Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (96 page)

‘I do not know anything. Go away!’ said Kim, scenting evil. Hereupon the man caught him by the ear, dragged him to a room in a far-off wing where a dozen drummer-boys were sitting on forms, and told him to be still if he could do nothing else. This he managed very successfully. The man explained something or other with white lines on a black board for at least half an hour, and Kim continued his interrupted nap. He much disapproved of the present aspect of affairs, for this was the very school and discipline he had spent two-thirds of his young life in avoiding. Suddenly a beautiful idea occurred to him, and he wondered that he had not thought of it before.

The man dismissed them, and first to spring through the veranda into the open sunshine was Kim.

‘‘Ere you! ‘Alt! Stop!’ said a high voice at his heels. ‘I’ve got to look after you. My orders are not to let you out of my sight. Where are you goin’?’

It was the drummer-boy who had been hanging round him all the forenoon  —  a fat and freckled person of about fourteen, and Kim loathed him from the soles of his boots to his cap-ribbons.

‘To the bazar  —  to get sweets  —  for you,’ said Kim, after thought.

‘Well, the bazar’s out o’ bounds. If we go there we’ll get a dressing-down. You come back.’

‘How near can we go?’ Kim did not know what bounds meant, but he wished to be polite  —  for the present.

‘‘Ow near? ‘Ow far, you mean? We can go as far as that tree down the road.’

‘Then I will go there.’

‘All right. I ain’t goin’. It’s too ‘ot. I can watch you from ‘ere. It’s no good runnin’ away. If you did, they’d spot you by your clothes. That’s regimental stuff you’re wearin’. There ain’t a picket in Umballa wouldn’t ‘ead you back quicker than you started out.’

This did not impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his raiment would tire him out if he tried to run. He slouched to the tree at the corner of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the natives passing. Most of them were barrack-servants of the lowest caste. Kim hailed a sweeper, who promptly retorted with a piece of unnecessary insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy could not follow. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put his fettered soul into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse somebody in the tongue he knew best. ‘And now, go to the nearest letter-writer in the bazar and tell him to come here. I would write a letter.’

‘But  —  but what manner of white man’s son art thou, to need a bazar letter-writer? Is there not a schoolmaster in the barracks?’

‘Ay; and Hell is full of the same sort. Do my order, you  —  you Od! Thy mother was married under a basket! Servant of Lal Beg’ (Kim knew the god of the sweepers), ‘run on my business or we will talk again.’

The sweeper shuffled off in haste. ‘There is a white boy by the barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white boy,’ he stammered to the first bazar letter-writer he came across. ‘He needs thee.’

‘Will he pay?’ said that spruce scribe, gathering up his desk and pens and sealing-wax all in order.

‘I do not know. He is not like other boys. Go and see. It is well worth.’

Kim danced with impatience when the slim young Kayeth hove in sight. As soon as his voice could carry he cursed him volubly.

‘First I will take my pay,’ the letter-writer said. ‘Bad words have made the price higher. But who art thou, dressed in that fashion, to speak in this fashion?’

‘Aha! That is in the letter which thou shalt write. Never was such a tale. But I am in no haste. Another writer will serve me. Umballa city is as full of them as is Lahore.’

‘Four annas,’ said the writer, sitting down and spreading his cloth in the shade of a deserted barrack-wing.

Mechanically Kim squatted beside him,  —  squatted as only the natives can,  —  in spite of the abominable clinging trousers.

The writer regarded him sideways.

‘That is the price to ask of Sahibs,’ said Kim. ‘Now fix me a true one.’

‘An anna and a half. How do I know, having written the letter, that thou wilt not run away?’

‘I must not go beyond this tree, and there is also the stamp to be considered.’

‘I get no commission on the price of the stamp. Once more, what manner of white boy art thou?’

‘That shall be said in the letter, which is to Mahbub Ali, the horse-dealer in the Kashmir Serai, at Lahore. He is my friend.’

‘Wonder on wonder!’ murmured the letter-writer, dipping a reed in the inkstand. ‘To be written in Hindi?’

‘Assuredly. To Mahbub Ali then. Begin! “I have come down with the old man as far as Umballa in the train. At Umballa I carried the news of the bay mare’s pedigree.”‘ After what he had seen in the garden, he was not going to write of white stallions.

‘Slower a little. What has a bay mare to do. . . . Is it Mahbub Ali the great dealer?’

‘Who else? I have been in his service. Take more ink. Again. “As the order was, so I did it. We then went on foot towards Benares, but on the third day we found a certain regiment.” Is that down?’

‘Ay, “pulton,”‘ murmured the writer, all ears.

‘“I went into their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm about my neck, which thou knowest, it was established that I was the son of some man in the regiment: according to the prophecy of the Red Bull, which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar.”‘ Kim waited for this shaft to sink into the letter-writer’s heart, cleared his throat, and continued: ‘“A priest clothed me and gave me a new name . . . One priest, however, was a fool. The clothes are very heavy, but I am a Sahib and my heart is heavy too. They send me to a school and beat me. I do not like the air and water here. Come then and help me, Mahbub Ali, or send me some money, for I have not sufficient to pay the writer who writes this.”‘

‘“Who writes this.” It is my own fault that I was tricked. Thou art as clever as Husain Bux that forged the Treasury stamps at Nucklao. But what a tale! What a tale! Is it true by any chance?’

‘First I will take my pay,’ the letter-writer said.

‘It does not profit to tell lies to Mahbub Ali. It is better to help his friends by lending them a stamp. When the money comes I will repay.’

The writer grunted doubtfully, but took a stamp out of his desk, sealed the letter, handed it over to Kim, and departed. Mahbub Ali’s was a name of power in Umballa.

‘That is the way to win a good account with the Gods,’ Kim shouted after him.

‘Pay me twice over when the money comes,’ the man cried over his shoulder.

‘What was you bukkin’ to that nigger about?’ said the drummer-boy when Kim returned to the veranda. ‘I was watchin’ you.’

‘I was only talkin’ to him.’

‘You talk the same as a nigger, don’t you?’

‘No-ah! No-ah! I onlee speak a little. What shall we do now?’

‘The bugles ‘ill go for dinner in arf a minute. My Gawd! I wish I’d gone up to the front with the regiment. It’s awful doin’ nothin’ but school down ‘ere. Don’t you ‘ate it?’

‘Oah yess!’

‘I’d run away if I knew where to go to, but, as the men say, in this bloomin’ Injia you’re only a prisoner at large. You can’t desert without bein’ took back at once. I’m fair sick of it.’

‘You have been in Be  —  England?’

‘W’y, I only come out last troopin’ season with my mother. I should think I ‘ave been in England. What a ignorant little beggar you are. You was brought up in the gutter, wasn’t you?’

‘Oah yess. Tell me something about England. My father he came from there.’

Though he would not say so, Kim of course disbelieved every word the drummer-boy spoke about the Liverpool suburb which was his England. It passed the heavy time till dinner  —  a most unappetising meal served to the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a barrack-room. But that he had written to Mahbub Ali, Kim would have been almost depressed. The indifference of native crowds he was used to; but this strong loneliness among white men preyed on him. He was grateful when, in the course of the afternoon, a big soldier took him over to Father Victor, who lived in another wing across another dusty parade-ground. The priest was reading an English letter written in purple ink. He looked at Kim more curiously than ever.

‘An’ how do you like it, my son, as far as you’ve gone? Not much, eh? It must be hard  —  very hard on a wild animal. Listen now. I’ve an amazin’ epistle from your friend.’

‘Where is he? Is he well? Oah! If he knows to write me letters, it is all right.’

‘You’re fond of him then?’

‘Of course I am fond of him. He was fond of me.’

‘It seems so by the look of this. He can’t write English, can he?’

‘Oah no. Not that I know, but of course he found a letter-writer who can write English verree well, and so he wrote. I do hope you understand.’

‘That accounts for it. D’you know anything about his money affairs?’ Kim’s face showed that he did not.

‘How can I tell?’

‘That’s what I’m askin’. Now listen if you can make head or tail o’ this. We’ll skip the first part. . . . It’s written from Jagadhir Road. . . . “Sitting on wayside in grave meditation, trusting to be favoured with your Honour’s applause of present step, which recommend your Honour to execute for Almighty God’s sake. Education is greatest blessing if of best sorts. Otherwise no earthly use.” Faith, the old man’s hit the bull’s-eye that time! “If your Honour condescending giving my boy best educations Xavier” (I suppose that’s St. Xavier in Partibus) “in terms of our conversation dated in your tent 15th instant” (a business-like touch there!) “then Almighty God blessing your Honour’s succeedings to third an’ fourth generation and”  —  now listen!  —  ”confide in your Honour’s humble servant for adequat remuneration per hoondie per annum three hundred rupees a year to one expensive education St. Xavier, Lucknow, and allow small time to forward same per hoondie sent to any part of India as your Honour shall address yourself. This servant of your Honour has presently no place to lay crown of his head, but going to Benares by train on account of persecution of old woman talking so much and unanxious residing Saharunpore in any domestic capacity.” Now what in the world does that mean?’

‘She has asked him to be puro  —  her clergyman  —  at Saharunpore, I think. He would not do that on account of his River. She did talk.’

‘It’s clear to you, is it? It beats me altogether. “So going to Benares, where will find address and forward rupees for boy who is apple of eye, and for Almighty God’s sake execute this education, and your petitioner as in duty bound shall ever awfully pray. Written by Sobrao Satai, Failed Entrance Allahabad University, for Venerable Teshoo Lama the priest of Suchzen looking for a River, address care of Tirthankers’ Temple, Benares. P. M.  —  Please note boy is apple of eye, and rupees shall be sent per hoondie three hundred per annum. For God Almighty’s sake.” Now, is that ravin’ lunacy or a business proposition? I ask you, because I’m fairly at my wits’ end.’

‘He says he will give me three hundred rupees a year, so he will give me them.’

‘Oh, that’s the way you look at it, is it?’

‘Of course. If he says so!’

The priest whistled; then he addressed Kim as an equal.

‘I don’t believe it; but we’ll see. You were goin’ off to-day to the Military Orphanage at Sanawar, where the regiment would keep you till you were old enough to enlist. Ye’d be brought up to the Church of England. Bennett arranged for that. On the other hand, if ye go to St. Xavier’s ye’ll get a better education an’  —  an’ can have the religion. D’ye see my dilemma?’

Kim saw nothing save a vision of the lama going south in a train with none to beg for him.

‘Like most people, I’m going to temporise. If your friend sends the money from Benares  —  Powers of Darkness below, where’s a street-beggar to raise three hundred rupees?  —  ye’ll go down to Lucknow and I’ll pay your fare, because I can’t touch the subscription-money if I intend, as I do, to make ye a Catholic. If he doesn’t, ye’ll go to the Military Orphanage at the regiment’s expense. I’ll allow him three days’ grace, though I don’t believe it at all. Even then, if he fails in his payments later on . . . but it’s beyond me. We can only walk one step at a time in this world, praise God! An’ they sent Bennett to the front an’ left me behind. Bennett can’t expect everything.’

‘Oah yess,’ said Kim vaguely.

The priest leaned forward. ‘I’d give a month’s pay to find what’s goin’ on inside that little round head of yours.’

‘There is nothing,’ said Kim, and scratched it. He was wondering whether Mahbub Ali would send him as much as a whole rupee. Then he could pay the letter-writer and write letters to the lama at Benares. Perhaps Mahbub Ali would visit him next time he came south with horses. Surely he must know that Kim’s delivery of the letter to the officer at Umballa had caused the great war which the men and boys had discussed so loudly over the barrack dinner-tables. But if Mahbub Ali did not know this, it would be very unsafe to tell him so. Mahbub Ali was hard upon boys who knew, or thought they knew, too much.

‘Well, till I get further news’  —  Father Victor’s voice interrupted the reverie  —  ’ye can run along and play with the other boys. They’ll teach ye something  —  but I don’t think ye’ll like it.’