A few years ago I was presented a book by Syed Shahid Ali containing over 230 pages of testimonials from British officers for the excellent services provided by his great grandfather and the firm of Messer’s Wazir Ali & Sons that he established. It was during the Tirah Campaign of 1878-79 that Wazir Ali made a name for himself when he accompanied the Oxfordshire Light Infantry as their Coffee Shop Contractor. In a testimonial Major C. T. Becker, the supply and transport officer of the Peshawar Column states that, “His shop was not only a boon to the regiment who brought him but to the whole column.” He survived an ambush by a sniper and the manner in which he repaid his rescuers is narrated in a story titled Safe Conduct. Written by E. A. Murphy, it was published in the March 1915 edition of the Royal Magazine and is reminiscent of the tales of Rudyard Kipling.
The story is published in two parts with the first part related to Wazir Ali being rescued from an ambush.
***
Wazir Ali dozed in his saddle while his mule picked its way along the perilous track through the Pass. Suddenly the dreamer was aroused from his reverie by the faintest ghost of a click against the wall of rock beside him. A tiny whitish splash dented the grey granite at his knee. His mule shot clean through the brain bounded from the ledge in its convulsion and plunged headlong into space.
Orakzai tribesmen lay an ambush
Wazir Ali was a Syed (descended from the Prophet PBUH) and a pious man. Therefore, commending his soul to that Allah whom he had long striven –according to his own lights – to serve, he flung himself from the saddle, and by some miracle of chance fell, a huddled heap, on the top of a boulder that projected from the side of the precipices about twenty feet below the pathway.
Sergeant Burke turned to the captain. “Wazir Ali of Peshawar, sir. Good sort, if you don’t mind my saying it, sir...good to the men...”
For miles above and below the spot whence Wazir Ali had been hurled by his stricken mule, the interminable line of the column – horses, mules, camels, asses and men – crawled slowly upwards towards the saddle of the hill.
An almost invisible wisp of bluish smoke whiffed out of a cranny among the rocks of the spur opposite to the spot whence the mule had jumped. An Afridi sniper, who possessed the treasure of a Martini Henry rife, had got the range of the rock against which had clicked the bullet that had disturbed the Syed’s reveries.
Evacuating a soldier in the Bazar Valley during the Tirah expedition
Two astounded mule-drivers halted and peered over the precipice at the huddle form of Wazir Ali. One of them shrieked in agony. The sniper’s second bullet had ploughed through his shoulder. Oaths and orders rang along the narrow defile as the luckless mule drivers held up the following half of the column.
A red-tabbed captain of transport shoved his way up through the ruckus. “Push on!” he ordered and the column gradually picked up pace but every so often, a man or an animal got nicked – at the precise spot whence Wazir Ali’s mule had plunged to its death.
A messenger, sprinting back through the crawling train of transport, took a request for a mountain gun to dislodge the snipers. Meanwhile, a score of soldiers did their best as they shot at the crannies and the whiffs or smoke. All this time Wazir Ali lay senseless and motionless on the projecting boulder.
The Captain took a couple of steps forward and peered down over the ledge at Wazir Ali. “Who is that man?” he asked. “Is he dead?”
Burke, the staff sergeant looked over the precipice, shook his head and turned to the men who lay firing at the smoke wreaths.
“Any of you men know who that native is?” he called to them.
Barney Corcoran pushed his huge shoulders over the ledge, and peered down at the huddled wisp of white and khaki. Then he sprang to his feet. “Why, sergeant!” said he. “It’s Wazir Ali – the coffee shop wallah.” Sergeant Burke turned to the captain. “Wazir Ali of Peshawar, sir. Good sort, if you don’t mind my saying it, sir...good to the men...”
Corcoran and five of the other soldiers who clustered behind the sergeant, sprang to attention.
That night in camp, while “B” Company of the Dongals with the courtesy of their coffee shop wallah reveled in an orgy of jam, kippers, tinned milk, sausages and bloater-paste such as no company of Irish infantry in the Tirah has ever before or since been known to enjoy, Wazir Ali, with laborious pen burnt the midnight oil in his tent, behind the coffee shop
“Ould Wazir Ali sir,” blurted out Corcoran apologetically. “If you’d let us be fetching him up, sir, the men’s willing...”
Captain Blake thought for a moment. Wazir Ali though only a native and a shop keeper at that, was, nevertheless, Wazir Ali the coffee shop wallah, the man who left his big comfortable home and stores at Peshawar whenever the Frontier tribes started a war, and followed the troops through thick and thin over every trail in the Frontier, selling English pickles and sardines and jams and all the other succulent delights of a soldier’s mess, from tinned milk to pink sausages.
Soldiers of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in a lighter moment during the Tirah campaign
“All right, men,” said Blake, looking down the face of the precipice. “Which of you can fly?”
“Not me, sor!” chuckled Corcoran. But it was Corcoran with his huge bulk who squatted as anchor; Dunne, who was a light weight, went over the ledge to rescue Wazir Ali. Mooney, Jackson, Boyle, and Heffernan stood by to slack and haul; Mooney was the only one hit during the five minutes the recue lasted. Nicked on the ear he swore loudly and profanely till he was menaced and upbraided by Sergeant Burke for using “language” in the presence of his superior officer.
Wazir Ali was unceremoniously dragged up to safety and a bhishti came lurching along with his huge goat skin under his arm and poured water over the face and down his throat. Wazir Ali staggered bravely to his feet. The shock had stunned and winded him, but he was tough as whipcord and no bones were broken.
“Salaam. Sahib!” he gasped, saluting the officer native fashion. “It was kind of the Sahib to –”
Captain Blake shook his head and laughed. “It wasn’t me. Wazir Ali!” he interjected hastily.
“Those are your friends!” He pointed to Dunne and Corcoran and the stricken Mooney to whom the other three Irishmen were ministering. “Thank them. You had a close call. Hurry along!”
Somewhere from half a mile behind, a screw gun bellowed angrily. A shell whizzed across the valley and burst over the rocks where rose the smoke from the rifles of the snipers. Another and another shell followed. The long trail of the transport forged ahead unmolested. The Irish riflemen resumed their places on the baggage guard. The snipers were hushed.
***
That night in camp, while “B” Company of the Dongals with the courtesy of their coffee shop wallah reveled in an orgy of jam, kippers, tinned milk, sausages and bloater-paste such as no company of Irish infantry in the Tirah has ever before or since been known to enjoy, Wazir Ali, with laborious pen burnt the midnight oil in his tent, behind the coffee shop.
In the morning he stood salaaming gravely outside the tent of Captain Blake.
“Your God is my Allah, Sahib!” he said. “But it is not for me to teach the Sahib wisdom. I owe my life to him and his soldiers.” When Blake sought again to disclaim any part in the rescue Wazir Ali persisted.
“Nay, Sahib! I am a poor man, but I know the regulations and I bring the Sahib no gifts. But Sahib. I am what my people call a Syed.”
Captain Blake nodded affably and understandingly. He remembered that they sometimes spoke of Wazir Ali as the Syed. Syeds are reputed descendants of the Prophet (PBUH) profoundly respected by their co-religionists.
Wazir Ali salaamed again. “Would the Sahib take a note from him?” he asked politely. “A small letter ignorantly worded no doubt and ill written for the writer was no scholar, but a letter withal which might prove useful someday if evil befell the Sahib among the hills”.
He held out diffidently a very common envelope in which was a slip of that rough yellow writing paper that is popular among Indian servants and shopkeepers because of its great cheapness.
Blake was an Irishman, and not destitute of tact.
“Thanks ever so much, Wazir Ali” he exclaimed heartily “I’m sure I’ll be very glad to keep it as a souvenir of you – very glad indeed,”
Wazir Ali salaamed again. He was no fool, and he fancied that he detected a note of tolerance such as one might use when placating with promises some prattling child in the tones of the transport officer.
“It is true Sahib” he repeated earnestly. “We have both seen Sahibs fall in these affairs of the Hills. If the Sahib falls and this letter be found on him by some man or Mullah that can read, he will not —“
The Syed mumbled uneasily.
“I know!” Blake reassured him. “Messed up, you mean, eh?”
Wazir Ali seemed relieved. “The Sahib will not be spoilt. Nay, more the Sahib will not be hurt by any man who reads this letter, and who knows Peshawar and the Border!”
