Shots in an Orchard

Near Peshawar, key city of the Khyber Pass, gateway to northern India, a patrol of the 17th Poona horse (Indian) rode last week through the sun-speckled fruit orchards. From somewhere rifles cracked. Six troopers dropped from their saddles. The rest wheeled, galloped back to barracks. British officers wasted no time, for they knew what the shots in the orchard meant. In five minutes bugles were blowing, cavalry, artillery were mounting, galloping out of town. At Peshawar's air station, 54 Royal Air Force pilots climbed into their planes, roared up into the blue.

Fazli Wahid, the Haji (squire) of Turangzai was on the warpath with 10,000 bearded Afridi.*

Through foreign office secretaries in London hinted at a Gandhi connection, the only thing that the fighting Afridi and the nonviolent disciples of Saint Gandhi have in common is a thoroughgoing distrust of the British. Fierce Fazli Wahid is a very great warrior who would rather fight than eat. In that he is more fanatical than his followers. Month ago when he issued a call for a holy war against the British from the caves where he had been hiding north of the Khyber, the Haji's son and lieutenant, Badshah Gul, warned him that war was impossible until the tribesmen had finished their Spring harvest. Crops were poor. Last week came the attack. Riddled by machine guns, shrapnel, blasted by tons of aerial bombs, the tribes men swept on.

One wave of the attack actually captured the British mobilization warehouse at the edge of the town, held it for three hours against all the machinery of modern warfare. Only at the stone fortress of Peshawar were the tribesmen turned. Commented the London Times: "One other lesson deserves the careful attention of the Imperial General Staff. Whatever may be the effect of bombing airplanes in open countries like Irak where vast stretches of ground are open as a cricket pitch, it would seem that punitive action from the air has lost its terrors to the Pathan. Against mobile and intelligent opposition in broken, mountainous country the mobility of the air arm for offensive purposes may have been overrated." At Bombay the British arrested and imprisoned for three months white-mustached Vallabhai Patel, fourth successor to Saint Gandhi in the civil disobedience campaign.

Said Vallabhai to a crowd of wailing women bidding him farewell:

"I have no doubt that lathi attacks [police canings] and shooting will lead us rapidly to our goal. They are training us ill to throw off the fear of Death."

Successor to Vallabhai Patel is Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Last week for the first time since Saint Gandhi's march to the sea, Civil Disobedience was led by a Mohammedan.

*Independent tribesmen living in the mountains of northwest India. Distrust of all mankind and readiness to strike the first blow for the safety of his own life are the maxims of Afridi.

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