The Road to Mandalay Part 39

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE TUG OF WAR

One evening, after they had been several days at sea, as Sophy and Shafto were gazing down at the steerage pa.s.sengers, she said:

"I have noticed such an odd person watching you--he looks as if he knew you!"

"Knew me!" repeated Shafto. "What is he like?"

"A tall, broad-shouldered, lanky man--there he is, leaning over the side, wearing a blue serge suit and a soft felt hat."

Shafto stared for a moment, then he said:

"By George! I _do_ know him--though I can hardly believe my eyes.

I'll go and speak to him and find out what this means," and he hurried away below.

"Hullo, Mung Baw!" he exclaimed. "Say, this is something like a surprise! What are you doing here?"

"Much the same as yourself, sir. The Tug of War is drawing us all home. I have left Mung Baw and the yellow robe behind me, and I'm now Corporal Michael Ryan. I'm going into the Army again. Why, I'm only thirty-four when all's said and done. Of course, the shaven head ages a fellow, but I'll grow me hair on me pa.s.sage home and, maybe, a moustache as well; someone told me that kerosene oil is a grand thing.

And you are going to join up too, sir?"

"I hope so; I put in two terms at Sandhurst, so I shall have a try. I should like to get into the Flying Corps."

"And what will herself say," with a glance towards Sophy on the main deck, "to all this fighting and flying?"

"Oh, Miss Leigh won't stand in my way--she intends to look for a job, too. Tell me, Michael, do you really believe they will take you back into the Service after your adventure in Upper Burma--and seven years'

absence without leave?"

"Well, since ye ask me, sir, in my opinion they might do worse; annyhow, I'll have a good try. I might get a sort of doctor's certificate--_mental_ you know. I'm a first-cla.s.s shot, though naturally a bit out of practice; and very hefty with the bayonet. I'd like well to stir them Germans up, ever since one great ugly brute went out of his way to give me a kick. I was black and blue for weeks. Did you hear them the day before they were took off--just screeching mad, shoutin' and drinkin', as if the world was their own. Well, annyhow, I can enlist as full private; I'm sound in wind and limb and, I tell ye, we want all the men we can get, for I heard them Germans talkin' very big in Rangoon, saying they'd eat us all up within the next three months--body, sleeves and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs!"

"Easier said than done," rejoined Shafto; "although they have a splendid army--and thousands of big guns."

"I'd like well to have a hand in real fighting--none of your autumn manoeuvres, but the proper thing; and after I put the war over, I'll go and see Ireland. It's strange, although I'm Irish, I've never put a toe in the country, and never been nearer it than a black native. My father's people were reared in the Galtees; it's my Irish blood that's uppermost now and driving me home. I've often heard the boys talkin'

of the grand purple mountains, the wonderful greenery everywhere, and the lovely soft, moist air."

"Well, Michael, I hope you may see it all some day. What put it into your head to throw off the yellow robe and take this sudden start?"

"It was the barrack talk, sir; I heard them chaps cursin' and groanin'

that they were stuck fast in Rangoon and had no chance of gettin' a look in, and says I to myself, what's to hinder _you_ from goin'?"

"But how about the pa.s.sage money?" inquired Shafto. "I thought you were vowed to poverty and had nothing in your wooden bowl?"

"I had the ruby that you gave back to me. I believe it was a rare fine stone. I had it in me mind to offer it to the PaG.o.da; it was well I waited, as things turned out; a friend sold it for me in the bazaar--he got four hundred pounds of English money. He says it was worth some thousands; it was bought for a PaG.o.da, annyhow, and I have a nice big sum lodged in a London bank, and when the war is over, please G.o.d, it will help to settle me in a small place in Ireland. I took me pa.s.sage and bought some kit, and I have a few pounds in hand--so that I won't be stranded. At first I felt the clothes terrible awkward, especially the trousers, after living in a petticoat so long; and I did not know what to be doin' with a knife and fork--and leadin' such a quiet, cramped sort of life I lost the use of meself; but I tramped up and down the decks for a couple of hours of a morning, and a nice young fellow in the pantry has lent me a pair of dumb-bells. By the time I get to England I'll be well set up with a black moustache--and mabbe, ye'll hardly know me!"

"How did you get rid of the yellow robe?"

"Oh, easy enough, and without any ceremony of disgrace whatever.

Shure, half the Burmans you meet have worn it for, p'r'aps, a year or two--but it's not everyone who has the vocation."

"I can't understand your ever taking to it."

"Can ye not, sir?" rejoined the _ex-pongye_, laying a muscular hand on the bulwark and fixing a far away, abstracted gaze upon the lazy green sea. "I may as well tell ye that the first story I made out to ye was not altogether the truth. I had in me mind a mental reservation. I just slipped out of Army life and hid meself in the forests--all along of a little girlie." His lower lip trembled as he added: "She died, sir--and I was just broke over it."

"Oh!" exclaimed Shafto. "Well, such things have happened before."

"It was like this, sir," now turning and fixing a pair of tragic dark eyes on his companion, "I was engaged to be married--same as yourself.

She was the daughter of a sergeant in the a.r.s.enal in Madras; her father and mine were old friends, and when mine was killed in Afghanistan, me mother just dwindled away and broke her heart. Sergeant Fairon and his wife was real good to me and took me home; she mothered me and he 'belted' me, and they helped to start me for the Lawrence Asylum Orphanage. I was about eight years of age then, and this little girl was two. After a good spell I come back to St. George's Fort, a grown-up man and a corporal. Polly, she was grown up, too--and the prettiest girl you could see in a thousand miles; we fell in love with one another, and Sergeant Fairon had a sort of wish for me, being, they said, the very spit of me own father, and though I knew in me heart Polly was a million times too good for me and I was not fit to wipe her shoes, still, I made bold to ask him for her and he said 'Yes.' I knew I'd get permission to marry, for my name was never in the defaulters'

book, and Polly was fair as a lily--not one of your yellow 'Cranies'

the Colonel was so dead set agin. Well, I was just too happy to be lucky, saving up me pay and Mrs. Fairon buying a few bits of house linen for us, and Polly making her trousseau, when the regiment was shifted all of a sudden from Madras to Mandalay and our plans were knocked on the head."

"Yes, that was bad luck," said Shafto sympathetically.

"Still and all, I was full of hope, expecting my stripes and hearing every mail from Polly, when one day the letter corporal handed me an envelope with a deep black edge; it was from Sergeant Fairon telling me Polly was dead; taken off in three hours with cholera. He enclosed half a letter she was writing to me when she was called. Well, sir, I would not believe it! No; I held out agin it for days; but of course I had to give in. At first the grief was just a little scratch; but every day the pain went deeper and deeper, as if some one was turning a knife in my heart. To think I'd never look upon her again or hear her voice, and her gay laugh, it seemed impossible--but, in the end, I _believed_, and I felt as if I was groping about in black darkness!

What had I to live for? What was the good of going on?

"At times I thought of my rifle, but I put that idea aside because of the regiment and the scandal in the newspapers--still, I was always meditating some way _out_. I think now, if I'd opened my mind to one of my pals, it would have been easier, and I'd not have felt it so cruel hard; but somehow I'd never breathed the name of Polly to one of them--I held her like a holy thing apart. I could not stand the talk and the coa.r.s.e chaff of the barrack-room, so I kept my trouble sealed up, till at last it grew too big for me, and I made up my mind to do away with myself, where no one would be a penny the wiser. I got a couple of days' leave--by way of seeing a pal at Tonghoo--and I went up the river and away into the Jungles, and wandered about looking for some venomous reptile to put an end to me in a natural way! But, if you'll believe me, sir, divil a bite could I get--not after searching for half a day; and, av coorse, had I been looking without intention, I'd have found dozens.

"What with walking miles in the blazing sun and nothing to eat, I believe I fell down with a stroke, and some wood-cutters found me and carried me into their village--a big place with a great thorn hedge and gates to keep off the Dacoits. The head man they call a Thugyi took me over, and his women nursed me; he was a rich fellow with four yoke of oxen, and so no expense was spared; and there I lived for many a long day, very strange and out of myself. I could not remember who I was, nor where I came from; all the clothes I had to me name was a shirt and a pair of drawers. By degrees, thanks to great charity and kindness, I come round, I remembered everything only too well, and then I buried Mick Ryan in the jungle and became a _pongye_. The peace and quiet ate into me very bones, and I took on the yellow robe. The rest and the holy life tamed me and did y soul good; and many an evening when I'd be roaming in the forests, among the splendid tall trees and beautiful flowers, with the birds and animals around me so tame and at their ease, I'd have a feelin' that Polly was walkin' alongside of me, the face on her shining with the light of heaven! But," drawing himself erect, "excuse me, sir, for bothering you with all this foolish, crazy sort of talk."

"Not at all," said Shafto. "Thank you so much for telling me your story. I am truly sorry for you, Ryan; it was hard lines losing your Polly. Do you mind telling me some more? After you had recovered your memory and become a _pongye_, what happened next?"

"Well, after a while, I chanced to see English papers and hear outside news, an' I got a cast in a cargo boat down the river. I had a sort o'

longin' to see the soldiers, the love of the Service is in me blood, so now and then I was drawn to Rangoon to get a sight of the khaki and to hear the barrack yarns. Ye see, one quarter of me is Cingalese--I suppose me grandfather on one side was a Buddhist, and that is how _pongye_ life came so pleasant and aisy to me. The three quarters of me is an Irish soldier, an' every day the soldier within me grows an'

the _pongye_ dies away."

"And you will never return to Burma?"

"Never, no. I have laid out to go to Ireland and spend the rest of my time there when the war is over."

"Ah--I wonder when the war will be over?" said Shafto.

"G.o.d alone knows!" exclaimed the _pongye_. "They were talking in the bazaar of the end coming about Christmas. I think meself it will be a long business and an awkward business, too."

"So do I," agreed Shafto, recalling the sage remarks of George Gregory.

"Yes, it's like a light stuck in an old thatch! We'll have half the world in it before long, an' the greatest blaze as ever was known."

"I see that Australia and Canada and South Africa are all coming to lend a hand."

"Well, we want every hand we can get--and every foot, too! I've heard plenty of big talk in the bazaar, where the Germans have laid out a mint of money. By all accounts they are going to take Persia, India, Burma, the whole of our trade, money and fleet. Well, if that comes off, it'll be a cold world! By the way, sir," he continued in another tone, "did ye see Ma Chit the day we were leavin' Rangoon, signin' and wavin' to ye as we cast off?"

Shafto nodded curtly.

"An' ye never tuk no notice! Ye might have given her just a small sign to ease her heart--but I'm thinkin' ye have a hard drop in ye."

"I dare say I have," a.s.sented Shafto, "and I'm glad of it, for now and then it has prevented me from making an awful fool of myself."

"Ah, well, sometimes the fools have the best of it; not that I'm sayin'

a word in favour of Ma Chit--only that if ye'd waved yer hand she'd a gone away with a small bit of consolation and comfort."