Book: Short Stories

V >> Various >> Short Stories




The servants, in spotless white muslin and the crest of their
regiments on the brow of their turbans, waited behind their masters,
who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the White Hussars and the
cream and silver of the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch's dull green
uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes
made up for it. He was fraternizing effusively with the captain of the
Lushkar team, who was wondering how many of Dirkovitch's Cossacks his
own long, lathy down-countrymen could account for in a fair charge.
But one does not speak of these things openly.

The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band played
between the courses, as is the immemorial custom, till all tongues
ceased for a moment with the removal of the dinner slips and the First
Toast of Obligation, when the colonel, rising, said, "Mr. Vice, the
Queen," and Little Mildred from the bottom of the table answered, "The
Queen, God bless her!" and the big spurs clanked as the big men heaved
themselves up and drank the Queen, upon whose pay they were falsely
supposed to pay their mess bills. That sacrament of the mess never
grows old, and never ceases to bring a lump into the throat of the
listener wherever he be, by land or by sea. Dirkovitch rose with his
"brothers glorious," but he could not understand. No one but an
officer can understand what the toast means; and the bulk have more
sentiment than comprehension. It all comes to the same in the end, as
the enemy said when he was wriggling on a lance point. Immediately
after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there entered
the native officer who had played for the Lushkar team. He could not
of course eat with the alien, but he came in at dessert, all six feet
of him, with the blue-and-silver turban atop, and the big black
top-boots below. The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward the hilt
of his saber, in token of fealty, for the colonel of the White Hussars
to touch, and dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of "_Rung ho_!
Hira Singh!" (which being translated means "Go in and win!"). "Did I
whack you over the knee, old man?" "Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil
made you play that kicking pig of a pony in the last ten minutes?"
"Shabash, Ressaidar Sahib!" Then the voice of the colonel, "The health
of Ressaidar Hira Singh!"

After the shouting had died away, Hira Singh rose to reply, for he was
the cadet of a royal house, the son of a king's son, and knew what was
due on these occasions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular:--

"Colonel Sahib and officers of this regiment, much honor have you done
me. This will I remember. We came down from afar to play you; but we
were beaten." ("No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our own
ground, y' know. Your ponies were cramped from the railway. Don't
apologize.") "Therefore perhaps we will come again if it be so
ordained." ("Hear! Hear, hear, indeed! Bravo! Hsh!") "Then we will
play you afresh" ("Happy to meet you"), "till there are left no feet
upon our ponies. Thus far for sport." He dropped one hand on his sword
hilt and his eye wandered to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair.
"But if by the will of God there arises any other game which is not
the polo game, then be assured, Colonel Sahib and officers, that we
shall play it out side by side, though _they_"--again his eye sought
Dirkovitch--"though _they_, I say, have fifty ponies to our one
horse." And with a deep-mouthed _Rung ho_! that rang like a musket
butt on flagstones, he sat down amid shoutings.

Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the brandy--the
terrible brandy aforementioned--did not understand, nor did the
expurgated[14] translations offered to him at all convey the point.
Decidedly the native officer's was the speech of the evening, and the
clamor might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the
noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless
left side. It is notable that Dirkovitch "reached back," after the
American fashion--a gesture that set the captain of the Lushkar team
wondering how Cossack officers were armed at mess. Then there was a
scuffle, and a yell of pain.

"Carbine stealing again!" said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in
his chair. "This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries
have killed him."

The feet of armed men pounded on the veranda flags, and it sounded as
though something was being dragged.

"Why don't they put him in the cells till the morning?" said the
colonel, testily. "See if they've damaged him, sergeant."

The mess-sergeant fled out into the darkness, and returned with two
troopers and a corporal, all very much perplexed.

"Caught a man stealin' carbines, sir," said the corporal.

"Leastways 'e was crawling toward the barricks, sir, past the
main-road sentries; an' the sentry 'e says, sir--"

The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. Never was seen
so destitute and demoralized an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless,
caked with dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh
started slightly at the sound of the man's pain. Dirkovitch took
another liqueur glass of brandy.

"_What_ does the sentry say?" said the colonel.

"Sez he speaks English, sir," said the corporal.

"So you brought him into mess instead of handing him over to the
sergeant! If he spoke all the tongues of the Pentecost you've no
business--"

Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little Mildred had risen from
his place to inspect. He jumped back as though he had been shot.

"Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away," said he to
the colonel, for he was a much-privileged subaltern. He put his arms
round the rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair.
It may not have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in
his being six feet four, and big in proportion. The corporal, seeing
that an officer was disposed to look after the capture, and that the
colonel's eye was beginning to blaze, promptly removed himself and his
men. The mess was left alone with the carbine thief, who laid his head
on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably, as
little children weep.

Hira Singh leaped to his feet with a long-drawn vernacular oath
"Colonel Sahib," said he, "that man is no Afghan, for they weep '_Ai!
Ai_!' Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep,'_Oh! Ho_!' He weeps after
the fashion of the white men, who say '_Ow! Ow_!'"

"Now where the dickens did you get that knowledge, Hira Singh?" said
the captain of the Lushkar team.

"Hear him!" said Hira Singh, simply, pointing at the crumpled figure
that wept as though it would never cease.

"He said, 'My God!'" said Little Mildred, "I heard him say it."

The colonel and the mess room looked at the man in silence. It is a
horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the top of her
palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, but a man cries from his
diaphragm, and it rends him to pieces. Also, the exhibition causes the
throat of the on-looker to close at the top.

"Poor devil!" said the colonel, coughing tremendously, "We ought to
send him to hospital. He's been manhandled."

Now the adjutant loved his rifles. They were to him as his
grandchildren--the men standing in the first place. He grunted
rebelliously: "I can understand an Afghan stealing, because he's made
that way. But I can't understand his crying. That makes it worse."

The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair
and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling
beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity
in the construction of the mess room this shadow was always thrown
when the candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the
White Hussars. They were, in rather proud of it.

"Is he going to cry all night?" said the colonel, "or are we supposed
to sit up with Little Mildred's guest until he feels better?"

The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the mess.
Outside, the wheels of the first of those bidden to the festivities
crunched the roadway.

"Oh, my God!" said the man in the chair, and every soul in the mess
rose to his feet. Then the Lushkar captain did a deed for which he
ought to have been given the Victoria Cross--distinguished gallantry
in a fight against overwhelming curiosity. He picked up his team with
his eyes as the hostess picks up the ladies at the opportune moment,
and pausing only by the colonel's chair to say, "This isn't _our_
affair, you know, sir," led the team into the veranda and the gardens.
Hira Singh was the last, and he looked at Dirkovitch as he moved. But
Dirkovitch had departed into a brandy paradise of his own. His lips
moved without sound, and he was studying the coffin on the ceiling.

"White--white all over," said Basset-Holmer, the adjutant. "What a
pernicious renegade[15] he must be! I wonder where he came from?"

The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and "Who are you?" said
he.

There was no answer. The man stared round the mess room and smiled in
the colonel's face. Little Mildred, who was always more of a woman
than a man till "Boot and saddle" was sounded, repeated the question
in a voice that would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man
only smiled. Dirkovitch, at the far end of the table, slid gently from
his chair to the floor, No son of Adam, in this present imperfect
world, can mix the Hussars' champagne with the Hussars' brandy by five
and eight glasses of each without remembering the pit whence he has
been digged and descending thither. The band began to play the tune
with which the White Hussars, from the date of their formation,
preface all their functions. They would sooner be disbanded than
abandon that tune. It is a part of their system. The man straightened
himself in his chair and drummed on the table with his fingers.

"I don't see why we should entertain lunatics," said the colonel;
"call a guard and send him off to the cells. We'll look into the
business in the morning. Give him a glass of wine first, though."

Little Mildred filled a sherry glass with the brandy and thrust it
over to the man. He drank, and the tune rose louder, and he
straightened himself yet more. Then he put out his long-taloned hands
to a piece of plate opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a
mystery connected with that piece of plate in the shape of a spring,
which converted what was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs
each side and one on the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke
candelabrum[16]. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly.
He rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall, then moved
on to another picture, the mess watching him without a word.

When he came to the mantelpiece he shook his head and seemed
distressed. A piece of plate representing a mounted hussar in full
uniform caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the mantelpiece,
with inquiry in his eyes.

"What is it--oh, what is it?" said Little Mildred. Then, as a mother
might speak to a child, "That is a horse--yes, a horse."

Very slowly came the answer, in a thick, passionless guttural: "Yes,
I--have seen. But--where is _the_ horse?"

You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating as the men drew
back to give the stranger full room in his wanderings. There was no
question of calling the guard.

Again he spoke, very slowly, "Where is _our_ horse?"

There is no saying what happened after that. There is but one horse in
the White Hussars, and his portrait hangs outside the door of the mess
room. He is the piebald drum-horse the king of the regimental band,
that served the regiment for seven-and-thirty years, and in the end
was shot for old age. Half the mess tore the thing down from its place
and thrust it into the man's hands. He placed it above the
mantelpiece; it clattered on the ledge, as his poor hands dropped it,
and he staggered toward the bottom of the table, falling into
Mildred's chair. The band began to play the "River of Years" waltz,
and the laughter from the gardens came into the tobacco-scented mess
room. But nobody, even the youngest, was thinking of waltzes. They all
spoke to one another something after this fashion: "The drum-horse
hasn't hung over the mantelpiece since '67." "How does he know?"
"Mildred, go and speak to him again." "Colonel, what are you going to
do?" "Oh, dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself
together!" "It isn't possible, anyhow. The man's a lunatic."

Little Mildred stood at the colonel's side talking into his ear. "Will
you be good enough to take your seats, please, gentlemen?" he said,
and the mess dropped into the chairs.

Only Dirkovitch's seat, next to Little Mildred's, was blank, and
Little Mildred himself had found Hira Singh's place. The wide-eyed
mess sergeant filled the glasses in dead silence. Once more the
colonel rose, but his hand shook, and the port spilled on the table as
he looked straight at the man in Little Mildred's chair and said,
hoarsely, "Mr. Vice, the Queen." There was a little pause, but the man
sprang to his feet and answered, without hesitation, "The Queen, God
bless her!" and as he emptied the thin glass he snapped the shank
between his fingers.

Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a young woman, and
there were no unclean ideals in the land, it was the custom in a few
messes to drink the Queen's toast in broken glass, to the huge delight
of the mess contractors. The custom is now dead, because there is
nothing to break anything for, except now and again the word of a
government, and that has been broken already.

"That settles it," said the colonel, with a gasp. "He's not a
sergeant. What in the world is he?"

The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of questions would
have scared any man. Small wonder that the ragged, filthy invader
could only smile and shake his head.

From under the table, calm and smiling urbanely[17], rose Dirkovitch,
who had been roused from healthful slumber by feet upon his body. By
the side of the man he rose, and the man shrieked and groveled at his
feet. It was a horrible sight, coming so swiftly upon the pride and
glory of the toast that had brought the strayed wits together.

Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but Little Mildred heaved him
up in an instant. It is not good that a gentleman who can answer to
the Queen's toast should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks.

The hasty action tore the wretch's upper clothing nearly to the waist,
and his body was seamed with dry black scars. There is only one weapon
in the world that cuts in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane
nor the cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his eyes
dilated--also, his face changed. He said something that sounded like
"Shto ve takete"; and the man, fawning, answered, "Chetyre."

"What's that?" said everybody together.

"His number. That is number four, you know." Dirkovitch spoke very
thickly.

"What has a Queen's officer to do with a qualified number?" said the
colonel, and there rose an unpleasant growl round the table.

"How can I tell?" said the affable Oriental, with a sweet smile. "He
is a--how you have it?--escape--runaway, from over there."

He nodded toward the darkness of the night.

"Speak to him, if he'll answer you, and speak to him gently," said
Little Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It seemed most improper
to all present that Dirkovitch. should sip brandy as he talked in
purring, spitting Russian to the creature who answered so feebly and
with such evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to understand,
no man said a word. They breathed heavily, leaning forward, in the
long gaps of the conversation. The next time that they have no
engagements on hand the White Hussars intend to go to St. Petersburg
and learn Russian.

"He does not know how many years ago," said Dirkovitch, facing the
mess, "but he says it was very long ago, in a war, I think that there
was an accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished
regiment in the war."

"The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls!" said Little Mildred,
and the adjutant dashed off bareheaded to the orderly room where the
rolls of the regiment were kept. He returned just in time to hear
Dirkovitch conclude, "Therefore I am most sorry to say there was an
accident, which would have been, reparable if he had apologized to our
colonel, whom he had insulted."

Another growl, which the colonel tried to beat down. The mess was in
no mood to weigh insults to Russian colonels just then.

"He does not remember, but I think that there was an accident, and so
he was not exchanged among the prisoners, but he was sent to another
place--how do you say?--the country. _So_, he says, he came here. He
does not know how he came. Eh? He _was_ at Chepany[18]"--the man
caught the word, nodded, and shivered--"at Zhigansk[19] and
Irkutsk[20]. I cannot understand how he escaped. He says, too, that he
was in the forests for many years, but how many years he has
forgotten--that with many things. It was an accident; done because he
did not apologise to our colonel. Ah!"

Instead of echoing Dirkovitch's sigh of regret, it is sad to record
that the White Hussars livelily exhibited unchristian delight and
other emotions, hardly restrained by their sense of hospitality.
Holmer flung the frayed and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and
the men flung themselves atop of these.

"Steady! Fifty-six--fifty-five--fifty-four," said Holmer. "Here we
are. 'Lieutenant Austin Limmason--_missing_.' That was before
Sebastopol[21]. What an infernal shame! Insulted one of their
colonels, and was quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped
out."

"But he never apologized. Said he'd see him----first," chorussed the
mess.

"Poor devil! I suppose he never had the chance afterward. How did he
come here?" said the colonel.

The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.

"Do you know who you are?"

It laughed weakly.

"Do you know that you are Limmason--Lieutenant Limmason, of the White
Hussars?"

Swift as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised tone, "Yes,
I'm Limmason, of course." The light died out in his eyes, and he
collapsed afresh, watching every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A
flight from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it
does not lead to continuity of thought. The man could not explain how,
like a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again.
Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before
Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the
candlestick, sought the picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the
Queen's toast. The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian tongue
could only in part remove. His head bowed on his breast, and he
giggled and cowered alternately.

The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch at this
extremely inopportune moment to make a speech. He rose, swaying
slightly, gripped the table edge, while his eyes glowed like opals,
and began:--"Fellow-soldiers glorious--true friends and hospitables.
It was an accident, and deplorable--most deplorable." Here he smiled
sweetly all round the mess. "But you will think of this little, little
thing. So little, is it not? The czar! Posh! I slap my fingers--I snap
my fingers at him. Do I believe in him? No! But the Slav who has done
nothing, _him_ I believe. Seventy--how much?--millions that have done
nothing--not one thing. Napoleon was an episode." He banged a hand on
the table. "Hear you, old peoples, we have done nothing in the
world--out here. All our work is to do: and it shall be done, old
peoples. Get away!" He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed to the
man. "You see him. He is not good to see. He was just one little--oh,
so little--accident, that no one remembered. Now he is _That_. So will
you be, brother-soldiers so brave--so will you be. But you will never
come back. You will all go where he has gone, or"--he pointed to the
great coffin shadow on the ceiling, and muttering, "Seventy
millions--get away, you old people," fell asleep.

"Sweet, and to the point," said Little Mildred. "What's the use of
getting wroth? Let's make the poor devil comfortable."

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from the loving hands
of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only to go away
again three days later, when the wail of the "Dead March" and the
tramp of the squadrons told the wondering station, that saw no gap in
the table, an officer of the regiment had resigned his new-found
commission.

And Dirkovitch--bland, supple, and always genial--went away too by a
night train. Little Mildred and another saw him off, for he was the
guest of the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open
hand the law of the mess allowed no relaxation of hospitality.

"Good-by, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey," said Little Mildred.

"_Au revoir[22]_ my true friends," said the Russian.

"Indeed! But we thought you were going home?"

"Yes; but I will come again. My friends, is that road shut?" He
pointed to where the north star burned over the Khyber Pass.

"By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, old man, any time
you like. Got everything you want,--cheroots, ice, bedding? That's all
right. Well, _au revoir_, Dirkovitch."

"Um," said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train grew small.
"Of--all--the--unmitigated[23]--"

Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the north star, and
hummed a selection from a recent burlesque that had much delighted the
White Hussars. It ran:--

"I'm sorry for Mister Bluebeard,
I'm sorry to cause him pain;
But a terrible spree there's sure to be
When he comes back again."


NOTES

[1] _The Man Who Was_ was written in 1889.

[2] 46:6 anomaly. Deviation from type.

[3] 47:1 Hussars. Light-horse troopers armed with sabre and carbine.

[4] 47:1 Peshawur. City in British India.

[5] 47:7 Tyrones. From a county in Ireland by this name.

[6] 47:26 Burmah. In southeastern Asia. Part of the British Empire.

[7] 47:27 Irrawaddy. Chief river of Burma.

[8] 48:27 Sotnia. Company of the Cossacks.

[9] 50:14 rupee. Indian coin worth about forty-eight cents.

[10] 50:21 vendettas. Private blood-feuds.

[11] 51:14 Punjab. Country of five rivers, tributaries of the Indus.

[12] 81:26 Sambhur. A rusine deer found in India.

[13] 51:26 nilghai. Antelope with hind legs shorter than its
fore-legs.

[14] 54:9 expurgated. Purified.

[15] 57:23 renegade. One who deserts his faith.

[16] 58:26 candelabrum. Stand supporting several lamps.

[17] 61:3 urbanely. Politely.

[18] 63:2 Chepany. Town in Siberia.

[19] 63:4 Zhigansk. Town in Siberia.

[20] 63:4 Irkutsk. Province and city in Siberia.

[21] 63:17 Sebastopol. Seaport in Russia.

[22] 65:26 Au revoir. Till we meet again.

[23] 66:6 unmitigated. As bad as can be.


BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

_Essays on Modern Novelists_, William Lyon Phelps.

_A Kipling Primer_, Knowles.

_Rudyard Kipling_, Richard Le Galliene.

"Kipling to French Eyes," _Bookman_, 26: 584.

"Life of Kipling," _Encyclopaedia Britannica.

"Life of Kipling," _The Universal Encyclopedia_.


BIOGRAPHY

Rudyard Kipling, the most vigorous, versatile, and highly endowed of
the present-day writers of fiction, was born in Bombay, India,
December 30, 1865. His place of birth and extensive travelling make
him more Anglo-Saxon than British. His father was for many years
connected with the schools of art at Bombay and Lahore in India. His
mother, Alice MacDonald, was the daughter of a Methodist clergyman.

Kipling was brought to England when he was five years old to be
educated. While in college at Westward Ho he edited the _College
Chronicle_. For this paper he contributed regularly, poetry and
stories. After his school days and on his return to India, he served
on the editorial staff of the Lahore _Civil and Military Gazette_ from
1882 to 1887, and was assistant editor of the _Pioneer_ at Allahabad
from 1887 to 1889.

Kipling has travelled extensively. He is at home in India, China,
Japan, Africa, Australia, England, and America. The odd part about his
realistic observations, however, is that his notes, whether written
about California or India, are often repudiated by the people whom he
has visited. After visiting England and the United States in a vain
effort to find a publisher for his writings, he returned to India and
published in the _Pioneer_ his _American Notes_, which were
immediately reproduced in book form in New York in 1891.

He married Miss Balestier of New York in 1892. They settled at
Brattleboro, Vermont, immediately after their marriage and lived there
until 1896. Kipling revisited the United States in 1899. While on this
trip he suffered a severe attack of pneumonia which brought out a
demonstration of interest from the American people that clearly showed
their appreciation of him as a man and a writer.


CRITICISMS

Kipling is journalistic in all his writings. Oftentimes his material
is very thin, flippant, and sensational, but he always is interesting,
for he possesses the expert reporter's unerring judgment for choosing
the essentials of his situation, character, or description, that catch
and hold the reader's attention. In his earlier writings, like _Plain
Tales from the Hills_ or _The Jungle Books_, the radical racial
differences between his characters and readers, and the background of
primitive, mysterious India caught the reading world and instantly
established Kipling's fame.

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