Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (764 page)

‘And did he?’

‘Yes — oh yes! But I didn’t log it against him, the charge being strictly mut’ny. I got him at last — torn to ribbons twice over — an’ I sheared off his red tail-feathers level with his bare behind. He’d been askin’ for it the whole Commission.’

‘And what did he do?’

‘He stopped. I’ve never heard anyone chat much after disratin’. They can’t manage the voice, dye see? He tried to squat, but his backstays were carried away. Then he climbed up the wires to his ring, like an old, old man; an’ there he sat bobbin’ an’ balancin’, all down by the head like a collier-brig. Pore beggar!’

Mr. Heatleigh echoed him. ‘And that finished the business?’ he said.

‘I had struck at the root of the matter,’ Mr. Vergil replied simply. ‘There was only those common greens flyin’ loose. When they found I didn’t notice ‘em, they began going back to their cages, two an’ three together for company’s sake, an’ arguin’ about it. I hurried ‘em up by throwin’ my cap (the Loft was gettin’ warmish through bein’ shut up), an’ ‘fore sundown they were all back, an’ I fastened up behind ‘em with the same spun-yarn tricks as their silly owners had. Don’t anyone teach anything in this Noo Navy nowadays?’

‘What about Jemmy and Polyphemus?’ Mr. Heatleigh asked.

‘Jemmy was busy gettin’ used to his new trim, an’ Polyphemus squatted, croakin’ like a frog an’ sayin’, “Lord love a Duck!” No guts! That’s how it was till the Squadron returned.’

‘But wasn’t there some sort of fuss then between ships? A Policeman on the wharf told me — and the Florealia’s gig — ’

‘They’ve been rubbin’ it in to ‘em on the Island; that’s why. Yes. The banzai-parties came ashore, all hats and hosannas like a taxpayers’ treat. The Petty Officer checked my seventy-two cages — one bird per cage — an’ that finished my watch. But, then he gave the party time to talk to their sweethearts instead o’ marchin’ off at once. Some oily- wad of a Bulleana struck up about not having got his proper bird. I heard a P.O. say: — ”Settle it among yourselves.” (Democratic, I suppose he thought it.) The man naturally started across the Loft to do so. He met a Florealia with the same complaint. They began settlin’ it. That let everything go by the run. They were holdin’ up their cages, and lookin’ at ‘em in the light like glasses o’ port. Wonderful thing — the eye o’ Love! Yes, they began settlin’ in pairs.’

‘But what about Jemmy Reader and Polyphemus?’

‘There was a good deal o’ talk over them too. A torpedo-midwife, or some such ratin’, sculled about lookin’ for the beggar who had cut off his poor Josie’s tail. (It never hit me till then that Jemmy might have been a lady.) He fell foul of Polyphemus (the owner, I mean) moaning over his quiff; an’, not bein’ shipmates, they began settlin’ too. Then such as had drawn their proper true-loves naturally cut in for their ship or mess. I’ve seen worse ruxes in my time, but a quicker breeze-up — never! As usual there was something behind it. I heard one of the ships had been dished out pre-war cordite for target practice, and so her shooting was like the old Superb’s at Alexandria, till we touched off the magazine. The other ship had stood by condoling with five-flag hoists. So both parties landed more or less horstile. When the noise was gettin’ noticeable outside, a P.O. says to me: — ”They won’t listen to us, Daddy. They say we ain’t impartial!” I said: — ”God knows what you ain’t. But I know what you are! You’re less use than ten mines in a Portuguee pig-knot. Close doors an’ windows, an’ let me take charge.” So they did, an’ what with the noise bein’ bottled up inside, an’ the Loft gettin’ red-hot, an’ no one interferin’, which was what I recommended, the lower-deck broke away from the clinch, and began to pick up bashed cage-work an’ argue.

‘Then I piped “Clear Lower Deck,” an’ I told ‘em how I’d disrated Jemmy an’ Polyphemus for doin’ what they did. (Jemmy was a lady, after all. He laid an egg next day aboard ship, an’ his owner sent me a kodak picture.) That took their minds off. I told ‘em how I’d sweated in the Loft, guardin’ their treasures for ‘em, an’ they had no right to complain if the poor little lonely beggars had mixed hammicks in their absence. When I had ‘em laughing, I told ‘em they was all gas an’ gaspers an’ hair-oil, like the rest of the so-called Noo Navy, an’ they were marched off. Otherwise — even if some fool wouldn’t ha’ sent for the Marines, and spilled some silly mess into the papers — those two ships ‘ud ha’ been sortin’ parrots out of each other the rest of the commission. You know what that means in the way of ruxes ashore! As it is, they are actin’ as a unit when they’re chipped about “pretty Pollies” all over the Island. The worse they’ll do now is to kill a Policeman or two. An’, if I may say so, my handlin’ of ‘em — birds an’ lower-deck — shows what comes of a man knowing his profession, Sir Richard.’

Mr. Heatleigh’s countenance and bearing changed as they expanded. He held out his hand. Mr. Vergil rose to his feet and shook it. The two beamed on each other.

‘I can testify to that, Vergil, since my first commission. You knew me all along?’

‘I thought it was you, sir, when you signalled me to go into this boat ahead of you. But I wasn’t certain till I saw that bit of work I put on you.’ Mr. Vergil pointed to the bared wrist, where the still deep blue foul-anchor showed under red hairs.

‘In the foretop of the Resistance, off Port Royal,’ Mr. Heatleigh said.

Mr. Vergil nodded and smiled. ‘It’s held,’ said he. ‘But — what’s happened to your proper tally, Sir Richard?’

‘That was because better men than me died in the War. I inherited, you see.’

‘Meanin’ you’re a Lord now?’

The other nodded. Then he slapped his knee. ‘‘Got it at last,’ he cried. ‘That Polyphemus gunner! It was Harris — Chatty, not Bugs. He was with me in the Comus and Euryalus after. ‘Nov 20, 2002;Used to lend money.’

‘That’s him,’ Mr. Vergil cried. ‘I always thought he was a bit of a Jew. Who commanded the Comus then? I mean that time in the Adriatic, when she was pooped an’ dam-near drowned the owner in his cabin.’

Mr. Heatleigh fished up that name also from his memory; and backwards and forwards through time they roved, recovering ships and men of ancient and forgotten ages. For, as the old know, the dead draw the dead, as iron does iron. The Admiral sat in the curve of the stern- timbers, his hands clenched on his knees, as though tiller-lines might still be there. Mr. Vergil, erect for the honour of great days and names, faced him across the battered disconnected wheel, swaying a shade in the rush of the memories that flooded past him. Victorias and phaetons began to come back from the filled hotels. One of them held a perspiring officer of the Bulleana, who had been instructed to find by all means Admiral (Retired) Lord Heatleigh, somehow mis-registered in some boarding-house, and to convey to him his Captain’s invitation to do them the honour of lunching with them. And it was already perilously near cocktail time!...

Later, over those same cocktails, Lord Heatleigh gathered that the opinion of His Majesty’s Squadron on the station was that ‘Daddy’ Vergil merited hanging at the yard-arm.

‘‘Glad you haven’t got one between you,’ was the answer. ‘He taught me most of my seamanship when I was a Snotty. The best Bo’sun and — off duty — the biggest liar in the Service.’

The Debt

THE Doctor of the Gaol and his wife had gone to tennis in the Gardens, leaving their six-year-old son, William, in nominal care of his ayah, but actually to One Three Two and old Mahmud Ali, his mother’s dharzi, or sewing-man, who had made frocks for her mother since the day when skirts were skirts.

One Three Two was a ‘lifer,’ who had unluckily shot a kinsman a little the wrong side of the British frontier. The killing was a matter he could no more have shirked than a decent Englishman his Club dues. The error in geography came from a head-wound picked up at Festubert, which had affected his co-ordinations. But the judge who tried the case made no allowance, and One Three Two only escaped the gallows on an appeal engineered and financed by the Colonel and officers of his old regiment, which he had left after twenty years of spotless service with a pension and — as was pointed out at the trial — urgent private affairs to settle.

His prison duties — he had been a noncommissioned officer — were to oversee the convicts working in the Doctor’s garden, where, bit by bit, he took it upon his battered and dishonoured head to be William’s bodyguard or, as he called it, ‘sacrifice.’ Few people are more faithful to such trusts than the man of one fair killing, and William made him chief of all his court, with honorary title of Busi-bandah, which means much the same as ‘Goosey-gander.’

So, when William came out with his scooter into the afternoon smell of newly watered paths, which attracts little snakes, One Three Two, with a long-handled hoe, kept within striking distance of him at every turn, till the child wearied of the play.

‘Put away, Busi-bandah,’ he commanded, and climbed up the veranda steps to old Mahmud, cross-legged on the carpet, surrounded by beautiful coloured stuffs. It was a dinner dress, and Mahmud held a seam of it between his toes.

‘Drink tobacco,’ said William spaciously. ‘They will not return till dark.’

‘But this stuff will tell,’ said Mahmud above the frock, ‘for the smell of hukah tobacco clings.’

‘Take of my father’s cigarettes.’ William pointed indoors with his chin.

One Three Two went into the drawing-room and came back with a couple of cigarettes from the store beside the wireless cabinet.

‘What word of the Padishah’s sickness?’ he asked.

William swelled importantly. It was one of his prerogatives to announce what the Man in the Box said about the sick Padishah.

‘He slept little last night, because of the fever. He does not desire to eat. None the less his strength holds. Five doctors have taken oath to this. There will be no more talk out of the Bokkus till after I am asleep.’

‘What does thy father say?’ Mahmud asked.

‘My father says that it is in the balance — thus!’ William picked up Mahmud’s embroidery-scissors and tried to make them ride on his forefinger.

‘Have a care! They may cut. Give me.’ Mahmud took them back again.

‘But my mother says that, now all people everywhere are praying for the Padishah’s health, their prayers will turn the balance, and he will be well.’

‘If Allah please,’ said Mahmud, who in private life was Imam or leader of the little mud mosque of the village by the Gaol gates, where he preached on Fridays.

‘I also pray every night,’ William confided cheerily. ‘After “Make me a good boy,” I stand to ‘tenshin, and I say: “God save the King.” Is that good namaz (prayer)?’

‘There is neither hem nor border nor fringe to the Mercy of Allah,’ Mahmud quoted.

‘Well spoken, tailor-man.’ One Three Two laughed. He was a hard-bitten Afridi from the Khaiber hills, who, except among infidels, rode his faith with a light hand.

‘Good talk,’ William echoed. ‘For when I had the fever last year, and my father said it was tach-an-go — that is, in the balance — my mother prayed for me, and I became well. Oh, here is my blue buttony-bokkus!’ He reached out for Mahmud’s lovely, old, lacquered Kashmiri pencase, where oddments were kept, and busied himself with the beads and sequins. One Three Two rolled a deep-set eye towards Mahmud.

‘That news of the Padishah is bad,’ said he. ‘Hast thou inquired of the Names, Imam, since his sickness came?’

The Koran discourages magic, but it is lawful to consult the Names of Allah according to a system called the Abjad, in which each letter of the Arabic alphabet carries one of the Nine-and-ninety Names of God beginning with that letter. Each Name has its arbitrary Number, Quality, Element, Zodiacal sign, Planet, and so forth. These tables are often written out and used as amulets. Even William, who thought he knew everything, did not know that Mahmud had sewn an Abjad into the collar of his cold-weather dressing-gown.

‘All the world has questioned,’ Mahmud began.

‘Doubtless. But I do not know much of the world from here. How came it with thee?’

‘I took the age of the Padishah, which is sixty-and-three. Now the Number Sixty carries for its attribute the Hearer. This may be good or bad, for Allah hears all things. Its star is Saturn, the outermost of the Seven. That is good and commanding. But its sign is the Archer, which is also the sign of the month (November) in which his sickness first struck the Padishah. Twice, then, must the Archer afflict the Padishah.’

One Three Two nodded. That seemed reasonable enough.

‘As for the Number Three, its attribute is the Assembler, which again may be good or bad. For who knows to what judgment Allah calls men together? Its sign is the Crab, which, being female, is in friendship with the Archer. It may be, then, that if the Archer spare the Padishah both now and later — for he will surely smite twice — the Padishah will be clear of his malady in the month of the Crab (late June or early July).’

‘And what is the Planet of the Number Three?’ said the other.

‘Mars assuredly. He is King. The Abjad does not lie. Hast thou used it?’

‘There was a priest of ours cast it for me, when I would learn how my affairs would go. The dog said, truly enough, that I should punish my cousin, but he said nothing of my punishment here.’