In The Permanent Way Part 12

Nevertheless, the parties to the suit must not be allowed to starve meanwhile, and if they took equal shares surely that would be just?

The rain now fell in torrents, and the _kikar_-bush scarcely gave him any shelter as, with a faint smile, he sat watching the brown rat at work upon the corn, and counting the number of grains the wanton teeth appropriated as their portion. For so much, and no more, would be his also. It was not a sumptuous repast, but uncooked maize requires mastication, and that took up time. So that it was dark ere he stood up, soaked through to the skin, and looked perplexedly at the long lines of twinkling lights which had sprung up around him. And hark!

what was that? It was the dinner bugle at a mess close by, followed, as by an echo, by another and another and another--quite a chorus of cheerful invitations to dinner. But Nanuk knew nothing of such feasts as were spread there in the wilderness. He had lived all his life on wheat and lentils, though, being a Sikh, he would eat wild boar or deer if it could be got, or take a tot of country spirits on occasion to make life seem less dreary. He stood listening, shivering a little with the cold, and then went on his way, since the _Lat-sahib_ must be found, the case decided, before this numbing forgetfulness crept over everything.

Sometimes he inquired of those he met. More often he did not, but wandered on aimlessly through the maze of light, driven and hustled as he had been by day. And as he wandered the bands of the various camps were playing, say, the march in "Tannhauser," or "Linger longer, Loo."

But sooner or later they all paused to break suddenly into a stave or two of another tune, as the colonel gave "The Queen" to his officers.

Of all this, again, Nanuk knew nothing. Even at the best of times, he had been ignorant as a babe unborn of anything beyond his fields, and now he remembered nothing save that he and the brown rat were suitors in a case against _Purameshwar_ and the State.

So the night pa.s.sed. It was well on into the chilliest time before the dawn, when the slumber, which comes to all the world for that last dead hour of darkness having rid him of all barriers, he found himself beneath what had been the goal of his hopes ever since he had first seen its strange white rays piercing the night--the great ball of electric light which crowned the flagstaff whereon the Standard of England hung dank and heavy; for the wind had dropped, the rain had ceased, and a thick white mist clung close even to the round bole of the mast, which was set in the centre of a stand of chrysanthemums.

The colours of the blossoms were faintly visible in the downward gleam of the light spreading in a small circle through the mist.

So far good. This was the "_Standard of Sovereignty_," no doubt--the "_Lamp of Safety_"--the guide by day and night to faithful subjects seeking justice before the king. This Nanuk understood; this he had heard of in those tales of Nausherwan and his like, told beneath the village _peepul_ tree.

Here, then, he would stay--he and the defendant--till the dawn brought a hearing. He sat down, his back to the flowers, his head buried in his knees. And as he sat, immovable, the mist gathered upon him as it had gathered in the field. But he was not thinking now what he should say to the _Lat-sahib_. He was past that.

He did not hear the jingle and clash of arms which, after a time, came through the fog, or the voice which said cheerfully--

"'Appy Noo Year, to you, mate!"

"Same to you, Tommy, and many of 'em; but it's rather you nor I, for it's chillin' to the vitals."

They were changing guards on this New Year's morning, and Private Smith, as he took his first turn under the long strip of canvas stretched as a sun-shelter between the two sentry-boxes, acknowledged the truth of his comrade's remark by beating his arms upon his breast like any cabman. Yet he was hot enough in his head, for he had been singing "Auld Lang Syne" and drinking rum for the greater part of the night, and, though sufficiently sober to pa.s.s muster on New Year's Eve, was drunk enough to be intensely patriotic. So, as he walked up and down, there was a little lilt in his step which attempted to keep time to the stave of "G.o.d Save our Gracious Queen," which he was whistling horribly out of tune. On the morrow--or, rather, to-day, since the dawn was at hand--there was to be the biggest review in which he had ever taken part; six and twenty thousand troops marching up to the Royal Standard and saluting! They had been practising it for weeks, and the thrill of it, the pride and power of it, had somehow got into Private Smith's head--with the rum. It made him take a turn beyond that strip of canvas, round the flagstaff he was supposed to guard.

"'Alt! 'oo goes there?"

The challenge rang loudly, rousing Nanuk from a dream which was scarcely less unreal than the past twelve hours of waking had been to his ignorance. He stumbled up stiffly--a head taller than the sentry--and essayed a salaam.

"'Ullo! What the devil are you doin' here? _Hut_, you n.i.g.g.e.r!

Goramighty! wot's that?"

It was the defendant, which Nanuk had brought out to salaam also, and which, alarmed at the sudden introduction, began darting about wildly at the end of its string. Private Smith fell back a step, and then pulled himself together with a violent effort, uncertain if the rat were real; but the cold night air was against him.

"Wash'er-mean?--Wash'er doin'--'ere?--Wash'er-got?" he asked, conglomerately, and Nanuk, understanding nothing, went down on his knees the better to untie the knot in the corner of his blanket.

"_Poggle_,"[26] commented Private Smith, recovering himself as he looked down at the heap of maize, the defendant, and the old man talking about _Purameshvar_. Then, being in a benevolent mood, he wagged his head sympathetically. "Pore old Johnny! wot's 'e want, with 'is rat and 'is popcorn? Fine lookin' old chap, though--but we licked them Sickies, and, by gum! we'll lick 'em again, if need be!"

[Footnote 26: _Pagul_ = mad.]

The thought made him begin to whistle once more as he bent unsteadily to look at something which glittered faintly as the old man laid it on the top of the pile of corn.

It was his son's only medal.

"Hillo!" said Private Smith, bringing himself up with a lurch, "so that is it, eh, mate? Gor-save-a-Queen! Now wot's up, sonny? 'Orse guards been a-doing wot they didn't ought to 'ave done? Well, that ain't no noos, is it, comrade? But we'll drink the old lady's 'elth all the same. Lordy! if you've bin doin' extra dooty on the rag all night you won't mind a lick o' the lap--eh? Lor' bless you!--I don'

want it. I've had as mush as me and Lee-Mitford can carry 'ome without takin' a day-tour by orderly room--Woy! you won't, won't yer? Come now, Johnny, don't be a fool--it's rum, I tell yer, and you Sickies ain't afraid o' rum. Wot! you won't drink 'er 'elth, you mutineering n.i.g.g.e.r? Then I'll make yer. Feel that--now then, "Ere's a 'elth unto'w her Majesty.'"

Perhaps it was the unmistakable p.r.i.c.k of a bayonet in his stomach, perhaps it was the equally unmistakable smell of the liquor arousing a craving for comfort in the old man, but he suddenly seized the flask which Private Smith had dragged from his pocket, and, throwing his head back, poured the contents down his throat; the action--due to his desire not to touch the bottle with his lips--giving him an almost ludicrous air of eagerness.

Private Smith burst into a roar of laughter.

"Gor-save-the-Queen!" And as he spoke the first gun of the hundred and one which are fired at daybreak on the anniversary of her Most Gracious Majesty's a.s.sumption of the t.i.tle _Kaiser-i-Hind_ boomed out sullenly through the fog.

But Nanuk did not hear it. He had stumbled to his feet and fallen sidewise to the ground.

"I gather, then," remarked the surgeon-captain precisely, "that before gun-fire this morning you found the old man in a state of collapse below the flagstaff--is this so?"

Private Smith, sober to smartness and smart to stiffness, saluted; but there was an odd trepidation on his face. "Yes, sir--I done my best for 'im, sir. I put 'im in the box, sir, and give 'im my greatcoat, and I rub 'is 'ands and feet, sir. I done my level best for 'im, not being able, you see, sir, to go off guard. I couldn't do no more."

"You did very well, my man; but if you had happened to have some stimulant--any alcohol, for instance."

Private Smith's very smartness seemed to leave him in a sudden slackness of relief. "Which it were a tot of rum, sir, as I 'appened to 'ave in my greatcoat pocket. It done 'im no 'arm, sir, did it?"

The surgeon-captain smiled furtively. "It saved his life, probably; but you might have mentioned it before. How much did he take?"

"About 'arf a pint, sir--more nor less." Private Smith spoke under his breath with an attempt at regret; then he became loquacious. "Beggin'

your pardon, sir, but I was a bit on myself, and 'e just poured it down like as it was milk, and then 'e tumbled over and I thought 'e was dead, and it sobered me like. So I done my level best for 'im all through."

Perhaps he had; for old Nanuk Singh found a comfortable spot in which to spend his remaining days when the regimental doolie carried him that New Year's morning from the flagstaff to the hospital. He lay ill of rheumatic fever for weeks, and when he recovered it was to find himself and his rat quite an inst.i.tution among the gaunt, listless convalescents waiting for strength in their long dressing-gowns. The story of how the old Sikh had drunk the Queen's health has a.s.sumed gigantic proportions under Private Smith's care, and something in the humour and the pathos of it tickled the fancy of his hearers, who, when the unfailing phrase, "An' so I done my level best for him, I did," came to close the recital, would turn to the old man and say:

"Pore old Johnny--an' Gord knows what 'e wanted with 'is rat and 'is popcorn!"

That was true, since Nauuk Singh did not remember even the name of his own village; and, though he still talked about the plaintiff and the defendant, _Purameshwar_ and the State, he was apparently content to await his chance of a hearing at another and greater durbar.

THE BLUE-THROATED G.o.d

We sat after lunch in the stern of the steam launch watching the bridge grow from the semblance of a caterpillar hung across the horizon between cl.u.s.ters of temples and _topes_, to that of some monstrous skeleton whose vaulting ribs rose high overhead into the pale sky.

Bannerman and I had come out from England together, and come up-country together; I to take up work at the bridge, he on a sporting tour, with letters of introduction to the chief engineer. We had been doing the sights of the native city, and now, in company with several officials of sorts, were on our way home to the reaches above. And as we surged through the yellow-brown flood we talked vaguely and airily of old G.o.ds and new, of Siva's religion of stern reality, and Krishna's pleasure-loving cult.

"You should read _Prem Sagar_, sir," said Mr. Chuckerb.u.t.ty, the native a.s.sistant-engineer, aside to Bannerman, who had given his vote for the latter; "it is of much merit, containing the loves of Krishna and other cognate matter."

"It's a mere question of temperament," went on Bannerman, unheeding the interruption. "Some people are born to one thing, some to another.

I was born to enjoy myself--Hullo! what's that?"

That was a low note like a bird's, a flash in the sunlight beyond the huge pier along which we were edging our way up the current, and then a cloop like a cork.