Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (489 page)

I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of M. de C.’s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His account of his descent from the side of the “
infamous vessel consecrated to blood
” in the “
vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean
” could only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music “
of an indefinable brutality
”

“By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass’s funeral?” I asked.

“Him? Oh! ‘e played ‘The Strict Q.T.’ It’s a very old song. We ‘ad it in
Fratton nearly fifteen years back,” said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.

I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.

“Where is that — minutely particularised person — Glass?” said the sergeant of the picket.

“‘Ere!” The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. “An’ it’s no good smelling of my breath, because I’m strictly an’ ruinously sober.”

“Oh! An’ what may you have been doin’ with yourself?”

“Listenin’ to tracts. You can look! I’ve had the evenin’ of my little life. Lead on to the
Cornucopia’s
midmost dunjing cell. There’s a crowd of brass-’atted blighters there which will say I’ve been absent without leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before’and.
The
evenin’ of my life, an’ please don’t forget it.” Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to me: “I soaked it all in be’ind my shut eyes. ‘I’m” — he jerked a contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft — ”‘e’s a flatfoot, a indigo-blue matlow. ‘E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar — most depressin’.” Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the escort’s arm.

Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought — the profound and far-reaching meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.

“Well, I don’t see anything comical — greatly — except here an’ there. Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do
you
see anything funny in it?”

There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for argument.

“No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don’t,” I replied. “It was a beautiful tale, and I thank you very much.”

 THE RUNNERS

            
News!
  What is the word that they tell now — now — now!
  The little drums beating in the bazaars?
      
They
beat (among the buyers and sellers)
          
”Nimrud — ah Nimrud!
          God sends a gnat against Nimrud
!”
      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!

            
News!
  At the edge of the crops — now — now — where the well-wheels are halted,
  One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
      
They
beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
          
”Nimrud — ah Nimrud!
          God prepares an ill day for Nimrud
!”
      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.

            
News!
  By the fires of the camps — now — now — where the travellers meet
  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
      
They
beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
          
”Nimrud — ah Nimrud!
          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud
!”
      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!

            
News!
  Under the shadow of the border-peels — now — now — now!
  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
      
They
beat (among the rifles and the riders)
          
”Nimrud — ah Nimrud!
          Shall we go up against Nimrud
?”
      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?

            
News!
  Bring out the heaps of grain — open the account-books again!
  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
  Eat and lie under the trees — pitch the police-guarded fair-grounds,
      O dancers!
  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
      
They
beat (among all the peoples)
          
”Now — now — now!
          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
          God has given Victory to Nimrud!”
          Let us abide under Nimrud
!”
      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!

A SAHIBS’ WAR

Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the
rêl
from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a — trooper of the Gurgaon Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh — a trooper of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there
any
Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon Rissala going about his business in this devil’s devising of a country, where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?… God be thanked, here is such a Sahib! Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that my name is Umr Singh; I am — I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him herd me with these black Kaffirs!… Yes, I will sit by this truck till the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who does not understand our tongue.

* * * * *

What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go down to Eshtellenbosch by the next
terain
? Good! I go with the Heaven- born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born’s servant. Will the Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus — for the sun is hot, though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
terain
for Eshtellenbosch….

The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen’s by — by — I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different matter. The Sahib’s nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay — nay; the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long ago, but — but it is true — mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use for their coats, and — the Sahib has sharp eyes — that black mark is such a mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib’s servant for nearly a year — bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib — my Kurban Sahib — dead these three months!

* * * * *

Young — of a reddish face — with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father’s time when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala.
My
father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of Sikhs — he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first — nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I remember — and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that day; and
he
was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground with his ayah — all in white, Sahib — laughing at the end of our drill. And his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine — eighteen — twenty-five — twenty-seven years gone now — Kurban Sahib — my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying is. He called me Big Umr Singh — Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but he knew all our troopers by name — every one…. And he went to England, and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk, and cracking his finger-joints — back to his own regiment and to me. He had not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart, Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen- eyed, jestful, and careless.
I
could tell tales about him in his first years. There was very little he hid from
me
. I was his Umr Singh, and when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything — about war, and women, and money, and advancement, and such all.

We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box- wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log. The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness has created the
dak
(the post), and that for an anna or two all things become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of those signs.
Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah
! This Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, “There is no haste. Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so. It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True — true — true!”

So did matters ripen — a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I think — and the Sahib sees this, too? — that it is foolish to make an army and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the Tochi — the men of the Tirah — the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times.
We
could have done it all so gently — so gently.

Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, “Ho, Dada, I am sick, and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months.” And he winked, and I said, “I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my uniform?” He said, “Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis” (niggers). Mark his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part in this war-game upon the road. But
he
was clever. There was no whisper of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am — I was — of that rank for which a chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, “My child goes sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also.”

And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue, said, “Yes, thou art truly
Sikh
”; and he called me an old devil — jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe again. My Sahib back again — aie me!

So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead. Then I said to Kurban Sahib, “What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for dinner.” Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson’s Hotel, and that night I prepared Kurban Sahib’s razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He said, “They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they are white.” He said, “There is but one fault in this war, and that is that the Government have not employed
us
, but have made it altogether a Sahibs’ war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be taken.” True talk — true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.