The Wandering Falcon

by Jamil Ahmad

  After a pause, the old Scouts officer once again turned to the Malik of the Bhittanis. “You have heard the story now. Do you not wonder at the generosity which lay within his breast? Can you now understand why I am impelled to visit his grave and pray for his spirit, and why I consider any insult to his memory so unjust?”

  The Bhittani chief pondered for a while before replying. “Friend,” he said, “Mullah Barrerai shall ever remain to all of us a dishonest rogue who cheated us out of our due. He made free with what was not his to give. His whim brought sorrow to a large number of men. His crime is no less if he did it out of friendship for you. So let us talk about him no more.” He took the officer by the arm. “Come, have some tea before you leave.”

  Five

  A KIDNAPPING

  A thin trickle of water flowing down the Shaktu River demarcates the boundary between the Wazirs and the Mahsuds—the two predatory tribes of Waziristan. On either side of the river are narrow vestigial banks where Wazir and Mahsud women look after ragged patches of corn. The river provides only a brief interruption. Where the fields end, the convolutions and whorls of bare, cruel rock once again resume their march across the land—occasionally throwing up spires and lances of granite into the sky.

  For the greater part of the year, the Mahsud and the Wazir glower at each other from across the distance that separates the two: Mahsuds from their cluster of squat houses with narrow slit-like windows, and Wazirs from the tops of the towers that protect each home. Every few months, their hate and tensions explode into violence and some men die, never the women, who continue caring for the land and fetching water from the river. After a few days of violence, the caretakers of a small shrine near the bed of the river walk out and arrange a truce to last for the next few months, until the silence is once again broken by rifle shots.

  The Mahsuds, because they always hunt in groups, are known as the wolves of Waziristan. A Wazir hunts alone. He is known as “the leopard” to other men. Despite their differences, the two tribes share more than merely their common heritage of poverty and misery. Nature has bred in both an unusual abundance of anger, enormous resilience, and a total refusal to accept their fate. If nature provides them food for only ten days in a year, they believe in their right to demand the rest of their sustenance from their fellow men who live oily, fat, and comfortable lives in the plains. To both tribes, survival is the ultimate virtue. In neither community is any stigma attached to a hired assassin, a thief, a kidnapper, or an informer. And then, both are totally absorbed in themselves. They have no doubt in their minds that they occupy center stage, while the rest of the world acts out minor roles or watches them as spectators—as befit inferior species.

  Winter was late that year. It was already the end of November, and the men from the Waziristan hills were watching the slow and leisurely change in season with growing impatience. They felt cheated, because a short winter meant much less time for gathering their sustenance for the year. They knew—as did the people of the plains—that winter was the time of raids, kidnappings, and robberies. These long, cold nights that made people huddle in heavy quilts also made them reluctant and slow in reacting to a neighbor’s cry for help. There was also very little movement at night, unlike in summer, when one was likely to come across men wandering in the fields at any time, engaged in watering their lands. And, too, the winter nights were long enough to permit a safe retreat into the hills before the dawn broke.

  In the houses sprinkled around the Shaktu Valley in Waziristan, three men were turning over in their minds the idea of leading a kidnapping raid into a cantonment about ten miles away from the foot of the hills. Each of the men was aware of what the others were thinking. The first, Sarmast Khan, a Mahsud, was about thirty years old. It was his ventures over the past fifteen years that had provided the necessary capital for the firewood business set up by his two brothers in Karachi. This time, he was in need of money for himself. The father of the girl betrothed to him had been pressing for payment of the balance of the bride price.

  In a small house a few miles away, twin brothers, thirty-two years old and from the Wazir tribe, needed money for another reason. Since their first crime, the theft of a beautiful engraved rifle from an official traveling on a government road fifteen years ago, they had accumulated a long record of offenses in the lower districts where their families lived. What this meant was that while they were free to roam the hills, where no policemen would go after them, they were hunted men in the plains.

  Now, at last, the twins had been offered a chance to start new lives. A senior officer of the nearest district had agreed to their unconditional surrender, and in return had promised to pardon their past offenses. However, the file had been sent to the government, where a clerk had sent word that their case would go through only on payment of a two-thousand-rupee bribe. The two brothers were placed, therefore, in the ironic position of having to commit one final raid to steal enough money to enable them to start honest lives.

  While these men were brooding, other men were similarly worried about how they would spend the coming winter. Sarmast and the twin brothers, Jalat Khan and Zabta Khan, met one morning after the women of the village had left to fetch the day’s drinking water. There was considerable agreement among them as to the basic arrangements. They agreed on the choice of the leader—Daulat Khan, also a Mahsud, a grizzled old veteran who was known throughout the tribal areas for his broad humor, his predilection for stories, and the hearing aid he wore, which he had stolen from a farmer some years ago. They were also of one mind about who would keep the person they kidnapped, and who would negotiate the ransom payment.

  They decided that the party would, tentatively, comprise ten persons, including themselves. On this basis, the ransom would have to be divided into thirteen shares, with one extra share each for the leader, the negotiator, and the person who provided food, shelter, and information in the city. They also agreed that their group must include at least two men from the Bhittanis—the tribe through whose lands they would have to pass on their mission.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the deputy commissioner of Bannu was winding up the day’s work and wondering whether he could get in a set or two of tennis before dark. There had been a particularly heavy rush of visitors that day, of whom about half a dozen still remained. Of these, one was particularly important—an informer who had brought in useful snippets of information on a few occasions. There he sat, on a wooden bench outside the office—a stocky-looking young man with a beard, his eyes darkened with kohl, wearing a red secondhand ladies’ overcoat with a fur collar.

  This garment, which might at one time have been the pride of the wardrobe of a suburban American housewife, was unbuttoned. The ivory shafts of two daggers were clearly visible, thrust into the waistband of his trousers.

  The deputy commissioner called in a couple more visitors before the informer was invited into the office. It was necessary to keep him waiting for his turn, as any special treatment would be immediately noticed and become the subject of bazaar gossip. It would also demonstrate the anxiety of the officer, placing the informer at a psychological advantage. The selling of information was far from a dishonorable way of earning one’s livelihood, and no informer in these parts made a secret of his profession. One such person had even erected an arch to welcome a touring official, with a banner proudly proclaiming that it had been put up by a “spy in the service of the government.”

  Some families had been in the information trade for generations. And most of the informers were not owned by one master. They retailed information to whosoever was willing to buy it. They would even sell the same information to more than one person. The more clients an informer had, the better respected he was by his peers.

  Tor Baz was, however, a newcomer in the field. He entered the room after taking off his shoes as a mark of respect for the officer, moved toward the lone electric heater, which provided the only warmth in the chilly room, sat down next to it, and started warming
his hands and feet while cracking his knuckles. After a while, he looked toward the deputy commissioner, who sat watching him patiently.

  “Are you strong, sahib?”

  “Are you happy?” responded the officer.

  “Are you happy, sahib?” replied the informer.

  “Are you well, Tor Baz?” queried the deputy commissioner.

  “Are things well in your family, deputy commissioner sahib?”

  “Yes,” came the reply patiently. “The blessings of God are with us.”

  With this exchange of salutations completed, an essential and inescapable part of any meeting, both men sat quietly for a while, each waiting for the other to speak first. At last Tor Baz accepted defeat and tentatively remarked, “There are strange doings and happenings beyond your border, sahib.”

  “A dependable man alone makes a good friend, Tor Baz,” he said. “Tell me all that your eyes have seen.”

  “It is for this that I have come to see you,” Tor Baz remarked. “There is a kidnapping gang heading toward this area. Last evening, I myself saw a collection of twenty men at a hamlet of Tori Khel Wazirs. They were led by Daulat Khan, and here is a list of the persons I could identify. There were four persons who were complete strangers to me.”

  The deputy commissioner was watching the expression flitting across the face of the informer as he told his tale. He would have preferred at least two more versions of the story before making up his mind, but since there was no immediate likelihood of more informers turning up that late in the day, he would have to deduce the facts the best he could from the material made available to him.

  To start with, he accepted the fact that a gang had been formed in the hills and was heading for his district. In fact, gangs were already overdue this late in the season. Kidnappings usually started in October, with the onset of winter, but it was already late November, and no kidnappings had been reported. The number of people in the gang was, of course, exaggerated, as a large gang was formed only for holdups on the roads. He doubted whether any man in his right mind would plan a holdup on the roads in winter, when the district could be sealed tight with checkpoints at the few roads free of ice and snow. He reflected for a while on the information.

  “Tor Baz,” he asked, “where would they find the targets? At night, families huddle together for warmth. During the day, the traffic is very light. The winter makes it difficult for the kidnappers to scurry back into the hills as fast as they would like to. You know the city dwellers will slow them down.”

  “The paths may be icy, the springs frozen, the hostages lethargic and obese, but the men from the hills, although equipped only with patched shoes, will manage to get them into the hills before they are checked. Once embarked on this venture, the gang will not be deterred, even if rain and snow makes walking difficult.”

  The deputy commissioner caught the hint and counted out forty rupees for a new pair of shoes and another twenty for the expenses of the journey. The scene drew to a conclusion, as always, with Tor Baz expressing great indignation and then reluctantly accepting the payment when the deputy commissioner told him that he would be deeply hurt if Tor Baz refused it.

  As Tor Baz turned to leave, the deputy commissioner’s voice stopped him: “Tor Baz,” he said reflectively, “tell me one thing. Who are you? You live with the Wazirs, but you are not one of them. With your looks, you could be taken for a Mahsud, which you are not, because your accent and your way of speaking are different. I have been trying to place you, but I have failed. Who are you, and where do you come from?”

  Tor Baz’s hands went to his heavy woolen cap, on which a small silver amulet had been stitched. He pulled the cap off and started twisting it in his strong hands. As he removed the cap, his jet-black hair and the shaved nape of his neck showed clearly in the fluorescent light of the room.

  “Sahib,” he spoke after a while, “you have asked me a question I have not been asked for a long time now.” His eyes started crinkling, and all of a sudden he was laughing. Heavy, gusty laughter filled the room. Then he spoke: “It is true, I am neither a Mahsud nor a Wazir. But I can tell you as little about who I am as I can about who I shall be. Think of Tor Baz as your hunting falcon. That should be enough.”

  As Tor Baz closed the door of the office behind him, the deputy commissioner heard him loudly spit on the veranda floor.

  The gang was already in town. In fact, they had been there for more than twenty-four hours and had spent most of this time checking on the various choices of victims available. The owner of a tobacco warehouse had been rejected as a prospective prize because there were too many women in his household. One of the gang members had scouted the house and informed them that the women were in the habit of chattering till the early hours of the morning. Another good target had to be abandoned because there were too many lights around the house; another because the man was a tribesman himself. Finally, they agreed on a group of schoolteachers, six in number, who lived by themselves in one of the rooms of a school building.

  Schoolteachers, doctors, and street cleaners were always attractive targets for kidnappings. These groups went on strikes so promptly after every kidnapping that the ransom was usually quickly forthcoming from one quarter or another, even if the relatives of the men did not or could not pay up.

  It was well after dawn when the excited superintendent of police telephoned the deputy commissioner and informed him that six schoolteachers appeared to have been kidnapped during the night from a room in which they had been sleeping. The door had been broken open, and there were signs of a struggle. The rest of the story was familiar. The people in the hundreds of houses around claimed to have heard no dogs bark, no sounds of the building being broken into, nor sounds of any struggle or calls for help. The people had kept quiet during the night but were making up for it now, when they were sure that they were safe. There were loud recriminations against the police for not protecting them, protestations at being treated like women by the tribesmen, demands for arming them at government expense with weapons deadly enough to counter the marauding tribesmen—the usual cacophony that followed the descent of hill men into the plains.

  The officials were informed, and they calmed the people by explaining to them that the response to the crime would be according to the law and the procedures laid down a century ago, which were as effective then as they were today.

  The relationship between the tribes and the government was based on a formal treaty entered into by two contracting parties. The treaty stipulated in precise terms the payment of a regular yearly stipend to the tribe and noninterference in their customs and management of their affairs. The obligation on the part of the tribes was the good conduct of each member of their community and of those residing in their area of responsibility. This was formally termed as “collective tribal and territorial responsibility.” The tribe or its members could be chastened for any lapse or infraction in this responsibility through the authority of an instrument called the Frontier Crimes Regulations. Punishment could range from detention of any member of the tribe, whether or not directly responsible, to the institution of a blockade and even suspension of the yearly payment. The ultimate punishment was a punitive expedition by the government.

  Orders were issued to set in motion the first response under the Frontier Crimes Regulations. The men of law were called on to comb the bazaars, to spot any Tori Khel Wazirs and pick them up, to seal their shops and confiscate any vehicle owned by their tribe. This action would, it was hoped, provide a counterpressure, and would persuade the tribe to release the hostages.

  Such action was most effective if a close relative of the kidnappers was caught, which was not likely. They would make sure to stay away from the area for some days. The captives would now be released under only two circumstances: either the ransom was paid, or the district officials and the relatives of the hostages were prepared to remain indifferent to their fate, to the point of establishing that no ransom would ever be paid. The latter attitude
, which demanded patience of the highest degree, was easier for a tribesman than it was for a city dweller. Therefore, there appeared to be a very fair prospect for a sizable return to the men of the winter’s first gang.

  The tracking party, led by a young assistant commissioner, followed the tracks up to the border of the district where the tribal area began. In their path lay the Bhittani tribe. They halted there for a while and sent some men to summon the jirga of that tribe, an assembly of elders and leaders. After a few hours, the jirga assembled and sat down on their side of the boundary line. This was not merely a point of honor, it was also a mark of caution—for once they stepped across the boundary, they would become subject to the laws of the settled district and could be arrested by the police—a thought that was anathema to every tribesman. When the jirga had assembled, the assistant commissioner got up and addressed them formally.

  “Elders and graybeards of the Bhittani tribe,” he said, “an offense has been committed in your neighboring district. During the night, a gang of outlaws has kidnapped some schoolteachers from a village a few miles away and has taken them by force. All the signs and the reading of the tracks prove to us that this gang, both while moving into the district and also while escaping, did so through your area. As proof, we can show you the trail which we have followed, right to the edge of your territory.”

  He paused for a while and then continued: “You are familiar with the treaties between you and us. Under the terms of the treaty, not only is a tribe responsible for the action of its people but it is also responsible for any act which takes place in its area or through its area. This, of course, is apart from the stigma on your honor, which such an act is bound to attract. I, therefore, call on you to accept this responsibility. I require of you to apprehend and surrender the outlaws and the captives. If you fail in this, you would be considered by us as having broken our agreement and shall be responsible for the consequences.”