by Talbot Mundy
“And a nice, kind Rajah! No,” the babu answered, “we will let you have the credit. You may need it. You tell Hawkesey.”
“If I do, and if he speaks to you about it, will you put a word in?”
Chullunder Ghose stretched his naked feet toward the stove to warm them.
“Why not? The suggestion, though, should come from you in the first instance, not me. I will add my influence.”
“Then I will tell him now,” said Syed-Suraj. “May I count on you also to mention my name in the proper quarter?”
Chullunder Ghose nodded. Syed-Suraj bowed with semi-serious respect to both men and went out, shutting the door behind him.
“Well, that settles it,” said Ram Dass. “You have saved a situation, as he calls it. But you have also saved a monster on a throne that he defiles every day of the week. You have probably condemned the Rajah’s cousin to a painful death by poison. You have certainly sacrificed Hawkes — and that means you have cost me a contract. I don’t think you are so clever.”
“Clever?” said the babu. “I am treacherous. And I believe in devils. I believe I know them when I see them. Don’t keep Hawkesey too long.”
Ram Dass, contract still in mind, went out to do the honors. Five minutes later he himself led Hawkes in. Hawkes looked curiously like a London Bobby with his long black waterproof and the hood drawn up over his head. He was wholesome. As he pushed the hood back and his eyes grew used to the gloom amid piled-up corn-sacks, he stared — grinned — held out his hand:
“You, you damned old son-of-a-gun! Say, when did you blow in? And why not my house? Damn — I’d sooner see you than a pay-raise! Remember last time you and I got drunk together? It’s about time for an encore.”
“Drunk since?” asked the babu.
“Hell, no! You’re the only one I drink with. I could pass for a teetotaler if you weren’t living.”
“What is new?” the babu asked him.
“Nothing. Same old round of checking up and finding fault. Yes, there is, though — damn, the sight o’ you ‘ud make a man forget his mother. Have you heard o’ the tiger that’s killing and eating ’em, over beyond the river?”
“I have seen that tiger,” said the babu. “I have come from there. I saw it kill a man.”
“Trust you to know everything! Smith as good as called me a liar today for reporting it. Was that fellow Syed-Suraj in here? Do you trust him? He button-holed me as he went out, said he had the Rajah’s orders to instruct me to go after the brute tomorrow morning. Do you think that’s on the level?”
“On about three levels,” said the babu. “What did you say?”
“Me? I asked for it in writing.”
“Hawkesey, you are much too sane to do me any credit! You should have been the Unknown Soldier! Take an elephant and start tomorrow morning.
“Do you mean that?”
“But you must not shoot the tiger!”
“What’s the idea?”
“You must find out for me how they keep a tiger in a ruined temple and persuade it to return when it has finished hunting. When you have found that out, you must come back and tell me.”
“You’ve the call on me,” said Hawkes. “I can’t say no to you. You know that.”
“Some men can forget more easily than you do, Hawkesey. Can you manage to get word to Syed-Suraj? Ask to see him. Say you didn’t understand him. Ask him to repeat the conversation. Then agree to start tomorrow. And then do it. But as one friend to another, kindly — please — don’t kill the tiger, even if he bites you! I require him.”
“Alive?”
“Yes, and gnashful! Teeth, tail, talons and a nasty disposition!”
“Won’t you tell me what the game is?”
“Hawkesey, I would tell you anything, if only you weren’t honest! Wait until afterwards. But bring back word and tell me all that happens.”
“O.K., since it’s you, old trusty.”
CHAPTER 8. “It happened thiswise, sahibs”
The head mahout was angrier than even the monsoon weather justified.
“Ten thousand devils take that Haw-kiss-ee! Now he gets up in darkness to punish the sun if it rises late! See him look at his watch that he doubtless stole from someone! Hurry-hurry-hurry!”
It was a presentation watch; it had been given to Hawkes by a grateful general as a reward for inventing a wonderful trick for teaching raw recruits to shoot straight. He had saved his country millions of pounds and nobody could ever guess how many lives, but he rightly considered the watch a more than ample compensation. It was a chronometer watch. It had been made by scientists. Hawkes had a touching and abiding faith in science.
That was half the secret of his friendship with Chullunder Ghose. He knew the babu could talk nine languages and think in terms of quantum; drunk or sober, he could quote Kant, Einstein, the Mahabharata, Shakespeare, and Plato with equal humorous familiarity. So the babu was on a pedestal in Hawkes’s mind. But there were other reasons; the babu was a genuine friend in need, with secret influence that he had earned by merit. It was the babu who had wangled him the job that saved him from the dreaded half-existence on a color- sergeant’s pension back in England and enabled him to keep his sisters off the dole.
So whatever the babu said or did was scientific, straight, dependable, in Hawkes’s opinion, to be betted on — blind, if need be — and unquestionably on the level. There were no reserves in Hawkes’s mind; he had tested the babu and judged that he could trust him. Dynamite might modify Hawkes’s judgment by destroying Hawkes, but he was otherwise as changeless as the honest flavor of an onion or as the habit of water to run downhill; which was why the babu liked him. And Hawkes started on an elephant at daybreak, having talked the evening before with Syed-Suraj as requested, because Hawkes invariably kept a promise.
He was curious, but not offended, to discover that a sly-eyed villager from beyond the river wished to ride with him. The fellow had a big new knife in an embossed sheath and was inordinately proud of it. He also had a chiteh from the babu — just a scrap of paper, with the words: “Please take him. C.G.”
“Up you get,” said Hawkes, “you naked golliwog; you’ll need a blanket. Here, take this one. You may keep it.”
It had been a good one in its day. It was an ante bellum blanket, big and beautifully criss-crossed by a German-Jew designer’s notion of a Highland tartan. It was a bit ragged, but the hole in the middle would do to stick a fellow’s head through. It established in the mind of the villager the opinion that Hawkes was a wealthy and profligate man, from whom important favors might be coaxed if he were suitably managed. The question being how to manage him, he sat silent at the rear of the howdah, on the left-hand side, remembering all the tales he had ever heard about a white man’s blind obedience to unknown laws. He naturally got them badly mixed up; it seldom happens that a naked plowman from a mud-and-wattle village by a jungle understands an Englishman, however hard he tries to. But he can try.
The elephant squelched through the mud and enjoyed it. The howdah bellyband, his belly, and his legs, became a slimy, comfortable mess that did not dry and cake off, since the rain, that had lessened a bit and had warmed since yesterday, streamed down his sides in rivulets and kept the paste thin. The mahout was miserable, since he had to face the rain; but he did not dare to vent his temper on the animal, because he knew Hawkes’s strange objection to the habit; and he also knew that Hawkes had whisky with him. Liking whisky, he proposed to be rewarded with a tot for good behavior. And the elephant, who also liked it, knew that Hawkes invariably spared some, to be poured on the enormous loaf of corn-meal that formed part of the load in the howdah. So it was best foot first, to reach dinner as soon as might be, and in spite of the rain and the hurrying clouds there was nobody feeling that life did not have compensations. Hawkes smoked, with a hand over his pipe to keep the rain from drowning the tobacco.
On the left was jungle, on the right an endless waste of water reaching to the sky-line, that would prese
ntly be plowed fields when the flood subsided. Far ahead were mountains curtained by pearly mist that sometimes, when the wind grew squally, let the sun through and presented sudden vistas of green-and-gold forested ranges. There was not a human to be seen until the villager grunted to call Hawkes’s attention, and Hawkes saw four men in the khaki uniform of State constabulary, staggering along through nearly knee-deep mud towards them.
They were carrying something. It was a litter made of poles and twigs. A man lay on it, who was not in uniform. They set down the litter and waited for the elephant, and as it drew near two of the men walked out into the road — looking determined — pulling down their tunics and squaring their shoulders to show authority.
“Halt!” one of them commanded. “Here we have a corpse. It must be taken to Kutchdullub.”
“Do you mistake me for an undertaker?” Hawkes asked. There was neither love nor admiration lost between him and the State constabulary. He regarded them as blackmailing bullies, in league with criminals, and eager to be bribed by anyone. They sullenly resented him as an alien who had no right to criticize them, but who did it bluntly and without that tolerance that men who drew the Rajah’s pay should feel for one another.
“Who is he?” Hawkes asked.
“One of us. He was on plain-clothes duty. We were on patrol and found him lying near here, raving with a cracked skull.”
“Could he talk sense?” Hawkes asked.
“Not until shortly before he died. Then he spoke of a cart. But if there was one, then the rain has washed away the marks of it. And he spoke of a man in the dark, who struck him as they stood together talking near the cart- tail.”
From the howdah Hawkes stared at the muddied corpse on the litter beside the road. He observed an empty holster.
“Where is his revolver?” he demanded.
“Missing. Whoever struck him, took it.”
“What did the assailant look like? Did he tell you?”
“No; he said he couldn’t see him in the darkness. He could only say a few words. Then he grew delirious again and soon died.”
“Was he on patrol too? Why was he alone? You plunderers always hunt in couples, when there aren’t a dozen of you. What was he doing?”
“Secret duty.”
“Dirty work, eh? Why are you patrolling?”
“We were looking for him.”
“That so? You expected trouble, did you?”
Silence. Surly glances from the four men, then a sour grin from the spokesman. Hawkes stared at the litter again.
“What have you underneath that sacking?” He could see the edge of a shovel. “You look like a burial party to me.”
The villager in the howdah interrupted:
“It was a priest who did it,” he said suddenly in Hawkes’s ear.
One of the policemen overheard him. “Come down here, you!”
“Stay where you are,” Hawkes ordered. “Tell your story.”
Fame! A pulpit! Oratory from a Rajah’s elephant! Police for audience! A friend, not only reckless with expensive blankets, but not even scared of the Rajah’s “constabeels.” Ecstasy! Also a vision of favors to come!
“It happened thiswise, sahibs. Having lost my old knife, I must get a new one. Therefore I swam the river and set forth on foot to Kutchdullub. There rode a priest in a cart, and I sought to overtake the cart, being minded to ask the favor of a ride into the city, as was not unreasonable. Many a time that priest has drunk our cow-milk at the village, it being he who brings the he- goats for the temple sacrifice.”
“What temple?”
“That one that lies in ruins in the jungle.”
“Sacrifices?”
“Once a week that priest brings seven goats, all he-ones. There is a daily sacrifice. However, we of the village offer no goats, since a tiger slays too many of them, so we told the priests to—”
The constable swore impatiently to keep the story within limits.
“Tell what happened.”
“Thus it happened. As I overtook the cart — it labored in the deep mud, sahibs — that one, he who lies dead, came forth from the jungle suddenly. He did not see me, but I saw him. And I feared him. So I crouched in darkness. I heard him say he would ride in the cart. But the priest said nay to that. For they are thrice-born swaggerers, those priests. They fear a man’s touch, notwithstanding that the Lord Mahatma Gandhi teaches—”
“To the lowest hell with Gandhi! Tell what happened.”
“But I do tell. He began to climb into the cart, holding his revolver thus. But the priest had a light — a peculiar one, like a stick, that he flashed into the man’s face. By that light I saw the priest’s hand hold a club and strike the man twice on the top of the head. So he fell. And he dropped his revolver. So the priest got down and, groping for it, found it. He flung it away. I heard it fall into a pool of water. Then the priest returned into the cart. I heard him command the driver to go forward. And, being frightened, I ran. The cart was heavy and the mud deep. Therefore I reached Kutchdullub far ahead of it. I bought my new knife. And because I enjoy the special favor of the Ruler of the Land, I now return home on a royal elephant.”
“Get off the elephant before I drag you down,” the policeman commanded. “You may tell that story, or another version of it, at the kana.”
But the villager appealed to Hawkes in silence, eloquent in gesture. Hawkes knew as well as the villager did what tortures they would give him in a dark cell to induce him to tell a lot more than he knew, and to edit his story to suit police convenience. It was not his business, but he had Chullunder Ghose’s note; he felt he might be letting down the babu somehow if he failed to interfere now.
“Go to hell,” he answered. “I’m in charge o’ this man. Two of you had better hunt for that revolver that he says the priest threw away. If you find it, it’ll be evidence. One of you stand by the corpse, and let the fourth man hurry to Kutchdullub for assistance.”
“Nay, nay! That is the Rajah’s elephant. We will ride home on it.”
“That so? — Cheloh!” Hawkes commanded. The mahout knew better than to disobey Hawkes. The elephant resumed his squelching progress through the mud. Rain came down again in torrents. Hawkes sat silent, with his coat up to his ears until the squall ceased. Then he turned his head abruptly.
“You’re a liar,” he said to the villager. “Why did you tell that mess of lies? If it was true, you’d have held your tongue about it for fear of being held as a witness.”
“Nay, I spoke truth.”
“Get down and walk then. Swing yourself down by the elephant’s tail and go with the policemen!”
“Is the sahib angry that the priests should eat a little trouble? They have made enough of it for other people. They have said their tiger only slays the wicked. So our village has become a by-word, and other men mock us to our faces. Nobody will slay that tiger for us, and the priests say—”
“Cut it short now. Who did kill the police spy?”
“Nay, I know not.”
“Do you mean you invented all that yarn? Then down you get and go back. You’re too big a liar to ride on a decent elephant.”
“But is the sahib not the friend of him who sent me with the chiteh? And if the sahib’s friend should be accused of slaying some one, would the sahib like that?”
Hawkes stared.
“I am a poor man,” said the villager. “I thought if I should save the sahib’s friend from accusation, then the sahib possibly might give this humble person a reward.”
Hawkes continued to stare. “Did you see the man killed?” he demanded. “Did you see who did it?”
“Yes, but no matter. I have turned the blame on to those bloody-minded Brahmins. If the sahib should give me fifty rupees, I could hide among the mountains until it is time to plow. And for a hundred I could stay away all summer.”
Hawkes spat. “Not a rupee.”
“But the sahib has an old coat. It is tied in the roll of bedding that is under the tarpauli
n.”
“You stay by me,” Hawkes retorted. “If I get a good report about you from the babu you shall have what’s right.”
“But if he lies about me? All babus are liars.”
Hawkes stuck his pipe in his teeth, carefully lighted it, puffed a few times and then leaned back against the bedding roll.
“If you think that about him, hook it,” he suggested. “The elephant keeps his tail at that end. Use it. I’ll look straight ahead until we’re past that big tree on the left hand.”
“Nay, nay,” said the villager. “That babu said I am to ride free all the way to the village.”
Hawkes stuck his hands in his overcoat pockets and whistled softly to himself. The villager did not like that, because it is well known that to whistle softly summons evil spirits; so he hummed a little nasal mantra said to disagree with evil spirits, and sat meditating — wondering why sahibs are so complicated and unable to discern the simplest way of solving riddles.
CHAPTER 9. “Talk with one another”
Crises on which destinies appear to hinge are sometimes unimportant, being actually no more than the din of aftermath. The genuinely change- producing undercurrents escape attention, they are so deep and devious. But they meet. They create a vortex. Then the deluge. And they who are caught in the deluge rarely ever know exactly how and why it happens.
The Rajah was a man who did not see deep, although he thought himself almost a Machiavelli. He had plenty of spies; but all of them, except Syed- Suraj, had learned to tell him what they guessed he wished to believe; he had a way of striking off the pay-roll anyone who told unpalatable truths too often. And he read the papers, even though they bored him; so he flattered himself that he thoroughly understood the trend of world affairs.
“Tu m’embêtes!” he remarked to Syed-Suraj in the library. “A bat could tell you there’s a revolution going on all over the world. It’s economic, it’s religious, it’s scientific, and it’s social. It will end in the break-up of empires — as happened to Rome, and to our Moghuls, and to Napoleon’s half-finished scheme. And then what? The survival of the fittest! Princes who are not such asses as to give a damn what other people think, will come into their own again. Pour me a brandy-and-soda. India, within a year or two, will be a welter of what that idiot Wilson preached as self-determination — take my word for it — each State for itself, to hell with all the others, and the English, thank God, stewing in their own grease on an island in the North Sea. All I need is to prevent the priests from getting too much power. Just now I’m letting them go too far, on purpose. Later, when the crash comes, I won’t need them; they will need me. Have a drink too? Why not?”