A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS
Life liveth but in life, and doth not roam
To other lands if all be well at home:
"Solid as ocean foam," quoth ocean foam.
The room was blue with the smoke of three pipes and a cigar. The
leave-season had opened in India, and the first-fruits on this
side of the water were "Tick" Boileau, of the 45th Bengal Cavalry,
who called on me, after three years' absence, to discuss old
things which had happened. Fate, who always does her work
handsomely, sent up the same staircase within the same hour The
Infant, fresh from Upper Burma, and he and Boileau looking out of
my window saw walking in the street one Nevin, late in a Goorkha
regiment which had been through the Black Mountain Expedition.
They yelled to him to come up, and the whole Street was aware that
they desired him to come up, and he came up, and there followed
Pandemonium in my room because we had foregathered from the ends
of the earth, and three of us were on a holiday, and none of us
were twenty-five, and all the delights of all London lay waiting
our pleasure.
Boileau took the only other chair, The Infant, by right of his
bulk, the sofa; and Nevin, being a little man, sat cross-legged on
the top of the revolving bookcase, and we all said, "Who'd ha'
thought it!" and "What are you doing here?" till speculation was
exhausted and the talk went over to inevitable "shop." Boileau was
full of a great scheme for winning a military attach‚-ship at St.
Petersburg; Nevin had hopes of the Staff College, and The Infant
had been moving heaven and earth and the Horse Guards for a
commission in the Egyptian army.
"What's the use o' that?" said Nevin, twirling round on the
bookcase.
"Oh, heaps! 'Course if you get stuck with a Fellaheen regiment,
you're sold; but if you are appointed to a Soudanese lot, you're
in clover. They are first-class fighting-men - and just think of
the eligible central position of Egypt in the next row!"
This was putting the match to a magazine. We all began to explain
the Central Asian question off-hand, flinging army corps from the
Helmund to Kashmir with more than Russian recklessness. Each of
the boys made for himself a war to his own liking, and when we had
settled all the details of Armageddon, killed all our senior
officers, handled a division apiece, and nearly torn the atlas in
two in attempts to explain our theories, Boileau needs must lift
up his voice above the clamour, and cry, "Anyhow it'll be the hell
of a row!" in tones that carried conviction far down the
staircase.
Entered, unperceived in the smoke, William the Silent. "Gen'elman
to see you, sir," said he, and disappeared, leaving in his stead
none other than Mr. Eustace Cleever. William would have introduced
the Dragon of Wantley with equal disregard of present company.
"I - I beg your pardon. I didn't know that there was anybody -
with you. -"
But it was not seemly to allow Mr. Cleever to depart; he was a
great man. The boys remained where they were, for any movement
would have choked up the little room. Only when they saw his gray
hairs they stood on their feet, and when The Infant caught the
name, he said:
"Are you - did you write that book called 'As it was in the
Beginning'?"
Mr. Cleever admitted that he had written the book.
"Then - then I don't know how to thank you, sir," said The Infant,
flushing pink. "I was brought up in the country you wrote about -
all my people live there; and I read the book in camp on the
Hlinedatalone, and I knew every stick and stone, and the dialect
too; and, by Jove! it was just like being at home and hearing the
country people talk. Nevin, you know 'As it was in the Beginning'?
So does Ti - Boileau."
Mr. Cleever has tasted as much praise, public and private, as one
man may safely swallow; but it seemed to me that the outspoken
admiration in The Infant's eyes and the little stir in the little
company came home to him very nearly indeed.
"Won't you take the sofa?" said The Infant. "I'll sit on Boileau's
chair, and -" here he looked at me to spur me to my duties as a
host; but I was watching the novelist's face. Cleever had not the
least intention of going away, but settled himself on the sofa.
Following the first great law of the Army, which says "all
property is common except money, and you've only got to ask the
next man for that," The Infant offered tobacco and drink. It was
the least he could do; but not the most lavish praise in the world
held half as much appreciation and reverence as The Infant's
simple "Say when, sir," above the long glass.
Cleever said "when," and more thereto, for he was a golden talker,
and he sat in the midst of hero-worship devoid of all taint of
self-interest. The boys asked him of the birth of his book, and
whether it was hard to write, and how his notions came to him; and
he answered with the same absolute simplicity as he was
questioned. His big eyes twinkled, he dug his long thin hands into
his gray beard and tugged it as he grew animated. He dropped
little by little from the peculiar pinching of the broader vowels
- the indefinable "euh," that runs through the speech of the
pundit caste - and the elaborate choice of words, to freely-
mouthed "ows" and "ois," and, for him at least, unfettered
colloquialisms. He could not altogether understand the boys, who
hung upon his
words so reverently. The line of the chin-strap, that still showed
white and untanned on cheekbone and jaw, the steadfast young eyes
puckered at the corners of the lids with much staring through red-
hot sunshine, the slow, untroubled breathing, and the curious,
crisp, curt speech seemed to puzzle him equally. He could create
men and women, and send them to the uttermost ends of the earth,
to help, delight, and comfort; he knew every mood of the fields,
and could interpret them to the cities, and he knew the hearts of
many in city and country, but he had hardly, in forty years, come
into contact with the thing which is called a Subaltern of the
Line. He told the boys this in his own way.
"Well, how should you?" said The Infant. "You - you're quite
different, y' see, sir."
The Infant expressed his ideas in his tone rather than his words,
but Cleever understood the compliment.
"We're only Subs," said Nevin, "and we aren't exactly the sort of
men you'd meet much in your life, I s'pose."
"That's true," said Cleever. "I live chiefly among men who write,
and paint, and sculp, and so forth. We have our own talk and our
own interests, and the outer world doesn't trouble us much."
"That must be awfully jolly," said Boileau, at a venture. "We have
our own shop, too, but 'tisn't half as interesting as yours, of
course. You know all the men who've ever done anything; and we
only knock about from place to place, and we do nothing."
"The Army's a very lazy profession if you choose to make it so,"
said Nevin. "When there's nothing going on, there is nothing going
on, and you lie up."
"Or try to get a billet somewhere, to be ready for the next show,"
said The Infant with a chuckle.
"To me," said Cleever softly, "the whole idea of warfare seems so
foreign and unnatural, so essentially vulgar, if I may say so,
that I can hardly appreciate your sensations. Of course, though,
any change from idling in garrison towns must be a godsend to
you."
Like many home-staying Englishmen, Cleever believed that the
newspaper phrase he quoted covered the whole duty of the Army
whose toils enabled him to enjoy his many-sided life in peace. The
remark was not a happy one, for Boileau had just come off the
Frontier, The Infant had been on the warpath for nearly eighteen
months, and the little red man Nevin two months before had been
sleeping under the stars at the peril of his life. But none of
them tried to explain, till I ventured to point out that they had
all seen service and were not used to idling. Cleever took in the
idea slowly.
"Seen service?" said he. Then, as a child might ask, "Tell me.
Tell me everything about everything."
"How do you mean?" said The Infant, delighted at being directly
appealed to by the great man.
"Good Heavens! How am I to make you understand, if you can't see.
In the first place, what is your age?"
"Twenty-three next July," said The Infant promptly.
Cleever questioned the others with his eyes.
"I'm twenty-four," said Nevin.
"And I'm twenty-two," said Boileau.
"And you've all seen service?"
"We've all knocked about a little bit, sir, but The Infant's the
war-worn veteran. He's had two years' work in Upper Burma," said
Nevin.
"When you say work, what do you mean, you extraordinary
creatures?"
"Explain it, Infant," said Nevin.
"Oh, keeping things in order generally, and running about after
little dakus - that's dacoits -and so on. There's nothing to
explain."
"Make that young Leviathan speak," said Cleever impatiently, above
his glass.
"How can he speak?" said I. "He's done the work. The two don't go
together. But, Infant, you're ordered to bukb."
"What about? I'll try."
"Bukb about a daur. You've been on heaps of 'em," said Nevin.
"What in the world does that mean? Has the Army a language of its
own?"
The Infant turned very red. He was afraid he was being laughed at,
and he detested talking before outsiders; but it was the author of
"As it was in the Beginning" who waited.
"It's all so new to me," pleaded Cleever; "and - and you said you
liked my book."
-
This was a direct appeal that The Infant could understand, and he
began rather flurriedly, with much slang bred of nervousness -
"Pull me up, sir, if I say anything you don't follow. About six
months before I took my leave out of Burma, I was on the
Hlinedatalone, up near the Shan States, with sixty Tommies -
private soldiers, that is - and another subaltern, a year senior
to me. The Burmese business was a subaltern's war, and our forces
were split up into little detachments, all running about the
country and trying to keep the dacoits quiet. The dacoits were
having a first-class time, y' know -filling women up with kerosene
and setting 'em alight, and burning villages, and crucifying
people."
The wonder in Eustace Cleever's eyes deepened. He could not quite
realise that the cross still existed in any form.
"Have you ever seen a crucifixion?" said he.
"Of course not. 'Shouldn't have allowed it if I had; but I've seen
the corpses. The dacoits had a trick of sending a crucified corpse
down the river on a raft, just to show they were keeping their
tail up and enjoying themselves. Well, that was the kind of people
I had to deal with."
"Alone?" said Cleever. Solitude of the soul he could understand -
none better - but he had never in the body moved ten miles from
his fellows.
"I had my men, but the rest of it was pretty much alone. The
nearest post that could give me orders was fifteen miles away, and
we used to heliograph to them, and they used to give us orders
same way - too many orders."
"Who was your C. 0.?" said Boileau.
"Bounderby - Major. Pukka Bounderby; more Bounder than pukka. He
went out up Bhamo way. Shot, or cut down, last year," said The
Infant.
"What are these interludes in a strange tongue?" said Cleever to
me.
"Professional information - like the Mississippi pilots' talk,"
said I. "He did not approve of his major, who died a violent
death. Go on, Infant."
"Far too many orders. You couldn't take the Tommies out for a two
days' daur -that's expedition - without being blown up for not
asking leave. And the whole country was humming with dacoits. I
used to send out spies, and act on their information. As soon as a
man came in and told me of a gang in hiding, I'd take thirty men
with some grub, and go out and look for them, while the other
subaltern lay doggo in camp."
"Lay! Pardon me, but how did he lie?" said Cleever.
"Lay doggo - lay quiet, with the other thirty men. When I came
back, he'd take out his half of the men, and have a good time of
his own."
"Who was he?" said Boileau.
"Carter-Deecey, of the Aurungabadis. Good chap, but too
zubberdusty, and went bokhar four days out of seven. He's gone out
too. Don't interrupt a man."
Cleever looked helplessly at me.
"The other subaltern," I translated swiftly, "came from a native
regiment, and was overbearing in his demeanour. He suffered much
from the fever of the country, and is now dead. Go on, Infant."
"After a bit, we got into trouble for using the men on frivolous
occasions, and so I used to put my signaller under arrest to
prevent him reading the helio-orders. Then I'd go out and leave a
message to be sent an hour after I got clear of the camp,
something like this: 'Received important information; start in an
hour, unless countermanded.' If I was ordered back, it didn't much
matter. I swore the C. 0.'s watch was wrong, or something, when I
came back. The Tommies enjoyed the fun, and - Oh, yes, there was
one Tommy who was the bard of the detachment. He used to make up
verses on everything that happened."
"What sort of verses?" said Cleever.
"Lovely verses; and the Tommies used to sing 'em. There was one
song with a chorus, and it said something like this." The Infant
dropped into the true barrack-room twang:
"Theebaw, the Burma king, did a very foolish thing,
When 'e mustered 'ostile forces in ar-rai,
'E little thought that we, from far across the sea,
Would send our armies up to Mandalai!"
"0 gorgeous !" said Cleever. "And how magnificently direct! The
notion of a regimental bard is new to me, but of course it must be
so."
"He was awfly popular with the men," said The Infant. "He had them
all down in rhyme as soon as ever they had done anything. He was a
great bard. He was always ready with an elegy when we picked up a
Boh - that's a leader of dacoits."
"How did you pick him up?" said Cleever.
"Oh! shot him if he wouldn't surrender."
"You! Have you shot a man?"
There was a subdued chuckle from all three boys, and it dawned on
the questioner that one experience in life which was denied to
himself, and he weighed the souls of men in a balance, had been
shared by three very young gentlemen of engaging appearance. He
turned round on Nevin, who had climbed to the top of the bookcase
and was sitting cross-legged as before.
"And have you, too?"
"Think so," said Nevin, sweetly. "In the Black Mountain. He was
rolling cliffs on to my half-company, and spoiling our formation.
I took a rifle from a man, and brought him down at the second
shot."
"Good Heavens! And how did you feel afterwards?"
"Thirsty. I wanted a smoke, too."
Cleever looked at Boileau - the youngest. Surely his hands were
guiltless of blood.
Boileau shook his head and laughed. "Go on, Infant," said he.
"And you too?" said Cleever.
"Fancy so. It was a case of cut, cut or be cut, with me; so I cut
- one. I couldn't do any more, sir."
Cleever looked as though he would like to ask many questions, but
The Infant swept on in the full tide of his tale.
"Well, we were called insubordinate young whelps at last, and
strictly forbidden to take the Tommies out any more without
orders. I wasn't sorry, because Tommy is such an exacting sort of
creature. He wants to live as though he were in barracks all the
time. I was grubbing on fowls and boiled corn, but the Tommies
wanted their pound of fresh meat, and their half ounce of this,
and their two ounces of t'other thing, and they used to come to me
and badger me for plug tobacco when we were four days in jungle. I
said: 'I can get you Burma tobacco, but I don't keep a canteen up
my sleeve.' They couldn't see it. They wanted all the luxuries of
the season, confound 'em!"
"You were alone when you were dealing with these men?" said
Cleever, watching The Infant's face under the palm of his hand. He
was receiving new ideas, and they seemed to trouble him.
"Of course, unless you count the mosquitoes. They were nearly as
big as the men. After I had to lie doggo I began to look for
something to do, and I was great pals with a man called Hicksey in
the Police, the best man that ever stepped on earth; a first-class
man."
Cleever nodded applause. He knew how to appreciate enthusiasm.
"Hicksey and I were as thick as thieves. He had some Burma mounted
police - rummy chaps, armed with sword and Snider carbine. They
rode punchy Burma ponies, with string stirrups, red cloth saddles,
and red bell-rope headstalls. Hicksey used to lend me six or eight
of them when I asked him - nippy little devils, keen as mustard.
But they told their wives too much, and all my plans got known,
till I learned to give false marching orders overnight, and take
the men to quite a different village in the morning. Then we used
to catch the simple daku before breakfast, and made him very sick.
It's a ghastly country on the Hlinedatalone; all bamboo jungle,
with paths about four feet wide winding through it. The daku knew
all the paths, and potted at us as we came round a corner; but the
mounted police knew the paths as well as the daku, and we used to
go stalking 'em in and out. Once we flushed 'em, the men on the
ponies had the advantage of the men on foot. We held all the
country absolutely quiet for ten miles round, in about a month.
Then we took Boh Na-ghee, Hicksey and I and the civil officer.
That was a lark!"
"I think I am beginning to understand a little," said Cleever. "It
was a pleasure to you to administer and fight?"
"Rather! There's nothing nicer than a satisfactory little
expedition, when you find your plans fit together, and your
information's teek - correct, you know, and the whole sub-chiz - I
mean, when everything works out like formulae on a blackboard.
Hicksey had all the information about the Boh. He had been burning
villages and murdering people right and left, and cutting up
Government convoys, and all that. He was lying doggo in a village
about fifteen miles off, waiting to get a fresh gang together. So
we arranged to take thirty mounted police, and turn him out before
he could plunder into our newly-settled villages. At the last
minute, the civil officer in our part of the world thought he'd
assist at the performance."
"Who was he?" said Nevin.
"His name was Dennis," said The Infant slowly. "And we'll let it
stay so. He's a better man now than he was then."
"But how old was the civil power?" said Cleever. "The situation is
developing itself."
"He was about six-and-twenty, and he was awf'ly clever. He knew a
lot of things, but I don't think he was quite steady enough for
dacoit-hunting. We started overnight for Boh Na-ghee's village,
and we got there just before morning, without raising an alarm.
Dennis had turned out armed to his teeth - two revolvers, a
carbine, and all sorts of things. I was talking to Hicksey about
posting the men, and Dennis edged his pony in between us, and
said, 'What shall I do? What shall I do? Tell me what to do, you
fellows.' We didn't take much notice; but his pony tried to bite
me in the leg, and I said, 'Pull out a bit, old man, till we've
settled the attack.' He kept edging in, and fiddling with his
reins and his revolvers, and saying, 'Dear me! Dear me! Oh, dear
me! What do you think I'd better do?' The man was in a deadly
funk, and his teeth were chattering."
"I sympathise with the civil power," said Cleever. "Continue,
young Clive."
"The fun of it was, that he was supposed to be our superior
officer. Hicksey took a good look at him, and told him to attach
himself to my party. Beastly mean of Hicksey, that. The chap kept
on edging in and bothering, instead of asking for some men and
taking up his own position, till I got angry, and the carbines
began popping on the other side of the village. Then I said, 'For
God's sake be quiet, and sit down where you are! If you see
anybody come out of the village, shoot at him.' I knew he couldn't
hit a hayrick at a yard. Then I took my men over the garden wall -
over the palisades, y' know - somehow or other, and the fun began.
Hicksey had found the Boh in bed under a mosquito-curtain, and he
had taken a flying jump on to him."
"A flying jump!" said Cleever. "Is that also war?"
"Yes," said The Infant, now thoroughly warmed. "Don't you know how
you take a flying jump on to a fellow's head at school, when he
snores in the dormitory? The Boh was sleeping in a bedful of
swords and pistols, and Hicksey came down like Zazel through the
netting, and the net got mixed up with the pistols and the Boh and
Hicksey, and they all rolled on the floor together. I laughed till
I couldn't stand, and Hicksey was cursing me for not helping him;
so I left him to fight it out and went into the village. Our men
were slashing about and firing, and so were the dacoits, and in
the thick of the mess some ass set fire to a house, and we all had
to clear out. I froze on to the nearest daku and ran to the
palisade, shoving him in front of me. He wriggled loose and
bounded over the other side. I came after him; but when I had one
leg one side and one leg the other of the palisade, I saw that the
daku had fallen flat on Dennis's head. That man had never moved
from where I left him. They rolled on the ground together, and
Dennis's carbine went off and nearly shot me. The daku picked
himself up and ran, and Dennis buzzed his carbine after him, and
it caught him on the back of his head and knocked him silly. You
never saw anything so funny in your life. I doubled up on the top
of the palisade and hung there, yelling with laughter. But Dennis
began to weep like anything. 'Oh, I've killed a man,' he said.
'I've killed a man, and I shall never know another peaceful hour
in my life. Is he dead? Oh, is he dead? Good Lord, I've killed a
man!' I came down and said, 'Don't be a fool;' but he kept on
shouting, 'Is he dead?' till I could have kicked him. The daku was
only knocked out of time with the carbine. He came to after a bit,
and I said, 'Are you hurt much?' He groaned and said, 'No.' His
chest was all cut with scrambling over the palisade. 'The white
man's gun didn't do that,' he said; 'I did that, and I knocked the
white man over.' Just like a Burman, wasn't it? But Dennis
wouldn't be happy at any price. He said:
'Tie up his wounds. He'll bleed to death. Oh, he'll bleed to
death!' 'Tie 'em up yourself,' I said, 'if you're so anxious.' 'I
can't touch him,' said Dennis, 'but here's my shirt.' He took off
his shirt, and fixed the braces again over his bare shoulders. I
ripped the shirt up, and bandaged the dacoit quite professionally.
He was grinning at Dennis all the time; and Dennis's haversack was
lying on the ground, bursting full of sandwiches. Greedy hog! I
took some, and offered some to Dennis. 'How can I eat?' he said.
'How can you ask me to eat? His very blood is on your hands now,
and you're eating my sandwiches!' 'All right,' I said; 'I'll give
'em to the daku.' So I did, and the little chap was quite pleased,
and wolfed 'em down like one o'clock."
Cleever brought his hand down on the table with a thump that made
the empty glasses dance. "That's Art!" he said. "Flat, flagrant
mechanism! Don't tell me that happened on the spot!"
The pupils of The Infant's eyes contracted to two pin-points. "I
beg your pardon," he said slowly and stiffly, "but I am telling
this thing as it happened."
Cleever looked at him a moment. "My fault entirely," said he; "I
should have known. Please go on."
"Hicksey came out of what was left of the village with his
prisoners and captives, all neatly tied up. Boh Na-ghee was first,
and one of the villagers, as soon as he found the old ruffian
helpless, began kicking him quietly. The Boh stood it as long as
he could, and then groaned, and we saw what was going on. Hicksey
tied the villager up and gave him a half a dozen, good, with a
bamboo, to remind him to leave a prisoner alone. You should have
seen the old Boh grin. Oh! but Hicksey was in a furious rage with
everybody. He'd got a wipe over the elbow that had tickled up his
funny-bone, and he was rabid with me for not having helped him
with the Boh and the mosquito-net. I had to explain that I
couldn't do anything. If you'd seen 'em both tangled up together
on the floor in one kicking cocoon, you'd have laughed for a week.
Hicksey swore that the only decent man of his acquaintance was the
Boh, and all the way to camp Hicksey was talking to the Boh, and
the Boh was complaining about the soreness of his bones. When we
got back, and had had a bath, the Boh wanted to know when he was
going to be hanged. Hicksey said he couldn't oblige him on the
spot, but had to send him to Rangoon. The Boh went down on his
knees, and reeled off a catalogue of his crimes - he ought to have
been hanged seventeen times over, by his own confession - and
implored Hicksey to settle the business out of hand. 'If I'm sent
to Rangoon,' said he, 'they'll keep me in jail all my life, and
that is a death every time the sun gets up or the wind blows.' But
we had to send him to Rangoon, and, of course, he was let off down
there, and given penal servitude for life. When I came to Rangoon
I went over the jail - I had helped to fill it,
y' know - and the old Boh was there, and he spotted me at once. He
begged for some opium first, and I tried to get him some, but that
was against the rules. Then he asked me to have his Sentence
changed to death, because he was afraid of being sent to the
Andamans. I couldn't do that either, but I tried to cheer him, and
told him how things were going up-country, and the last thing he
said was - 'Give my compliments to the fat white man who jumped on
me. If I'd been awake I'd have killed him.' I wrote that to
Hicksey next mail, and - and that's all. I'm 'fraid I've been
gassing awf'ly, sir."
Cleever said nothing for a long time. The Infant looked
uncomfortable. He feared that, misled by enthusiasm, he had filled
up the novelist's time with unprofitable recital of trivial
anecdotes.
Then said Cleever, "I can't understand. Why should you have seen
and done all these things before you have cut your wisdom-teeth?"
"Don't know," said The Infant apologetically. "I haven't seen much
- only Burmese jungle."
"And dead men, and war, and power, and responsibility," said
Cleever, under his breath. "You won't have any sensations left at
thirty, if you go on as you have done. But I want to hear more
tales - more tales!" He seemed to forget that even subalterns
might have engagements of their own.
"We're thinking of dining out somewhere - the lot of us - and
going on to the Empire afterwards," said Nevin, with hesitation.
He did not like to ask Cleever to come too. The invitation might
be regarded as perilously near to "cheek."
And Cleever, anxious not to wag a gray beard unbidden among boys
at large, said nothing on his side.
Boileau solved the little difficulty by blurting out: "Won't you
come too, sir?"
Cleever almost shouted "Yes," and while he was being helped into
his coat continued to murmur "Good Heavens!" at intervals in a way
that the boys could not understand.
"I don't think I've been to the Empire in my life," said he; "but
- what is my life after all? Let us go."
They went out with Eustace Cleever, and I sulked at home because
they had come to see me, but had gone over to the better man;
which was humiliating. They packed him into a cab with utmost
reverence, for was he not the author of "As it was in the
Beginning," and a person in whose company it was an honour to go
abroad? From all I gathered later, he had taken less interest in
the performance before him than in their conversations, and they
protested with emphasis that he was "as good a man as they make;
knew what a man was driving at almost before he said it; and yet
he's so damned simple about things any man knows." That was one of
many comments.
At midnight they returned, announcing that they were "highly
respectable gondoliers," and that oysters and stout were what they
chiefly needed. The eminent novelist was still with them, and I
think he was calling them by their shorter names. I am certain
that he said he had been moving in worlds not realised, and that
they had shown him the Empire in a new light.
Still sore at recent neglect, I answered shortly, "Thank Heaven we
have within the land ten thousand as good as they," and when he
departed, asked him what he thought of things generally.
He replied with another quotation, to the effect that though
singing was a remarkably fine performance, I was to be quite sure
that few lips would be moved to song if they could find a
sufficiency of kissing.
Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator and colourman
in words, was blaspheming his own Art, and would be sorry for this
in the morning.
