Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1247 page)

Mother. Good. Very good. That is the right honour.

Son. Listen! He says: “Each village keeps a written account of all that the enemy has done against it. If a life — a life, whether it be man or priest, or hostage, or woman or babe. Every horn driven off; and every feather; all bricks and tiles broken, all things burned, and their price, are written in the account. The shames and the insults are also written. There is no price set against them.”

Father. This is without flaw! This is a people! There is never any price for shame offered. And they write it all down. Marvellous!

Son. Yes. He says: “Each village keeps its own tally and all tallies go to their Government to be filed. The whole of the country of France is in one great account against the enemy — for the loss, for the lives, and for the shames done. It has been kept from the first. The women keep it with the men. All French women read, write, and cast accounts from youth. By this they are able to keep the great account against the enemy. I think that it is good that our girls should get schooling like this. Then we shall have no more confusion in our accounts. It is only to add up the sums lost and the lives. We should teach our girls. We are fools compared with these people.”

Mother. But a Pathani girl remembers without all this book-work. It is waste. Who of any decent descent ever forgot a blood-debt? He must be sickening for illness to write thus.

Father. One should not forget. Yet we depend on songs and tales. It is more secure — certainly, it is more business-like — that a written account should be kept. Since it is the men who must pay off the debt, why should not the women keep it?

Mother. They can keep tally on a stick or a distaff. It is unnecessary for a girl to scribble in books. They never come to good ends. They end by —  —

Son. Sometimes, my mother, sometimes. On the Government side of the Border, women are taught to read, and write, and cast accounts, and —  —

Mother [
with intention
]. Far be the day when such an one is brought to
my
house as a bride. For
I
say —  —

Father. No matter. What does
he
say about those French women?

Son. He says: “They are not divided in opinion as to which of their enemies shall be sought after first. They say: ‘Let us even the account every day and night out of the nearest assembly of the enemy and when we have brought all the enemy into the right way of thinking we can demand the very people who did the shame and offences. In the meantime, let it be any life.’ This is good counsel for
us
in our account, oh my mother.”

Father [
after a pause
]. True! True! It is good advice. Let it be any life.... Is that all?

Son. That is all. He says: “Let it be
any
life.” And I think so too.

Mother. “
Any
life.” Even so! And then we can write to him quickly that we have taken our revenge quickly. [
She reaches for her husband’s rifle which she passes over to her son, who stretches his hand towards it with a glance at his father.
]

Father. On your head, Akbar, our account must lie — at least till I am better. Do you try to-night?

Son. May be! I wish we had the high-priced illuminating fireballs he spoke of. [
Half rises.
]

Mother. Wait a little. There is the call for the Ishr [the evening prayer].

Muezzin [
in the village mosque without as the first stars show
]. God is great! God is great! God is great! I bear witness, etc.

[
The family compose themselves for evening prayer.
]

A TROOPER OF HORSE

To the sister of the pensioned Risaldar Major Abdul Qadr Khan, at her own house behind the shrine of Gulu Shah near by the village of Korake in the Pasrur Tehsil of the Sialkot District in the Province of the Punjab. Sent out of the country of France on the 23rd of August, 1916, by Duffadar Abdul Rahman of the 132nd (Pakpattan) Cavalry — late Lambart’s Horse.

Mother! The news is that once only in five months I have not received a letter from you. My thoughts are always with you. Mother, put your ear down and listen to me. Do not fret; I will soon be with you again. Imagine that I have merely gone to Lyallpur [the big recruiting-dépôt in India]; think that I have been delayed there by an officer’s order, or that I am not yet ready to come back. Mother, think of me always as though I were sitting near by, just as I imagine you always beside me. Be of good cheer, Mother, there is nothing that I have done which is hidden from you. I tell you truly, Mother, I will salute you again. Do not grieve. I tell you confidently I shall bow before you again in salutation. It will be thus, Mother. I shall come in the dead of the night and knock at your door. Then I will call loudly that you may wake and open the door to me. With great delight you will open the door and fold me to your breast, my Mother. Then I will sit down beside you and tell you what has happened to me — good and evil. Then having rested the night in comfort I will go out after the day has come and I will salute all my brethren at the mosque and in the village. Then I will return and eat my bread in pleasure and happiness. You, Mother, will say to me: “Shall I give you some
ghi
?” [native butter]. I will say at first proudly, like one who has travelled: — ”No, I want none.” You will press me, and I will softly push my plate over to you and you will fill it with
ghi
, and I shall dip my cake in it with delight. Believe me, Mother, this homecoming will take place just as I have described it. I see you before me always. It seems to me only yesterday that I bent to your feet when I made salutation and you put your hand upon my head.

Mother, put your trust in God to guard my head. If my grave lies in France it can never be in the Punjab, though we try for a thousand years. If it be in the Punjab then I shall certainly return to it to that very place. Meantime, Mother, consider what I have to eat. This is the true list. I eat daily sugar and ghi and flour, salt, meat, red peppers, some almonds and dates, sweets of various kinds as well as raisins and cardamoms. In the morning I eat tea and white biscuits. An hour after, halwa and puri [native dishes]. At noon, tea and bread; at seven o’clock of the evening, vegetable curry. At bedtime I drink milk. There is abundance of milk in this country. I am more comfortable here, I swear it to you, Mother, than any high officer in India. As for our clothing, there is no account kept of it. You would cry out, Mother, to see the thick cloth expended. So I beg you, Mother, to take comfort concerning your son. Do not tear my heart by telling me your years. Though we both lived to be as old as elephants I am your son who will come asking for you as I said, at your door.

As to the risk of death, who is free from it anywhere? Certainly not in the Punjab. I hear that all those religious mendicants at Zilabad have proclaimed a holy fair this summer in order that pious people may feed them, and now, having collected in thousands beside the river in hot weather, they have spread cholera all over the district. There is trouble raging throughout all the world, Mother, and yet these sons of mean fathers must proclaim a beggars’ festival in order to add to it! There should be an order of the Government to take all those lazy rascals out of India into France and put them in our front-line that their bodies may be sieves for the machine guns. Why cannot they blacken their faces and lie in a corner with a crust of bread? It is certainly right to feed the family priests, Mother, but when the idle assemble in thousands begging and making sickness and polluting the drinking-water, punishment should be administered.

Very much sickness, such as cholera and dysentery, is caused by drinking foul water. Therefore, it is best to have it boiled, Mother, no matter what is said. When clothes are washed in foul water, sickness also spreads. You will say, Mother, that I am no longer a trooper but a washer-woman or an apothecary, but I swear to you, my Mother, what I have said is true. Now, I have two charges to deliver to you as to the household under you. I beg you, my Mother, to give order that my son drink water which is boiled, at least from the beginning of the hot weather till after the Rains. That is one charge. The second is that when I was going down to the sea with the Regiment from home, the Lady Doctor Sahiba in the Civil Lines asked of our Colonel’s lady whether any of us desired that their households should take the charm against the small-pox [be vaccinated]. I was then busy with my work and I made no reply. Now let that Doctor Sahiba know that I desire by her favour that my son take the charm as soon as may be. I charge you, Mother, upon
his
head that it is done soon. I beg you respectfully to take this charge upon you.

Oh, my Mother, if I could now see you for but half of one watch in the night or at evening preparing food! I remember the old days in my dreamings but when I awake — there is the sleeper and there is the bedding and it is more far off than Delhi. But God will accomplish the meetings and surely arrange the return.

Mother, before going out to the attack the other day, I had a dream. I dreamed that a great snake appeared in our trenches in France and at the same time our Pir Murshid [our family priest] whose face I saw quite clearly, appeared with a stick and destroyed it. Well then, Mother, our lot went in to the attack and returned from it safely. Those who were fated to be the victims of death were taken and those who were fated to be wounded were wounded; and all our party returned safely. At the same time, the Government secured a victory and the Regiment obtained renown. It was
our
horse that went out over the trenches, Mother, and the Germans, being alarmed, fled. We were forbidden to pursue because of hidden guns. This was trouble to us. We owed them much blood on our brethren’s account. Tell the Murshid my dream and ask him for a full interpretation. I have also seen our Murshid twice before in my dreams. Ask him why he comes to me thus. I am not conscious of any wrong-doing, and if it is a sign of favour to me, then the shape should speak.

I am quite aware how God rewards the unwilling. He is all powerful. Look at the case of that man of our own family who was ordered to the front with a higher rank. He refused promotion in order to stay behind, and in a month’s time he died of the plague in his own village. If he had gone to the front his family would have received the war pension. An atheist never achieves honour, Mother. He is always unsettled and has no consolations. Do we Mussulmans think that the Prophet will spend all his time in asking God to forgive our transgressions? Tell the Pir Murshid what I have written.

Mother, put down your ear and listen to me in this matter, my Mother. There is one thing I wish to impress earnestly on you. You must know that among recruits for the Regiment there are too few of our kind of Mussulmans. They are sending recruits from the Punjab who were formerly labourers and common workmen. The consequence of this is, in the Regiment, that we Mussulmans are completely outnumbered by these low people, and the promotions go accordingly. Each of our troops, my Mother, has been divided into two; that is to say there are four troops to a squadron. We Mussulmans should have at least two troops out of the four, but owing to the lack of recruits we have not sufficient men of our faith to form more than one. Now, Mother, as it was in our fathers’ time, he who supplies the men gets the promotion. Therefore, if our friends at home, and especially our Pir Murshid, would exert themselves to supply fifteen or twenty recruits, I could approach my Colonel Sahib in regard to promotion. If my Colonel received my request favourably then you at home would only have the trouble to provide the men. But I do not think, Mother, there would be any trouble if our Pir Murshid exerted himself in the matter and if my father’s brother also exerted himself. A family is a family even [if it be] scattered to the ends of the earth, Mother. My father’s brother’s name is still remembered in the Regiment on account of his long service and his great deeds of old. Tell him, my Mother, that the men talk of him daily as though he had only resigned yesterday. If he rides out among the villages with his medals he will certainly fetch in many of our class. If it were fifty it would mean much more influence for me with my Colonel. He is very greedy for our class of Mahommedans.

Mother, our Pir Murshid too, is a very holy man. If he preached to them after harvest he would fetch in many and I should be promoted, and the pensions go with the promotion. In a short time by God’s assistance, I might command a troop if sufficient recruits were attained by the exertions of my friends and well-wishers. The honour of one is the honour of all. Lay all this before the Murshid and my uncle.

None of the Cavalry have yet done anything to compare with our Regiment. This may be because of fate or that their nature is not equal to ours. There is great honour to be got out of a lance before long. The war has become loosened and cavalry patrols are being sent forward. We have driven Mama Lumra [a nickname for the enemy] several miles across country. He has planted his feet again but it is not the same Mama Lumra. His arrogance is gone. Our guns turn the earth upside down upon him. He has made himself houses underground which are in all respects fortresses with beds, chairs and lights. Our guns break these in. There is little to see because Mama Lumra is buried underneath. These days are altogether different from the days when all our Army was here and Mama Lumra’s guns overwhelmed us by day and by night. Now Mama Lumra eats his own stick. Fighting goes on in the sky, on earth and under earth. Such a fighting is rarely vouchsafed any one to behold. Yet if one reflects upon God it is no more than rain on a roof. Mother, once I was reported “missing, killed or believed taken prisoner.” I went with a patrol to a certain place beyond which we went forward to a place which had recently been taken by the English infantry. Suddenly the enemy’s fire fell upon us and behind us like water. Seeing we could not go back, we lay down in the holes made by the shells. The enemy exerted himself to the utmost, but our guns having found him bombarded him and he ceased. In the evening we retired out of our shell-holes. We had to walk; it was fasting time and we suffered from thirst. So our hearts were relieved when we returned to the Regiment. We had all been reported to Divisional Headquarters as lost. This false report was then cancelled. The shell-holes in the ground are the size of our goat-pen and as deep as my height with the arm raised. They are more in number than can be counted, and of all colours. It is like small-pox upon the ground.