Hussein: An Entertainment

by Patrick O'Brian

  The chase began again, and for quite a long while the wild dogs kept a good distance off. Gill was firing rapidly, and he managed to pick off one or two now and then. They went on and on: the river was left far behind, and they were in a very desolate country with bare, reddish ground thinly covered with thorn trees. Gill’s left arm, just above the elbow, was badly torn, and it made his aim very unsteady after a while. He kept on firing, however, as he thought that the noise might keep the dholes off, even if it did not hit any of them; but soon they took very little notice of it.

  Every now and then Jehangir turned, but the dholes were intent on tiring him out, so they fell back, and would not close with him.

  The elephant was limping with his off fore foot now — a long thorn had lodged in it. The pace was telling on him, and his speed grew less and less. He stumbled, but recovered and went on. Imperceptibly the dholes drew in. They were silent now, and they ran with their tongues hanging out. When they were fairly close, Gill and Hussein took the rifle and the shot-gun, holding them clubbed, for there would be no time to load if all the dholes rushed them together.

  Jehangir stumbled again; he fell to his knees, and stopped. He turned and faced the dholes. They spread out in a wide circle; they were panting fast by now, but they were still good for half a day’s running, whereas the elephant, with his heavy load and his lame foot, could not go much farther. Suddenly the circle contracted, and they were surrounded by a seething mass of dholes. Some scrambled with amazing agility on to his back; Gill guarded one side and Hussein the other, but they could hardly keep themselves from being pulled off. The elephant slipped to his knees again as he stamped on a dhole, and several of them came over his shoulders. They were beaten off, but one seized Hussein’s foot, and another tore Gill’s coat from his back. They all drew off for an instant, yelling like fiends: it was obvious that they were going to make a concerted charge. In a second they rushed all together. In desperation Hussein shouted, ‘Break away, hathi-raj!’

  Jehangir grunted, and heaved himself out of the mass of dholes. He shook his great shoulders, and stamped again and again; he stumbled twice, and nearly went over, but he broke away. Dholes hung on to him all over, like leeches: Hussein and Gill beat them off. It was clear that he could not go much farther without a rest, and without having the thorn pulled from his foot. Before they had beaten the last dhole off, the elephant crossed a path. He uncoiled his trunk and sniffed the wind: then he turned along the path. The wild dogs followed.

  ‘By the mercy of Allah', said Hussein, ‘he has smelt a village.’

  ‘If only he can reach it,’ replied Gill, ‘everything will be all right.’

  They swept on, the dholes running silently. Behind them, at the place where Jehangir had almost fallen, the kites and jackals, who had followed at a distance, closed in on the dead or dying wild dogs.

  Jehangir was going along at a good speed, but his breath was coming short, and he faltered now and again in his stride. The dholes were less confident now; they came on just the same, but none of them was anxious to give the lead in attacking the elephant.

  By a fluke Gill shot two of them with two successive shots, killing both. But just then the path dipped into a little valley. There was a muddy stream at the bottom, and as Jehangir came to it he hesitated, and the dholes crowded behind him, howling with new ferocity.

  Hussein bent over his head, patting him and urging him on; at the bank he stopped dead, and several of the wild dogs leapt; one caught Jehangir’s tail; the sudden pain startled him, and he shot forwards: they were across the slow stream in a flurry of spray before the elephant realised it. The dholes swam across. There were only about thirty heads bobbing in the water now, but the pack was still quite large enough to be very dangerous, as all the weaker dholes had fallen back, and only the biggest and fiercest ones remained.

  Jehangir smelt that the village was not far away, and he put on an extra spurt. After a little while a dense patch of thorns appeared; the path led in and out to the mud walls of the village, which was quite near now. Jehangir took no count of the path; he went straight through the thorn bushes; they crackled as he smashed through them.

  The dholes were losing ground as they picked their way among the bushes. As they came nearer and nearer to the village many of them stopped.

  Only one was near the elephant now: this one, with a prodigious effort, leapt up and snapped his teeth on the heel of Gill’s boot. It snarled, and bit clean through the heel; then Gill killed it with the butt of his rifle.

  To their amazement they saw that the gates of the village were shut. Two or three shots rang out from the walls, and the bullets hummed unpleasantly close to their heads. But Jehangir was determined to get to the village, and nothing short of heavy artillery could have stopped him now; he rolled up his trunk under his tusks, bent his head, and putting on an extra burst of speed he fairly flew at the gates. Gill and Hussein crouched flat on his back. There was a rending crash; a cloud of dust flew up. When it faded they saw that Jehangir had destroyed the gates and half the thick mud wall as well; he was now standing in a deserted square surrounded by huts. A man crept from beneath the wreckage.

  ‘What the devil did you mean by firing on us?’ shouted Gill.

  Hussein pointed, and whispered, ‘Ismail Khan.’

  Gill said, ‘You’re right,’ and to the man, ‘Put your hands up.’ He covered him with his rifle, for he recognised Ismail Khan, a notorious dacoit.

  The man salaamed. ‘Pray do not threaten a poor honest thief, huzoor,’ he said; ‘we will be peaceable.’

  ‘Then call your men out one by one, and tell them to lay down their arms: if anything else happens, I’ll shoot you as you stand.’

  Ismail Khan obeyed: as each man came out from his hut Hussein covered him with the shot-gun. They laid down their weapons — ancient blunderbusses and matchlocks for the most part — in a pile by Jehangir, who stood quite still, breathing heavily.

  ‘We should have been able to entertain you more like men,’ said Ismail Khan, with a grin — for he held his hereditary and ancient profession to be no shame — ‘if we had not run out of powder. Will it be a hanging or only the jail-khana?’

  ‘That depends,’ said Gill; ‘now you will get me a very long rope. Let no other man move. Hussein, follow that man, and shoot him if he tries to escape.’

  Hussein followed Ismail Khan, scowling fiercely to show that he was not at all afraid. The dacoit led the way into a hut where there were various jars of grain and stores. He paused for a moment, and Hussein raised his gun.

  ‘That jar is full of rupees,’ remarked the dacoit. ‘Get the rope,’ replied Hussein.

  ‘Handsome young mahouts can do a lot with a jar of rupees.’

  ‘That is true, but I do not believe that there are any there.’

  ‘Look and see for yourself — I am very liberal to my friends.’

  ‘Yes, and put my gun down: I am not quite a fool,’ said Hussein.

  The dacoit turned the jar on its side: a stream of silver coins came out on to the mud floor. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. Hussein said nothing.

  The dacoit showed another jar — smaller this time. ‘Gold,’ he whispered, opening a leather bag from inside the jar, ‘you understand?’ Hussein nodded; the dacoit threw the bag, and Hussein caught it in one hand, keeping his distance from the dacoit.

  ‘Now look the other way,’ said Ismail Khan, ‘so that you can swear by the Beard of the Prophet that you did not see me go.’

  ‘No,’ said Hussein.

  ‘What in Jehannum?’

  ‘I said no; now get that rope.’ He pointed the gun at the dacoit — he had tucked the little bag into his dhoti.

  ‘O son of Eblis — incredibly base leper …’

  ‘Silence, soor-ka-butcha. Get the rope.’ Hussein scowled ferociously. With no more words, but with an evil look, Ismail Khan brought out a coil of rope. Coming out of the door he made a rush at Hussein, flinging the heavy coil. Hussein ducked, a
nd jabbed the dacoit in the stomach with the gun — he was not sure how to fire it. When Ismail Khan got his breath again, he picked up the rope and walked back quietly to the square where Gill sat on Jehangir, guarding the other prisoners. Gill dismounted and took the rope: as he put his rifle under his arm to take it, someone threw a knife: it knocked his topi off, but did no harm. Ismail Khan gathered himself together for a spring, and Hussein clubbed him from behind with the butt of the shot-gun. Before his topi had reached the ground, Gill fired from his hip, killing the man who had thrown the knife.

  After that the dacoits were quite meek. They stood in a line with their hands behind them, and Hussein bound them, linking them all together.

  They bound Ismail Khan and put him across Jehangir’s back. Before the dacoits were bound it had been touch and go whether Gill and Hussein would get out alive; but no man cared to be the first to move, although if several had attacked together they would have been certain of victory; yet no one wanted to be the first to get shot. Also, they were cowed by the ease with which Jehangir had crushed their wall, and some even made remarks about people who employed djinn to fight for them.

  Now Gill, having discovered the dacoits’ village by accident, did not wish to remain in a part of the country that might be swarming with their friends, nor did he want them to have time to recover from their despondency, so he asked Hussein if it were possible for Jehangir to make the journey back again at once.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hussein, ‘when I have got this thorn out, and provided he is given a great jar of arrack; I saw some where the rope was.’

  ‘Go and get it, then,’ replied Gill.

  Hussein went, and returned with the jar: his dhoti seemed curiously swelled, and he clanked gently as he walked.

  Jehangir lifted up his foot, and Hussein soon got the thorn out. Then the elephant sniffed at the jar, picked it up with his trunk, and emptied it down his throat. He flapped his ears, and seemed brighter in a few minutes, for the immensely powerful spirit gave him heart. Leaving Hussein to guard the bound prisoners, Gill searched the huts, finding nobody until he came to the last and biggest. He opened the door of this one with some effort, for it was being held closed from within. He poked his head in; there were piercing screams. He slammed the door. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said, ‘women.’

  There was a passable horse in the village; he commandeered it, so as to relieve Jehangir, and rode out with his prisoners over the ruins of the shattered wall. They were tied in a string, and as he had forbidden them to speak, they were quite easy to manage. As they were crossing the Jhelunga they made a faint-hearted effort to escape when Gill’s horse became skittish and nearly threw him in, but a shot over their heads quietened them at once.

  By keeping them at a sharp trot, Gill managed to reach the road-head before nightfall, which was fortunate, as they would have had more chance to escape in the dark. It was a very good thing to have got them all at once, as this band had spoiled the countryside for years, and in spite of the most determined efforts of the police, their hiding-place had never been found.

  The villagers were really grateful, and they showed it by sending messengers for miles to Gill to report remarkable heads of deer, or good-sized leopards.

  When he got in, Gill sent his policemen back for the women, and got his arm bound up. Then, after food, he went round to the elephant lines to see Hussein and Jehangir.

  The elephant was surrounded by a crowd of mahouts, all dealing with his hundreds of small wounds with their strange remedies.

  Mustapha was attending to Jehangir’s tail, and Gill asked where Hussein was. Mustapha guided him to their hut, where Hussein was squatting before a great pot of steaming saffron stew, made from the tails of sheep, and between mouthfuls he was telling the tale to a gaping circle.

  Gill paused outside the door, in the shadows. ‘And so,’ said Hussein, ‘I plucked a branch from a tree, and cleared my way through these dholes, thus rescuing Jehangir and the Sahib, who were beset on all sides. Then I guided them to this village, and — with a little help, it is true — I overset the walls of it. After a long fight — I killed some four of them, I believe — we subdued them, and having tied them cunningly, one after the other, I brought them back, the Sahib being unconscious from a blow on the head. He only recovered just before we arrived, and he pressed gold on me: I would have refused, but he said that it might seem to imply that his life which I had saved (or so he was good enough to say) was of no value.’

  ‘Inshallah! But surely the youth deceives us?’ said a young man, enviously.

  ‘Yes, where is the proof?’ asked another youth, still more desirous of confounding Hussein.

  ‘Here is the gold,’ said Hussein, simply. He poured it in a shining heap from the bags in his dhoti. From all around there were admiring cries. ‘Bismillah! He is another Rustum,’ said someone.

  Gill crept away unheard, for he would not spoil a good tale, and besides, Hussein had really saved his life at least twice that day.

  Five

  The road pushed its way slowly on and on. They cut through the jungle, and filled in swamps: they bridged two rivers, and blasted through solid hills of rock. All through the year Gill spent all the leave he could get in hunting: he knew that he would probably never have such opportunities again, and he made the most of the time: as often as he could he took Hussein and Jehangir.

  On one occasion, when they were after a leopard, Jehangir brushed against a tree in which there was a wild bees’ nest. They came out in a furious black cloud, and Hussein had to run for it — Gill was some distance away.

  He got as far as a stagnant pool, and he stayed there, only bobbing his head up to breathe, until dark, when the bees left him.

  At another time, when Gill was going into one of the Ghond villages far away in the jungle, they camped in the forest about half a day’s journey away from their destination.

  Hussein put a long piece of grass around Jehangir’s leg to show him that he was not to go far away in the night.

  The moon came down through the trees, making singularly delicate patterns on the ground: a few langurs howled and a leopard coughed far away. The men slept. Their fire glowed a dull red.

  Jehangir stood motionless, half of him silver in the moonlight: he was not asleep. Far away there was a noise to which he had been listening for some time: it was not the hunting leopard, nor the dismal howling of the apes, but a distant crashing sound. His trunk moved to and fro as he sought for a hint of a scent on the still air.

  A high pealing sound, very faint, came through the trees, and Jehangir spread his great ears. He looked at Hussein, who lay with his head on his arm by the fire, fast asleep; then he moved slowly away into the trees. Never a twig stirred as he faded into the shadows: he moved his great bulk as though it were no more substantial than a shadow itself.

  After a little he moved more quickly, but still silently. Elephants have a way of suddenly being there, without one having had a suspicion of their approach — rhinoceroses are the same. Again he heard the noise — the distant trumpeting of a wild elephant. He raised his trunk and trumpeted back. In the camp Hussein stirred, but he did not awake.

  Deep in Jehangir’s mind was the memory of the free days when he had followed the elephant herd with his mother — a half-grown young calf elephant. In the days of his freedom he had fought with other young elephants in the light of the full moon.

  He had heard the great bulls trumpeting to one another, and the crash as they joined in fight; and now the moon and the distant trumpeting combined with the forest to awaken his buried memories of the life he had led long ago — so long ago that three generations of men had passed since he was captured.

  An hour’s swift travelling brought him to a great open clearing in the trees. In the silver light two huge bull elephants were fighting: in the shadows the rest of the herd watched them.

  With their trunks intertwined, and their tusks locked, the elephants strove together with their foreheads together. The
y pushed, grunting, and their feet slid on the torn-up ground.

  For two full minutes they stood quite still, their forefeet clear of the ground. The strain must have been tremendous. Then there was an incredibly quick twisting of their trunks, and all at once the one nearer Jehangir crashed over on to his side. Instantly the other knelt on him, and thrust forward twice: he got up, and his tusks dripped red. The fallen elephant scrambled to his feet, and shuffled into the shadows.

  The other stood alone in the clearing: he raised his trunk, and sent out his challenge. Jehangir moved out from the shadows: there was a wild tingling in his blood; he trumpeted back.

  The elephant in the middle of the clearing spread his great ears, and glared at Jehangir with his little eyes: then he backed to the opposite side of the clearing. He trumpeted a shrill note of defiance, and charged. Jehangir met him half-way. The ground shook as they met head-on in the centre. They backed a little, and charged again.

  This time his opponent swerved a little as they met, and one of his tusks gashed Jehangir’s side. Jehangir, whose tusks were cut short, saw that he was at a disadvantage, so he closed. The other elephant sought to catch Jehangir’s trunk with his own, but Jehangir had a trick worth two of that, and as they struggled, forehead to forehead, he curled his trunk about the other’s left forefoot, suddenly jerking with all his strength. His opponent was taken by surprise, and fell heavily on to his side, but before Jehangir had time to kneel on him, the other got to his feet and broke away. For a few moments they watched each other across the clearing. Then Jehangir trumpeted and charged. The wild elephant dodged and thrust at Jehangir’s shoulder with his tusk: his thick hide was ripped open, but the wound did not go deep, and in another moment they were in the middle of the circle again, with their trunks intercoiled, pushing with all their strength.

  Jehangir felt himself being forced back, and he thrust forward with even greater force: he felt his skull almost cracking before the other yielded a little. He pressed his advantage, and shoved the wild elephant back and back. Suddenly the wild elephant tried to break free, so as to use his tusks; but as he stepped back to do so, Jehangir launched his whole weight on him, and he slid back several feet; then Jehangir, with all his strength twisted his opponent’s trunk. The animal collapsed on to his hindquarters, and then, as Jehangir thrust again, crashed over on to his side. He kicked wildly, but before he could rise, Jehangir was upon him, first knocking the breath out of his body by butting him in the stomach, and then kneeling on him.