A SAHIBS' WAR
THE RUNNERS
_News!_
What is the word that they tell now--now--now!
The little drums beating in the bazaars?
_They_ beat (among the buyers and sellers)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
God sends a gnat against Nimrud_!"
Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
_News!_
At the edge of the crops--now--now--where the well-wheels are halted,
One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
_They_ beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
God prepares an ill day for Nimrud_!"
Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
_News!_
By the fires of the camps--now--now--where the travellers meet
Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
_They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!"
Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
_News!_
Under the shadow of the border-peels--now--now--now!
In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
_They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
Shall we go up against Nimrud_?"
Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
_News!_
Bring out the heaps of grain--open the account-books again!
Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
Eat and lie under the trees--pitch the police-guarded fair-grounds,
O dancers!
Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
_They_ beat (among all the peoples)
_"Now--now--now!
God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
God has given Victory to Nimrud!"
Let us abide under Nimrud_!"
O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
A SAHIBS' WAR
Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the _rêl_
from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be
paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a--trooper of the Gurgaon
Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab
Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh--a trooper
of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there
_any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon
Rissala going about his business in this devil's devising of a country,
where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect
paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?... God be thanked, here is such a Sahib!
Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that
my name is Umr Singh; I am--I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I
have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him
herd me with these black Kaffirs!... Yes, I will sit by this truck till
the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who
does not understand our tongue.
* * * * *
What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the Heaven-
born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born's servant. Will the
Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty
truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus--for the sun is hot,
though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will
arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
_terain_ for Eshtellenbosch....
The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen's by
--by--I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal
Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence
know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different
matter. The Sahib's nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That
was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout
nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the
Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after
all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay--nay;
the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long
ago, but--but it is true--mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use
for their coats, and--the Sahib has sharp eyes--that black mark is such a
mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says
that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the
Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of
the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib's servant for
nearly a year--bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says
that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib--
my Kurban Sahib--dead these three months!
* * * * *
Young--of a reddish face--with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father
before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father's time
when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of
Sikhs--he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to
his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban
Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first--nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I
remember--and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that
day; and _he_ was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground
with his ayah--all in white, Sahib--laughing at the end of our drill. And
his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I
dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine--eighteen--twenty-five--
twenty-seven years gone now--Kurban Sahib--my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were
great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying
is. He called me Big Umr Singh--Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak
plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but
he knew all our troopers by name--every one.... And he went to England,
and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk,
and cracking his finger-joints--back to his own regiment and to me. He had
not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen-
eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his first
years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr Singh, and
when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that
was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything--about war, and
women, and money, and advancement, and such all.
We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box-
wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city
of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the
Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big
guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how
a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log.
The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There
was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in
a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness
has created the _dak_ (the post), and that for an anna or two all things
become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was
a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that
the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us
asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of
those signs. _Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This
Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, "There is no haste.
Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country
round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so.
It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one
place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or
everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True--true--
true!"
So did matters ripen--a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
think--and the Sahib sees this, too?--that it is foolish to make an army
and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the
Tochi--the men of the Tirah--the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times.
_We_ could have done it all so gently--so gently.
Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, "Ho, Dada, I am sick,
and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months." And he winked, and
I said, "I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my
uniform?" He said, "Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to
Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis" (niggers). Mark
his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to
get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our
officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part
in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was clever. There was no whisper
of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my
Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am--I was--of that rank for which a
chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, "My child goes
sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also."
And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
said, "Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_"; and he called me an old devil--
jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban
Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last
he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe
again. My Sahib back again--aie me!
So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead.
Then I said to Kurban Sahib, "What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give
me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for
dinner." Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson's Hotel, and that
night I prepared Kurban Sahib's razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of
the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my
uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon
the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given
me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and
Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He
said, "They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will
foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they
are white." He said, "There is but one fault in this war, and that is that
the Government have not employed _us_, but have made it altogether a
Sahibs' war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be
taken." True talk--true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
Sahib said, "Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for
employment fit for a sick man." I put on the uniform of my rank and went to
the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihâl Seyn, [Footnote: Mount Nelson?]
and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place--is
it known to the Sahib?--which was already full of the swords and baggage
of officers. It is fuller now--dead men's kit all! I was careful to secure
a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back to
the Punjab.
Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew,
and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to
oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron-
leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr Singh. So I said, speaking
as we do--we did--when none was near, "Thou art a groom and I am a grass-
cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?" At this he laughed, saying,
"It is the way to better things. Have patience, Father." (Aye, he called me
father when none were by.) "This war ends not to-morrow nor the next day.
I have seen the new Sahibs," he said, "and they are fathers of owls--all--
all--all!"
So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the
service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed
without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen
a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all
knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans--they are
just like those vultures up there, Sahib--they always follow slaughter.
And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs--Muzbees, though--and some
Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and
Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.
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 the 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."
I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot's neck, and flung the end
over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well
see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the
spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the
bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, "No.
It is a Sahibs' war." And I said, "Wait a while, Child, and thou shalt
sleep." But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and said,
"No. It is a Sahibs' war." And Sikandar Khan said, "Is it too heavy?" and
set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned to tally on the rope,
the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm's reach of us, and his face
was very angry, and a third time he said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And a
little wind blew out the lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan's teeth chatter
in his head.
So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for
we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water-
bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said,
"We are absolved from our vow." So I drank, and together we waited for the
dawn in that place where we stood--the ropes in our hand. A little after
third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off,
and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house,
and the roof of the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before
the windows. And I said, "What of the wounded Boer-log within?" And
Sikandar Khan said, "We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs' war. Stand
still." Then came a second shell--good line, but short--and scattered dust
upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick shells from
the gun that speaks like a stammerer--yes, pompom the Sahibs call it--and
the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin of an old man
mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan
said, "If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not
prevent it." And he passed to the back of the house and presently came
back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk
upright. And I said, "What hast thou done?" And he said, "I have neither
spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy." And I
said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay
still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree,
and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches
in the roof--one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud
noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have
crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees,
and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide!
Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. There is no
order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my
words. Yet they abode and they lived.
Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I
knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would
understand; and at the end I said, "An order has reached us here from the
dead that this is a Sahibs' war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to
witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who
have made me childless." Then I gave him the ropes and fell down
senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for
the little opium.
They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two
nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib,
saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the _Durro Muts_--
very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They buried my
Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge
overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and
Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles,
which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the
grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I
wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a
remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I divided equally with him one of Kurban
Sahib's handkerchiefs--not the silk ones, for those were given him by a
certain woman; and I also gave him a button from a coat, and a little
steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed
them and put them into his bosom. The rest I have here in that little
bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town--some four
shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not wait when we went
up-country--and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the
Punjab. For my child is dead--my baba is dead!... I would have come away
before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far
from the rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come
to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
what they called me--orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went
up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a troop
there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut an
inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a
jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the
inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the
jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:--
In Memory of
WALTER DECIES CORBYN
Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
Treacherously shot near this place by
The connivance of the late
HENDRIK DIRK UYS
A Minister of God
Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
And Piet his son,
This little work
Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
Was accomplished in partial
And inadequate recognition of their loss
By some men who loved him
_Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And,
Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they
call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing
at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is
like the desert here--or my hand--or my heart. Empty, Sahib--all empty!
