Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (180 page)

CAPT. M. (
Solus.
) It would have served me right if he’d cut me across the face. He can drive too. I shouldn’t care to go that pace in a bamboo cart. What a faith he must have in his Maker — of harness! Come
hup
, you brute! (
Gallops off to parade, blowing his nose, as the sun rises.
)

(INTERVAL OF FIVE WEEKS.)

MRS. G. (
Very white and pinched, in morning wrapper at breakfast table.
) How big and strange the room looks, and oh how glad I am to see it again! What dust, though! I must talk to the servants. Sugar, Pip? I’ve almost forgotten. (
Seriously.
) Wasn’t I very ill?

CAPT. G. Iller than I liked. (
Tenderly.
) Oh, you bad little Pussy, what a start you gave me!

MRS. G. I’ll never do it again.

CAPT. G. You’d better not. And now get those poor pale cheeks pink again, or I shall be angry. Don’t try to lift the urn. You’ll upset it. Wait. (
Comes round to head of table and lifts urn.
)

MRS. G. (
Quickly.
)
Khitmatgar, bowarchi-khana see kettly lao
. Butler, get a kettle from the cook-house. (
Drawing down
G.’s
face to her own.
) Pip dear,
I
remember.

CAPT. G. What?

MRS. G. That last terrible night.

CAPT. G. Then just you forget all about it.

MRS. G. (
Softly, her eyes filling.
) Never. It has brought us
very
close together, my husband. There! (
Interlude.
) I’m going to give Junda a
saree.

CAPT. G. I gave her fifty dibs.

MRS. G. So she told me. It was a ‘normous reward. Was I worth it? (
Several interludes.
) Don’t! Here’s the
khitmatgar
. — Two lumps or one, Sir?

THE SWELLING OF JORDAN

If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace wherein thou trustedst they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?

SCENE. —
The
GADSEYS’
bungalow in the Plains, on a January morning.
MRS. G.
arguing with bearer in back veranda.

CAPT. M.
rides up.

CAPT. M. ‘Mornin’, Mrs. Gadsby. How’s the Infant Phenomenon and the
Proud Proprietor?

MRS. G. You’ll find them in the front veranda; go through the house.
I’m Martha just now.

CAPT. M. ‘Cumbered about with cares of
khitmatgars?
I fly.

Passes into front veranda, where
GADSBY
is watching
GADSBY JUNIOR,
aged ten months, crawling about the matting.

CAPT. M. What’s the trouble, Gaddy — spoiling an honest man’s Europe morning this way? (
Seeing
G. JUNIOR.) By Jove, that yearling’s comin’ on amazingly! Any amount of bone below the knee there.

CAPT. G. Yes, he’s a healthy little scoundrel. Don’t you think his hair’s growing?

M. Let’s have a look. Hi! Hst! Come here, General Luck, and we’ll report on you.

MRS. G. (
Within.
) What absurd name will you give him next? Why do you call him that?

M. Isn’t he our Inspector-General of Cavalry? Doesn’t he come down in his seventy-two perambulator every morning the Pink Hussars parade? Don’t wriggle, Brigadier. Give us your private opinion on the way the third squadron went past. ‘Trifle ragged, weren’t they?

G. A bigger set of tailors than the new draft I don’t wish to see. They’ve given me more than my fair share — knocking the squadron out of shape. It’s sickening!

M. When you’re in command, you’ll do better, young ‘un. Can’t you walk yet? Get my finger and try. (
To
G.) ‘Twon’t hurt his hocks, will it?

G. Oh, no. Don’t let him flop, though, or he’ll lick all the blacking off your boots.

MRS. G. (
Within.
) Who’s destroying my son’s character?

M. And my Godson’s. I’m ashamed of you, Gaddy. Punch your father in the eye, Jack! Don’t you stand it! Hit him again!

G. (
Sotto voce.
) Put The
Butcha
down and come to the end of the veranda. I’d rather the Wife didn’t hear — just now.

M. You look awf’ly serious. Anything wrong?

G. ‘Depends on your view entirely. I say, Jack, you won’t think more hardly of me than you can help, will you? Come further this way. — The fact of the matter is, that I’ve made up my mind — at least I’m thinking seriously of — cutting the Service.

M. Hwhatt?

G. Don’t shout. I’m going to send in my papers.

M. You! Are you mad?

G. No — only married.

M. Look here! What’s the meaning of it all? You never intend to leave
us
. You
can’t
. Isn’t the best squadron of the best regiment of the best cavalry in all the world good enough for you?

G. (
Jerking his head over his shoulder
.) She doesn’t seem to thrive in this God-forsaken country, and there’s The
Butcha
to be considered and all that, you know.

M. Does she say that she doesn’t like India?

G. That’s the worst of it. She won’t for fear of leaving me.

M. What are the Hills made for?

G. Not for
my
wife at any rate.

M. You know too much, Gaddy, and — I don’t like you any the better for it!

G. Never mind that. She wants England, and The
Butcha
would be all the better for it. I’m going to chuck. You don’t understand.

M. (
Hotly.
) I understand
this
. One hundred and thirty-seven new horses to be licked into shape somehow before Luck comes round again; a hairy-heeled draft who’ll give more trouble than the horses; a camp next cold weather for a certainty; ourselves the first on the roster; the Russian shindy ready to come to a head at five minutes’ notice, and you, the best of us all, backing out of it all! Think a little, Gaddy. You
won’t
do it.

G. Hang it, a man has some duties towards his family, I suppose.

M. I remember a man, though, who told me, the night after Amdheran, when we were picketed under Jagai, and he’d left his sword — by the way, did you ever pay Ranken for that sword? — in an Utmanzai’s head — that man told me that he’d stick by me and the Pinks as long as he lived. I don’t blame him for not sticking by me — I’m not much of a man — but I
do
blame him for not sticking by the Pink Hussars.

G. (
Uneasily
.) We were little more than boys then. Can’t you see,
Jack, how things stand? ‘Tisn’t as if we were serving for our bread.
We’ve all of us, more or less, got the filthy lucre. I’m luckier than
some, perhaps. There’s no
call
for me to serve on.

M. None in the world for you or for us, except the Regimental. If you don’t choose to answer to
that
, of course —

G. Don’t be too hard on a man. You know that a lot of us only take up the thing for a few years and then go back to Town and catch on with the rest.

M. Not lots, and they aren’t some of
Us
.

G. And then there are one’s affairs at Home to be considered — my place and the rents, and all that. I don’t suppose my father can last much longer, and that means the title, and so on.

M. ‘Fraid you won’t be entered in the Stud Book correctly unless you go Home? Take six months, then, and come out in October. If I could slay off a brother or two, I s’pose I should be a Marquis of sorts. Any fool can be that; but it needs
men
, Gaddy — men like you — to lead flanking squadrons properly. Don’t you delude yourself into the belief that you’re going Home to take your place and prance about among pink-nosed Kabuli dowagers. You aren’t built that way. I know better.

G. A man has a right to live his life as happily as he can.
You
aren’t married.

M. No — praise be to Providence and the one or two women who have had the good sense to
jawab
me.

G. Then you don’t know what it is to go into your own room and see your wife’s head on the pillow, and when everything else is safe and the house shut up for the night, to wonder whether the roof-beams won’t give and kill her.

M. (
Aside
.) Revelations first and second! (
Aloud
.) So-o! I knew a man who got squiffy at our Mess once and confided to me that he never helped his wife on to her horse without praying that she’d break her neck before she came back. All husbands aren’t alike, you see.

G. What on earth has that to do with my case? The man must ha’ been mad, or his wife as bad as they make ‘em.

M. (
Aside
.) ‘No fault of yours if either weren’t all you say. You’ve forgotten the tune when you were insane about the Herriott woman. You always were a good hand at forgetting. (
Aloud
.) Not more mad than men who go to the other extreme. Be reasonable, Gaddy. Your roof-beams are sound enough.

G. That was only a way of speaking. I’ve been uneasy and worried about the Wife ever since that awful business three years ago — when — I nearly lost her. Can you wonder?

M. Oh, a shell never falls twice in the same place. You’ve paid your toll to misfortune — why should your wife be picked out more than anybody else’s?

G. I can
talk
just as reasonably as you can, but you don’t understand — you don’t understand. And then there’s The
Butcha.
Deuce knows where the Ayah takes him to sit in the evening! He has a bit of a cough. Haven’t you noticed it?

M. Bosh! The Brigadier’s jumping out of his skin with pure condition.
He’s got a muzzle like a rose-leaf and the chest of a two-year-old.
What’s demoralised you?

G. Funk. That’s the long and the short of it. Funk!

M. But what
is
there to funk?

G. Everything. It’s ghastly.

M. Ah! I see.

       You don’t want to fight,
         And by Jingo when we do,
       You’ve got the kid, you’ve got the Wife,
         You’ve got the money, too.

That’s about the case, eh?

G. I suppose that’s it. But it’s not for myself. It’s because of
them.
At least I think it is.

M. Are you sure? Looking at the matter in a cold-blooded light, the Wife is provided for even if you were wiped out to-night. She has an ancestral home to go to, money, and the Brigadier to carry on the illustrious name.

G. Then it is for myself or because they are part of me. You don’t see it. My life’s so good, so pleasant, as it is, that I want to make it quite safe. Can’t you understand?

M. Perfectly. ‘Shelter-pit for the Orf’cer’s charger,’ as they say in the Line.

G. And I have everything to my hand to make it so. I’m sick of the strain and the worry for their sakes out here; and there isn’t a single real difficulty to prevent my dropping it altogether. It’ll only cost me — Jack, I hope you’ll never know the shame that I’ve been going through for the past six months.

M. Hold on there! I don’t wish to be told. Every man has his moods and tenses sometimes.

G. (
Laughing bitterly
.) Has he? What do you call craning over to see where your near-fore lands?

M. In my case it means that I have been on the Considerable Bend, and have come to parade with a Head and a Hand. It passes in three strides.

G. (
Lowering voice
.) It
never
passes with me, Jack. I’m always thinking about it. Phil Gadsby funking a fall on parade! Sweet picture, isn’t it! Draw it for me.

M. (
Gravely
.) Heaven forbid! A man like you can’t be as bad as that.
A fall is no nice thing, but one never gives it a thought.

G. Doesn’t one? Wait till you’ve got a wife and a youngster of your own, and then you’ll know how the roar of the squadron behind you turns you cold all up the back.

M. (
Aside.
) And this man led at Amdheran after Bagal-Deasin went under, and we were all mixed up together, and he came out of the show dripping like a butcher. (
Aloud.
) Skittles! The men can always open out, and you can always pick your way more or less.
We
haven’t the dust to bother us, as the men have, and whoever heard of a horse stepping on a man?

G. Never — as long as he can see. But did they open out for poor
Errington?

M. Oh, this is childish!

G. I know it is, worse than that. I don’t care. You’ve ridden Van Loo. Is he the sort of brute to pick his way — ’specially when we’re coming up in column of troop with any pace on?

M. Once in a Blue Moon do we gallop in column of troop, and then only to save time. Aren’t three lengths enough for you?

G. Yes — quite enough. They just allow for the full development of the smash. I’m talking like a cur, I know: but I tell you that, for the past three months, I’ve felt every hoof of the squadron in the small of my back every time that I’ve led.

M. But, Gaddy, this is awful!

G. Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it royal? A Captain of the Pink Hussars watering up his charger before parade like the blasted boozing Colonel of a Black Regiment!

M. You never did!

G. Once only. He squelched like a
mussuck
, and the
Troop-Sergeant-Major cocked his eye at me. You know old Haffy’s eye.
I was afraid to do it again.

M. I should think so. That was the best way to rupture old Van Loo’s tummy, and make him crumple you up. You
knew
that.

G. I didn’t care. It took the edge off him.

M. ‘Took the edge off him’? Gaddy, you — you — you
mustn’t
, you know!
Think of the men.

G. That’s another thing I am afraid of. D’you s’pose they know?