Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (283 page)

Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but little Mildred heaved him up in an instant. It is not good that a gentleman who can answer to the Queen’s toast should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks.

The hasty action tore the wretch’s upper clothing nearly to the waist, and his body was seamed with dry black scars. There is only one weapon in the world that cuts: in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor the cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his eyes dilated. Also his face changed. He said something that sounded like Shto ve takete, and the man fawning answered, Chetyre.

‘What’s that?’ said everybody together.

‘His number. That is number four, you know.’ Dirkovitch spoke very thickly.

‘What has a Queen’s officer to do with a qualified number?’ said the
Colonel, and an unpleasant growl ran round the table.

‘How can I tell?’ said the affable Oriental with a sweet smile. ‘He is a — how you have it? — escape — run-a-way, from over there.’ He nodded towards the darkness of the night.

‘Speak to him if he’ll answer you, and speak to him gently,’ said little Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It seemed most improper to all present that Dirkovitch should sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Russian to the creature who answered so feebly and with such evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to understand no one said a word. All breathed heavily, leaning forward, in the long gaps of the conversation. The next time that they have no engagements on hand the White Hussars intend to go to St. Petersburg in a body to learn Russian.

‘He does not know how many years ago,’ said Dirkovitch, facing the mess, ‘but he says it was very long ago in a war. I think that there was an accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in the war.’

‘The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls!’ said little Mildred, and the adjutant dashed off bare-headed to the orderly-room, where the muster-rolls of the regiment were kept. He returned just in time to hear Dirkovitch conclude, ‘Therefore, my dear friends, I am most sorry to say there was an accident which would have been reparable if he had apologised to that our colonel, which he had insulted.’

Then followed another growl which the colonel tried to beat down. The mess was in no mood just then to weigh insults to Russian colonels.

‘He does not remember, but I think that there was an accident, and so he was not exchanged among the prisoners, but he was sent to another place — how do you say? — the country. SO, he says, he came here. He does not know how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany’ — the man caught the word, nodded, and shivered — ’at Zhigansk and Irkutsk. I cannot understand how he escaped. He says, too, that he was in the forests for many years, but how many years he has forgotten — that with many things. It was an accident; done because he did not apologise to that our colonel. Ah!’

Instead of echoing Dirkovitch’s sigh of regret, it is sad to record that the White Hussars livelily exhibited un-Christian delight and other emotions, hardly restrained by their sense of hospitality. Holmer flung the frayed and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and the men flung themselves at these.

‘Steady! Fifty-six — fifty-five — fifty-four,’ said Holmer. ‘Here we are. “Lieutenant Austin Limmason. MISSING.” That was before Sebastopol. What an infernal shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and was quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out.’

‘But he never apologised. Said he’d see him damned first,’ chorused the mess.

‘Poor chap! I suppose he never had the chance afterwards. How did he come here?’ said the colonel.

The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.

‘Do you know who you are?’

It laughed weakly.

‘Do you know that you are Limmason — Lieutenant Limmason of the White
Hussars?’

Swiftly as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised tone, ‘Yes, I’m Limmason, of course.’ The light died out in his eyes, and the man collapsed, watching every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not seem to lead to continuity of thought. The man could not explain how, like a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the toast of the Queen. The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian tongue could only in part remove. His head bowed on his breast, and he giggled and cowered alternately.

The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch at this extremely inopportune moment to make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped the table-edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and began:

‘Fellow-soldiers glorious — true friends and hospitables. It was an accident, and deplorable — most deplorable.’ Here he smiled sweetly all round the mess. ‘But you will think of this little, little thing. So little, is it not? The Czar! Posh! I slap my fingers — I snap my fingers at him. Do I believe in him? No! But in us Slav who has done nothing, HIM I believe. Seventy — how much — millions peoples that have done nothing — not one thing. Posh! Napoleon was an episode.’ He banged a hand on the table. ‘Hear you, old peoples, we have done nothing in the world — out here. All our work is to do; and it shall be done, old peoples. Get a-way!’ He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed to the man. ‘You see him. He is not good to see. He was just one little — oh, so little — accident, that no one remembered. Now he is THAT! So will you be, brother-soldiers so brave — so will you be. But you will never come back. You will all go where he is gone, or’ — he pointed to the great coffin- shadow on the ceiling, and muttering, ‘Seventy millions — get a-way, you old peoples,’ fell asleep.

‘Sweet, and to the point,’ said little Mildred. ‘What’s the use of getting wroth? Let’s make this poor devil comfortable.’

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from the loving hands of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only to go away again three days later, when the wail of the Dead March, and the tramp of the squadrons, told the wondering Station, who saw no gap in the mess-table, that an officer of the regiment had resigned his new-found commission.

And Dirkovitch, bland, supple, and always genial, went away too by a night train. Little Mildred and another man saw him off, for he was the guest of the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open hand, the law of that mess allowed no relaxation of hospitality.

‘Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey,’ said little Mildred.

‘Au revoir,’ said the Russian.

‘Indeed! But we thought you were going home?’

‘Yes, but I will come again. My dear friends, is that road shut?’ He pointed to where the North Star burned over the Khyber Pass.

‘By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, old man, any time you like. Got everything you want? Cheroots, ice, bedding? That’s all right. Well, au revoir, Dirkovitch.’

‘Um,’ said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train grew small.
‘Of — all — the — unmitigated — !’

Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the North Star and hummed a selection from a recent Simla burlesque that had much delighted the White Hussars. It ran —

     I’m sorry for Mister Bluebeard,
     I’m sorry to cause him pain;
     But a terrible spree there’s sure to be
     When he comes back again.

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT

    There’s a convict more in the Central Jail,
       Behind the old mud wall;
     There’s a lifter less on the Border trail,
       And the Queen’s Peace over all,
                                    Dear boys
     The Queen’s Peace over all.

    For we must bear our leader’s blame,
       On us the shame will fall,
     If we lift our hand from a fettered land
       And the Queen’s Peace over all,
                                    Dear boys,
     The Queen’s Peace over all!
                      THE RUNNING OF SHINDAND.

I

The Indus had risen in flood without warning. Last night it was a fordable shallow; to-night five miles of raving muddy water parted bank and caving bank, and the river was still rising under the moon. A litter borne by six bearded men, all unused to the work, stopped in the white sand that bordered the whiter plain.

‘It’s God’s will,’ they said. ‘We dare not cross to-night, even in a boat. Let us light a fire and cook food. We be tired men.’

They looked at the litter inquiringly. Within, the Deputy Commissioner of the Kot-Kumharsen district lay dying of fever. They had brought him across country, six fighting-men of a frontier clan that he had won over to the paths of a moderate righteousness, when he had broken down at the foot of their inhospitable hills. And Tallantire, his assistant, rode with them, heavy-hearted as heavy-eyed with sorrow and lack of sleep. He had served under the sick man for three years, and had learned to love him as men associated in toil of the hardest learn to love — or hate. Dropping from his horse he parted the curtains of the litter and peered inside.

‘Orde — Orde, old man, can you hear? We have to wait till the river goes down, worse luck.’

‘I hear,’ returned a dry whisper. ‘Wait till the river goes down. I thought we should reach camp before the dawn. Polly knows. She’ll meet me.’

One of the litter-men stared across the river and caught a faint twinkle of light on the far side. He whispered to Tallantire, ‘There are his camp-fires, and his wife. They will cross in the morning, for they have better boats. Can he live so long?’

Tallantire shook his head. Yardley-Orde was very near to death. What need to vex his soul with hopes of a meeting that could not be? The river gulped at the banks, brought down a cliff of sand, and snarled the more hungrily. The litter-men sought for fuel in the waste-dried camel- thorn and refuse of the camps that had waited at the ford. Their sword- belts clinked as they moved softly in the haze of the moonlight, and Tallantire’s horse coughed to explain that he would like a blanket.

‘I’m cold too,’ said the voice from the litter. ‘I fancy this is the end. Poor Polly!’

Tallantire rearranged the blankets. Khoda Dad Khan, seeing this, stripped off his own heavy-wadded sheepskin coat and added it to the pile. ‘I shall be warm by the fire presently,’ said he. Tallantire took the wasted body of his chief into his arms and held it against his breast. Perhaps if they kept him very warm Orde might live to see his wife once more. If only blind Providence would send a three-foot fall in the river!

‘That’s better,’ said Orde faintly. ‘Sorry to be a nuisance, but is — is there anything to drink?’

They gave him milk and whisky, and Tallantire felt a little warmth against his own breast. Orde began to mutter.

‘It isn’t that I mind dying,’ he said. ‘It’s leaving Polly and the district. Thank God! we have no children. Dick, you know, I’m dipped — awfully dipped — debts in my first five years’ service. It isn’t much of a pension, but enough for her. She has her mother at home. Getting there is the difficulty. And — and — you see, not being a soldier’s wife — ’

‘We’ll arrange the passage home, of course,’ said Tallantire quietly.

‘It’s not nice to think of sending round the hat; but, good Lord! how many men I lie here and remember that had to do it! Morten’s dead — he was of my year. Shaughnessy is dead, and he had children; I remember he used to read us their school-letters; what a bore we thought him! Evans is dead — Kot-Kumharsen killed him! Ricketts of Myndonie is dead — and I’m going too. “Man that is born of a woman is small potatoes and few in the hill.” That reminds me, Dick; the four Khusru Kheyl villages in our border want a one-third remittance this spring. That’s fair; their crops are bad. See that they get it, and speak to Ferris about the canal. I should like to have lived till that was finished; it means so much for the North-Indus villages — but Ferris is an idle beggar — wake him up. You’ll have charge of the district till my successor comes. I wish they would appoint you permanently; you know the folk. I suppose it will be Bullows, though. ‘Good man, but too weak for frontier work; and he doesn’t understand the priests. The blind priest at Jagai will bear watching. You’ll find it in my papers, — in the uniform-case, I think. Call the Khusru Kheyl men up; I’ll hold my last public audience. Khoda Dad Khan!’

The leader of the men sprang to the side of the litter, his companions following.

‘Men, I’m dying,’ said Orde quickly, in the vernacular; ‘and soon there will be no more Orde Sahib to twist your tails and prevent you from raiding cattle.’

‘God forbid this thing!’ broke out the deep bass chorus. ‘The Sahib is not going to die.’

‘Yes, he is; and then he will know whether Mahomed speaks truth, or Moses. But you must be good men, when I am not here. Such of you as live in our borders must pay your taxes quietly as before. I have spoken of the villages to be gently treated this year. Such of you as live in the hills must refrain from cattle-lifting, and burn no more thatch, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of the priests, who, not knowing the strength of the Government, would lead you into foolish wars, wherein you will surely die and your crops be eaten by strangers. And you must not sack any caravans, and must leave your arms at the police-post when you come in; as has been your custom, and my order. And Tallantire Sahib will be with you, but I do not know who takes my place. I speak now true talk, for I am as it were already dead, my children, — for though ye be strong men, ye are children.’

‘And thou art our father and our mother,’ broke in Khoda Dad Khan with an oath. ‘What shall we do, now there is no one to speak for us, or to teach us to go wisely!’

‘There remains Tallantire Sahib. Go to him; he knows your talk and your heart. Keep the young men quiet, listen to the old men, and obey. Khoda Dad Khan, take my ring. The watch and chain go to thy brother. Keep those things for my sake, and I will speak to whatever God I may encounter and tell him that the Khusru Kheyl are good men. Ye have my leave to go.’