Soldiers Three

‘At peril of his head,’ sang Lalun again and again.

A head moved on one of the Ramparts – the gray head of an old man – and a voice, rough as shark-skin on a sword-hilt, sent back the last line of the chorus and broke into a song that I could not understand, though Lalun and Wali Dad listened intently.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Who is it?’

‘A consistent man,’ said Wali Dad. ‘He fought you in ‘46, when he was a warrior-youth; refought you in ‘57, and he tried to fight you in ‘71, but you had learned the trick of blowing men from guns too well. Now he is old; but he would still fight if he could.’

‘Is he a Wahabi, then? Why should he answer to a Mahratta laonee if he be Wahabi – or Sikh?’ said I.

‘I do not know,’ said Wali Dad. ‘He has lost, perhaps, his religion. Perhaps he wishes to be a King. Perhaps he is a King. I do not know his name.’

‘That is a lie, Wali Dad. If you know his career you must know his name.’

‘That is quite true. I belong to a nation of liars. I would rather not tell you his name. Think for yourself.’

Lalun finished her song, pointed to the Fort, and said simply: ‘Khem Singh.’

‘Hm,’ said Wali Dad. ‘If the Pearl chooses to tell you the Pearl is a fool.’

I translated to Lalun, who laughed. ‘I choose to tell what I choose to tell. They kept Khem Singh in Burma,’ said she. ‘They kept him there for many years until his mind was changed in him. So great was the kindness of the Government. Finding this, they sent him back to his own country that he might look upon it before he died. He is an old man, but when he looks upon this country his memory will come. Moreover, there be many who remember him.’

‘He is an Interesting Survival,’ said Wali Dad, pulling at the huqa. ‘He returns to a country now full of educational and political reform, but, as the Pearl says, there are many who remember him. He was once a great man. There will never be any more great men in India. They will all, when they are boys, go whoring after strange gods, and they will become citizens – “fellow-citizens” – “illustrious fellow-citizens.” What is it that the native papers call them?’

Wali Dad seemed to be in a very bad temper. Lalun looked out of the window and smiled into the dust-haze. I went away thinking about Khem Singh who had once made history with a thousand followers, and would have been a princeling but for the power of the Supreme Government aforesaid.

The Senior Captain Commanding Fort Amara was away on leave, but the Subaltern, his Deputy, had drifted down to the Club, where I found him and enquired of him whether it was really true that a political prisoner had been added to the attractions of the Fort. The Sub-altern explained at great length, for this was the first time that he had held Command of the Fort, and his glory lay heavy upon him.

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘a man was sent in to me about a week ago from down the line – a thorough gentleman whoever he is. Of course I did all I could for him. He had his two servants and some silver cooking-pots, and he looked for all the world like a native officer. I called him Subadar Sahib; just as well to be on the safe side, y’know. “Look here, Subadar Sahib,” I said, “you’re handed over to my authority, and I’m supposed to guard you. Now I don’t want to make your life hard, but you must make things easy for me. All the Fort is at your disposal, from the flagstaff to the dry ditch, and I shall be happy to entertain you in any way I can, but you mustn’t take advantage of it. Give me your word that you won’t try to escape, Subadar Sahib, and I’ll give you my word that you shall have no heavy guard put over you.” I thought the best way of getting at him was by going at him straight, y’know; and it was, by Jove! The old man gave me his word, and moved about the Fort as contented as a sick crow. He’s a rummy chap – always asking to be told where he is and what the buildings about him are. I had to sign a slip of blue paper when he turned up, acknowledging receipt of his body and all that, and I’m responsible, y’know, that he doesn’t get away. Queer thing, though, looking after a Johnnie old enough to be your grandfather isn’t it? Come to the Fort one of these days and see him?’

For reasons which will appear, I never went to the Fort while Khem Singh was then within its walls. I knew him only as a gray head seen from Lalun’s window – a gray head and a harsh voice. But natives told me that, day by day, as he looked upon the fair lands round Amara, his memory came back to him and, with it, the old hatred against the Government that had been nearly effaced in far-off Burma. So he raged up and down the West face of the Fort from morning till noon and from evening till the night, devising vain things in his heart, and croaking war-songs when Lalun sang on the City wall. As he grew more acquainted with the Subaltern he unburdened his old heart of some of the passions that had withered it. ‘Sahib,’ he used to say, tapping his stick against the parapet, ‘when I was a young man I was one of twenty thousand horsemen who came out of the City and rode round the plain here. Sahib, I was the leader of a hundred, then of a thousand, then of five thousand, and now!’ – he pointed to his two servants. ‘But from the beginning to to-day I would cut the throats of all the Sahibs in the land if I could. Hold me fast, Sahib, lest I get away and return to those who would follow me. I forgot them when I was in Burma, but now that I am in my own country again, I remember everything.’

‘Do you remember that you have given me your Honour not to make your tendance a hard matter?’ said the Subaltern.

‘Yes, to you, only to you, Sahib,’ said Khem Singh. ‘To you because you are of a pleasant countenance. If my turn comes again, Sahib, I will not hang you nor cut your throat.’

‘Thank you,’ said the Subaltern gravely, as he looked along the line of guns that could pound the City to powder in half an hour. ‘Let us go into our own quarters, Khem Singh. Come and talk with me after dinner.’

Khem Singh would sit on his own cushion at the Subaltern’s feet, drinking heavy, scented anise-seed brandy in great gulps, and telling strange stories of Fort Amara, which had been a palace in the old days, of Begums and Ranees tortured to death – aye, in the very vaulted chamber that now served as a Mess-room; would tell stories of Sobraon that made the Subaltern’s cheeks flush and tingle with pride of race, and of the Kuka rising from which so much was expected and the foreknowledge of which was shared by a hundred thousand souls. But he never told tales of ‘57 because, as he said, he was the Subaltern’s guest, and ‘57 is a year that no man, Black or White, cares to speak of. Once only, when the anise-seed brandy had slightly affected his head, he said: ‘Sahib, speaking now of a matter which lay between Sobraon and the affair of the Kukas, it was ever a wonder to us that you stayed your hand at all, and that, having stayed it, you did not make the land one prison. Now I hear from without that you do great honour to all men of our country and by your own hands are destroying the Terror of your Name which is your strong rock and defence. This is a foolish thing. Will oil and water mix? Now in ‘57 – ’

‘I was not born then, Subadar Sahib,’ said the Subaltern, and Khem Singh reeled to his quarters.

The Subaltern would tell me of these conversations at the Club, and my desire to see Khem Singh increased. But Wali Dad, sitting in the window-seat of the house on the City wall, said that it would be a cruel thing to do, and Lalun pretended that I preferred the society of a grizzled old Sikh to hers.

‘Here is tobacco, here is talk, here are many friends and all the news of the City, and, above all, here is myself. I will tell you stories and sing you songs, and Wali Dad will talk his English nonsense in your ears. Is that worse than watching the caged animal yonder? Go to-morrow, then, if you must, but to-day such and such an one will be here, and he will speak of wonderful things.’

It happened that To-morrow never came, and the warm heat of the latter Rains gave place to the chill of early October almost before I was aware of the flight of the year. The Captain commanding the Fort returned from leave and took over charge of Khem Singh according to the laws of seniority. The Captain was not a nice man. He called all natives ‘niggers,’ which, besides being extreme bad form, shows gross ignorance.

‘What’s the use of telling off two Tommies to watch that old nigger?’ said he.

‘I fancy it soothes his vanity,’ said the Subaltern. ‘The men are ordered to keep well out of his way, but he takes them as a tribute to his importance, poor old wretch.’

‘I won’t have Line men taken off regular guards in this way. Put on a couple of Native Infantry.’

‘Sikhs?’ said the Subaltern, lifting his eyebrows.

‘Sikhs, Pathans, Dogras – they’re all alike, these black vermin,’ and the Captain talked to Khem Singh in a manner which hurt that old gentleman’s feelings. Fifteen years before, when he had been caught for the second time, every one looked upon him as a sort of tiger. He liked being regarded in this light. But he forgot that the world goes forward in fifteen years, and many Subalterns are promoted to Captaincies.

‘The Captain-pig is in charge of the Fort?’ said Khem Singh to his native guard every morning. And the native guard said: ‘Yes, Subadar Sahib,’ in deference to his age and his air of distinction; but they did not know who he was.

In those days the gathering in Lalun’s little white room was always large and talked more than before.

‘The Greeks,’ said Wali Dad who had been borrowing my books, ‘the inhabitants of the city of Athens, where they were always hearing and telling some new thing, rigorously secluded their women – who were fools. Hence the glorious institution of the heterodox women – is it not? – who were amusing and not fools. All the Greek philosophers delighted in their company. Tell me, my friend, how it goes now in Greece and the other places upon the Continent of Europe. Are your women-folk also fools?’

‘Wali Dad,’ I said, ‘you never speak to us about your women-folk and we never speak about ours to you. That is the bar between us.’

‘Yes,’ said Wali Dad, ‘it is curious to think that our common meeting-place should be here, in the house of a common – how do you call her?’ He pointed with the pipe-mouth to Lalun.

‘Lalun is nothing but Lalun,’ I said, and that was perfectly true. ‘But if you took your place in the world, Wali Dad, and gave up dreaming dreams – ’

‘I might wear an English coat and trouser. I might be a leading Muhammadan pleader. I might be received even at the Commissioner’s tennis-parties where the English stand on one side and the natives on the other, in order to promote social intercourse throughout the Empire. Heart’s Heart,’ said he to Lalun quickly, ‘the Sahib says that I ought to quit you.’

‘The Sahib is always talking stupid talk,’ returned Lalun with a laugh. ‘In this house I am a Queen and thou art a King. The Sahib’ – she put her arms above her head and thought for a moment – ‘the Sahib shall be our Vizier – thine and mine, Wali Dad – because he has said that thou shouldst leave me.’

Wali Dad laughed immoderately, and I laughed too. ‘Be it so,’ said he. ‘My friend, are you willing to take this lucrative Government appointment? Lalun, what shall his pay be?’

But Lalun began to sing, and for the rest of the time there was no hope of getting a sensible answer from her or Wali Dad. When the one stopped, the other began to quote Persian poetry with a triple pun in every other line. Some of it was not strictly proper, but it was all very funny, and it only came to an end when a fat person in black, with gold pince-nez, sent up his name to Lalun, and Wali Dad dragged me into the twinkling night to walk in a big rose-garden and talk heresies about Religion and Governments and a man’s career in life.

The Mohurrum, the great mourning-festival of the Muhammadans, was close at hand, and the things that Wali Dad said about religious fanaticism would have secured his expulsion from the loosest-thinking Muslim sect. There were the rose-bushes round us, the stars above us, and from every quarter of the City came the boom of the big Mohurrum drums. You must know that the City is divided in fairly equal proportions between the Hindus and the Musalmans, and where both creeds belong to the fighting races, a big religious festival gives ample chance for trouble. When they can – that is to say when the authorities are weak enough to allow it – the Hindus do their best to arrange some minor feast-day of their own in time to clash with the period of general mourning for the martyrs Hasan and Hussain, the heroes of the Mohurrum. Gilt and painted paper presentations of their tombs are borne with shouting and wailing, music, torches, and yells, through the principal thoroughfares of the City, which fakements are called tazias. Their passage is rigorously laid down beforehand by the Police, and detachments of Police accompany each tazia, lest the Hindus should throw bricks at it and the peace of the Queen and the heads of Her loyal subjects should thereby be broken. Mohurrum time in a ‘fighting’ town means anxiety to all the officials, because, if a riot breaks out, the officials and not the rioters are held responsible. The former must foresee everything, and while not making their precautions ridiculously elaborate, must see that they are at least adequate.

‘Listen to the drums!’ said Wali Dad. ‘That is the heart of the people – empty and making much noise. How, think you, will the Mohurrum go this year? I think that there will be trouble.’

He turned down a side-street and left me alone with the stars and a sleepy Police patrol. Then I went to bed and dreamed that Wali Dad had sacked the City and I was made Vizier, with Lalun’s silver huqa for mark of office.

All day the Mohurrum drums beat in the City, and all day deputations of tearful Hindu gentlemen besieged the Deputy Commissioner with assurances that they would be murdered ere next dawning by the Muhammadans. ‘Which,’ said the Deputy Commissioner, in confidence to the Head of Police, ‘is a pretty fair indication that the Hindus are going to make ‘emselves unpleasant. I think we can arrange a little surprise for them. I have given the heads of both Creeds fair warning. If they choose to disregard it, so much the worse for them.’

There was a large gathering in Lalun’s house that night, but of men that I had never seen before, if I except the fat gentleman in black with the gold pince-nez. Wali Dad lay in the window-seat, more bitterly scornful of his Faith and its manifestations than I had ever known him. Lalun’s maid was very busy cutting up and mixing tobacco for the guests. We could hear the thunder of the drums as the processions accompanying each tazia marched to the central gathering-place in the plain outside the City, preparatory to their triumphant re-entry and circuit within the walls. All the streets seemed ablaze with torches, and only Fort Amara was black and silent.

When the noise of the drums ceased, no one in the white room spoke for a time. ‘The first tazia has moved off,’ said Wali Dad, looking to the plain.

‘That is very early,’ said the man with the pince-nez.

‘It is only half-past eight.’ The company rose and departed.

‘Some of them were men from Ladakh,’ said Lalun, when the last had gone. ‘They brought me brick-tea such as the Russians sell, and a tea-urn from Peshawur. Show me, now, how the English Memsahibs make tea.’

The brick-tea was abominable. When it was finished Wali Dad suggested going into the streets. ‘I am nearly sure that there will be trouble to-night,’ he said. ‘All the City thinks so, and Vox Populi is Vox Dei, as the Babus say. Now I tell you that at the corner of the Padshahi Gate you will find my horse all this night if you want to go about and to see things. It is a most disgraceful exhibition. Where is the pleasure of saying “Ya Hasan, Ya Hussain,” twenty thousand times in a night?’

All the processions – there were two and twenty of them – were now well within the City walls. The drums were beating afresh, the crowd were howling ‘Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!’ and beating their breasts, the brass bands were playing their loudest, and at every corner where space allowed, Muhammadan preachers were telling the lamentable story of the death of the Martyrs. It was impossible to move except with the crowd, for the streets were not more than twenty feet wide. In the Hindu quarters the shutters of all the shops were up and cross-barred. As the first tazia, a gorgeous erection ten feet high, was borne aloft on the shoulders of a score of stout men into the semi-darkness of the Gully of the Horsemen, a brickbat crashed through its talc and tinsel sides.