Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “If it’s all one to you, Mahommed Gunga,” he said, the corner of his mouth just flickering, “we’ll move on from here at once. This is a beastly old bungalow to sleep in, and shooting tigers don’t seem so terribly exciting to me. Besides, the climate here must be rotten for the horses.”

  “As you wish, sahib.”

  “Very well — if the choice rests with me, I wish it. It might — ah — save the villagers a lot of hard work beating through the jungle, mightn’t it — besides, there’ll be other tigers on the road.”

  “Innumerable tigers, sahib.”

  “Good. Will you order a start then?”

  The Risaldar departed round the corner of the bungalow, and a minute or two later Cunningham’s ears caught the sound of a riding-switch, lustily applied, and of muffled groans. He suspected readily enough what was going on, particularly since his servant was not in evidence, but he dared not laugh on the veranda. He went inside, and made believe to be busy with his bag before he relaxed the muscles of his face.

  “Now, I wonder whether I handled that situation rightly?” he asked himself between chuckles. “One thing I know — if that old ruffian plays another trick on me — one more of any kind — Ill show my teeth. There’s a thing known as the limit!”

  He would not have wondered, though, if he could have overheard Mahommed Gunga less than an hour later. The Risaldar had stayed behind to make sure nothing had been forgotten, and one of his men remained with him.

  “There be sahibs and then sahibs,” said Mahommed Gunga. “Two kinds are the worst — those who strike readily in anger and use bad language when annoyed, and those whose lips are thin and who save their vengeance to be wreaked later on. They are worse, either of them, than the sahib who is usually drunk.”

  “And Cunnigan?”

  “Is altogether otherwise. As his father was, and as a few other sahibs I have met, he understands what is not spoken — concedes dignity to him who is caught napping, as one who having disarmed his adversary, allows him to recover his weapon — and—”

  “And?”

  “Proves himself a man worth following! I myself will slit the throat of any man I catch disparaging the name of Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur! By the blood of God — by my medals, my own honor, and the good name of Pukka-Cunnigan, his father, I swear it!”

  “Rung Ho!” grinned the six-foot son of war who, rode beside him.

  They rode on at a walk past the tombstone that — at Mahommed Gunga’s orders — the villagers had decked with sickly scented forest flowers, and as they passed they both saluted it in silence. The fakir of the night before, sitting not very far away from it, mimicked them. He sprang on the stone as soon as they were out of sight, scattering the flowers all about him, and calling down the vengeance of a hundred gods on the heads of Christian and Mohammedan alike.

  CHAPTER XI

  From lone hunt came the yearling cub

  And brought a grown kill back;

  With fangs aglut “’Tis nothing but

  Presumption!” growled the pack.

  RALPH CUNNINGHAM reached Peshawur at last with no less than nine tigers to his gun, and that in itself would have been sufficient to damn him in the eyes of more than half of the men who held commands there. Jealousy in those days of slow promotion and intrenched influence had eaten into the very understanding of men whose only excuse for rule over a conquered people ought to have been understanding.

  It was not considered decent for a boy of twenty-one to do much more than dare to be alive. For any man at all to offer advice or information to his senior was rank presumption. Criticism was high treason. Sport, such as tiger-shooting, was for those whose age and apoplectic temper rendered them least fitted for it. Conservatism reigned: “High Toryism, sir, old port, and proud Prerogative!”

  Mahommed Gunga grinned into his beard at the reception that awaited the youngster whom he had trained for months now in the belief that India had nothing much to do except reverence him. He laughed aloud, when he could get away to do it, at the flush of indignation on his protege’s face. Tall, lean-limbed, full of health and spirits, he had paid his duty call on a General of Division; with the boyish enthusiasm that says so plainly, “Laugh with me, for the world is mine!” he had boasted his good luck on the road, only to be snubbed thoroughly and told that tiger-shooting was not what he came for.

  He took the snub like a man and made no complaint to anybody; he did not even mention it to the other subalterns, who, most of them, made no secret of their dissatisfaction and its hundred causes. He listened, and it was not very long before it dawned on him that, had not Mahommed Gunga gone with him to pay a call as well, the General Division would not have so much as interviewed him.

  Mahommed Gunga soon became the bane of his existence. The veteran seemed in no hurry to go back to his estate that must have been in serious need of management by this time, but would ride off on mysterious errands and return with a dozen or more black-bearded horsemen each time. He would introduce them to Cunningham in public whenever possible under the eyes of outraged seniors who would swear and, fume and ride away disgust at the reverence paid to “a mere boy, sir — a bally, ignorant young jackanapes!”

  Had Cunningham been other than a born soldier with his soldier senses all on edge and sleepless, he would have fallen foul of disgrace within a month. He was unattached as yet, and that fact gave opportunity to the men who looked for it to try to “take the conceit out of the cub, by gad.”

  “They “ — everybody spoke of them as “they” — conceived the brilliant idea of confronting the youngster with conditions which he lacked experience to cope with. They set him to deal with circumstances which had long ago proved too difficult for themselves, and awaited confidently the outcome — the crass mistake, or oversight, or mere misfortune that, with the aid of a possible court martial, would reduce him to a proper state of humbleness.

  Peshawur, the greatest garrison in northern India, was there on sufferance, apparently. For lack of energetic men in authority to deal with them, the border robbers plundered while the troops remained cooped up within the unhealthiest station on the list. The government itself, with several thousand troops to back it up, was paying blackmail to the border thieves! There was not a government bungalow in all Peshawur that did not have its “watchman,” hired from over the border, well paid to sleep on the veranda lest his friends should come and take tribute in an even more unseemly manner.

  The younger men, whose sense of fitness had not yet been rotted by climate and system and prerogative, swore at the condition; there were one or two men higher up, destined to make history, whose voices, raised in emphatic protest, were drowned in the drone of “Peace! Peace is the thing to work for. Compromise, consideration, courtesy, these three are the keys of rule.” They failed to realize that cowardice was their real keynote, and that the threefold method that they vaunted was quite useless without a stiffening of courage.

  So brave men, who had more courtesy in each of their fingers than most of the seniors had all put together, had to bow to a scandalous condition that made England’s rule a laughing-stock within a stone’s throw of the city limits. And they had to submit to the indecency of seeing a new, inexperienced arrival picked for the task of commanding a body of irregulars, for no other reason than because it was considered wise to make an exhibition of him.

  Cunningham became half policeman, half soldier, in charge of a small special force of mounted men engaged for the purpose of patrol. He had nothing to do with the selection of them; that business was attended to perfunctorily by a man very high up in departmental service, who considered Cunningham a nuisance. He was a gentleman who did not know Mahommed Gunga; another thing he did not know was the comfortable feel of work well done; so he was more than pleased when Mahommed Gunga dropped in from nowhere in particular — paid him scandalously untrue compliments without a blush or a smile and offered to produce the required number of men at once.

  Only fifty were required
. Mahommed Gunga brought three hundred to select from, and, when asked to do so in order to save time and trouble, picked out the fifty best.

  “There are your men!” said the Personage off-handedly, when they had been sworn in in a group. “Be good enough to remember, Mr. Cunningham, that you are now responsible for their behavior, and for the proper night patrolling of the city limits.”

  That was a tall order, and in spite of all of youth’s enthusiasm was enough to make any young fellow nervous. But Mahommed Gunga met him in the street, saluted him with almost sacrilegious ceremony, and drew him to one side.

  “Have courage, now, bahadur! I ride away to visit my estates (he spoke of them always in the plural, as though he owned a county or two). You have under you the best eyes and the keenest blades along the border for I attended to it! Be ruthless! Use them, work them — sweat them to death! Keep away from messes and parades; seek no praise, for you will get none in any case! Work! Work for what is coming!”

  “You speak as though the fate of a continent were hanging in the balance,” laughed Cunningham, shaking hands with him.

  “I speak truth!” said Mahommed Gunga, riding off and leaving the youngster wondering.

  Now, there was nothing much the matter with the men on either side, taken in the main, who hated one another on that far-pushed frontier. Even the insufferable incompetents who held the rotting reins of control were such because circumstance had blinded them. There was not a man among the highly placed ones even who would have deliberately placed his own importance or his own opinion in the scale against India’s welfare. There was not a border thief but was ready to respect what he could recognize as strong-armed justice.

  The root of the trouble lay in centralization of authority, and rigid adherence to the rule of seniority. Combined, these two processes had served to bring about a state of things that is nearly unbelievable when viewed in the light of modern love for efficiency. Young men, with the fire of ambition burning in them and a proper scorn for mere superficial ceremony, had to sweat their tempers and bow down beneath the yoke of senile pompousness.

  Strong, savage, powder-weaned Hill-tribesmen — inheritors of egoistic independence and a love of loot — laughed loud and long and openly at System that prevented officers from taking arms against them until authority could come by delegate from somebody who slept. By that time they would be across the border, quarrelling among themselves about division of the plunder!

  They had respect in plenty for the youth and virile middle age that dealt with them on the rare occasions when a timely blow was loosed. Then they had proof that from that strange, mad country overseas there came men who could lead men — men who could strike, and who knew enough to hold their hands when the sudden blow had told — just men, who could keep their plighted word. No border thief pretended that the British could not rule him; to a man, they laughed because the possible was not imposed. And to the last bold, ruffianly iconoclast they stole when, where, and what they dared.

  Things altered strangely soon after Ralph Cunningham, with the diffidence of youth but the blood of a line of soldiers leaping in him, took charge of his tiny force of nondescripts. They were neither soldiers nor police. Nominally, he was everybody’s dog, and so were they; actually he found himself at the head of a tiny department of his own, because it was nobody’s affair to give him orders. They had deliberately turned him loose “to hang himself,” and their hope that he might get his head into a noose of trouble as soon as possible — the very liberty they gave him, on purpose for his quick damnation — was the means of making reputation for him.

  Nobody advised him; so with singularly British phlegm and not more than ordinary common sense he devised a method of his own for scotching night-prowlers. He stationed his men at well-considered vantage-points, and trusted them. With a party of ten, he patrolled the city ceaselessly himself and whipped every “watchman” he caught sleeping. One by one, the blackmailing brigade began to see the discomfort of a job that called for real wakefulness, and deserted over the Hills to urge the resumption of raids in force. One by one, the night-prowling fraternity were shot as they sneaked past sentries. One by one, the tale of robberies diminished. It was merely a question of one man, and he awake, having power to act without first submitting a request to somebody in triplicate on blue-form B.

  The time came, after a month or two, when even natives dared to leave their houses after dark. The time came very soon, indeed, when the nearest tribes began to hold war councils and inveigh against the falling off of the supply of plunder. Cunningham was complimented openly. He was even praised by one of “Them.” So it was perfectly natural, and quite in keeping with tradition, that he should shortly be relieved, and that a senior to him should be placed in charge of his little force, with orders to “organize” it.

  The organization process lasted about twelve hours; at the end of that time every single man had deserted, horse and arms! Two nights later, the prowling and plundering was once more in full swing, and Cunningham was blamed for it; it was obvious to any man of curry-and-port-wine proclivities that his method, or lack of it, had completely undermined his men’s loyalty!

  A whole committee of gray-headed gentlemen took trouble to point out to him his utter failure; but a brigadier, who was not a member of that committee, and who was considered something of an upstart, asked that he might be appointed to a troop of irregular cavalry that had recently been raised. With glee — with a sigh of relief so heartfelt and unanimous that it could be heard across the street — the committee leaped at the suggestion. The proper person was induced without difficulty to put his signature to the required paper, and Cunningham found himself transferred to irregular oblivion. Incidentally he found himself commanding few less than a hundred men, so many of whose first names were Mahommed or Mohammed that the muster-roll looked like a list of Allah’s prophets.

  Cunningham was more than a little bit astonished, on the day he joined, in camp, a long way from Peshawur, to find his friend Mahommed Gunga, seated in a bell tent with the Brigadier. He caught sight of the long black military boot and silver spur, and half-recognized the up-and-down movement of the crossed leg long before he reached the tent. It was like father and son meeting, almost, as the Rajput rose to greet him and waited respectfully until he had paid his compliments to his new commander. Cunningham felt throat-bound, and could scarcely more than stammer his introduction of himself.

  “I know who you are and all about you,” said the Brigadier. “Used to know your father well. I applied to have you in my command partly for your father’s sake, but principally because Risaldar Mahommed Gunga spake so highly of you. He tells me he has had an eye on you from the start, and that you shape well. Remember, this is irregular cavalry, and in many respects quite unlike regulars. You’ll need tact and a firm hand combined, and you mustn’t ever forget that the men whom you will lead are gentlemen.”

  Cunningham reported to his Colonel, only to discover that he, too, knew all about him. The Colonel was less inclined to be restricted as to topic, and less mindful of discretion than the Brigadier.

  “I hear they couldn’t stand you in Peshawur. That’s hopeful! If you’d come with a recommendation from that quarter, I’d have packed you off back again. I never in my life would have believed that a dozen men could all shut their eyes so tightly to the signs — never!”

  “The signs, sir?”

  “Yes, the signs! Come and look your troop over.”

  Cunningham found that the troop, too, had heard about his coming. He did not look them over. When he reached the lines, they came out in a swarm — passed him one by one, eyed him, as traders eye a horse — and then saluted him a second time, with the greeting:

  “Salaam, Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur!”

  “Yes! You’re in disgrace!” said his Colonel, noticing the color rising to the youngster’s cheeks.

  CHAPTER XII

  Sons of the sons of war we be,

  Sabred and horsed, and whol
e and free;

  One is the caste, and one degree, —

  One law, — one code decreed us.

  Who heads wolves in the dawning day?

  Who leaps in when the bull’s at bay?

  He who dare is he who may!

  Now, rede ye who shall lead us!

  THE check that Ralph Cunningham’s management of his police had caused, and the subsequent resumption of night looting, served to whet the appetites of the hungry crowd beyond the border. Those closest to Peshawur, who had always done the looting, were not the ultimate consignees by any means; there were other tribes who bought from them — others yet to whom they paid tribute in the shape of stolen rifles. Cunningham’s administration had upset the whole modus vivendi of the lower Himalayas!

  Though it all began again the moment he was superseded, there had been, none the less, a three-month interregnum, and that had to be compensated for. The tribes at the rear were clamorous and would not listen to argument or explanation; they had collected in hundreds, led by the notorious Khumel Khan, preparatory to raiding in real earnest and with sufficient force to carry all before them at the first surprise attack.

  They were disappointed when the pilfering resumed, for a tribal Hillman would generally rather fight than eat, and would always prefer his dinner from a dead enemy’s cooking-pot. They sat about for a long time, considering whether there were not excuse enough for war in any case and listening to the intricately detailed information brought by the deserting watchmen. And as they discussed things, but before they had time to decide on any plan, the Brigadier commanding the Irregulars got wind of them.

  He was a man who did not worry about the feelings of senile heads of red-tape-bound departments; nor was he particularly hidebound by respect for the laws of evidence. When he knew a thing, he knew it; then he either acted or did not act, as the circumstances might dictate. And when the deed was done or left undone, and was quite beyond the reach of criticism, he would send in a verbose, voluminous report, written out in several colored inks, on all the special forms he could get hold of. The heads of departments would be too busy for the next twelvemonth trying to get the form of the report straightened out to be able to give any attention to the details of it; and then it would be too late. But he was a brigadier, and what he could do with impunity and quiet amusement would have brought down the whole Anglo-Indian Government in awful wrath on the head of a subordinate.