‘Mulvaney would as soon think of deserting as you would,’ said he. ‘No; he’s either fallen into a mischief among the villagers — and yet that isn’t likely, for he’d blarney himself out of the Pit; or else he is engaged on urgent private affairs — some stupendous devilment that we shall hear of at mess after it has been the round of the barrack-rooms. The worst of it is that I shall have to give him twenty-eight days’ confinement at least for being absent without leave, just when I most want him to lick the new batch of recruits into shape. I never knew a man who could put a polish on young soldiers as quickly as Mulvaney can. How does he do it?’
‘With blarney and the buckle-end of a belt, sir,’ said the adjutant. ‘He is worth a couple of non-commissioned officers when we are dealing with an Irish draft, and the London lads seem to adore him. The worst of it is that if he goes to the cells the other two are neither to hold nor to bind till he comes out again. I believe Ortheris preaches mutiny on those occasions, and I know that the mere presence of Learoyd mourning for Mulvaney kills all the cheerfulness of his room. The sergeants tell me that he allows no man to laugh when he feels unhappy. They are a queer gang.’
‘For all that, I wish we had a few more of them. I like a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced, shifty-eyed, mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the depot worry me sometimes with their offensive virtue. They don’t seem to have backbone enough to do anything but play cards and prowl round the married quarters. I believe I’d forgive that old villain on the spot if he turned up with any sort of explanation that I could in decency accept.’
‘Not likely to be much difficulty about that, sir,’ said the adjutant. ‘Mulvaney’s explanations are only one degree less wonderful than his performances. They say that when he was in the Black Tyrone, before he came to us, he was discovered on the banks of the Liffey trying to sell his colonel’s charger to a Donegal dealer as a perfect lady’s hack. Shackbolt commanded the Tyrone then.’
‘Shackbolt must have had apoplexy at the thought of his ramping war- horses answering to that description. He used to buy unbacked devils, and tame them on some pet theory of starvation. What did Mulvaney say?’
‘That he was a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, anxious to “sell the poor baste where he would get something to
fill out his dimples.” Shackbolt laughed, but I fancy that was why
Mulvaney exchanged to ours.’
‘I wish he were back,’ said the colonel; ‘for I like him and believe he likes me.’
That evening, to cheer our souls, Learoyd, Ortheris, and I went into the waste to smoke out a porcupine. All the dogs attended, but even their clamour — and they began to discuss the shortcomings of porcupines before they left cantonments — could not take us out of ourselves. A large, low moon turned the tops of the plume-grass to silver, and the stunted camelthorn bushes and sour tamarisks into the likenesses of trooping devils. The smell of the sun had not left the earth, and little aimless winds blowing across the rose-gardens to the southward brought the scent of dried roses and water. Our fire once started, and the dogs craftily disposed to wait the dash of the porcupine, we climbed to the top of a rain-scarred hillock of earth, and looked across the scrub seamed with cattle paths, white with the long grass, and dotted with spots of level pond-bottom, where the snipe would gather in winter.
‘This,’ said Ortheris, with a sigh, as he took in the unkempt desolation of it all, ‘this is sanguinary. This is unusually sanguinary. Sort o’ mad country. Like a grate when the fire’s put out by the sun.’ He shaded his eyes against the moonlight. ‘An’ there’s a loony dancin’ in the middle of it all. Quite right. I’d dance too if I wasn’t so downheart.’
There pranced a Portent in the face of the moon — a huge and ragged spirit of the waste, that flapped its wings from afar. It had risen out of the earth; it was coming towards us, and its outline was never twice the same. The toga, table-cloth, or dressing-gown, whatever the creature wore, took a hundred shapes. Once it stopped on a neighbouring mound and flung all its legs and arms to the winds.
‘My, but that scarecrow ‘as got ‘em bad!’ said Ortheris. ‘Seems like if ‘e comes any furder we’ll ‘ave to argify with ‘im.’
Learoyd raised himself from the dirt as a bull clears his flanks of the wallow. And as a bull bellows, so he, after a short minute at gaze, gave tongue to the stars.
‘MULVAANEY! MULVAANEY! A-hoo!’
Oh then it was that we yelled, and the figure dipped into the hollow, till, with a crash of rending grass, the lost one strode up to the light of the fire and disappeared to the waist in a wave of joyous dogs! Then Learoyd and Ortheris gave greeting, bass and falsetto together, both swallowing a lump in the throat.
‘You damned fool!’ said they, and severally pounded him with their fists.
‘Go easy!’ he answered; wrapping a huge arm round each. ‘I would have you to know that I am a god, to be treated as such — tho’, by my faith, I fancy I’ve got to go to the guard-room just like a privit soldier.’
The latter part of the sentence destroyed the suspicions raised by the former. Any one would have been justified in regarding Mulvaney as mad. He was hatless and shoeless, and his shirt and trousers were dropping off him. But he wore one wondrous garment — a gigantic cloak that fell from collar-bone to heel — of pale pink silk, wrought all over in cunningest needlework of hands long since dead, with the loves of the Hindu gods. The monstrous figures leaped in and out of the light of the fire as he settled the folds round him.
Ortheris handled the stuff respectfully for a moment while I was trying to remember where I had seen it before. Then he screamed, ‘What ‘AVE you done with the palanquin? You’re wearin’ the linin’.’
‘I am,’ said the Irishman, ‘an’ by the same token the ‘broidery is scrapin’ my hide off. I’ve lived in this sumpshus counterpane for four days. Me son, I begin to ondherstand why the naygur is no use. Widout me boots, an’ me trousies like an openwork stocking on a gyurl’s leg at a dance, I begin to feel like a naygur-man — all fearful an’ timoreous. Give me a pipe an’ I’ll tell on.’
He lit a pipe, resumed his grip of his two friends, and rocked to and fro in a gale of laughter.
‘Mulvaney,’ said Ortheris sternly, ‘‘tain’t no time for laughin’. You’ve given Jock an’ me more trouble than you’re worth. You ‘ave been absent without leave an’ you’ll go into cells for that; an’ you ‘ave come back disgustin’ly dressed an’ most improper in the linin’ o’ that bloomin’ palanquin. Instid of which you laugh. An’ WE thought you was dead all the time.’
‘Bhoys,’ said the culprit, still shaking gently, ‘whin I’ve done my tale you may cry if you like, an’ little Orth’ris here can thrample my inside out. Ha’ done an’ listen. My performances have been stupenjus: my luck has been the blessed luck av the British Army — an’ there’s no betther than that. I went out dhrunk an’ dhrinkin’ in the palanquin, and I have come back a pink god. Did any of you go to Dearsley afther my time was up? He was at the bottom of ut all.’
‘Ah said so,’ murmured Learoyd. ‘To-morrow ah’ll smash t’ face in upon his heead.’
‘Ye will not. Dearsley’s a jool av a man. Afther Ortheris had put me into the palanquin an’ the six bearer-men were gruntin’ down the road, I tuk thought to mock Dearsley for that fight. So I tould thim, “Go to the embankmint,” and there, bein’ most amazin’ full, I shtuck my head out av the concern an’ passed compliments wid Dearsley. I must ha’ miscalled him outrageous, for whin I am that way the power av the tongue comes on me. I can bare remimber tellin’ him that his mouth opened endways like the mouth av a skate, which was thrue afther Learoyd had handled ut; an’ I clear remimber his takin’ no manner nor matter av offence, but givin’ me a big dhrink of beer. ‘Twas the beer did the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, steppin’ on me right ear wid me left foot, an’ thin I slept like the dead. Wanst I half-roused, an’ begad the noi
se in my head was tremenjus — roarin’ and rattlin’ an’ poundin’ such as was quite new to me. “Mother av Mercy,” thinks I, “phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders whin I wake!” An’ wid that I curls mysilf up to sleep before ut should get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise was not dhrink, ‘twas the rattle av a thrain!’
There followed an impressive pause.
‘Yes, he had put me on a thrain — put me, palanquin an’ all, an’ six black assassins av his own coolies that was in his nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast-thruck, and we were rowlin’ an’ bowlin’ along to Benares. Glory be that I did not wake up thin an’ introjuce mysilf to the coolies. As I was sayin’, I slept for the betther part av a day an’ a night. But remimber you, that that man Dearsley had packed me off on wan av his material-thrains to Benares, all for to make me overstay my leave an’ get me into the cells.’
The explanation was an eminently rational one. Benares lay at least ten hours by rail from the cantonments, and nothing in the world could have saved Mulvaney from arrest as a deserter had he appeared there in the apparel of his orgies. Dearsley had not forgotten to take revenge. Learoyd, drawing back a little, began to place soft blows over selected portions of Mulvaney’s body. His thoughts were away on the embankment, and they meditated evil for Dearsley. Mulvaney continued —
‘Whin I was full awake the palanquin was set down in a street, I suspicioned, for I cud hear people passin’ an’ talkin’. But I knew well I was far from home. There is a queer smell upon our cantonments — a smell av dried earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av cavalry stable- litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an’ bad water, an’ wanst somethin’ alive came an’ blew heavy with his muzzle at the chink av the shutter. “It’s in a village I am,” thinks I to mysilf, “an’ the parochial buffalo is investigatin’ the palanquin.” But anyways I had no desire to move. Only lie still whin you’re in foreign parts an’ the standin’ luck av the British Army will carry ye through. That is an epigram. I made ut.
‘Thin a lot av whishperin’ divils surrounded the palanquin. “Take ut up,” sez wan man. “But who’ll pay us?” sez another. “The Maharanee’s minister, av coorse,” sez the man. “Oho!” sez I to mysilf, “I’m a quane in me own right, wid a minister to pay me expenses. I’ll be an emperor if I lie still long enough; but this is no village I’ve found.” I lay quiet, but I gummed me right eye to a crack av the shutters, an’ I saw that the whole street was crammed wid palanquins an’ horses, an’ a sprinklin’ av naked priests all yellow powder an’ tigers’ tails. But I may tell you, Orth’ris, an’ you, Learoyd, that av all the palanquins ours was the most imperial an’ magnificent. Now a palanquin means a native lady all the world over, except whin a soldier av the Quane happens to be takin’ a ride. “Women an’ priests!” sez I. “Your father’s son is in the right pew this time, Terence. There will be proceedin’s.” Six black divils in pink muslin tuk up the palanquin, an’ oh! but the rowlin’ an’ the rockin’ made me sick. Thin we got fair jammed among the palanquins — not more than fifty av them — an’ we grated an’ bumped like Queenstown potato-smacks in a runnin’ tide. I cud hear the women gigglin’ and squirkin’ in their palanquins, but mine was the royal equipage. They made way for ut, an’, begad, the pink muslin men o’ mine were howlin’, “Room for the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun.” Do you know aught av the lady, sorr?’
‘Yes,’ said I. ‘She is a very estimable old queen of the Central Indian States, and they say she is fat. How on earth could she go to Benares without all the city knowing her palanquin?’
‘‘Twas the eternal foolishness av the naygur-man. They saw the palanquin lying loneful an’ forlornsome, an’ the beauty av ut, after Dearsley’s men had dhropped ut and gone away, an’ they gave ut the best name that occurred to thim. Quite right too. For aught we know the ould lady was thravellin’ incog — like me. I’m glad to hear she’s fat. I was no light weight mysilf, an’ my men were mortial anxious to dhrop me under a great big archway promiscuously ornamented wid the most improper carvin’s an’ cuttin’s I iver saw. Begad! they made me blush — like a — like a Maharanee.’
‘The temple of Prithi-Devi,’ I murmured, remembering the monstrous horrors of that sculptured archway at Benares.
‘Pretty Devilskins, savin’ your presence, sorr! There was nothin’ pretty about ut, except me. ‘Twas all half dhark, an’ whin the coolies left they shut a big black gate behind av us, an’ half a company av fat yellow priests began pully-haulin’ the palanquins into a dharker place yet — a big stone hall full av pillars, an’ gods, an’ incense, an’ all manner av similar thruck. The gate disconcerted me, for I perceived I wud have to go forward to get out, my retreat bein’ cut off. By the same token a good priest makes a bad palanquin-coolie. Begad! they nearly turned me inside out draggin’ the palanquin to the temple. Now the disposishin av the forces inside was this way. The Maharanee av Gokral- Seetarun — that was me — lay by the favour av Providence on the far left flank behind the dhark av a pillar carved with elephints’ heads. The remainder av the palanquins was in a big half circle facing in to the biggest, fattest, an’ most amazin’ she-god that iver I dreamed av. Her head ran up into the black above us, an’ her feet stuck out in the light av a little fire av melted butter that a priest was feedin’ out av a butter-dish. Thin a man began to sing an’ play on somethin’ back in the dhark, an ‘twas a queer song. Ut made my hair lift on the back av my neck. Thin the doors av all the palanquins slid back, an’ the women bundled out. I saw what I’ll niver see again. ‘Twas more glorious than thransformations at a pantomime, for they was in pink an’ blue an’ silver an’ red an’ grass green, wid di’monds an’ im’ralds an’ great red rubies all over thim. But that was the least part av the glory. O bhoys, they were more lovely than the like av any loveliness in hiven; ay, their little bare feet were betther than the white hands av a lord’s lady, an’ their mouths were like puckered roses, an’ their eyes were bigger an’ dharker than the eyes av any livin’ women I’ve seen. Ye may laugh, but I’m speakin’ truth. I niver saw the like, an’ niver I will again.’
‘Seeing that in all probability you were watching the wives and daughters of most of the Kings of India, the chances are that you won’t,’ I said, for it was dawning on me that Mulvaney had stumbled upon a big Queens’ Praying at Benares.
‘I niver will,’ he said mournfully. ‘That sight doesn’t come twist to any man. It made me ashamed to watch. A fat priest knocked at my door. I didn’t think he’d have the insolince to disturb the Maharanee av Gokral- Seetarun, so I lay still. “The old cow’s asleep,” sez he to another. “Let her be,” sez that. “‘Twill be long before she has a calf!” I might ha’ known before he spoke that all a woman prays for in Injia — an’ for matter o’ that in England too — is childher. That made me more sorry I’d come, me bein’, as you well know, a childless man.’
He was silent for a moment, thinking of his little son, dead many years ago.
‘They prayed, an’ the butter-fires blazed up an’ the incense turned everything blue, an’ between that an’ the fires the women looked as tho’ they were all ablaze an’ twinklin’. They took hold av the she-god’s knees, they cried out an’ they threw themselves about, an’ that world- without-end-amen music was dhrivin’ thim mad. Mother av Hiven! how they cried, an’ the ould she-god grinnin’ above thim all so scornful! The dhrink was dyin’ out in me fast, an’ I was thinkin’ harder than the thoughts wud go through my head — thinkin’ how to get out, an’ all manner of nonsense as well. The women were rockin’ in rows, their di’mond belts clickin’, an’ the tears runnin’ out betune their hands, an’ the lights were goin’ lower an’ dharker. Thin there was a blaze like lightnin’ from the roof, an’ that showed me the inside av the palanquin, an’ at the end where my foot was, stood the livin’ spit an’ image o’ mysilf worked on the linin’. This man here, ut was.’
He hunted in the folds of his pink cloak, ran a hand under one, and thrust into the firelight a fo
ot-long embroidered presentment of the great god Krishna, playing on a flute. The heavy jowl, the staring eye, and the blue-black moustache of the god made up a far-off resemblance to Mulvaney.
‘The blaze was gone in a wink, but the whole schame came to me thin. I believe I was mad too. I slid the off-shutter open an’ rowled out into the dhark behind the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies to my knees, slipped off my boots an’ tuk a general hould av all the pink linin’ av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped out like a woman’s dhriss whin you tread on ut at a sergeants’ ball, an’ a bottle came with ut. I tuk the bottle an’ the next minut I was out av the dhark av the pillar, the pink linin’ wrapped round me most graceful, the music thunderin’ like kettledrums, an’ a could draft blowin’ round my bare legs. By this hand that did ut, I was Khrishna tootlin’ on the flute — the god that the rig’mental chaplain talks about. A sweet sight I must ha’ looked. I knew my eyes were big, and my face was wax-white, an’ at the worst I must ha’ looked like a ghost. But they took me for the livin’ god. The music stopped, and the women were dead dumb an’ I crooked my legs like a shepherd on a china basin, an’ I did the ghost-waggle with my feet as I had done ut at the rig’mental theatre many times, an’ I slid acrost the width av that temple in front av the she-god tootlin’ on the beer bottle.’
‘Wot did you toot?’ demanded Ortheris the practical.
‘Me? Oh!’ Mulvaney sprang up, suiting the action to the word, and sliding gravely in front of us, a dilapidated but imposing deity in the half light. ‘I sang —
’Only say
You’ll be Mrs. Brallaghan.
Don’t say nay,
Charmin’ Judy Callaghan.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 215