Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (362 page)

“That depends,” said the troop-horse. “Generally I have to go in among a lot of yelling, hairy men with knives, — long shiny knives, worse than the farrier’s knives, — and I have to take care that Dick’s boot is just touching the next man’s boot without crushing it. I can see Dick’s lance to the right of my right eye, and I know I’m safe. I shouldn’t care to be the man or horse that stood up to Dick and me when we’re in a hurry.”

“Don’t the knives hurt?” said the young mule.

“Well, I got one cut across the chest once, but that wasn’t Dick’s fault — ”

“A lot I should have cared whose fault it was, if it hurt!” said the young mule.

“You must,” said the troop-horse. “If you don’t trust your man, you may as well run away at once. That’s what some of our horses do, and I don’t blame them. As I was saying, it wasn’t Dick’s fault. The man was lying on the ground, and I stretched myself not to tread on him, and he slashed up at me. Next time I have to go over a man lying down I shall step on him — hard.”

“‘THE MAN WAS LYING ON THE GROUND, AND I STRETCHED
MYSELF NOT TO TREAD ON HIM, AND HE SLASHED UP AT ME.’”

“H’m!” said Billy; “it sounds very foolish. Knives are dirty things at any time. The proper thing to do is to climb up a mountain with a well-balanced saddle, hang on by all four feet and your ears too, and creep and crawl and wriggle along, till you come out hundreds of feet above any one else, on a ledge where there’s just room enough for your hoofs. Then you stand still and keep quiet, — never ask a man to hold your head, young ‘un, — keep quiet while the guns are being put together, and then you watch the little poppy shells drop down into the tree-tops ever so far below.”

“Don’t you ever trip?” said the troop-horse.

“They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen’s ear,” said Billy. “Now and again
per-haps
a badly packed saddle will upset a mule, but it’s very seldom. I wish I could show you our business. It’s beautiful. Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at. The science of the thing is never to show up against the sky-line, because, if you do, you may get fired at. Remember that, young ‘un. Always keep hidden as much as possible, even if you have to go a mile out of your way. I lead the battery when it comes to that sort of climbing.”

“Fired at without the chance of running into the people who are firing!” said the troop-horse, thinking hard. “I couldn’t stand that. I should want to charge, with Dick.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t; you know that as soon as the guns are in position
they’ll
do all the charging. That’s scientific and neat; but knives — pah!”

The baggage-camel had been bobbing his head to and fro for some time past, anxious to get a word in edgeways. Then I heard him say, as he cleared his throat, nervously:

“I — I — I have fought a little, but not in that climbing way or that running way.”

“No. Now you mention it,” said Billy, “you don’t look as though you were made for climbing or running — much. Well, how was it, old Hay-bales?”

“The proper way,” said the camel. “We all sat down — ”

“Oh, my crupper and breastplate!” said the troop-horse under his breath. “Sat down?”

“We sat down — a hundred of us,” the camel went on, “in a big square, and the men piled our packs and saddles outside the square, and they fired over our backs, the men did, on all sides of the square.”

“What sort of men? Any men that came along?” said the troop-horse. “They teach us in riding-school to lie down and let our masters fire across us, but Dick Cunliffe is the only man I’d trust to do that. It tickles my girths, and, besides, I can’t see with my head on the ground.”

“What does it matter who fires across you?” said the camel. “There are plenty of men and plenty of other camels close by, and a great many clouds of smoke. I am not frightened then. I sit still and wait.”

“And yet,” said Billy, “you dream bad dreams and upset the camp at night. Well! well! Before I’d lie down, not to speak of sitting down, and let a man fire across me, my heels and his head would have something to say to each other. Did you ever hear anything so awful as that?”

There was a long silence, and then one of the gun-bullocks lifted up his big head and said, “This is very foolish indeed. There is only one way of fighting.”

“Oh, go on,” said Billy. “
Please
don’t mind me. I suppose you fellows fight standing on your tails?”

“Only one way,” said the two together. (They must have been twins.) “This is that way. To put all twenty yoke of us to the big gun as soon as Two Tails trumpets.” (“Two Tails” is camp slang for the elephant.)

“What does Two Tails trumpet for?” said the young mule.

“To show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the other side. Two Tails is a great coward. Then we tug the big gun all together —
Heya
—
Hullah! Heeyah! Hullah!
We
do not climb like cats nor run like calves. We go across the level plain, twenty yoke of us, till we are unyoked again, and we graze while the big guns talk across the plain to some town with mud walls, and pieces of the wall fall out, and the dust goes up as though many cattle were coming home.”

“Oh! And you choose that time for grazing do you?” said the young mule.

“That time or any other. Eating is always good. We eat till we are yoked up again and tug the gun back to where Two Tails is waiting for it. Sometimes there are big guns in the city that speak back, and some of us are killed, and then there is all the more grazing for those that are left. This is Fate — nothing but Fate. None the less, Two Tails is a great coward. That is the proper way to fight. We are brothers from Hapur. Our father was a sacred bull of Shiva. We have spoken.”

“Well, I’ve certainly learned something tonight,” said the troop-horse. “Do you gentlemen of the screw-gun battery feel inclined to eat when you are being fired at with big guns, and Two Tails is behind you?”

“About as much as we feel inclined to sit down and let men sprawl all over us, or run into people with knives. I never heard such stuff. A mountain ledge, a well-balanced load, a driver you can trust to let you pick your own way, and I’m your mule; but the other things — no!” said Billy, with a stamp of his foot.

“Of course,” said the troop-horse, “every one is not made in the same way, and I can quite see that your family, on your father’s side, would fail to understand a great many things.”

“Never you mind my family on my father’s side,” said Billy angrily; for every mule hates to be reminded that his father was a donkey. “My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came across. Remember that, you big brown Brumby!”

Brumby means wild horse without any breeding. Imagine the feelings of Sunol if a car-horse called her a “skate,” and you can imagine how the Australian horse felt. I saw the white of his eye glitter in the dark.

“See here, you son of an imported Malaga jackass,” he said between his teeth, “I’d have you know that I’m related on my mother’s side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and where
I
come from we aren’t accustomed to being ridden over roughshod by any parrot-mouthed, pig-headed mule in a pop-gun peashooter battery. Are you ready?”

“On your hind legs!” squealed Billy. They both reared up facing each other, and I was expecting a furious fight, when a gurgly, rumbly voice called out of the darkness to the right — ”Children, what are you fighting about there? Be quiet.”

Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust, for neither horse nor mule can bear to listen to an elephant’s voice.

“It’s Two Tails!” said the troop-horse. “I can’t stand him. A tail at each end isn’t fair!”

“My feelings exactly,” said Billy, crowding into the troop-horse for company. “We’re very alike in some things.”

“I suppose we’ve inherited them from our mothers,” said the troop-horse. “It’s not worth quarreling about. Hi! Two Tails, are you tied up?”

“Yes,” said Two Tails, with a laugh all up his trunk. “I’m picketed for the night. I’ve heard what you fellows have been saying. But don’t be afraid. I’m not coming over.”

The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud: “Afraid of Two Tails — what nonsense!” And the bullocks went on: “We are sorry that you heard, but it is true. Two Tails, why are you afraid of the guns when they fire?”

“Well,” said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the other, exactly like a little boy saying a piece, “I don’t quite know whether you’d understand.”

“We don’t, but we have to pull the guns,” said the bullocks.

“I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than you think you are. But it’s different with me. My battery captain called me a Pachydermatous Anachronism the other day.”

“That’s another way of fighting, I suppose?” said Billy, who was recovering his spirits.

“
You
don’t know what that means, of course, but I do. It means betwixt and between, and that is just where I am. I can see inside my head what will happen when a shell bursts; and you bullocks can’t.”

“I can,” said the troop-horse. “At least a little bit. I try not to think about it.”

“I can see more than you, and I
do
think about it. I know there’s a great deal of me to take care of, and I know that nobody knows how to cure me when I’m sick. All they can do is to stop my driver’s pay till I get well, and I can’t trust my driver.”

“Ah!” said the troop-horse. “That explains it. I can trust Dick.”

“You could put a whole regiment of Dicks on my back without making me feel any better. I know just enough to be uncomfortable, and not enough to go on in spite of it.”

“We do not understand,” said the bullocks.

“I know you don’t. I’m not talking to you. You don’t know what blood is.”

“We do,” said the bullocks. “It is red stuff that soaks into the ground and smells.”

The troop-horse gave a kick and a bound and a snort.

“Don’t talk of it,” he said. “I can smell it now, just thinking of it. It makes me want to run — when I haven’t Dick on my back.”

“But it is not here,” said the camel and the bullocks. “Why are you so stupid?”

“It’s vile stuff,” said Billy. “I don’t want to run, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“There you are!” said Two Tails, waving his tail to explain.

“Surely. Yes, we have been here all night,” said the bullocks.

Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled. “Oh, I’m not talking to
you
. You can’t see inside your heads.”

“No. We see out of our four eyes,” said the bullocks. “We see straight in front of us.”

“If I could do that and nothing else you wouldn’t be needed to pull the big guns at all. If I was like my captain — he can see things inside his head before the firing begins, and he shakes all over, but he knows too much to run away — if I was like him I could pull the guns. But if I were as wise as all that I should never be here. I should be a king in the forest, as I used to be, sleeping half the day and bathing when I liked. I haven’t had a good bath for a month.”

“That’s all very fine,” said Billy; “but giving a thing a long name doesn’t make it any better.”

“H’sh!” said the troop-horse. “I think I understand what Two Tails means.”

“You’ll understand better in a minute,” said Two Tails angrily. “Now, just you explain to me why you don’t like
this
!”

He began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trumpet.

“Stop that!” said Billy and the troop-horse together, and I could hear them stamp and shiver. An elephant’s trumpeting is always nasty, especially on a dark night.

“I sha’n’t stop,” said Two Tails. “Won’t you explain that, please?
Hhrrmþh! Rrrt! Rrrmph! Rrrhha!
” Then he stopped suddenly, and I heard a little whimper in the dark, and knew that Vixen had found me at last. She knew as well as I did that if there is one thing in the world the elephant is more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog; so she stopped to bully Two Tails in his pickets, and yapped round his big feet. Two Tails shuffled and squeaked. “Go away, little dog!” he said. “Don’t snuff at my ankles, or I ‘ll kick at you. Good little dog — nice little doggie, then! Go home, you yelping little beast! Oh, why doesn’t some one take her away? She’ll bite me in a minute.”