**The following story is from the The Civil & Military Gazette, Wednesday April 25, 1906 and is entitled "A Plain Tale from the Plains (by a plain person)"** Smith was a civilian with a sympathy for the native. He had served a good deal in Sikh districts and Sikh native states, but was now doing Deputy Commissioner in a "*jungly*" district with a Muhammadan population near the North-West Frontier. The staff of white men was not a large one, and Smith often found himself, at the end of a long hot weather day, hard put to it to pass the hours between dinner and bed-time. Inside the house it was too hot and stuffy even with a thermantidote, and outside multitudes of winged things, crowding round his lamp, made it impossible to read in comfort. To doze and smoke in a long chair, outside, under a "gallows *punkah*" till it was time to turn in appeared to be the only thing to do. One evening, shortly after his arrival Smith's orderly - a Sikh ex-soldier- came and said he had found a co-religionist, an old sergeant in the Police, who wanted to know if he might have a look at Smith's collection of arms. Now Smith had picked up some historical weapons in one of his Sikh Native States, had had them nicely mounted in an otherwise bare dining-room and was no little proud of them - So he said his orderly's pal might come, and the old man soon appeared. He was an Akali* - of a sect that almost worships lethal weapons - and was a fine specimen of his race, with good rugged Jat features and a grey beard and moustaches rolled up round his chin and packed away in orthodox fashion under a *puggaree* of true Akali blue tied flat and low in the style one sees in old Sikh pictures. Tall and spare he was and carried his 60 years well. He was wearing the *kachh* (short Sikh drawers) and carried in his hand by the head, like a walking-stick, a light long-handled axe. There was a touch of asceticism in the whole face and figure and a one steady light in the dark eyes, and Smith, as he took in the figure as a whole, thought to himself "that would be a good man in a tight place." Hira Singh, as his name proved to be, gravely saluted, and gave Smith the *fateh* (Sikh greeting)+, which Smith returned, to his delight in quite the right style, and told him he was welcome to see the arms. The orderly took Hira Singh oft to the house, and after a minute, Smith heard strange sounds issuing from his dining-room. Getting up, he found the old man, with a bit of incense burning in front of the trophy that hung on the wall of the room, marching up and down and chanting a hymn. He was rapt in himself and quite oblivious to all around. So Smith went back to his long chair and waited till the old man's exercises were over and he had emerged from the house again. It appeared that Hira Singh was a native of the State from which the arms came, and he was tremendously excited and interested. Smith got him to talk and found him for a Sergeant of Police wonderfully full of information and curiously well read in the history and religion of his race. At last the time arrived for the old man to go, and Smith told him to come again whenever he liked. Hira Singh was obviously pleased and flattered and asked, as a special favour, to be allowed to clean Smith's weapons once a week The old man talked a quaint Malwai Punjabi, and Smith found his conversations good practice in the language. There was a simplicity and directness about him, too, that was very taking to a *sahib*. One night he told Smith the story of his life. He had first enlisted in a Sikh regiment. One night there was a *tamasha* going on in the lines. Some tumblers had arrived and were going through their tricks, and the regiment was looking on. There had been some drinking, too, and one Kala Singh had had too much. One of the tumblers came round and asked for subscriptions. Kala Singh flung down a rupee and challenged Hira Singh to follow suit. Hira Singh, who was cleaning a sword, took no notice, and Kala Singh renewed his challenge, following it up with a taunt couched in language which, as Hira Singh said, "no decent man could stand." Hira Singh told him, if he repeated it, he would cut him down with the sword. Kala Singh did repeat it, and Hira Singh promptly cut him down. Kala Singh afterwards recovered, but Hira Singh, whose straightforward story nevertheless made a distinct impression at the trial, got seven years. His conduct in jail, however, had evidently been so good that he was released at the end of six years and enrolled in the Police. The hot weather dragged its weary length along. The evening conversations became pretty frequent, and Hira Singh faithfully fulfilled his promise to clean the arms once a week. Smith, who had at first been half-inclined to think this all "eyewash," subscribed at the end of a mouth for unlimited *karah pershad* (a kind of sweetmeat, which is a sort of sacrificial food with the Sikhs), and Hira Singh called in all his co-religionists for miles around and fed them royally. At the end of the evening he came in, full of simple pleasure and not, perhaps, without that touch of religious exultation which was peculiar to the man, to thank Smith and to offer him a portion of the *pershad*. And - a curious point of resemblance - he made Smith, who had at first put out one hand only, take it in both hands, held together after the manner of Communicants of the Western Church. It was a dry country, mostly high-lying desert, and, as happens in such places, a breeze used to spring up from the sand at night, which was some alleviation to the blazing heat of the day. Smith preferred for this reason, when the breeze did not turn to a roaring dust-storm, to sleep on the top of his house. One night old Hira Singh stayed rather late, and Smith went inside to undress for bed immediately on parting with him. Hira Singh took his way to the Police Lines but soon noticed the stealthy figure of a man moving in the direction of Smith's *bungalow* in a suspiciously unobtrusive manner. Now Smith had had a *jirgah* case, the verdict in which had not been popular with his Pathans across the Indus, and a paternal Government had removed the guards on his house. Some such reflections as these crossed the mind of Hira Singh as he saw the crouching figure. But he moved on as it he had noticed nothing, till he had put some little distance between himself and it. Then he slipped into the shadow of a tree and watched by the light of a scanty moon. He saw the figure move stealthily towards the house, and, very carefully, he followed. At last he saw the man slip into a dark corner near the staircase by which Smith would have to gain the roof of his house. Taking advantage of every friendly shadow and every bit of cover, Hira Singh got within a few yards of the man, whose eyes and ears were strained in the direction of Smith's room. Just then Smith, dressed in his *pyjamas*, came out. The man fumbled in his girdle. Quick as thought, Hira Singh leaped out and struck at him with the little long-handled axe which had attracted Smith's notice when first they met. But the man heard him, and partly dodging the blow, which, however, bit deep into his left shoulder, turned on him like a tiger. It is long odds dealing with a man who has a knife and knows how to use it, when one's only weapon is a toy axe meant for the making of wooden tooth-brushes. Hira Singh grappled with his adversary, and Smith and his orderly, who followed behind, rushed up and rescued the man, but not before the cruel Pathan blade had struck deep to Hira Singh's heart. The *ghazi*, for such he was, swung for it afterwards; but Smith, to whose collection the little axe is now added, will not forget the trembling *fateh* on the lips of Hira Singh, who died, as he would probably have wished to die, in mortal fight with his hereditary enemy "the Turk." *The "Akalis" - the name means "immortal" - are a very strict, almost fanatical, sect of Sikhs, who supplied some of the most determined soldiers of the old Sikh armies. +WaheGuru ji ki fateh, Wah Guru ji ka Khalsa Sat Siri Akāl" Was also the Sikh war-cry. ![[akali 1906 story.jpg]]