Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

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What follows is a curious instance of the fashion in which we are
all linked together and made responsible for one another. THE
thing that kicked the beam in The Boy's mind was a remark that a
woman made when he was talking to her. There is no use in
repeating it, for it was only a cruel little sentence, rapped out
before thinking, that made him flush to the roots of his hair. He
kept himself to himself for three days, and then put in for two
days' leave to go shooting near a Canal Engineer's Rest House
about
thirty miles out. He got his leave, and that night at Mess was
noisier and more offensive than ever. He said that he was "going
to shoot big game, and left at half-past ten o'clock in an ekka.

Partridge--which was the only thing a man could get near the Rest
House--is not big game; so every one laughed.

Next morning one of the Majors came in from short leave, and
heard
that The Boy had gone out to shoot "big game." The Major had
taken
an interest in The Boy, and had, more than once, tried to check
him
in the cold weather. The Major put up his eyebrows when he
heard
of the expedition and went to The Boy's room, where he
rummaged.

Presently he came out and found me leaving cards on the Mess.

There was no one else in the ante-room.

He said: "The Boy has gone out shooting. DOES a man shoot tetur
with a revolver and a writing-case?"

I said: "Nonsense, Major!" for I saw what was in his mind.

He said: "Nonsense or nonsense, I'm going to the Canal now--at
once. I don't feel easy."

Then he thought for a minute, and said: "Can you lie?"

"You know best," I answered. "It's my profession."

"Very well," said the Major; "you must come out with me now--at
once--in an ekka to the Canal to shoot black-buck. Go and put on
shikar-kit--quick--and drive here with a gun."

The Major was a masterful man; and I knew that he would not give
orders for nothing. So I obeyed, and on return found the Major
packed up in an ekka--gun-cases and food slung below--all ready
for
a shooting-trip.

He dismissed the driver and drove himself. We jogged along
quietly
while in the station; but as soon as we got to the dusty road
across the plains, he made that pony fly. A country-bred can do
nearly anything at a pinch. We covered the thirty miles in under
three hours, but the poor brute was nearly dead.

Once I said: "What's the blazing hurry, Major?"

He said, quietly: "The Boy has been alone, by himself, for--one,
two, five--fourteen hours now! I tell you, I don't feel easy."

This uneasiness spread itself to me, and I helped to beat the pony.

When we came to the Canal Engineer's Rest House the Major
called
for The Boy's servant; but there was no answer. Then we went up
to
the house, calling for The Boy by name; but there was no answer.

"Oh, he's out shooting," said I.

Just then I saw through one of the windows a little hurricane-lamp
burning. This was at four in the afternoon. We both stopped dead
in the verandah, holding our breath to catch every sound; and we
heard, inside the room, the "brr--brr--brr" of a multitude of
flies. The Major said nothing, but he took off his helmet and we
entered very softly.

The Boy was dead on the charpoy in the centre of the bare, lime-
washed room. He had shot his head nearly to pieces with his
revolver. The gun-cases were still strapped, so was the bedding,
and on the table lay The Boy's writing-case with photographs. He
had gone away to die like a poisoned rat!

The Major said to himself softly: "Poor Boy! Poor, POOR devil!"
Then he turned away from the bed and said: "I want your help in
this business."

Knowing The Boy was dead by his own hand, I saw exactly what
that
help would be, so I passed over to the table, took a chair, lit a
cheroot, and began to go through the writing-case; the Major
looking over my shoulder and repeating to himself: "We came too
late!--Like a rat in a hole!--Poor, POOR devil!"

The Boy must have spent half the night in writing to his people,
and to his Colonel, and to a girl at Home; and as soon as he had
finished, must have shot himself, for he had been dead a long time
when we came in.

I read all that he had written, and passed over each sheet to the
Major as I finished it.

We saw from his accounts how very seriously he had taken
everything. He wrote about "disgrace which he was unable to
bear"--
"indelible shame"--"criminal folly"--"wasted life," and so on;
besides a lot of private things to his Father and Mother too much
too sacred to put into print. The letter to the girl at Home was
the most pitiful of all; and I choked as I read it. The Major made
no attempt to keep dry-eyed. I respected him for that. He read
and rocked himself to and fro, and simply cried like a woman
without caring to hide it. The letters were so dreary and hopeless
and touching. We forgot all about The Boy's follies, and only
thought of the poor Thing on the charpoy and the scrawled sheets
in
our hands. It was utterly impossible to let the letters go Home.

They would have broken his Father's heart and killed his Mother
after killing her belief in her son.

At last the Major dried his eyes openly, and said: "Nice sort of
thing to spring on an English family! What shall we do?"

I said, knowing what the Major had brought me but for: "The Boy
died of cholera. We were with him at the time. We can't commit
ourselves to half-measures. Come along."

Then began one of the most grimy comic scenes I have ever taken
part in--the concoction of a big, written lie, bolstered with
evidence, to soothe The Boy's people at Home. I began the rough
draft of a letter, the Major throwing in hints here and there while
he gathered up all the stuff that The Boy had written and burnt it
in the fireplace. It was a hot, still evening when we began, and
the lamp burned very badly. In due course I got the draft to my
satisfaction, setting forth how The Boy was the pattern of all
virtues, beloved by his regiment, with every promise of a great
career before him, and so on; how we had helped him through the
sickness--it was no time for little lies, you will understand--and
how he had died without pain. I choked while I was putting down
these things and thinking of the poor people who would read them.

Then I laughed at the grotesqueness of the affair, and the laughter
mixed itself up with the choke--and the Major said that we both
wanted drinks.

I am afraid to say how much whiskey we drank before the letter
was
finished. It had not the least effect on us. Then we took off The
Boy's watch, locket, and rings.

Lastly, the Major said: "We must send a lock of hair too. A
woman
values that."

But there were reasons why we could not find a lock fit to send.

The Boy was black-haired, and so was the Major, luckily. I cut off
a piece of the Major's hair above the temple with a knife, and put
it into the packet we were making. The laughing-fit and the
chokes
got hold of me again, and I had to stop. The Major was nearly as
bad; and we both knew that the worst part of the work was to
come.

We sealed up the packet, photographs, locket, seals, ring, letter,
and lock of hair with The Boy's sealing-wax and The Boy's seal.

Then the Major said: "For God's sake let's get outside--away from
the room--and think!"

We went outside, and walked on the banks of the Canal for an
hour,
eating and drinking what we had with us, until the moon rose. I
know now exactly how a murderer feels. Finally, we forced
ourselves back to the room with the lamp and the Other Thing in
it,
and began to take up the next piece of work. I am not going to
write about this. It was too horrible. We burned the bedstead and
dropped the ashes into the Canal; we took up the matting of the
room and treated that in the same way. I went off to a village and
borrowed two big hoes--I did not want the villagers to help--while
the Major arranged--the other matters. It took us four hours' hard
work to make the grave. As we worked, we argued out whether it
was
right to say as much as we remembered of the Burial of the Dead.

We compromised things by saying the Lord's Prayer with a private
unofficial prayer for the peace of the soul of The Boy. Then we
filled in the grave and went into the verandah--not the house--to
lie down to sleep. We were dead-tired.

When we woke the Major said, wearily: "We can't go back till to-
morrow. We must give him a decent time to die in. He died early
THIS morning, remember. That seems more natural." So the
Major
must have been lying awake all the time, thinking.

I said: "Then why didn't we bring the body back to the
cantonments?"

The Major thought for a minute:--"Because the people bolted when
they heard of the cholera. And the ekka has gone!"

That was strictly true. We had forgotten all about the ekka-pony,
and he had gone home.

So, we were left there alone, all that stifling day, in the Canal
Rest House, testing and re-testing our story of The Boy's death to
see if it was weak at any point. A native turned up in the
afternoon, but we said that a Sahib was dead of cholera, and he ran
away. As the dusk gathered, the Major told me all his fears about
The Boy, and awful stories of suicide or nearly-carried-out
suicide--tales that made one's hair crisp. He said that he himself
had once gone into the same Valley of the Shadow as the Boy,
when
he was young and new to the country; so he understood how things
fought together in The Boy's poor jumbled head. He also said that
youngsters, in their repentant moments, consider their sins much
more serious and ineffaceable than they really are. We talked
together all through the evening, and rehearsed the story of the
death of The Boy. As soon as the moon was up, and The Boy,
theoretically, just buried, we struck across country for the
Station. We walked from eight till six o'clock in the morning; but
though we were dead-tired, we did not forget to go to The Boy's
room and put away his revolver with the proper amount of
cartridges
in the pouch. Also to set his writing-case on the table. We found
the Colonel and reported the death, feeling more like murderers
than ever. Then we went to bed and slept the clock round; for
there was no more in us.

The tale had credence as long as was necessary, for every one
forgot about The Boy before a fortnight was over. Many people,
however, found time to say that the Major had behaved
scandalously
in not bringing in the body for a regimental funeral. The saddest
thing of all was a letter from The Boy's mother to the Major and
me--with big inky blisters all over the sheet. She wrote the
sweetest possible things about our great kindness, and the
obligation she would be under to us as long as she lived.

All things considered, she WAS under an obligation; but not
exactly
as she meant.

MISS YOUGHAL'S SAIS.

When Man and Woman are agreed, what can the Kazi do?
Mahomedan Proverb.

Some people say that there is no romance in India. Those people
are wrong. Our lives hold quite as much romance as is good for
us.

Sometimes more.

Strickland was in the Police, and people did not understand him;
so
they said he was a doubtful sort of man and passed by on the other
side. Strickland had himself to thank for this. He held the
extraordinary theory that a Policeman in India should try to know
as much about the natives as the natives themselves. Now, in the
whole of Upper India, there is only ONE man who can pass for
Hindu
or Mohammedan, chamar or faquir, as he pleases. He is feared
and
respected by the natives from the Ghor Kathri to the Jamma
Musjid;
and he is supposed to have the gift of invisibility and executive
control over many Devils. But what good has this done him with
the
Government? None in the world. He has never got Simla for his
charge; and his name is almost unknown to Englishmen.

Strickland was foolish enough to take that man for his model; and,
following out his absurd theory, dabbled in unsavory places no
respectable man would think of exploring--all among the native
riff-raff. He educated himself in this peculiar way for seven
years, and people could not appreciate it. He was perpetually
"going Fantee" among the natives, which, of course, no man with
any
sense believes in. He was initiated into the Sat Bhai at Allahabad
once, when he was on leave; he knew the Lizard-Song of the
Sansis,
and the Halli-Hukk dance, which is a religious can-can of a
startling kind. When a man knows who dances the Halli-Hukk,
and
how, and when, and where, he knows something to be proud of.
He
has gone deeper than the skin. But Strickland was not proud,
though he had helped once, at Jagadhri, at the Painting of the
Death Bull, which no Englishman must even look upon; had
mastered
the thieves'-patter of the changars; had taken a Eusufzai horse-
thief alone near Attock; and had stood under the mimbar-board of
a
Border mosque and conducted service in the manner of a Sunni
Mollah.

His crowning achievement was spending eleven days as a faquir in
the gardens of Baba Atal at Amritsar, and there picking up the
threads of the great Nasiban Murder Case. But people said, justly
enough: "Why on earth can't Strickland sit in his office and write
up his diary, and recruit, and keep quiet, instead of showing up
the incapacity of his seniors?" So the Nasiban Murder Case did
him
no good departmentally; but, after his first feeling of wrath, he
returned to his outlandish custom of prying into native life. By
the way, when a man once acquires a taste for this particular
amusement, it abides with him all his days. It is the most
fascinating thing in the world; Love not excepted. Where other
men
took ten days to the Hills, Strickland took leave for what he
called shikar, put on the disguise that appealed to him at the
time, stepped down into the brown crowd, and was swallowed up
for a
while. He was a quiet, dark young fellow--spare, black-eyes--and,
when he was not thinking of something else, a very interesting
companion. Strickland on Native Progress as he had seen it was
worth hearing. Natives hated Strickland; but they were afraid of
him. He knew too much.

When the Youghals came into the station, Strickland--very
gravely,
as he did everything--fell in love with Miss Youghal; and she,
after a while, fell in love with him because she could not
understand him. Then Strickland told the parents; but Mrs.
Youghal
said she was not going to throw her daughter into the worst paid
Department in the Empire, and old Youghal said, in so many
words,
that he mistrusted Strickland's ways and works, and would thank
him
not to speak or write to his daughter any more. "Very well," said
Strickland, for he did not wish to make his lady-love's life a
burden. After one long talk with Miss Youghal he dropped the
business entirely.

The Youghals went up to Simla in April.

In July, Strickland secured three months' leave on "urgent private
affairs." He locked up his house--though not a native in the
Providence would wittingly have touched "Estreekin Sahib's" gear
for the world--and went down to see a friend of his, an old dyer,
at Tarn Taran.

Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais met me on the Simla
Mall with this extraordinary note:

"Dear old man,

Please give bearer a box of cheroots--Supers, No. I, for
preference. They are freshest at the Club. I'll repay when I
reappear; but at present I'm out of Society.

Yours,

E. STRICKLAND."

I ordered two boxes, and handed them over to the sais with my
love.

That sais was Strickland, and he was in old Youghal's employ,
attached to Miss Youghal's Arab. The poor fellow was suffering
for
an English smoke, and knew that whatever happened I should hold
my
tongue till the business was over.

Later on, Mrs. Youghal, who was wrapped up in her servants,
began
talking at houses where she called of her paragon among
saises--the
man who was never too busy to get up in the morning and pick
flowers for the breakfast-table, and who blacked--actually
BLACKED--
the hoofs of his horse like a London coachman! The turnout of
Miss Youghal's Arab was a wonder and a delight. Strickland--
Dulloo, I mean--found his reward in the pretty things that Miss
Youghal said to him when she went out riding. Her parents were
pleased to find she had forgotten all her foolishness for young
Strickland and said she was a good girl.

Strickland vows that the two months of his service were the most
rigid mental discipline he has ever gone through. Quite apart from
the little fact that the wife of one of his fellow-saises fell in
love with him and then tried to poison him with arsenic because he
would have nothing to do with her, he had to school himself into
keeping quiet when Miss Youghal went out riding with some man
who
tried to flirt with her, and he was forced to trot behind carrying
the blanket and hearing every word! Also, he had to keep his
temper when he was slanged in "Benmore" porch by a policeman--
especially once when he was abused by a Naik he had himself
recruited from Isser Jang village--or, worse still, when a young
subaltern called him a pig for not making way quickly enough.

But the life had its compensations. He obtained great insight into
the ways and thefts of saises--enough, he says, to have summarily
convicted half the chamar population of the Punjab if he had been
on business. He became one of the leading players at knuckle-
bones, which all jhampanis and many saises play while they are
waiting outside the Government House or the Gaiety Theatre of
nights; he learned to smoke tobacco that was three-fourths
cowdung;
and he heard the wisdom of the grizzled Jemadar of the
Government
House saises, whose words are valuable. He saw many things
which
amused him; and he states, on honor, that no man can appreciate
Simla properly, till he has seen it from the sais's point of view.

He also says that, if he chose to write all he saw, his head would
be broken in several places.

Strickland's account of the agony he endured on wet nights,
hearing
the music and seeing the lights in "Benmore," with his toes
tingling for a waltz and his head in a horse-blanket, is rather
amusing. One of these days, Strickland is going to write a little
book on his experiences. That book will be worth buying; and
even
more, worth suppressing.

Thus, he served faithfully as Jacob served for Rachel; and his
leave was nearly at an end when the explosion came. He had
really
done his best to keep his temper in the hearing of the flirtations
I have mentioned; but he broke down at last. An old and very
distinguished General took Miss Youghal for a ride, and began that
specially offensive "you're-only-a-little-girl" sort of flirtation--
most difficult for a woman to turn aside deftly, and most
maddening to listen to. Miss Youghal was shaking with fear at the
things he said in the hearing of her sais. Dulloo--Strickland--
stood it as long as he could. Then he caught hold of the General's
bridle, and, in most fluent English, invited him to step off and be
heaved over the cliff. Next minute Miss Youghal began crying;
and
Strickland saw that he had hopelessly given himself away, and
everything was over.

The General nearly had a fit, while Miss Youghal was sobbing out
the story of the disguise and the engagement that wasn't recognized
by the parents. Strickland was furiously angry with himself and
more angry with the General for forcing his hand; so he said
nothing, but held the horse's head and prepared to thrash the
General as some sort of satisfaction, but when the General had
thoroughly grasped the story, and knew who Strickland was, he
began
to puff and blow in the saddle, and nearly rolled off with
laughing. He said Strickland deserved a V. C., if it were only for
putting on a sais's blanket. Then he called himself names, and
vowed that he deserved a thrashing, but he was too old to take it
from Strickland. Then he complimented Miss Youghal on her
lover.

The scandal of the business never struck him; for he was a nice old
man, with a weakness for flirtations. Then he laughed again, and
said that old Youghal was a fool. Strickland let go of the cob's
head, and suggested that the General had better help them, if that
was his opinion. Strickland knew Youghal's weakness for men
with
titles and letters after their names and high official position.

"It's rather like a forty-minute farce," said the General, "but
begad, I WILL help, if it's only to escape that tremendous
thrashing I deserved. Go along to your home, my sais-Policeman,
and change into decent kit, and I'll attack Mr. Youghal. Miss
Youghal, may I ask you to canter home and wait?

. . . . . . . . .

About seven minutes later, there was a wild hurroosh at the Club.

A sais, with a blanket and head-rope, was asking all the men he
knew: "For Heaven's sake lend me decent clothes!" As the men
did
not recognize him, there were some peculiar scenes before
Strickland could get a hot bath, with soda in it, in one room, a
shirt here, a collar there, a pair of trousers elsewhere, and so
on. He galloped off, with half the Club wardrobe on his back, and
an utter stranger's pony under him, to the house of old Youghal.

The General, arrayed in purple and fine linen, was before him.

What the General had said Strickland never knew, but Youghal
received Strickland with moderate civility; and Mrs. Youghal,
touched by the devotion of the transformed Dulloo, was almost
kind.

The General beamed, and chuckled, and Miss Youghal came in,
and
almost before old Youghal knew where he was, the parental
consent
had been wrenched out and Strickland had departed with Miss
Youghal
to the Telegraph Office to wire for his kit. The final
embarrassment was when an utter stranger attacked him on the
Mall
and asked for the stolen pony.

So, in the end, Strickland and Miss Youghal were married, on the
strict understanding that Strickland should drop his old ways, and
stick to Departmental routine, which pays best and leads to Simla.

Strickland was far too fond of his wife, just then, to break his
word, but it was a sore trial to him; for the streets and the
bazars, and the sounds in them, were full of meaning to Strickland,
and these called to him to come back and take up his wanderings
and
his discoveries. Some day, I will tell you how he broke his
promise to help a friend. That was long since, and he has, by this
time, been nearly spoilt for what he would call shikar. He is
forgetting the slang, and the beggar's cant, and the marks, and the
signs, and the drift of the undercurrents, which, if a man would
master, he must always continue to learn.

But he fills in his Departmental returns beautifully.

YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.

I am dying for you, and you are dying for another.
Punjabi Proverb.

When the Gravesend tender left the P. & 0. steamer for Bombay
and
went back to catch the train to Town, there were many people in it
crying. But the one who wept most, and most openly was Miss
Agnes
Laiter. She had reason to cry, because the only man she ever
loved--or ever could love, so she said--was going out to India; and
India, as every one knows, is divided equally between jungle,
tigers, cobras, cholera, and sepoys.

Phil Garron, leaning over the side of the steamer in the rain, felt
very unhappy too; but he did not cry. He was sent out to "tea."
What "tea" meant he had not the vaguest idea, but fancied that he
would have to ride on a prancing horse over hills covered with tea-
vines, and draw a sumptuous salary for doing so; and he was very
grateful to his uncle for getting him the berth. He was really
going to reform all his slack, shiftless ways, save a large
proportion of his magnificent salary yearly, and, in a very short
time, return to marry Agnes Laiter. Phil Garron had been lying
loose on his friends' hands for three years, and, as he had nothing
to do, he naturally fell in love. He was very nice; but he was not
strong in his views and opinions and principles, and though he
never came to actual grief his friends were thankful when he said
good-bye, and went out to this mysterious "tea" business near
Darjiling. They said:--"God bless you, dear boy! Let us never see
your face again,"--or at least that was what Phil was given to
understand.

When he sailed, he was very full of a great plan to prove himself
several hundred times better than any one had given him credit
for--
to work like a horse, and triumphantly marry Agnes Laiter. He had
many good points besides his good looks; his only fault being that
he was weak, the least little bit in the world weak. He had as
much notion of economy as the Morning Sun; and yet you could
not
lay your hand on any one item, and say: "Herein Phil Garron is
extravagant or reckless." Nor could you point out any particular
vice in his character; but he was "unsatisfactory" and as workable
as putty.

Agnes Laiter went about her duties at home--her family objected to
the engagement--with red eyes, while Phil was sailing to
Darjiling--
"a port on the Bengal Ocean," as his mother used to tell her
friends. He was popular enough on board ship, made many
acquaintances and a moderately large liquor bill, and sent off huge
letters to Agnes Laiter at each port. Then he fell to work on this
plantation, somewhere between Darjiling and Kangra, and, though
the
salary and the horse and the work were not quite all he had
fancied, he succeeded fairly well, and gave himself much
unnecessary credit for his perseverance.

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