All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil: with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones — Hubshis — whose touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs — filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers — a jemadar of mehtars (headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day’s march, and men who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a Sahib — only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon Rissala in that city — one little troop — and I would have schooled that city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon the ground. There are many mullahs (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They preached the Jehad against us. This is true — all the camp knew it. And most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed!
At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, “The reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and, once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage.” Thus we got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by terain, when we were watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a jemadar of saises (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented and added him to our service. So there were three of us — Kurban Sahib, I, and Sikander Khan — Sahib, Sikh, and Sag (dog). But the man said truly, “We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we see the Indus again.” I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan — beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine’s flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.
Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with our horses on the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably, there was one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for the most part, and upon all occasions they said, “Oah Hell!” which, in our tongue, signifies Jehannum ko jao. They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs! The Ustrelyahs, whom we met later, also spoke through their noses not little, and they were tall, dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily eyelashed like camel’s eyes — very proper men — a new brand of Sahib to me. They said on all occasions, “No fee-ah,” which in our tongue means Durro mut (“Do not be afraid”), so we called them the Durro Muts. Dark, tall men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war as war, and drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib. Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a Durro Mut in regard to horse-lifting. The Durro Muts cannot walk on their feet at all. They are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah — ”No fee-ah,” say the Durro Muts. They saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. They did not ask him to sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did substitute for one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a country full of little hills — like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they returned in the evening, the Durro Muts said, “Wallah! This is a man. Steal him!” So they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his place.
Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs’ war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with their Sahib — and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet us, and to show us purwanas (permits) from foolish English Generals who had gone that way before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed. When we were few, they hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was that they were Sahibs, and this was a Sahibs’ war. Good! But, as I understand it, when a Sahib goes to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and only those who wear that cloth may take part in the war. Good! That also I understand. But these people were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis are. They shot at their pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and exhibited purwanas, or lay in a house and said they were farmers. Even such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled those men, to be sure — fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib (the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but — no. All the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to make a loincloth. A fool’s war from first to last; for it is manifest that he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a purwana in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, “It is a Sahibs’ war. That is the order;” and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border, he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was not of that sort which they comprehended.
They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. No fee- ah! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had purwanas signed by mad Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch, for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never, never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools.
For their own honour’s sake the Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs’ wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent us into the game.
But the Durro Muts did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country thereabouts — not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that had been spared — the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, “Send half a troop, Child, and finish that house. They signal to their brethren.” And he laughed where he lay and said, “If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would not be left ten houses in all this land.” I said, “What need to leave one? This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow. Let us deal justly with them.” He laughed and curled himself up in his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan War; the second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two Black Mountain wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not count Burma, or some small things. I know when house signals to house!
I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, “One of the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night, lives in yonder house.” I said, “How dost thou know?” He said, “Because he rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib’s glasses, and from a little hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house.” I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib’s glasses from his greasy hands and cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case. Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley to use glasses — whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course of three months’ leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land for our camp. The Durro Muts moved slowly at that time. They were weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave these all in some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march. We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two thorn bushes grew on either side of the door, like babul bushes, covered with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof was all of thatch. Before the house was a valley of stones that rose to another bush-covered hill. There was an old man in the verandah — an old man with a white beard and a wart upon the left side of his neck; and a fat woman with the eyes of a swine and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man deprived of understanding. His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and the pits of his nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered and he sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the woman showed us purwanas from three General Sahibs, certifying that they were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the purwanas, Sahib. Does the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?
They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent. At last he took my arm and said, “See yonder! There is the sun on the window of the house that signalled last night. This house can see that house from here,” and he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the roof and laughed like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it were, to cover some noise. After this passed I to the back of the house on pretence to get water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on the ground, and that the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and there had dropped in the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in our tongue, saying, “Is this a good place to make tea?” and I replied, knowing what he meant, “There are over many cooks in the cook-house. Mount and go, Child.” Then I returned, and he said, smiling to the woman, “Prepare food, and when we have loosened our girths we will come in and eat;” but to his men he said in a whisper, “Ride away!” No. He did not cover the old man or the fat woman with his rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the Durro Muts, being hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and before we were in our saddles many shots came from the roof — from rifles thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones, and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house — so many shots that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding low, said, “This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the Durro Muts,” and I said, “Be quiet. Keep place!” for his place was behind me, and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through five men arow! We were not hit — not one of us — and we reached the hill of rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his saddle and said, “Look at the old man!” He stood in the verandah firing swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also — both with guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but — his fate was written at that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck him in the liver, and I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt — Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar Khan said, “Now we see the meaning of last night’s signal. Give me the rifle.” He took Kurban Sahib’s rifle — in this war of fools only the doctors carry swords — and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib turned where he lay and said, “Be still. It is a Sahibs’ war,” and Kurban Sahib put up his hand — thus; and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at the drinking his Spirit received permission….
Thus went our fight, Sahib. We Durro Muts were on a ridge working from the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open. Then they all hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men; but our men were clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always south; and the noise of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we could hear the sound of big guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan found a deep old jackal’s earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his handkerchief and some letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak — even he, a Pathan, a Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when the dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses. They gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib’s glasses, and the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently they went away in haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black slave came out and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw through the glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying, “Wounded men lie there. We shall yet get vengeance.”
About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to th
e southward, such a smoke as a burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to take a bearing across a hill, said, “At last we have burned the house of the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled.” And I said: “What need now that they have slain my child? Let me mourn.” It was a high smoke, and the old man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had accomplished the matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with water, sharpens steel well, and we took off our boots and we went down to the house and looked through the windows very softly. The old man sat reading in a book, and the woman sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on the floor with his head against her knee, and he counted his fingers and laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her life and her body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered with bare swords…. Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel, for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan prevented him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down and held up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they should be silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room, and a door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood stupidly fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and none followed him. It was a very pretty stroke — for a Pathan. They then were silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar Khan, “Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib’s sake will I defile my sword.” So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones, and said, “Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit from a General,” and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old man’s hands behind his back, and unwillingly — for he laughed in my face, and would have fingered my beard — the idiot’s. At this the woman with the swine’s eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said, “Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on the division.” And I said, “Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door.” I pushed out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees, and she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my boots and howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was a butler and would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would bear fruit. But the woman hindered me not a little with her screechings and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue, “I am childless to-night because of thy perfidy, and my child was praised among men and loved among women. He would have begotten men — not animals. Thou hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the greater.”
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 372