bruce Scott led his Gurkhas to
undying *fame against the
Japanese in Burma. Erskine, who
knew the Frontier better than
the:; next 'than; and understood
the Pathan Bike a book, fell foul
of' an ignorant general
commanding . Northern
Com.mand. and decided to retire
to his orange farm in Natal.
But when I arrived on this
scene, after the first World War,
all these professionals were
functioning, at the job they knew
best. It was rather awesome,
after barely a year in the
„country, in Baluchistan, to be
plunged "amongst them; all of
whom were able to 'converse
with the animals', so to speak,
while I only had a smattering of
Urdu: But the challenge to
survive with such a handpicked
crowd was tremendous.
I settled into the only place
in Bannu to offer me a bed: the
dak bungalows --B"eyond - the
verandah played some very small
Sikh children, aged perhaps four
years. Their father anneared.
"bearded like the bard", to
explain he had come to take
over the postal duties alt Bannu'.
When he became.confidential, he
amazed me by saying the boy I
saw had ` his name down for
Eton. I did not laugh. I was
becoming used _ to such
anomalies of which th,e .,,East is
full.' For example, one of my
best Hindu suboverseers, who
had supervised the building of
the hospital, had his son
kidnapped. Theoransom was one
lakh of rupees; from a man
whose monthly pay -was perhaps'
250 rupees. Could: he find the
money? Of course he could and
did, and no questions asked. But
it is just thinkable that he had
The Rehabilitation
Foundation for the Disabled
(March of Dimes) is dedicated to
helping, physically handicapped
adults.-Suppo_r,t_.the ,March of
Dimes.
fTAG
—RAID -OF -HE
DRYERS
means economy of operation
- because heat other ,dryers
waste is used to pre -heat
incoming air.- Means fast,'
efficient and uniform .drying
because the warmed air eters
tbeQdryer drum in a circular
pattern to completely
surround the tumbling
clothes - no "hot spots."'
See MAYTAG at
M1
•
rendered the contractor of the
hospital some, `service' and
received a loan as a quid prop
quo.
There is only one road out of
Bannu and it led up the,Tochi
valley. A few. miles of plain and
you arrived at Shinki-- canyon,
guarded by a tower from which
size Sikh soldiers walked out one
fide day, to be scuppered almost
before they "knew ,�i,t. And it was
•here that the first evidences of
the Jverall touch became
apparent. Two' 'of his old spans
had been used to circumvent ar
outcrop of rotten shale through
which no road ' was feasible.
Several miles further up there
was' another Everall bridge. It
was close to Miranshah, where I
lived in their fort with the Tochi
Scouts. The bridge consisted of
four or five 120- foot spans,
supported on concrete piers
across the Tochi. When the
clouds bu` .n July, 31st,1922
it was the -rs, the footings of
which were swept *downstream
by the flood, with all the spans
sunk ih the moving bed of the
river. No blame to Everall, but
to. -the local contractors who had
built the piers.
Beyond Miranshah, up
Cowards Datta Khel Post, the
Pathan had managed to destroy
the ,bridge at Boya, but as the
1
4 , .
(river bed was wide here, it
caused little concern.
Then when in 1923 the
Government of India decided to
open up, the country and build a
road for wheeled traffic to
lta�r.mak, to supply a brigade t�
be established there, we had to
negotiate the 'Tochi river at a
spot caller( Thal in Tochi, to
distinguish it from the nearby
Thal •in Kurram. There were
several 'suggestions as to. how the
river obst�a ,might be kept
open in all weathers. One was
for a ropeway and I trundled off
to Peshawar tri', look " over the
disused Khy er Ropeway to'see
if it wasdaptable to our
requirements. But a ropeway is
no substitute for a bridge, for it
can only handle stores and it is
too vulnerable to defend against
the ingenious Wazir. Did I say
ingenious'? He used to steal down
by night . and strip all the
brassware from•the roadrollers.
On one occasion he even
fractured the front fork of a
roller .with stories. So a bridge it
had to be and Everall was again
called' upon to send us yet
another of his old railway spans.
The Survey of `India was only
just beginning to make us a map
and one day, in the ruins Of Thal
fort, a buddy from the wear in
France appeared out of the
gloom, gathering spider's webs
for his theodolite graticules. It
happened to., be the spinning
- season.
People always ask: "Wouldn't
you love to see the country
again?" The answer is NO! I
would hate to travel to Tochi
today, berefit of all the
personalities who made it live in
that prior existence. My trusty
orderly, Zer Khan, has long since
gone tb the Valhalla reserved for
men who wore the Indian
gistinguished Service Medal and
the Belgian Croix de Guerre. On
one occasion he• became
detached from the Scouts during
an affray. His subedar found him
at the top of a, gully from which
he had picked off twenty of his
enemy, one 'by ` one, as they
clambered up towards him. How
could one return without Zer
Khan? And where is Deed, the
Sapper, who pushed the Razmak
road' through, with no
protection whatsoever? A ,road
which ran through unmapped
mountainous country rising to
5,000 feet. Deed, who -would
return after a hard' day in the
sun to wrangle with hoardes of
Wazir contractors, each
demanding bits road ' to
construct: and 'incidentally,
filling the office with the acrid
smell of goat.
There will be no Hughie
Herdon either; the Brigade
Commander who pushed the last
s l iding camel over the'
snow-covered Razmak narai to
occupy the ground on which
Razmak was built. Herdon:
small and fiery, yet amenable to
reason. Claude Erskine is missing
too, together with his
magnificently trained Scouts,
professional anti•guerilla fighters
recruited from among the
:>;emoter tribes, ever in the
forefront of any incursion
against the recalcitrant Wazir. A
superb .leader and an astute
tactician. He sent one of his
men, disguised, to meet the
Fakir "of Ipi, who was found
declaiming to the faithful how
he ,,the Fakir, could help them,
if only they would combine. He
bared the pit of his arm and so
hypnotised his hearers that they
swore they could --~see., men and
horses all passing to their aid.
As for George Cunningham,
the political agent, Tochi, ,,it was
hard on occasion to tell whether
he worked for the tribesmen or
for the government. But it was a
sound position to take. He
enlisted khassadars from the
local villages through . whose
country we surveyed, paying,
them a rupee a day and all
ammunition found, in return for
•
which largesse they Wei.
expected4to protect' a -from any
wandering barimashes who. might
'.appear, Qnl' once did the
ten ptation become too great .•
and young Dixon was, killed' at
what became 'Dixon's Corner'.
on the road. Birt the policy of '
buying off the potential enemy
with money, even if it did come.
from Army rather than politica
funds, • was . §ound—under the - -
circumstances. Our worry ;Was
that we had to , explains,,
constantly to Simla or - Deihl
why the rates we paid for the
same work differed so grossly.
Sometimes it pays.tb sit remote,
on a hilltop.
Forgive this personal
intrusion. Memory got the better
8f me. The expression: ;`,'Never
mind the maps; tell us about the
chaps" is particularly apt when
dealing with the Frontier whose
people, whether Pathan or
British, combined. to make it
such a fascinating experience. It
goes to bear out the • oft
'exp'ressed belief that the hill
country breeds a race of men to
whom God has oiichsafed the
.qualities,.of great mour, great
courage, and a love w of
independence transcending life
itself. l shall be returning there
in spi.rit`again and again.
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