Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (28 page)

‘If you keep with me,’ said George, ‘nobody will ask for passports or what you do. They are all very busy.’

‘Yes; but I should like to hear some of the Englishmen talk. They might remember me. I was known here a long time ago — when I was some one indeed.’

‘A long time ago is a very long time ago here. The graveyards are full.

Now listen. This new railway runs out so far as Tanai-el-Hassan — that is seven miles. Then there is a camp. They say that beyond Tanai-el-Hassan the English troops go forward, and everything that they require will be brought to them by this line.’

‘Ah! Base camp. I see. That’s a better business than fighting Fuzzies in the open.’

‘For this reason even the mules to up in the iron-train.’

‘Iron what?’

‘It is all covered with iron, because it is still being shot at.’

‘An armoured train. Better and better! Go on, faithful George.’

‘And I go up with my mules to-night. Only those who particularly require to go to the camp go out with the train. They begin to shoot not far from the city.’

‘The dears — they always used to!’ Dick snuffed the smell of parched dust, heated iron, and flaking paint with delight. Certainly the old life was welcoming him back most generously.

‘When I have got my mules together I go up to-night, but you must first send a telegram of Port Said, declaring that I have done you no harm.’

‘Madame has you well in hand. Would you stick a knife into me if you had the chance?’

‘I have no chance,’ said the Greek. ‘She is there with that woman.’

‘I see. It’s a bad thing to be divided between love of woman and the chance of loot. I sympathise with you, George.’

They went to the telegraph-office unquestioned, for all the world was desperately busy and had scarcely time to turn its head, and Suakin was the last place under sky that would be chosen for holiday-ground. On their return the voice of an English subaltern asked Dick what he was doing. The blue goggles were over his eyes and he walked with his hand on George’s elbow as he replied — ’Egyptian Government — mules. My orders are to give them over to the A.

C. G. at Tanai-el-Hassan. Any occasion to show my papers?’

‘Oh, certainly not. I beg your pardon. I’d no right to ask, but not seeing your face before I —  — ’

‘I go out in the train to-night, I suppose,’ said Dick, boldly. ‘There will be no difficulty in loading up the mules, will there?’

‘You can see the horse-platforms from here. You must have them loaded up early.’ The young man went away wondering what sort of broken-down waif this might be who talked like a gentleman and consorted with Greek muleteers. Dick felt unhappy. To outface an English officer is no small thing, but the bluff loses relish when one plays it from the utter dark, and stumbles up and down rough ways, thinking and eternally thinking of what might have been if things had fallen out otherwise, and all had been as it was not.

George shared his meal with Dick and went off to the mule-lines. His charge sat alone in a shed with his face in his hands. Before his tight-shut eyes danced the face of Maisie, laughing, with parted lips. There was a great bustle and clamour about him. He grew afraid and almost called for George.

‘I say, have you got your mules ready?’ It was the voice of the subaltern over his shoulder.

‘My man’s looking after them. The — the fact is I’ve a touch of ophthalmia and can’t see very well.

‘By Jove! that’s bad. You ought to lie up in hospital for a while. I’ve had a turn of it myself. It’s as bad as being blind.’

‘So I find it. When does this armoured train go?’

‘At six o’clock. It takes an hour to cover the seven miles.’

‘Are the Fuzzies on the rampage — eh?’

‘About three nights a week. Fact is I’m in acting command of the night-train. It generally runs back empty to Tanai for the night.’

‘Big camp at Tanai, I suppose?’

‘Pretty big. It has to feed our desert-column somehow.’

‘Is that far off?’

‘Between thirty and forty miles — in an infernal thirsty country.’

‘Is the country quiet between Tanai and our men?’

‘More or less. I shouldn’t care to cross it alone, or with a subaltern’s command for the matter of that, but the scouts get through it in some extraordinary fashion.’

‘They always did.’

‘Have you been here before, then?’

‘I was through most of the trouble when it first broke out.’

‘In the service and cashiered,’ was the subaltern’s first thought, so he refrained from putting any questions.

‘There’s you man coming up with the mules. It seems rather queer —  — ’

‘That I should be mule-leading?’ said Dick.

‘I didn’t mean to say so, but it is. Forgive me — it’s beastly impertinence I know, but you speak like a man who has been at a public school. There’s no mistaking the tone.’

‘I am a public school man.’

‘I thought so. I say, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re a little down on your luck, aren’t you? I saw you sitting with your head in your hands, and that’s why I spoke.’

‘Thanks. I am about as thoroughly and completely broke as a man need be.’

‘Suppose — I mean I’m a public school man myself. Couldn’t I perhaps — take it as a loan y’know and —  — ’

‘You’re much too good, but on my honour I’ve as much money as I want.

... I tell you what you could do for me, though, and put me under an everlasting obligation. Let me come into the bogie truck of the train.

There is a fore-truck, isn’t there?’

‘Yes. How d’you know?’

‘I’ve been in an armoured train before. Only let me see — hear some of the fun I mean, and I’ll be grateful. I go at my own risk as a non-combatant.’

The young man thought for a minute. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to be an empty train, and there’s no one to blow me up at the other end.’

George and a horde of yelling amateur assistants had loaded up the mules, and the narrow-gauge armoured train, plated with three-eighths inch boiler-plate till it looked like one long coffin, stood ready to start.

Two bogie trucks running before the locomotive were completely covered in with plating, except that the leading one was pierced in front for the muzzle of a machine-gun, and the second at either side for lateral fire.

The trucks together made one long iron-vaulted chamber in which a score of artillerymen were rioting.

‘Whitechapel — last train! Ah, I see yer kissin’ in the first class there!’ somebody shouted, just as Dick was clamouring into the forward truck.

‘Lordy! ‘Ere’s a real live passenger for the Kew, Tanai, Acton, and Ealin’ train. Echo, sir. Speshul edition! Star, sir.’ — ’Shall I get you a foot-warmer?’ said another.

‘Thanks. I’ll pay my footing,’ said Dick, and relations of the most amiable were established ere silence came with the arrival of the subaltern, and the train jolted out over the rough track.

‘This is an immense improvement on shooting the unimpressionable Fuzzy in the open,’ said Dick, from his place in the corner.

‘Oh, but he’s still unimpressed. There he goes!’ said the subaltern, as a bullet struck the outside of the truck. ‘We always have at least one demonstration against the night-train. Generally they attack the rear-truck, where my junior commands. He gets all the fun of the fair.’

‘Not to-night though! Listen!’ said Dick. A flight of heavy-handed bullets was succeeded by yelling and shouts. The children of the desert valued their nightly amusement, and the train was an excellent mark.

‘Is it worth giving them half a hopper full?’ the subaltern asked of the engine, which was driven by a Lieutenant of Sappers.

‘I should think so! This is my section of the line. They’ll be playing old Harry with my permanent way if we don’t stop ‘em.’

‘Right O!’

‘Hrrmph!’ said the machine gun through all its five noses as the subaltern drew the lever home. The empty cartridges clashed on the floor and the smoke blew back through the truck. There was indiscriminate firing at the rear of the train, and return fire from the darkness without and unlimited howling. Dick stretched himself on the floor, wild with delight at the sounds and the smells.

‘God is very good — I never thought I’d hear this again. Give ‘em hell, men. Oh, give ‘em hell!’ he cried.

The train stopped for some obstruction on the line ahead and a party went out to reconnoitre, but came back, cursing, for spades. The children of the desert had piled sand and gravel on the rails, and twenty minutes were lost in clearing it away. Then the slow progress recommenced, to be varied with more shots, more shoutings, the steady clack and kick of the machine guns, and a final difficulty with a half-lifted rail ere the train came under the protection of the roaring camp at Tanai-el-Hassan.

‘Now, you see why it takes an hour and a half to fetch her through,’ said the subaltern, unshipping the cartridge-hopper above his pet gun.

‘It was a lark, though. I only wish it had lasted twice as long. How superb it must have looked from outside!’ said Dick, sighing regretfully.

‘It palls after the first few nights. By the way, when you’ve settled about your mules, come and see what we can find to eat in my tent. I’m Bennil of the Gunners — in the artillery lines — and mind you don’t fall over my tent-ropes in the dark.’

But it was all dark to Dick. He could only smell the camels, the hay-bales, the cooking, the smoky fires, and the tanned canvas of the tents as he stood, where he had dropped from the train, shouting for George. There was a sound of light-hearted kicking on the iron skin of the rear trucks, with squealing and grunting. George was unloading the mules.

The engine was blowing off steam nearly in Dick’s ear; a cold wind of the desert danced between his legs; he was hungry, and felt tired and dirty — so dirty that he tried to brush his coat with his hands. That was a hopeless job; he thrust his hands into his pockets and began to count over the many times that he had waited in strange or remote places for trains or camels, mules or horses, to carry him to his business. In those days he could see — few men more clearly — and the spectacle of an armed camp at dinner under the stare was an ever fresh pleasure to the eye. There was colour, light, and motion, without which no man has much pleasure in living. This night there remained for him only one more journey through the darkness that never lifts to tell a man how far he has travelled. Then he would grip Torpenhow’s hand again — Torpenhow, who was alive and strong, and lived in the midst of the action that had once made the reputation of a man called Dick Heldar: not in the least to be confused with the blind, bewildered vagabond who seemed to answer to the same name. Yes, he would find Torpenhow, and come as near to the old life as might be. Afterwards he would forget everything: Bessie, who had wrecked the Melancolia and so nearly wrecked his life; Beeton, who lived in a strange unreal city full of tin-tacks and gas-plugs and matters that no men needed; that irrational being who had offered him love and loyalty for nothing, but had not signed her name; and most of all Maisie, who, from her own point of view, was undeniably right in all she did, but oh, at this distance, so tantalisingly fair.

George’s hand on his arm pulled him back to the situation.

‘And what now?’ said George.

‘Oh yes of course. What now? Take me to the camel-men. Take me to where the scouts sit when they come in from the desert. They sit by their camels, and the camels eat grain out of a black blanket held up at the corners, and the men eat by their side just like camels. Take me there!’

The camp was rough and rutty, and Dick stumbled many times over the stumps of scrub. The scouts were sitting by their beasts, as Dick knew they would. The light of the dung-fires flickered on their bearded faces, and the camels bubbled and mumbled beside them at rest. It was no part of Dick’s policy to go into the desert with a convoy of supplies. That would lead to impertinent questions, and since a blind non-combatant is not needed at the front, he would probably be forced to return to Suakin.

He must go up alone, and go immediately.

‘Now for one last bluff — the biggest of all,’ he said. ‘Peace be with you, brethren!’ The watchful George steered him to the circle of the nearest fire. The heads of the camel-sheiks bowed gravely, and the camels, scenting a European, looked sideways curiously like brooding hens, half ready to get to their feet.

‘A beast and a driver to go to the fighting line to-night,’ said Dick.

‘A Mulaid?’ said a voice, scornfully naming the best baggage-breed that he knew.

‘A Bisharin,’ returned Dick, with perfect gravity. ‘A Bisharin without saddle-galls. Therefore no charge of thine, shock-head.’

Two or three minutes passed. Then — ’We be knee-haltered for the night. There is no going out from the camp.’

‘Not for money?’

‘H’m! Ah! English money?’

Another depressing interval of silence.

‘How much?’

‘Twenty-five pounds English paid into the hand of the driver at my journey’s end, and as much more into the hand of the camel-sheik here, to be paid when the driver returns.’

This was royal payment, and the sheik, who knew that he would get his commission on this deposit, stirred in Dick’s behalf.

‘For scarcely one night’s journey — fifty pounds. Land and wells and good trees and wives to make a man content for the rest of his days. Who speaks?’ said Dick.

‘I,’ said a voice. ‘I will go — but there is no going from the camp.’

‘Fool! I know that a camel can break his knee-halter, and the sentries do not fire if one goes in chase. Twenty-five pounds and another twenty-five pounds. But the beast must be a good Bisharin; I will take no baggage-camel.’

Then the bargaining began, and at the end of half an hour the first deposit was paid over to the sheik, who talked in low tones to the driver.

Dick heard the latter say: ‘A little way out only. Any baggage-beast will serve. Am I a fool to waste my cattle for a blind man?’

‘And though I cannot see’ — Dick lifted his voice a little — ’yet I carry that which has six eyes, and the driver will sit before me. If we do not reach the English troops in the dawn he will be dead.’