Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  An hour after that it was reported that Mahommed Babar stopped to pull a thorn out of his heel. It was even said from which heel and what kind of thorn it was. By that time King had used walnut stain so skillfully from head to foot that not even the mirror could expose his origin and Ommony Dutch-uncle-ing, as he called it, from an arm-chair, had done breaking up facts with a sledge-hammer.

  Then King fared forth as the seventy did of old, with neither purse nor scrip, but — since the Good Book says nothing about pistols — with a perfect little Colt repeater nestling against his ribs and a great faith in his own high purpose. A jungli was whistled for and told to lead Sirdar Mahommed Akbar Khan on the trail of Mahommed Babar, and in the heat of the afternoon pursuit began.

  Now a man on foot can run down anything that lives. He can walk down anything that lives, and within a day or two. With a five-hour start on a well-fed horse, and given the information that he is followed, another man, of course, can hold his lead provided he has legs and knows enough to abandon the horse at the end of the first forced march. But a man who has counted on a horse and lost it in the first few hours, and who thinks he has baffled pursuit, so that he has ignorance as well as disappointment against him, is in no shape to leave a determined huntsman behind for long. The outcome is simply a question of mathematics and the huntsman’s wind. King’s wind was good.

  Moreover, although King had the white man’s natural fear of the beasts who hunt the jungle lanes, Mahommed Babar was even more afraid of them, because unused. In his land men hunt men, which is another matter altogether. He was afraid to set his foot down where a snake might be hiding. He feared, as the evening closed on him, that the down-hanging tendrils were pythons in wait for the passer-by and a strangled meal. He had the North-born sense of direction, but no guide to show him practicable cuts. And although he had to perfection the swinging, almost tireless Hillman’s stride, the end that he had in view was not so sure as the rock-strewn landscape he was used to marching down. There was a sort of jaw-set half-determination, at war with itself, that led to dalliance and reduced speed.

  Whereas King’s alert guide knew every short cut — every forest voice. He was afraid of devils, but believed that King could protect him from them, since Ommon-ee had said so, and whatever else Ommon-ee did he never lied. King was afraid of tigers, leopards, pythons, what not else, but knew that the jungli would give him ample warning of any of them. And the end King had in view was absolutely sure. He knew that because he was following first principles there was nothing whatever to argue about and the outcome was, as Moslems say, on Allah’s knees.

  When it grew dark and the fire-lane lay like the mold of loneliness in front of him Mahommed Babar felt inspired to climb out of harm’s reach and wait for the dawn. He would not admit to himself that he was superstitious and that the in-drawn sigh of the tree-tops put him in mind of all the spirit-tales that haunt the Northern villages. He was a man and unafraid, he told himself, but a soldier likewise, who would travel better by daylight and could sleep well in a tree.

  “Moreover, a leopard slew my horse, and I am easier to slay. I have no firearms. Shall I fight bagheela in the dark with a knife and my bare hands? Let us hope there are no pythons in this tree.”

  He chose an enormous, wholesome one that spread impenetrable shade above ten thousand feet of ground, and clambering with the sureness of a mountaineer discovered a dry branch near the top that had not been long enough dead to be dangerous. Climbing that, he found himself again in the short, clear Indian twilight and, bracing himself like a man at the mast-head, he surveyed the undulating sea of green that reached every way to the horizon — overlooking one fact. He was silhouetted against the crimson glare that the retreating sun had scorched on a tired sky.

  King stopped by a stream, laughed curtly and sat down. Having satisfied himself that the jungli also had seen Mahommed Babar he got into the stream, cold water working on the Anglo-Saxon like magic; when he emerged and ate sandwiches he was fit to march all night if need be.

  The jungli grunted and King looked up. Darkness comes very swiftly in those latitudes, and he was only just in time to see Mahommed Babar clamber down again and disappear into the opaque foliage. Another minute and the dead branch blended with the others in a blur against the night.

  So King and the jungli went forward again, and were in time to hear Mahommed Babar drop from a low branch and resume his original direction. He had seen something; that much was obvious. Something friendly. Not too far away. King began to wish poignantly that he knew a language intelligible to the jungli — knew the general lay of the land — knew anything. The trouble was that the jungli had orders from Ommony to show the way taken by Mahommed Babar, and would therefore do that and do nothing else. Pantomime was no good; the jungli merely laughed at it.

  The only possible remedy was to see what Mahommed Babar had seen — if there should still be light enough. King chose the same tree, since that was proven climbable, and bent all his faculties to the task of reaching the top before the last faint glimmer of light should die. He had signed to the jungli to stay below, but that had no effect; the jungli climbed too, and suddenly the merit of his stupidly literal obedience became apparent. He was showing the way still — step by step the only way Mahommed Babar could have climbed the tree! Swinging overhead like an ape, he pointed, first with one toe, then with the other, to the branches King should mount by, with the result that King reached the fork of the dead branch while a baleful lemon-yellow glare still flickered low in the west. It was freakish, like summer lightning.

  He need not have hurried. What Mahommed Babar had seen became much more visible as darkness deepened. A series of fires placed roughly in the shape of the letter M flickered and gained brilliancy in the woods about five miles away, illuminating a wide clearing, and he could see dark shapes of men dancing around in circles and ducking. Pure Arab that. Nothing Indian about it. Brother Moplah was reverting true to type, as all men do when their primitive passions are aroused. You can recognize the pigeon-movement of Arabs dancing as far away as you can detect any movement at all, but the man does not live who can explain the significance of just that bobbing of the heads towards the center all together.

  There was rising ground capped by a high rock on King’s left front, about two hundred yards away. Because of the trees you could not see it until up in the tree-tops; Mahommed Babar had seen it and evidently decided it was better than the tree, for he was up there now, where he, in turn, had been seen by a Moplah scout. By a flash of sheet-lightning King saw Mahommed Babar step out and stand silhouetted on the summit of the rock. The next flash showed two men talking furiously.

  King climbed down again followed by the jungli. There was nothing to be gained by guessing; much to be gained by the fact that Mahommed Babar did not suspect pursuit. For a man entitled to the benefit of the doubt and no more the Northerner was taking reckless chances, but not greater than King proceeded to take; for King, having no password or sign, risked being seen by Moplah scouts, who are as alert as they are blood-thirsty. For the life of him he could not make the jungli understand that he wanted to creep close and listen without being seen. The jungli understood that he should follow and overtake Mahommed Babar, and when you understand a thing, you understand it, naked or otherwise. King tried to send him back to Ommony, but he would not go, not having accomplished his task yet, so finally King put a cord around his throat and held him in leash by that, as you would a too-eager hunting dog. So they crept closer, each mistrustful of the other’s smell, as the way is of humans as well as animals.

  The arrangement did not last long. Restraint was intolerable and the jungli slipped out of his noose. Down there under the trees the range of vision ceased at about a hand’s breadth from the eyes unless you had animal sight. The jungli vanished with the incredible speed of a shadow, and King thought he heard him break a twig about fifty paces ahead some seconds later, so he crept forward, groping with fingers on the ground. The great thing
was to make no noise. Doubtless the jungli had made that little noise in order to guide him. Wonderful fellows junglis. Pity they could not talk intelligibly.

  One thing was quite unnecessary — to be on guard against animals. The fires five miles away and the out-thrown ring of scouts would have driven every jungle denizen bigger than a hare to other hunting-grounds. Nothing to do but keep out of sight and go close — close — close; that is where secrets are learned and thoughtful little games prevented — close! Engage the enemy more closely — England’s watchword, or it ought to be. It went through King’s head like a refrain, like those snatches you repeat in time, to the thump of train-wheels.

  “Closer! Closer! Nothing to be gained by hanging back!”

  Then someone struck a light — touched off a fire of leaves and twigs on top of the pinnacle rock — and he saw Mahommed Babar seated facing the other man, talking with him earnestly. There were four men now, not two, and he recognized Mahommed Babar by the shape of his turban, which was unmistakable. They heaped fuel on the fire as if they wanted to be seen by all the country side. But, of course, the fire made it seem even darker down below, just as staring at it produced spots of light in front of the eyes that made the dark more difficult to penetrate than ever.

  So King took his eyes off the fire and crawled forward again. He was sure he heard the jungli. Another twig broke, which is a way those people have of signaling. Ommony could have read the signal accurately, but all King could do was to follow the sound. Now he could hear the men talking on the high rock. He glanced up again and saw six, the last two standing. At any rate he hoped they were the last two.

  He hardly felt the blow as two other men landed on his neck. Being perfectly unconscious instantly it did not trouble him that his face was pressed into the mold, or that his hands and feet were lashed with rawhide until the blood in them ceased circulating. He had engaged the enemy more closely, and the incurious jungli trotted homeward to report the news to Ommony.

  CHAPTER 7. “I am the High Court judge.”

  The British are always taken unawares. They get more notice than other people, and they don’t ignore the notice. They wonder at it. Sometimes they admire it. They are also always interested. But as for its meaning anything serious until afterward, the forebodings of Noah, Cassandra and the Prophets meant more in their generation — much more; men pelted Noah, mocked Cassandra and stoned the Prophets, whereas the British do none of these things. The British preserve a noncommittal attitude and wait and see.

  They waited and saw at Ooitacamund. Saw the flames of Hindu villages. For a generation it had been notorious that regular troops could campaign in Moplah country only with the utmost difficulty because of the hills and impenetrable jungle. So there were no troops to speak of. There was not even a garrison to defend Calicut, and one had to be improvised when the first horde of wounded and panic-stricken Hindus came stampeding for protection.

  Even if there had been troops available they could not have been used to advantage at first, because the Moplahs were ready and the British were not. There was a prevalent superstition to the effect that the Moplahs knew nothing about tactics or strategy. Therefore there was no need to be ready. Moplahs always had been savages; ergo, they always would be. Q.E.D.

  Once a viceroy of genius had ordered Moplahs to be enlisted in the army, on the same principle on which Lord Channing enlisted Scottish Highlanders after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. But brother Moplah did not take to discipline, albeit he liked fighting so much that he even fought with the other regiments and his own officers. It followed, of course, that he never could be disciplined.

  Benevolent despotism therefore was the only dose for Moplahs, reinforced with aeroplanes, naturally. Aeroplanes had scattered the Somalis, who are a desert people, and had routed the Afghans, who live on treeless hills and plains. Therefore aeroplanes could easily police the Moplahs, who would fear them if nothing else.

  But unfortunately aeroplanes can hardly accomplish much over hill and dale that is spread from end to end with a natural, impenetrable camouflage. And a bomb among trees, though it makes a lovely noise, does inconsiderable damage. Moreover, as Ommony had reminded King, scores of Moplahs went to France in the well-paid labor units, where they grew so familiar with bombing-planes that anything short of being actually hit by a bomb left them entirely unconvinced. And that kind of insouciance is more contagious than the itch.

  The Moplahs broke all standing rules from the start. They sprang a surprise that was perfect in all its ways. They were well supplied with arms and ammunition, had a well-laid plan, displayed considerable strategy, used modern tactics, and obeyed somebody’s orders — none of which things an honest Moplah ought to do.

  In a pigeon-hole in Calcutta, with a duplicate in Simla and a triplicate in Delhi, there is a report drawn up by a painstaking committee, which sets forth for the confusion of future historians just how the Moplah “show” began. Nobody knows how it began. It started everywhere at once, and everyone concerned was much too busy taking his part on one side or the other to have any knowledge of what might be happening elsewhere.

  Torn-up tracks and cut wires were the first intimation the authorities received. The spares kept at wayside stations and beside the track were carried off as plunder, but with commendable speed and resource the emergency crews replaced everything, thus providing brother Moplah with a second instalment of welcome iron-mongery. As the improvised armored trains patrolled the relaid track, just around the next curve, screened by trees before them and behind, the Moplah raiders helped themselves. Armored trains were isolated for lack of rails to run on. Crews were what is known as “scoughed” after the ammunition had given out.

  Of course, not all the trains were caught in the open or wrecked in broken culverts between depots. After the first damage had been repaired and between raids there were even passenger trains that got through. For instance, the train attached to which was a coach containing judge Wilmshurst and his hot, although fashionable wife, who mourned like another Rachel and would not be comforted, arrived somewhere finally. As Ommony wisely said, the judge had not dared leave his wife behind.

  The train winds through those hills like a patient worm possessed of brains. Ever it turns aside at each obstacle; always it appears again somewhere beyond, once more circling toward its ultimate objective, frequently passing a place on three sides within a mile or two before swerving in suddenly and dumping passengers or freight for a touchdown. The train always wins, unless the Moplahs are “out” and in earnest, and sometimes even then. Such is the fortune of war and its freakiness that neither judge Wilmshurst nor his wife as much as saw a Moplah; and when a subaltern commanding twenty men at a wayside station ordered them out of the train for safety’s sake they not only disbelieved but were indignant.

  However, you can’t successfully oppose a British subaltern with anything less than steel or TNT when he has once assumed responsibility. The judge tried all the old methods of overawing a child, and his wife tried several new ones, but none worked. Not even blandishments accomplished anything. The youth gave his name as Charles Sutherland, and Mrs. Wilmshurst remembered she knew the Sutherlands of Southrey, but he was not interested.

  “I could pick your family profile out of a million,” she assured him.

  “Where’s Southrey?” he answered. “I’m from Blackheath. My people never had a county-seat. Dad was an architect. You’re delaying us awfully.”

  She refused to leave the car that she had been complaining of for two hot days and nights, and told her husband he was “spineless” to let a mere subaltern impose on a High Court judge. So he from Blackheath ordered the car uncoupled and let the train go on without it — which it did for ten miles, at the end of which it fell into a broken culvert, where the Moplahs looted it.

  As the solitary car in certain contingencies might make a superb addition to his scant means of defense, Charley Sutherland of Blackheath made his men put their shoulders to it and shove unt
il it stood exactly at the angle with the station building that his martial eye approved. There he left it, with two fifteen-year-old boys in uniform on guard (attested, of course, as twenty-one), and two more, who were honestly eighteen, carrying water in kerosene cans for drinking purpose in case of siege. They filled the copper tank, but as Mrs. Wilmshurst promptly took a bath and said nothing about it the total accomplishment did not amount to much.

  The station buildings were sufficient for their purpose, whatever that may have been. Undoubtedly they were no good for anything else. There was a ten by twelve concrete hut constituting ticket-office and babu’s quarters, and from that a roof reached either way for fifty feet above a masonry and gravel platform. That was all, except that a wooden hut had stood fifty yards back from the station by way of zenana for the babu’s family. There were nice black ashes where it had been. The babu and his family were Hindus, and the Moplahs had done the rest. Charley Sutherland, a sergeant, two corporals, and seventeen men arriving later on the scene raked up the ashes of babu and family into sacks and buried them, which was respectful, even if blasphemously carried out and not at all the orthodox way of disposing of Hindu remains.

  Charley Sutherland and his twenty were there by the whim of naked luck, not otherwise. They had been sent to lend distinction to the funeral procession of a Moplah chief, whose relatives and whose village the authorities chose to honor for reasons best known to themselves. Having marched for twenty miles along a jungle lane, slept in a flea-infested thatched hut, “proceeded according to orders,” and having even fired a salvo in the deceased’s honor, they had marched twenty miles back again, only to discover a burned babu.

  The station premises had been looted perfectly, but the arrival of Sutherland and twenty men had interrupted proceedings and the wire was not yet cut. Sutherland was a telegraphist of sorts and he managed to get headquarters before the raiding party thought of cutting the wire out of sight around the curve. Being only of sorts he had difficulty. Skepticism, blank incredulity, panic and fuss were among the elements at war with him, added to all of which he could send, like most “of sorts” men, much better than he could take. However, he managed to read off that trains will proceed as usual before a clangor unmistakable announced that the wire was cut and being shaken.