The place where Molly lived

Kohat in the early sixties was a sleepy frontier town with an important military cantonment dating back to the 19th Century. Situated in a green valley irrigated by many springs and fringed by hills this beautiful piece of Gods earth full of history and tales of heroism. It was therefore with considerable excitement that our group of footloose teenagers boarded the Rawalpindi bound railcar at Lahore Railway Station for the place that had been made immortal by Ajab Khan. We spent a restless night in Rawalpindi at the house of a relative and dawn found us waiting impatiently on the railway platform to catch the steam train to our destination. If one has not travelled in a train drawn by the huge black behemoth of a steam driven engine, one has missed a unique and never to be forgotten experience. The sight of the locomotive itself was awesome and somewhat romantic. It stirred a feeling of raw power and images of 'jezail carrying sharpshooters taking potshots at the carriages from hilltops. There were rules to follow when travelling by this system of locomotion, the cardinal one being that one never stuck the head out of a window, especially facing the direction of travel. Ignoring this often resulted in the errant traveler suffering painful and serious consequences with tiny pieces of hot coals from the smoke stack lodged in one or both eyes. The railway track to Kohat passed through rolling countryside until one found the scene changing to grey rocky outcroppings. Soon the train crossed the steel bridge spanning the Indus Gorge at Khushalgarh and then gently wound its way around stony hills to arrive at the Railway Station in a cloud of steam. Historically speaking, Kohat had always been important for the British politically and from the military point of view as it was a major logistic base and staging point for punitive expeditions into the surrounding area. It was also home to the Frontier Force Regimental Centre, which moved to Abbottabad soon after independence. A stroll through the cantonment was and perhaps still is, like going through the pages of a history book - pages with pictures of shady roads flanked by old bungalows, cool arched verandahs surrounded by wide spacious lawns and majestic trees. The Cavagnari House near the Inter Services Selection Board complex was the one time residence of Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, who had the political charge of the area for more than a decade. This officer was killed, when rebellious Afghan troops stormed the British Mission in Kabul during the Second Afghan War, scenes of which were unforgettably portrayed in M.M. Kayes book The Far Pavilions. After independence this magnificent house was used as the DCs residence, but reportedly has now been converted into a public library. Then there was the house where Major Ellis lived with his family. Late in the evening of April 14, 1923, while the officer was away on duty, an Afridi Pathan named Ajab Khan Afridi broke into the house, killed Mrs Ellis and abducted Molly, the Majors 17 year old daughter. It is said that the deed was done to avenge an alleged insult meted out to Ajab Khans wife by a British soldier. Shaken to the core, the British chose three unique people to recover Molly. These were, the Assistant Political Agent of Kurram Agency Khan Bahadur Kuli Khan, Zaman Khan - a tribal leader from the Khyber, and an Englishwoman called Lilian Starr. The story of this daring rescue is long and thrilling, but it had a happy ending when Molly was recovered and reunited with her father. Ajab Khan became a hero, whose story has been told and retold in books and a movie by the same name. There were some houses that had the reputation of being haunted, like the one occupied by the military officer heading an army training depot. It was here that clothes inexplicably caught fire and stones materialised out of nowhere troubling its occupants to no end. I am told the phenomenon does not occur anymore and all is peaceful in the place. Many streams fed by springs from the nearby hills meandered through the city and the cantonment. These would have been ignored by visitors had they not been home to hundreds of black crabs that could be seen in the water and on the stony banks. There was so much to see for young explorers such as us, but before we knew it, we found ourselves boarding the train back to Rawalpindi and onwards to Lahore. However, before I left this beautiful valley I made a promise to return someday and explore to my hearts contentbut thats another story. n The writer is a freelance columnist.