Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills

“None to give,” said Drummond coolly. “It’s only a bit of news, and that’s how it will be taken. Nothing to be done, but perhaps double the sentries in the weak places. Not that they’re very weak, or we shouldn’t have been hen; when you came.”

“Well, I shall feel more comfortable when my Colonel knows – eh, Roberts?”

“Yes,” said the latter, who had stood frowning and listening; “and I don’t think he will be for sitting down so quietly as your old man.”

“Not yet. Be for turning some of them out.”

“Of course.”

“Very spirited and nice; but it means losing men, and the beggars come back again. We used to do a lot of that sort of thing, but of late the policy has been to do nothing unless they attacked, and then to give them all we knew. Pays best.”

“I don’t know,” said Roberts as they were descending fast; “it can’t make any impression upon the enemy.”

“Shows them that the English have come to stay,” interposed Bracy.

“Yes, perhaps; but they may read it that we are afraid of them on seeing us keep behind walls.”

A minute or two later the news was borne to headquarters, where the two Colonels were in eager conference, and upon hearing it Colonel Graves leaped up and turned to his senior as if expecting immediate orders for action; but his colleague’s face wrinkled a little more, and he said quietly:

“Then that visit was a mere ruse to put us off our guard and give them an opportunity for meeting the fresh odds with which they have to contend.”

“Of course it was,” said Colonel Graves firmly.

“Well, there is nothing to be alarmed about; they will do nothing till they have waited to see whether we accept the offer of admitting as friends a couple of hundred Ghazees within the gates. – Thank you, gentlemen, for your information. There is no cause for alarm.”

The young officers left their two seniors together, and as soon as they were alone Drummond frowned.

“Poor old Colonel!” he said sadly; “he has been getting weaker for days past, and your coming has finished him up. Don’t you see?”

“No,” said Bracy sharply. “What do you mean?”

“He has Colonel Graves to lean on now, and trust to save the ladies and the place. I shouldn’t be surprised to see him give up altogether and put himself in the doctor’s hands. Well, you fellows will help us to do the work?”

“Yes,” said Bracy quickly, “come what may.”

“We’re going to learn the art of war in earnest now, old chap,” said Roberts as soon as they were alone again.

“Seems like it.”

“Yes. I wonder whether we shall take it as coolly as this young Drummond.”

“I wonder,” said Bracy; “he’s an odd fish.”

“But I think I like him,” said Roberts.

“Like him?” replied Bracy. “I’m sure I do.”

Chapter Nine

Warm Corners and Cold

It was a glorious day, with the air so bright, elastic, and inspiriting that the young officers of the garrison felt their position irksome in the extreme. For the Colonel’s orders were stringent. The limits allowed to officer or man outside the walls were very narrow, and all the time hill, mountain, forest, and valley were wooing them to come and investigate their depths.

It was afternoon when Roberts, Bracy, and Drummond, being off duty, had strolled for a short distance along the farther side of the main stream, and paused at last in a lovely spot where a side gorge came down from the hills, to end suddenly some hundred feet above their heads; and from the scarped rock the stream it brought down made a sudden leap, spread out at first into drops, which broke again into fine ruin, and reached the bottom like a thick veil of mist spanned by a lovely rainbow. The walls of rock, bedewed by the ever-falling water, were a series of the most brilliant greens supplied by the luxuriant ferns and mosses, while here and there, where their seeds had found nourishment in cleft and chasm, huge cedars, perfect in their pyramidal symmetry, rose spiring up to arrow-like points a hundred, two hundred feet in the pure air. Flowers dotted the grassy bottom; birds flitted here and there, and sang. There was the delicious lemony odour emitted by the deodars, and a dreamy feeling of its being good to live there always amidst so much beauty; for other music beside that of birds added to the enhancement – music supplied by the falling waters, sweet, silvery, tinkling, rising and falling, mingling with the deep bass of a low, humming roar.

The three young men had wandered on and on along a steep track, more than once sending the half-wild, goat-like sheep bounding away, and a feeling of annoyance was strong upon them, which state of feeling found vent in words, Drummond being the chief speaker.

“I don’t care,” he said; “it’s just jolly rot of your old man. Wrayford was bad enough, but old Graves is a tyrant. He has no business to tie us down so.”

“There’s the enemy still in the hills,” said Roberts.

“Yes, but whacked, and all the other tribes ready to follow the example of those fellows who have come down to make peace and fight against the rest who hold out. They’re not fools.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Bracy. “They’re as keen as men can be; but I shouldn’t like to trust them.”

“Nor I,” said Roberts. “They’re too keen.”

“There you are,” said Drummond petulantly. “That’s the Englishman all over. You fellows keep the poor beggars at a distance, and that makes them wild when they want to be friends. If every one had acted in that spirit, where should we have been all through India?”

“Same place as we are now,” said Bracy, laughing.

“Right, old fellow,” said Roberts. “We’ve conquered the nation, and the people feel that they’re a conquered race, and will never feel quite reconciled to our rule.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Bracy. “I’m not very well up in these matters, but I think there are hundreds of thousands in India who do like our rule; for it is firm and just, and keeps down the constant fighting of the past.”

“Bother!” cried Drummond pettishly: “there’s no arguing against you two beggars. You’re so pig-headed. Never mind all that. These thingamy Dwats have come down to make peace – haven’t they?”

“You thought otherwise,” said Bracy, laughing. “But, by the way, if we two are pig-headed, aren’t you rather hoggish – hedge-hoggish? I never met such a spiky young Scot before.”

“Scotland for ever!” cried Drummond, tossing his pith helmet in the air and catching it again.

“By all means,” said Bracy. “Scotland for ever! and if the snow-peaks were out of sight wouldn’t this be just like a Scottish glen?”

“Just,” said Roberts, and Drummond looked pleased.

“Here, how am I to speak if you boys keep on interrupting?” he said.

“Speak on, my son,” said Bracy.

“Well, I was going to say these fellows have come down like a deputation to see if we will be friends; and if we show that we will, I think now that all the rest will follow in the course of a few weeks, and there will be peace.”

“And plenty?” said Bracy.

“Of course.”

“No, my boy; you’re too sanguine, and don’t understand the hill-man’s character.”

“Seen more of it than you have,” said Drummond.