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Roy Glashan's Library
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The spelling of several words in this story has been modernised:
Everybody's, August 1913, with "From Hell, Hull, and Halifax."
"From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, Good Lord deliver us."
HE saying still lingers on in England, and ithas grown into a proverb nowadays, whose meaning is moregenerally understood in England's colonies; it dates back to theolden days when Charity had not been specialized, and once it wasmeant literally. Now, though, Hull and Halifax no longer standpre-eminent, and one may include in the list Houndsditch and itsenvirons, and the Minories, and many other places, withoutdetracting from hell's reputation. The saying has taken on abroader meaning.
Aga Khan heard the saying, and applied its broader meaningwithout an effort—Aga Khan, the keen, brown-eyed, suave,and courteous gentleman with the touch of distant pride in hisbearing and the guttural, deep-throated undertone that somehowhinted at authority. But he came from a land where men prefer tospeak in metaphor, for fear that the cold, crude truth may bemisunderstood—or too clearly understood—and lead toquarreling.
His dark skin, which was only slightly darker than the dirt-and-poverty-dyed skins around him, hid any emotion he might feel; it was like a mask. But his eyes were singularly curious, andnever still; without being in the very least furtive or afraid,they were restless, and missed nothing. The aproned publican whokept the little ale-house near the Seven Dials, brought him hisorder of bread and cheese and milk with unusual condescensionfrom a man who got his daily bread by selling beer, and who hadall the prejudices that go with his calling; he set him down asan Armenian who knew no better, but he was interested.
"And Hull?" had asked Aga Khan, after an interchange ofplatitudes. "How does a man reach Hull?"
The publican wiped the small round table for him, and chased abeggar out of the saloon before he answered. "Going to Hull, areyou? Well! You know the saying? 'From Hell, Hull, and Halifax,Good Lord deliver us!' You get there by train from King's CrossStation, but if there's anything in that saying it ought to be agood place to keep away from!"
"Is Hull, then, worse than London?" The voice was deep andsteady, and the speaker seemed scarcely to expect an answer. Hehad voiced a question, but he seemed rather to have passed ajudgment.
"No, I dare say not! They're all bad places—London, andBirmingham, and Manchester, and Hull—for those that haven'tgot the price! You can take your choice, and starve in any of'em! It wasn't millionaires that gave Hull a bad name, you maydepend on it; it was folks like those in there!"
He nodded in the direction of a door that led from the saloonto the four-ale bar. Somebody had swung the door open, and AgaKhan saw an unlovely vision that he had grown accustomed to oflate. Amid a babel of coarse voices and foul oaths, two beeryhags slouched their down-trodden heels across the sanded floor inwhat was meant to be a dance, screaming with drunken laughter asthe crowd applauded them. Along a bench that ran round threesides of the boozing-den men lounged who seemed only men bycourtesy; scarecrows would have been less vile, because lesscapable of villainy.
And in one corner, grouped together, half desperate and whollyragged, stood a little knot of younger men who listened withmouths agape, or with cynical unbelief, to a recruiting-sergeant.He was buying beer for them. And he was straight-backed, stone-cold-sober, and immaculate.
"Good hunting-ground, this, for the recruiting-sergeants!"said the publican as the door was kicked shut again. "Trade'sbad, and they're about the only men who're doing any business!They're roping 'em in fast!"
"Are all the soldiers gotten thus?" asked Aga Khan. Heevidently did expect an answer to that question, and he waitedfor it while the publican removed a broken-down gentleman who wastrying to sell boot-laces.
"Go and join the army!" he growled at him, as he pushed himout into the street. Then he turned again to the man who couldafford, and did not apparently object, to pay twice the regularprice for milk.
"Not all of 'em, but more than half, I guess! They make 'emdrunk, and get 'em sworn in before they've time to reconsider it.Once they're sworn in they've got to stop! Any army where youcome from?"
"Oh, yes, there's an army," answered Aga Khan. "But tell me,do these men not want to join?"
"Lord bless you—who'd want to be a soldier! When trade'sbad, and there's no pickings anywhere, they join in hundreds,so's to have a bed and bellyful!"
"Do they not care to serve their Queen, and to fight for herenormous empire?"
"They? Why should they? Why should I, for that matter? TheEmpire's all right enough in its way, but what do they or I careabout fighting for it! We'll all shout 'Rule Britannia' when theorchestra plays it in the Halls, and most folks I've seen'll wavetheir hats and cheer when the Queen rides past; but what's allthat compared to bread-and-cheese?"
"I had thought," said Aga Khan, speaking slowly like a man whois half convinced and half afraid that he may be wrong, "I hadthought that possibly there might be some great spirit emanatingfrom the lower classes that had led to conquest. That you, forinstance, and men like you—and like those inthere—were the real heart of the Empire."
"You thought wrong, then!" said the publican. "The Empirebelongs to the privileged few. I dare bet that you can't find aman in here, for instance, who knows a thing about it, or caresabout it, or who ever got a penny's worth of good out of it. Inever did, for one!"
"I am surprised!" said Aga Khan, paying his little bill andwalking out. He went, then, to an inconspicuous address inBloomsbury, and wrote a long letter in a character that few inLondon could have read, and in a language that even fewer couldhave understood.
AGA KHAN was not a man of kaleidoscopic changes;he was more like a chameleon, who blends with his surroundingswithout losing a fragment of his individuality. He was as much athome—and as little at home, for that matter—in PallMall as in the Seven Dials, and he carried with him letters ofintroduction that procured him admission everywhere. Where hewent he contrived to excite little curiosity, but to absorb anenormous quantity of information.
He walked from Bloomsbury down Little Queen Street past DruryLane into the Strand; and at the corner of Wellington Street hisboots were blacked for him by an able-bodied man who called him"sir," and touched his cap, and thanked him extravagantly fortwopence, which happened to be twice the regulation price.
"Are you English?" he asked him.
"Yes, sir—born in London, sir—thank you,sir—yes, sir, I'm English."
"I suppose you're proud to be an Englishman?"
"Me, sir? Why? I'd as soon be a furriner! Sleep in a doss-'ouse—eat what I can get, an' black boots for a living.Gawd! I'd as soon be a dawg. I'm thinking I'll go and join thearmy!"
A week later Aga Khan passed that same corner, and noticedthat same man in the toils of a glib-tongued recruiting-sergeant;but in the meantime he had noticed many other things. He hadstood at a theatre entrance, and had seen a man in uniform refuseadmission to a soldier, who wore a cleaner, better uniform. Hehad stood in the throng of Houndsditch—beside the barrowswhere the brass-lunged costers bellowed out their prices, and thedown-and-out brigade fought fiercely in among them for a chanceto live—and had seen a clean-skinned, spick-and-spansergeant of the Line sneered at and pushed into the street.
He had sat in the stranger's gallery of the House of Commons,and had heard a loud-voiced demagogue who thumped his chestdeclaim about the Estimates, denouncing expenditure on armamentsand howling for the dissolution of the Empire. And he had noticedthat no man present took the trouble even to seem annoyed.Further, he had heard another demagogue, at Hyde Park Corner,describe the Queen as the dummy-head of a greedy oligarchy, whilea crowd and four policemen looked on, and grinned, and listened.And no man threw a stone.
"Is such a speech as that permitted?" he inquired, in hisgentlemanly unimpassioned tone.
"Why not?" asked the constable.
"Then is it not your duty to prevent him?"
"No. It's my business to protect him if the crowd getsnasty!"
And wondering—very deeply wondering—the bearded,keen-eyed Aga Khan went back to Bloomsbury, and wrote anotherletter.
And he had sat, together with a whiskered civilian inspectacles, in the luxuriously appointed smoking-room of a mostexclusive club.
"Yes," said the club-member, scrunching in his pocket theunwelcome letter of introduction, and trying to alight on a topicof common interest, "I have a cousin in India—CivilService, don't you know—younger son, and all that kind ofthing—had to earn his living—might as well go toIndia as any other place. Like it, eh? Couldn't say, I'm sure! Aman mustn't quarrel with his bread-and-butter! He always seemsvery glad to get home on his vacation—looks me up as arule. He was here about eight months ago—came and had lunchwith me—told me a lot of stories about cobras, and tigers,and famines, and plague. Very interestin'. Any tigers where youcome from?"
"No," said Aga Khan, leaning back in his chair, and eyeing hissurroundings. "This club is very comfortable."
"Yes. Isn't it!"
The club-member was interested now, and went into long detailsabout club-management, and the different degrees of exclusivenessof clubs; and Aga Khan sat still and seemed interested too. Butreally he was listening to the conversation of two men who haddropped into the chairs behind him, and were sitting with theirtall hats forward over their eyes, too bored, apparently, even toorder drinks.
"Rotten, isn't it!" said one of them, in a voice that wasweary with disgust.
"Don't talk about it!"
"Got to let steam off somehow! How's a fellow goin' to financeit, I'd like to know!"
"Renewin' promissory notes, I suppose; money-lenders are along-sufferin' breed!"
"At twenty-five per cent., yes, I s'pose they are! But GoodLord! Think of it! India, now, with the 'season' just comingon!"
"Yes, and all the old men time-expired, or pretty nearly all,and nothing but a lot of rotten, raw, pie-faced rookies on thestrength!"
"They tell me the price of polo-ponies has gone up to nearlydouble in the last few years out there."
"I know it has. Come on—don't let's think about it.Let's go and see the Jew—may as well get that partover!"
They went, languidly and discontentedly—two clean-brushed dandies from a bandbox—as indifferent, it seemed,as dummies to anything but self, and tired of that.
"Would you tell me what those men are?" asked Aga Khan,glancing at their backs.
"Their names, you mean?"
"No.What they are."
"Army officers—both in the same regiment. Their regimenthas just been ordered out to India."
"They seem displeased."
"Yes? Well, London will get along without them!"
"Must they go, whether they will or not?"
"They could resign, of course."
"They go, then, for the pay?"
The club-member smiled. "No," he answered, "their pay scarcelycovers their mess-bills."
"They go, then, at their own expense?"
"Practically. They'll get a very uncomfortable passage on atroop-ship, but they'll have to buy new uniforms and all thatkind of thing themselves."
"Then why are they officers—why do they not resign?"
"Couldn't say, I'm sure; each man to his own taste, I suppose!The social position's fair, for one thing."
"I heard them speak of promissory notes?"
"Did you? Well, I suppose that they're in debt, or have got toborrow money."
"Against what do they borrow? Against their pay?"
"Oh, Lord, no! Against their expectations! Their fathershappen to be rich, and can't live forever!"
"Then, for the social position, and to go to India, where theydo not want to go, they give a mortgage on their patrimony?"
"Not exactly. Those two men would have a good social positionin any case."
"Then why?"
"Rather difficult to explain, Mr.—ah—Khan, I'mafraid!"
"Do they so love their Queen?"
"Personally?"
"How else?"
"I don't suppose they either of them know her personally!"
"Then her ministers—is it for them? Are they memberspossibly of a political party, and very loyal?"
"Good Heavens, no! There's a Radical ministry in power, andthey're both of them staunch Tories!"
"What do they stand to gain?"
"Nothing, unless you count fever, and conceivably a wound ortwo."
"Can they win great promotion?—great favor?—greathonor?"
"Hardly. They're captains. Might become majors. Might get amedal or so."
"Ah! The medals would carry great distinction? Men wouldapplaud them?"
"The medals would be about the same as those the rank and filewould get; nobody'd even know they had 'em—they don't wear'em, you know, except on parade. And nobody'd care one way or theother!"
"Are they of the upper classes?"
"Certainly!"
"And they do not want to go to India, for I heard them sayso—and they can gain nothing, but will lose much by it, inmoney and possibly in health—and they very likely do notknow their Queen—they hate her ministry—they have toborrow if they will obey—I heard them say that the men whomthey must lead are 'rotten'—and yet, they go! Can you solveme this riddle?"
"It's a question of privilege, I think," said the clubman.
"Ah! Privilege! Now, what privilege?"
"The privilege of going!"
Aga Khan was infinitely too polite to shake his head, or togive any other sign of incredulity. Only his brown eyes showedskepticism, and something that was more, as he rose and thankedhis host, and said good-by. But the letter that he wrote thatevening was full of certainties—conclusions drawn byprocess of cold logic from his mental memoranda. And hisconclusions would not have been changed in any way could he haveoverheard a conversation between that club-man and a crony, whichtook place ten minutes after his departure.
"Who was your friend?" asked a man who had been watching.
"Man named Aga Khan—brought me a letter of introductionfrom a man I know in India."
"What part of India does he come from?"
"No part. He's an Afghan, traveling to study social problems,so he says. Wants to know why army officers go all the way toIndia!"
"Did you enlighten him?"
"Can't say I did. Not sure I know myself! There are twothings, though, that beat me. One is, why the Indian Governmentallows such men to escape from their native hills."
"And the other?"
"Is why anybody bothers about India! We'd be just as well offwithout it. It's a nuisance, and the Afghans are anuisance!"
THE Afghans truly were, and are, a nuisance.Then, though, they possessed an Emir who had eaten with theunder-dog and had learned to know men, or at least Afghans, fromthe bottom upward before he came into his own. And he not onlywas a nuisance; he had a yearning for lost provinces.
He had, too, sound common sense, blended, after a strangelyEastern manner, with romanticism and a patriarchal sense of dutythat was almost Biblical. He believed that the fighting tribes onIndia's northern frontier who had once sworn fealty to hisancestors were his by right—his children—his to rulewith an iron rod that would suit their temperament and his ownidea of fitness.
He had read more than a little, and had remembered what hisnational traditions were. He knew that India had been conqueredfrom the North times without number. He was a statesman, and heguessed that the surest means of knitting together a nation tornby strife was to give it a national idea and start a war ofconquest. And he knew that India would make good plundering. OnceIndia were his, his warriors could plunge their arms down elbow-deep into the loot, and he, their Emir, would get the credit for it; the Afghan blood-lust would be sated for a time, and mencould rest from the killing and grow prosperous.
He could dream, could that Emir. But underneath his dreamsthere lay that bedrock of common sense on which he had raisedhimself to clamber to the throne, and he did not forget thatIndia had been conquered from the South and from the West once,or that her conquerors were still in power. British bayonets hadhelped him to the throne of Kabul, and he had no falseimpressions of what the British soldiers had been worth in thosedays.
But the British, once in Kabul, had set him firmly on thethrone, and had gone away again—away down South beyond theHimalayas. They had told him to keep his eye on Russia, and tomake Afghanistan a buffer-state between the gray-clad Russianhordes and England's thin red line. And that, to his Orientalmind, showed weakness.
What conquerors relaxed their grip on a country they couldhold? What general retreated when his base was safe and there wasnothing to oppose him? What king or queen accepted promises inlieu of tribute, and left an alien—unwatched—to guardthe border-line, unless his or her hands were full elsewhere?Wouldhe act thus? Allah—God of the faithful andconfounder of the infidel—forbid! There must be somethingrotten in the state of England.
Hence Aga Khan; and hence another man. The Emir was no man toleave his fighting force unwatched while he himself went insearch of information; no man, either, to trust his ministers toofar, or to let them grow lazy from too little work. They wereschemers who might scheme against him unless he kept them busy,and there were things that he needed very much to know. So AgaKhan, the wisest of his graybeards, and the most observant, andthe one who knew most English, went to London; and Ullah Khan,who was better versed in Hindustani, and who loved above allthings to trade in horses, took the long trail down the Khyberwith some four-year-olds.
And, like Aga Khan, who was threading in and out amid theslums and clubs of London, Ullah Khan saw wonders. Being a horse-trader, he had three perfectly good reasons for dislikingthe Bengali babus; but he had his orders, and he did need aninterpreter, for in India men speak two hundred dialects. SoBoghal Grish, the fat, unspeakable iconoclast, went with him, andhad trudged, complaining, in the dust from end to end of almostendless provinces.
He had been a useful person—very. He had translated forUllah Khan's benefit hundreds of seditious Hindu editorials,taken at random from lithographed native newspapers with two-hundred-copy circulations; and he had interpreted the exaggerated vaporings of "failed B.A.'s" and even lesser lightswho had failed to get a "Government poseetion." With quick babuperception he had very soon divined that Ullah Khan was not insearch of things to be admired, and he had brought men to himwhose point of view was likely to prove acceptable.
In the bewildering bazaars of Lucknow and Delhi and Cawnporehe had shown him the locked-up stores and houses where the plaguehad ravaged, and had read aloud for him the notices nailed on thedoors, and had interpreted for him the bitter revilings of themen whose privacy had been invaded by ruthless, caste-carelesssanitary commissioners.
"They care nothing for our native customs," explained BoghalGrish. "Nor yet for our religion! See!" And he led him to a Hindutemple, whose holiness had been denied by Christian disinfectant."Even our gods are nothing to them! With one hand they break downour privacy; with the other they pacify malcontents by raisingthem to positions of authority."
And he had interpreted the remarks of the Hindu priests, whosecow-dung-plastered shrines still bore the shameless stain ofcleanliness-applied-by-force-majeure.
Ullah Khan had seen for himself the native scowls as TommyAtkins swaggered, laughing and careless, through the crowdedmarket, and he had needed no interpreter to make the meaning ofthe murmurs clear to his understanding; there were no love-croonings in among them! And he knew enough English on his ownaccount to understand the conversation of occasional Britishofficers, when chance favored him and he could overhear withoutappearing too inquisitive.
"Home again next month! Gad, won't it be good!"
"Think of Hurlingham and Ranelagh!"
"The Shires for me, my son! Forty minutes in the open, overreal English grass!"
"Oh, think of Cowes in June! Can't you see 'em 'snorting underbonnets?' How long, my son, how long?"
"And where are these places, and what are they?" demandedUllah Khan.
"At Hurlingham and Cowes, they tell me men playgames—games on horseback and in little boats," said BoghalGrish. "In what they call the Shires, they hunt."
"They think, then, of nothing else?"
"Of little else! They love neither us nor India."
And Ullah Khan grunted. And he too wrote a letter that hadcertainty in every line of it.
And there were other things to see and understand. He saw thefat, green fields, where dust had been, and saw the patient ryothumped over his hoe, hurrying to let the gurgling dark-brownwater sluice between the rows. And he heard the ryot grumble atthe Takkus, which was greater than it had been once—beforethe water came.
"So they raise the taxes, do they?" asked Ullah Khan.
"Always, sahib! Always! For that reason, and no other, theystart irrigation works! They charge for the water, and with themoney so obtained they pay more bureaucrats from England!"
"And all this rice? Does it go to England?"
"Nay. It is eaten here."
"The money, then, for which the rice is sold? That goes toEngland?"
"Nay."
"These farmers have the spending of it?"
"Of what is left when the tax is paid."
"But they must buy their goods in England?"
"Nay. All goods enter India on an equal tariff."
"Why? Why do the English not discriminate?"
"They are afraid!"
Four months after the dismissal from his service—on theground of peculation—of Boghal Grish, two months after afurtive but very shrewd inspection of widely scattered regimentsof native cavalry, and one month after a visit to Calcutta wherehe saw what little can be seen on the outside of the workings ofthe most amazing government on earth, Ullah Khan met Aga Khan,new-landed from a Peninsular and Oriental Steamship.
As they stood together on the Apollo Bunder, which faces theharbor of Bombay, they looked into each other's eyes for amoment, meaningly.
"What found you?" asked Ullah Khan.
"Rot everywhere!"
"And I too!" said Ullah Khan. "The fruit is ripe for theplucking. They have sown themselves, but they are afraid to reap!The country has grown fat and prosperous; there are pickings herefor a hundred thousand plunderers, and yet no man moves a finger!They rule like men who are afraid!"
"No wonder!" growled Aga Khan. "Their soldiers come fromdepths unspeakable. Their officers detest the service, and areput to great personal expense by it; such men are not dependable!And in England the crowd cares nothing, and knows nothing, andthinks of nothing except beer and bread. No wonder that they rulelike men who are afraid!"
"We will have good tidings for the Emir, thou and I!" saidUllah Khan.
THE back of the Eastern-province famine had beenbroken, and the plague was dying in the West. The southwestmonsoon had burst with a year-late flood on thirsty India, andfavorable crop-reports were coming in. The Viceroy and anotherman whose eyes were more puckered, and whose hair was grayer, andwhose sturdy frame had been dried out by more than thirty yearsin India, sat back, and lit cigars, and smiled at each other.
"Good times ahead at last, old man?" asked the Commander-in-Chief sympathetically.
"No, not exactly. Couldn't hope for that, in this benightedcountry! But relief's in sight!"
"Any chance of screwing out a bigger appropriation for thearmy?"
"Not the slightest! The Council wouldn't pass it, for onething; and for another, we want every anna we can save forirrigation works. Besides, we're even cutting down the CivilService estimates; babus come cheaper than Europeans, and they'revery nearly as dependable in the lower grades. We're going toappoint natives to about five hundred vacancies next financialyear, and spend the money that we save in that way oneducation."
"Aren't you overdoing it, old man? Taking things a littlefast, I mean? They're learning, of course, but are they digestingit?"
"They're not digesting it as fast as the home-drafts do, butthey're learning, all right. One of these days they'll get holdof the idea, and India will stand on her own feet. Think of it!India self-governed like Australia and Canada, and sending herown representatives to Westminster, perhaps!"
"It sounds all right, but you and I won't live to see it!"said the Commander-in-Chief.
"I know we won't. But still, we've got a long way from the daywhen a man's job in India was worth what he could make out ofit!"
"True. We've got a long way too from making soldiers out ofcriminals by flogging them!"
"Talking of that—are the home-drafts up to standard?"asked the Viceroy.
"Oh, about the same. Can't expect too much, you know. Half of'em hell's scrapings, and the other half raw country bumpkins.Good enough material."
"It's a pity that we can't get a better type of man to beginon, isn't it?"
"Oh, I don't know. Besides, you couldn't get 'em at the price.They're awfully decent men, by the time they've scraped the dirtoff them in the home-depots, and they get hold of the regimentalidea before they come out here; by the time they get here,they're ripe for the real thing. When they realize that they'renot the lowest thing there is—not the lowest bystreets—that there are three hundred million people here,for instance, who regard them as superior beings in at least oneway, they begin to show what's in 'em. Then they see the nativecavalry, and get to know about its loyalty. The rest's easy!They're not going to be beaten by what they are pleased todescribe as 'niggers'! There's nothing the matter with the army,or the men, sir!"
"Back at home," said the Viceroy, "I've often noticed thetremendous difference between a regiment just home from India andone on the eve of departure."
"You weren't the first man to notice it!" said the Commander-in-Chief. "It'll be a bad day for the British Army whenIndia can stand alone."
"Have you gone into your appropriations yet?" asked theViceroy.
"Scarcely touched 'em."
"Formed any cut-and-dried plans, or anything?"
"Nothing really definite."
"Would it seem like butting in if I made a suggestion?"
"Go ahead!"
"The Emir is not exactly making trouble, but he's thinking ofit. The simplest thing, I suppose, would be to let his thoughtscome to a head, and then smash him; but with a famine and theplague just off our hands we can't afford a war. I'd like toteach him a less expensive lesson."
"What's he been doing?"
"Oh, just the usual thing, and he's been just as owl-eyed andchildishly subtle as you'd expect. He's sent one of his ministersto London incog., and another one on a spying expedition roundthis country. Aga Khan went to London, with enough letters ofintroduction to introduce an army. They were all obtainedsecretly—secretly, you understand!—from civilians andbetter-class natives and merchants in this country. Ullah Khan,the other man, disguised himself as a horse-trader and made thetour of India."
"How did you get on to him?"
"Oh, the usual way. He engaged an interpreter—happenedto be a Government babu who'd been dismissed forpeculation—babu stole again—Ullah Khan sacked him,without any noticeable tenderness—babu out for revenge, ofcourse, and incidentally a little pocket-money—offeredinformation to the Government—a ten-rupee note did thetrick!"
The Commander-in-Chief nodded. "I could fling three army-corpsinto Afghanistan at the drop of a handkerchief!" he saidquietly.
"That's good. But the country can't afford it! On the otherhand, the Emir, through these two ministers of his, has had agood look at the seamy side of things; it's likely to makehim restless, if nothing worse happens."
"Well?"
"I've an idea, that's all."
"I've pulled with you ever since you came out here."
"I know you have. Yes, and that's one reason why I don't wantto seem to—"
"Nonsense! What is it?"
For the next two hours the Viceroy—who wields more powerthan any king of England ever did—and the Commander-in-Chief, who really does command in India, were engaged in a quiteinformal conference. And the result was that an Emir, who was apatriot and a statesman on his own account, received bothentertainment and a lesson.
IT was as if ten thousand glow-worms lay inlines, in readiness to dance a legion-formed quadrille. Tenthousand tents—each tent with a trench around it, and eachto a hair in line—glowed warmly against the pitch-blackIndian night. A black, dense mass behind them were the picketswhere the tethered horses neighed; and in the center, like amany-mouthed black monster, lay the parked artillery—agrisly, ugly, hydra-headed thing that made no sound.
On every side were watch-fires, as regularly spaced apart ashours, and, like the minutes of the hours, spaced in between themstood the sentries; once in a while, as someone tossed a log onto a watch-fire or a puff of wind swept down from the hill andfanned it, a flame shot up and lit for a second on a gleamingbayonet that was swallowed promptly by the night again. From adistance it seemed like a fairy-camp, lit up for revelry; butsharp eyes, accustomed to the outer darkness, could have toldthat it was hedged about with steel.
From the tents, and from the rows between them, there went upa roar like the night-voice of a city. The cooking pots werecleaned, and the kettles stood ready again in the kitchen-trenches; a many-throated army, well-fed, well-found, and well-controlled, was voicing its contentment, and lay at its easeunbelted, telling tales of fifty counties and five hundred far-flung outposts.
Above it, on the hillside opposite, there was a smaller, moresilent cluster of less regularly spaced-out lights. That was thecamp of an Emir and his escort—a pinnacle-set aerie, wherea man who had come to see things for himself stroked at his beardand watched.
No calls had been interchanged as yet, for the Emir hadarranged his coming carefully, arriving late on the day beforethe big review. Allah in his wisdom had seen fit to strike theBritish Indian Government with madness, to the end that theymight show him all their weakness; and who was he that he shoulddecline their invitation and thus let slip a God-sentopportunity?
His design was to see the review first, and to learn what hemight from it before accepting too much hospitality or beingtrapped into too many expressions of good will. Even kings andemperors and potentates are careful of their spoken word, andlike to know before they promise. He had sent an unofficial note,though, by the hand of a mountain chieftain with an escort; andthe chieftain had his unofficial orders. He might not ask, and hemight not ride from off the beaten path. But he had eyes thatwere accustomed to keen observation, and he might look and bringreport.
So, while the Emir waited, seated on a pile of rugs before ayak-hair tent, a long, lean, fierce-eyed Afghan came cantering upthe hill-track, with an escort of a dozen at his back. Hedismounted and bowed profoundly, and held out a sealedenvelope.
"You were long in coming!" said the Emir, opening the letter.It was nothing but a quite informal answer to his note.
"He slept!" said the princeling messenger.
"Slept?"
"Slept! I had to wait while they awakened him! While I waited,I saw many things."
"His Excellency slept? The Viceroy? He who rules thathost?"
"Aye! And he sleeps now! When he had read the letter, and hadcaused his man to write an answer, and had signed it, he wentback to bed again. He sleeps!"
"Sleeps—with that host to watch! A hundred thousand men,and their thousand captains—and he sleeps?"
"Aye! He sleeps, and so does their commander, for I saw him. Iwas minded to have a word with him, having spoken with him whenhe came with the troops to Kabul in the old days, and I rode upto his tent. There was but one sentry posted, and he a commonsoldier. The flap of the tent was drawn back, and I saw him lyingthere asleep; and since I would not rob him of that which issweeter than meat or drink, I rode away again. I saw many otherthings."
"What saw you?"
"Their guns are as many as their camp-fires!"
"That I knew. Money, however gotten, will buy guns!"
"Their horses seem better than our best!"
"Fool! Go not our best horses in droves, yearly, down theKhyber to be sold to them? How seemed the men? Did they scowl?Were they discontented?"
"Nay! They smiled at me! When I passed a sentry—and thatwas often—he saluted. Others, sprawling in the tent-doors,rose and stood upright with their hands beside them while Ipassed. Everywhere men laughed, smoking those strange, shortpipes of theirs, and told each other tales; all seemed contented,and all who saw me regarded me with curiosity."
"With naught else?"
"Unless the saluting and the standing at attention meantrespect."
"Why should they respect thee?" growled the Emir.
"Of a truth, I know not! I thought, though, that they did, andI felt no harm from it!"
"Thy head was turned by their obeisance!" said the Emir withconviction. "The next time I will send an older man!"
The chieftain bowed, more to hide his thin-lipped grin thanout of deference, and retired with his escort to where a camp-fire burned before a tent that humped up irregularly from theblackness. He and a dozen others sat there before their fire, andtalked until sleep came over them; then they rolled themselvesinto their blankets. But the Emir sat on where he was, with hischin resting on his doubled fists, and his eyes staring in deepcontemplation at the wondrous sight in front of him.
He heard a hundred bugles blow, and saw—wonder ofwonders!—ten thousand lights go out as if Allah himself hadwhelmed them all at once. There was silence then, and no lightshowed at alt except the watch-fires, which flickered, and rose,and fell, and gleamed every now and then on bayonets. Sometimes asharp challenge broke the stillness of the night, and proved thatarmed men were watching while the army slept; and every two hourshe heard a string of challenges, as officers marched out from theguard-tents and posted the reliefs; but there was no movementbeyond that—no other sound.
And the Emir sat on in silence where he was, and wondered. Hiscamp behind him slept, and his sentries, too, were posted; butthere was a difference, and he was wondering wherein thedifference lay.
"Their men are recruited among disaffected Indian tribes," hemuttered; "or else in the slums of London. Their officers dreamall of them of home, and the men must dread the thought of it;whence has cohesion come? And yet...
"'Dark skins mingle no more with white than oil with water,'wrote Aga Khan, and Ullah Khan, and both wrote truly. They areconquerors—sons at the least of conquerors—retainingtheir hold on India by means of what is left of former strength;and they know it, for they govern India like men who are afraid.And yet...
"Those men there joined the army for their bellies' sake.Their leaders know it. Those native soldiers read seditiouswritings daily in the native press, since their leaders fear tomuzzle the discontented men who write.
"His Excellency represents the Queen. In England, where thosesoldiers come from, men stand at the street corners and declaimagainst the Queen, and against her Empire. His Excellency knowsit, and those men know it. Those men gain nothing from theEmpire, for their leaders are afraid to let them loot. They aremany, though; they come from the slums that I have read about,where no ideals or decency exist, or can exist. Wealth liesaround them, and their officers are comparatively few; none couldprevent them if they chose to loot. And yet...
"My fighting men are picked from among the best. There is nota man of all my men but held his chin high from his birth. My mencan rise to any heights; those men down yonder have no prospectof either wealth or great promotion. Those there are punishedwhen they disobey, by little fines, and lightimprisonment—mine with a scimitar. Conquest for those menmeans risk of life, and afterward oblivion and poverty again;conquest for my men would spell riches.
"I know each of my men, and each of my men knows me. HisExcellency there knows almost none of his, excepting here andthere an officer; he has not been in India long enough to knowthe hundredth part of all his men by sight, and I have livedamong my men always. And yet...
"His Excellency sleeps, and the commander sleeps, and the armysleeps—and I dare not sleep!"
He had not solved the riddle when a hundred bugles and ahundred trumpets down below him blared out in chorus, to salutethe morning, and he looked—from his own men, squabblingsleepy and breakfast-less around the dying embers—to thebeehive on the plain, where each of a hundred thousand men waswide awake, and each performing his prearranged, predestined,preconcerted task with easy, almost casual, unhurrying precision.The hundred thousand, and their horses, had all breakfastedbefore his own men had more than decided what to eat.
"And they come from the slums?" he wondered.
FOR an hour, as if an unseen finger moved themlike pieces on a checker-board, the regiments shifted and marchedand shifted—pipe-clay white, and gold, and crimson, tippedwith burnished steel—an ever-changing mass of individualunits each with the same end in view. Without an accident,without a counter-march, to the intermittent sound of bugles anda quite occasional command, order was evolved—brigadeorder, out of unbrigaded companies.
Line after line after crimson-coated line—color-tippedkhaki where the turbaned native cavalry sat knee-to-knee withBritish—blue and gold where the jingling gun-teams pawedthe ground—and dark gray where Ghurkas and British riflemenstood alternating with the kilted Highlanders—one hundredthousand men waited in obedient silence, facing the saluting-point.
"And now, your Highness," said the Viceroy, "I think we mighttake their salute. What do you say?"
They rose—lean, clean-limbed Anglo-Saxon and swart,sturdy Afghan side by side—silk-hatted, frock-coatedrepresentative of new ideals and turbaned and bejeweled despot;and they drove to the saluting-point in an English carriage,which was drawn by English horses ridden by Indian postilions,and was followed by a bearded, six-foot, crimson-coated escort ofMaharajahs' sons.
One sword shot upward, and scintillated for a second in thesun. A hundred bugles answered instantly. In instant answer to ahundred barked commands there came a flash of brilliantsteel—one movement, as a flash of lightningmoves—sudden, swift, unexpected motion—then athud—then silence.
Seated on his war-horse—a small, straight-backed, gray-haired figure in front of the middle of the line—theCommander-in-Chief had given one silent order—and onehundred thousand men behind him had come to the salute.
A massed band, five hundred strong, struck up the nationalanthem. The Viceroy raised his hat. The Emir sat rigid besidehim, controlling his expression carefully; but his eyes wanderedsideways, in the direction of his own rather ragged-lookingwarriors, who had followed the crimson-coated Rajputs and now sattheir horses in a line beside them.
One hundred and one guns boomed out a Viceroy's salute. TheViceroy raised his hat again. There was a pause, and one-and-twenty guns boomed out. The Viceroy whispered something, and the Emir bowed. The Commander-in-Chief turned his head, andgave an order to a man who rode behind him; and as he spurred hishorse to where the Viceroy sat, and took his place beside thecarriage, one bugle spoke—and then a trumpet. And, like astorm-cloud with the glint of lightning in it, a brigade of HorseArtillery detached itself from the far end of theline—wheeled at the flag—and came thundering downpast the saluting-point.
A man who has seen massed Horse Artillery wheel at the gallop,gun-wheel to gun-wheel, hoof to hoof, and thunder past in line ofbatteries, with the mounted men like a close-packed, wind-splitting hornet-horde in front and the great, black, death-familiar monsters dancing along behind in a whirlwind of noise and dust—has seen the first wonder of the world.
"From the slums?" thought the Emir, gripping rather tightly onthe jeweled hilt of his scimitar. "And from the clubs? Nay! Theseare their picked men. This is meant to blind me to the poornessof the others. We shall see!"
And what he did see followed on in such premeasured sequenceand with such amazing speed that neither he nor the hill-bredwarriors who were near him could do more than marvel. It waswonder following on wonder, to a changing tune.
Before the gun-dust had been scattered by the wind, anothertrumpet blared out in rising cadence, and a cavalry brigaderevolved within itself, as drilled dust-devils might,and—squadron after squadron, in dense-packed, glitteringline of squadrons—ten thousand horsemen swooped to wherethe guns had wheeled. The drums of the massed band thundered outsix double beats, and then—lively as a sunbeam on a frostymorning—the strains of the cavalry canter started with acrash.
Ten thousand horsemen, bright-eyed and dean and glittering,rode past the Emir, each horse cantering in time to the music of"Bonnie Dundee," and nose to nose and tail to tail inline. As line after line of them danced past the saluting-point,commands barked out, and at the word each pair of eyes turnedsharply to the right. It seemed to the Emir as they passed himthat they were the eyes, and faces, of men who were neitherunwilling, nor unhappy, nor afraid.
"Their European cavalry is good!" muttered the Emir tohimself. "Those men must be chosen from the colonies that I haveread about. Those are men indeed, and their officers ride likemen who are indeed proud of them. There remains, though, thenative cavalry!"
But the tune played on, and other trumpets sounded. Before thelast line of cantering horsemen had swept past the saluting-point, a four-square khaki cloud, steel-tipped—a set-squaresea of turbans and fluttering lance-pennants—had wheeled,and had launched itself in the wake of the British regiments. TheEmir could see now for himself how the disaffected nativeslooked!
"Rajputs!" said the Viceroy, raising his hat in acknowledgmentof their sudden, swift "Eyes Right!"
"Guides!"
"Bengal Horse!"
"Punjabis!"
"Sikhs!"
They swept past behind British officers, cantering to aBritish tune, saluting a British Viceroy, and riding with theeasy, perfect, centaur-seat of men who are born to the task, andlike it.
"Such horses!" said the Emir, forced against his will to agrudging exclamation, and too cautious still to praise the menwho rode.
"Each man brings his own horse when he joins," explained theViceroy.
"But why?"
"Because they want to join! There is competition! They know agood thing when they see it, so they bring their best, and ask tojoin!"
But the tune had changed, and the wonders that had only justbegun changed with the tune to other wonders. The Emir looked towhere the crimson brigades of infantry had stood—andclutched his hilt again, and held his breath. The whole line wasin movement. The sun shone on a sea of glittering bayonets andhelmet-spikes, and the earth reverberated to the tramp of denselypacked regiments that followed, one behind the other, with aspace between.
And as he watched, the massed band struck up yet another tune,and a regiment of Highlanders wheeled by companies and cameswinging down toward him, their pipers to the front. None marchlike Highlanders—none anywhere.
Their kilts and sporrans swinging, and their rifles at theslope, they came on like the lords of all creation—stately,dignified, alert—as men march who have earned the right toother men's respect. They went by to their own tune—"TheCampbells Are Comin'"—the tune that the holders ofLucknow had heard, and many another beleagueredgarrison—and there was that in their salute as they passedhim, an indefinable, exhilarating something, which thrilled thereluctant Emir and reminded the Viceroy—who needed noreminder—what manner of men they were who held him there asEmpress's Deputy.
"Are these your best?" asked the Emir, in a voice that hadsomething approaching awe in it.
"Not a bit of it, your Highness! You'll find it very hard tochoose! Listen! Here come the Lincolns!"
"Oh, 'tis my delight of a shiny night...."
The poacher-tune that half the world has listened to, from theLincoln Fens to the Hlinadetalone* and back again by way ofAbyssinia, crashed out as the last of the Highlanders swaggeredout of view, and the Emir was treated to another style ofmarching. It was different, but it was just as good. No men couldmarch like that whose hearts were anywhere but in their uniforms,and no men who marched like that could be otherwise than men.They went by like one welded, tempered, keen-edged unit, andsaluted like men who confer an honor by saluting.
[* "Hlinadetalone"(sic). Presumably atypographical error for "Hindustan."]
"Fenmen, those!" said the Viceroy. "Sons of farm-hands mostly.Listen! Here come the Warwicks!"
"Oh, d'ye ken John Peel, with his coat so gray?"
Like a following wave, amid a thundering sea of men, theWarwicks advanced and passed, and vanished.
"East Surrey!" said the Viceroy, as once again the tunechanged.
"East Kent—the Old Half Hundred!"
"Devon and Somerset!"
"The Black Watch!"
"Here come the Ghurkas! You know those!"
The Ghurkas marched like white men, with almost the swing andswagger of the Highlanders, and grinning to a man. There was nodoubt about them either; they were there because they likedit.
"Northumberland Fusileers!"
"Scottish Borderers!"
"Welsh Fusileers!"
The tune changed, and the regiments changed—wheelingregiment after regiment into line, and tramping past in quarter-column. The Emir, try as he would, could make no choice among them. He knew men. He could tell by their very atmosphere what spirit might be in them, and he sat by the Viceroy andmarveled.
"Bedfords!" said the Viceroy.
"Yes," said the Emir, seeing light suddenly. "These that youtell me are the names of the regiments. But whence come the menthemselves? From the colonies, perhaps?"
"No, your Highness!" said the Viceroy. "From London, andEnglish cities mostly. From 'Hell, Hull, and Halifax'—justanywhere."
The Emir stroked his beard. "I have two men," he saidreflectively, "two ministers—whose heads shall shortlydecorate the Gate of Kabul!"
"Why? Been making trouble?"
"No! They are fools! A wise man sees, and a bad man may bemade to see, but a fool, never! I will breed no more from thatbreed!"
"You mean that your Highness is wise, and has seen? What haveyou seen?"
"I have seen an army that all Asia could not beat, and made upof men who were—"
"Under-dogs?"
"Aye! Under-dogs!"
"Your Highness has some fine material in the North! You haveseen how the native regiments shape; your stuff is as good asours, or better!"
"Yet look at mine!" The Emir's eyes turned in the direction ofhis own warriors again.
"This is the answer, your Highness," said the Viceroy, lookingwhere he looked, and looking away again. "You rule Afghanistanwith justice, and with a rod of iron. Why?"
"For mine own honor's sake!"
"Good—and true! Do you consider yourself, or your owncomfort?"
"Not one iota!"
"Likewise good—and true! And your men?"
"They think only of themselves!"
"There is your answer! These men that you have seen to-day—these men from Hell, Hull, and Halifax—thoughtonly of themselves until they were taught otherwise. Now, eachman is for his company—each company is for itsregiment—each regiment is for the army—and the armyis for the collective honor of them all."
"And your Excellency?"
"I—I am but a deputy for Her Majesty the Queen!"
"And she?"
"She represents that honor!"
The Emir sunk his head on to his breast, and lapsed into deepthought.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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