MARGARET
STOTT
The Sahib Edition of
n\
CITY OF THE
DREADFUL NIGHT
Illustrated by
SIR E. BUKNK- JONES
REGINALD 1JOLLES
VV. KIKKl'ATKICK
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P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
Publishers New York
MANUFACTURED TN U. S. A.
CITY OF THE DREADFUL NIGHT
CONTENTS
PACK
WEE WILLIE WINKIE i
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 21
His MAJESTY THE KING 75
THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT .... 97
CITY OF THE DREADFUL NIGHT 157
WEE Wrt.T.1 R
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE MACHUA BAZAAR (Sec page
22 1 ) Frontispiece
Photogravure by John Andrew & Son after
original by W. Kirkpatrick
AND MAMMA CAME 58
Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after
original by W. Kirkpatrick
THE ENGLISH WERE NOT RUNNING .... 154
Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after
original by W. Kirkpatrick
WEE WILLIE
WEE WILLIE WINKIE
"An officer and a gentleman."
HIS full name was Percival William Wil-
liams, but he picked up the other name in
a nursery-book, and that was the end of the
christened titles. His mother's ayah called
him Willie-fra&a, but as he never paid the faint-
est attention to anything that the ayah said, her
wisdom did not help matters.
His father was the Colonel of the I95th, and
as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old enough
to understand what Military Discipline meant,
Colonel Williams put him under it. There was
no other way of managing the child. When he
was good for a week, he drew good-conduct
pay; and when he was bad, he was deprived
of his good-conduct stripe. Generally he was
bad, for India offers so many chances to little
six-year-olds of going wrong.
Children resent familiarity from strangers,
and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular
child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he
I
12 WEE WILLIE WINKIE
was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted
Brandis, a subaltern of the I95th on sight.
Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and
Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the pos-
session of a good-conduct badge won for not
chasing the hens round the compound. He re-
garded Brandis with gravity for at least ten
minutes, and then delivered himself of his
opinion.
"I like you," said he, slowly, getting off his
chair and coming over to Brandis. "I like you.
I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair.
Do you mind being called Coppy ? It is because
of ve hair, you know."
Here was one of the most embarrassing of
Wee Willie Winkie's peculiarities. He would
look at a stranger for some time, and then,
without warning or explanation, would give
him a name. And the name stuck. No regi-
mental penalties could break Wee Willie
Winkie of this habit. He lost his good-con-
duct badge for christening the Commissioner's
wife "Fobs"; but nothing that the Colonel
could do made the Station forego the nick-
name, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. "Fobs' 5
till the end of her stay. So Brandis was chris-
tened "Coppy/' and rose, therefore, in the es-
timation of the regiment.
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 3
If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in
any one, the fortunate man was envied alike by
the mess and the rank and file. And in their
envy lay no suspicion of self-interest. "The
Colonel's son" was idolized on his own merits
entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie was not
lovely. His face was permanently freckled,
as his legs were permanently scratched, and in
spite of his mother's almost tearful remon-
strances he had insisted upon having his long
yellow locks cut short in the military fashion.
"I want my hair like Sergeant Tummil's,"
said Wee Willie Winkie, and, his father abet-
ting, the sacrifice was accomplished.
Three weeks after the bestowal of his youth-
ful affections on Lieutenant Brandis hence-
forward to be called "Coppy" for the sake of
brevity Wee Willie Winkie was destined to
behold strange things and far beyond his com-
prehension.
Coppy returned his liking with interest,
Coppy had let him wear for five rapturous min-
utes his own big sword just as tall as Wee
Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a
terrier puppy ; and Coppy had permitted him to
witness the miraculous operation of shaving.
Nay, more Coppy had said that even he, Wee
Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the owner-
ship of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-
4 WEE WILLIE WINKIE
box and a silver-handled "sputter-brush/' as
Wee Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, there
was no one except his father, who could give
or take away good-conduct badges at pleasure,
half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with
the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast.
Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the un-
manly weakness of kissing vehemently kiss-
ing a "big girl/' Miss Allardyce to wit? In
the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie
Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the
gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round
and cantered back to his groom, lest the groom
should also see.
Under ordinary circumstances he would have
spoken to his father, but he felt instinctively
that this was a matter on which Coppy ought
first to be consulted.
"Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, rein-
ing up outside that subaltern's bungalow early
one morning "I want to see you, Coppy !"
"Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, who
was at early breakfast in the midst of his dogs.
"What mischief have you been getting into
now?"
Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notori-
ously bad for three days, and so stood on a pin-
nacle of virtue.
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 5
"I've been doing nothing bad," said he, curl-
ing himself into a long chair with a studious
affectation of the Colonel's languor after a hot
parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-
cup and, with eyes staring roundly over the
rim, asked : *"! say, Coppy, is it proper to kiss
big girls?"
"By Jove! You're beginning early. Who
do you want to kiss ?"
"No one. My muvver's always kissing m*
if I don't stop her. If it isn't pwoper, how
was you kissing Major Allardyce's big girl last
morning, by ve canal ?"
Coppy's brow wrinkled. He and Miss Al-
lardyce had with great craft managed to keep
their engagement secret for a fortnight. There
were urgent and imperative reasons why Major
Allardyce should not know how matters stood
for at least another month, and this small mar-
plot had discovered a great deal too much.
"I saw you," said Wee Willie Winkic,
calmly. "But ve groom didn't see. I said,
'Hut jao! "
"Oh, you had that much sense, you young
Rip," groaned poor Coppy, half amused and
half angry. "And how many people may you
hsre told about it?"
"Only me myself. You didn't tell when I
6 WEE WILLIE WINKIE
twicd to wide ve buffalo ven my pony was
lame; and I fought you wouldn't like."
"Winkie," said Coppy, enthusiastically,
shaking the small hand, "you're the best of
good fellows. Look here, you can't understand
all these things. One of these days hang it,
how can I make you see it! I'm going to
marry Miss Allardyce, and then she'll be Mrs.
Coppy, as you say. If your young mind is so
scandalized at the idea of kissing big girls, go
and tell your father."
"What will happen?" said Wee Willie Win-
kie, who fimly believed that his father was
omnipotent.
"I shall get into trouble," said Coppy, play-
ing his trump card with an appealing look at
the holder of the ace.
"Ven I won't," said Wee Willie Winkie,
briefly. "But may faver says it's un-man-ly
to be always kissing, and I didn't fink you'd
do vat, Coppy."
"I'm not always kissing, old chap. It's only
now and then, and when you're bigger you'll
do it too. Your father meant it's not good for
little boys."
"Ah !" said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully
enlightened. "It's like ve sputter-brush?"
"Exactly," said Coppy, gravely.
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 7
"But I don't fink I'll ever want to kiss big
girls, nor no one 'cept my muvver. And I
must vat, you know."
There was a long pause, broken by Wee Wil-
lie Winkie.
"Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?"
"Awfully!" said Coppy.
"Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha
or me?"
"It's in a different way," said Coppy. "You
see, one of these days Miss Allardyce will be-
long to me, but you'll grow up and command
the Regiment and all sorts of things. It's
quite different, you see/'
"Very well," said Wee Willie Winkie, rising.
"If you're fond of ve big girl, I won't tell any
one. I must go now."
Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to
the door, adding : "Your the best of little fel-
lows, Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty days
from now you can tell if you like tell any
one you like."
Thus the secret of the Brandis Allardyce
engagement was dependent on a little child's
word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie's
idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he
would not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie
betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss
8 WEE WILLIE WINKIE
Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round that
embarrassed young lady, was used to regard
her gravely with unwinking eye. He was try-
ing to discover why Coppy should have kissed
her. She was not half so nice as his own
mother. On the other hand, she was Coppy's
property, and would in time belong to him.
Therefore it behooved him to treat her with
as much respect as Coppy's big sword or shiny
pistol.
The idea that he shared a great secret in
common with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie
unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the
Old Adam broke out, and he made what he
called a "camp-fire" at the bottom of the gar-
den. How could he have foreseen that the fly-
ing sparks would have lighted the Colonel's
little hayrick and consumed a week's store for
the horses? Sudden and swift was the punish-
ment deprivation of the good-conduct badge
and, most sorrowful of all, two days' confine-
ment to barracks the house and veranda*
coupled with the withdrawal of the light of
his father's countenance.
He took the sentence like the man he strove
to be, drew himself up with quivering under-
lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran
to weep bitterly in his nursery called by him
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 9
"my quarters." Coppy came in the afternoon
and attempted to console the culprit.
"I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Win-
kie, mournfully, "and I didn't ought to speak
to you."
Very early the next morning he climbed on
to the roof of the house that was not for-
bidden and beheld Miss Allardyce going for
a ride.
"Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie
Winkie.
"Across the river," she answered, and trotted
forward.
Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay
was bounded on the north by a river dry in
the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Wil-
lie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the
river, and had noted that even Coppy the al-
most almighty Coppy had never set foot be*
yond it. Wee Willie Winkie had once been
read to, out of a big blue book, the history of
the Princess and the Goblins a most wonder-
ful tale of a land where the Goblins were al-
ways warring with the children of men until
they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since
that date it seemed to him that the bare black
and purple hills across the river were inhabited
by Goblins, and, in truth, every one had said
io WEE WILLIE WINKIE
that there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own
house the lower halves of the windows were
covered with green paper on account of the
Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view,
fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfort-
able bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river,
which was the end of all the Earth, lived the
Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce's
big girl, Coppy's property, preparing to ven-
ture into their borders! What would Coppy
say if anything happened to her? If the Gob-
lins ran off with her as they did with Curdie's
Princess? She must at all hazards be turned
back.
The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie re-
flected for a moment on the very terrible wrath
of his father; and then broke his arrest! It
was crime unspeakable. The low sun threw
his shadow, very large and very black, on the
trim garden-paths, as he went down to the
stables and ordered his pony. It seemed to him
in the hush of the dawn that all the big world
had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee
Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy
groom handed him his mount, and, since the
one great sin made all others insignificent, Wee
Willie Winkie said that he was going to ride
over to Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-
WEE WILLIE WINKIE II
pace, stepping on the soft mould of the flower-
borders.
The devastating track of the pony's feet was
the last misdeed that cut him off from all sym-
pathy of Humanity. He turned into the road,
leaned forward, and rode as fast as the pony
could put foot to the ground in the direction of
the river.
But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can
do little against the long canter of a Waler.
Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had passed
through the crops, beyond the Police-post,
when all the guards were asleep, and her mount
was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as
Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and
British India behind him. Bowed forward and
still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into
Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Al-
lardyce a black speck, flickering across the
stony plain. The reason of her wandering was
simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-
hastily-assumed authority, had told her over
night that she must not ride out by the river.
And she had gone to prove her own spirit and
teach Coppy a lesson.
Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills,
Wee Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and
come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled
WEE WILLIE WINKIE
dear, but her ankle had been severely twisted,
and she could not stand. Having thus demon-
strated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was
surprised by the apparition of a white, wide-
eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony.
"Are you badly, badly hurted ?" shouted Wee
Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within range.
"You didn't ought to be here/'
"I don't know," said Miss Allardyce, rue-
fully, ignoring the reproof. "Good gracious,
child, what are you doing here?"
"You said you was going acwoss ve wiver,"
panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself
off his pony. "And nobody not even Coppy
must go acwoss ve wiver, and I came after
you ever so hard, but you wouldn't stop, and
now youVe hurted yourself, and Coppy will be
angwy wiv me, and I've bwoken my awwest !
I've bwoken my awwest!"
The future Colonel of the I95th sat down
and sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle
the girl was moved.
"Have you ridden all the way from can-
tonments, little man? What for?"
"You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me
so !" wailed Wee Willie Winkie, disconsolately.
"I saw him kissing you, and he said he was
fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me.
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 13
And so I came. You must get up and come
back. You didn't ought to be here. Vis is a
bad place, and I've bwoken my aw west."
"I can't move, Winkie" said Miss Allardyce,
with a groan. "I've hurt my foot. What shall
I do?"
She showed a readiness to weep afresh,
which steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had
been brought up to believe that tears were the
depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as
great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a
man may be permitted to break down.
"Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, "when
you've rested a little, ride back and tell them
to send out something to carry me back in. It
hurts fearfully."
The child sat still for a little time and Miss
Allardyce closed her eyes ; the pain was nearly
making her faint. She was roused by Wee
Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony's
neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of his
whip that made it whicker. The little animal
headed toward the cantonments.
"Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?"
"Hush !" said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere's
a man coming one of ve Bad Men. I must
stay wiv you. My faver says a man must
always look after a girl. Jack will go home,,
14 WEE WILLIE WINKIE
and ven vey'll come and look for us. Vat's
why I let him go."
Not one man but two or three had appeared
from behind the rocks of the hills, and the heart
of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just
in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal
out and vex Curdie's soul. Thus had they
played in Curdie's garden, he had seen the pic-
ture, and thus had they frightened the Prin-
cess's nurse. He heard them talking to each
other, and recognized with joy the bastard
Pushto that he had picked up from one of his
father's grooms lately dismissed. People who
spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men.
They were only natives after all.
They came up to the bowlders on which Miss
Allardyce's horse had blundered.
Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie,
child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three-
quarters, and said briefly and emphatically
"Jao!" The pony had crossed the river-bed.
The men laughed, and laughter from natives
was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie could
not tolerate. He asked them what they wanted
and why they did not depart. Other men with
most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept
out of the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee
Willie Winkie was face to face with an audi-
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 15
ence some twenty strong. Miss Allardyce
screamed.
"Who are you?" said one of the men.
"I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order
is that you go at once. You black men are
frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must
run into cantonments and take the news that
Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the
Colonel's son is here with her."
"Put our feet into the trap ?" was the laugh-
ing reply. "Hear this boy's speech !"
"Say that I sent you I, the Colonel's son.
They will give you money."
"What is the use of this talk? Take up the
child and the girl, and we can at least ask for
the ransom. Ours are the villages on the
heights," said a voice in the background.
These were the Bad Men worse than Gob-
lins and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie's
training to prevent him from bursting into
tears. But he felt that to cry before a native,
excepting only his mother's ayah, would be an
infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover,
he, as future Colonel of the I95th, had that
grim regiment at his back.
"Are you going to carry us away?" said
Wee Willie Winkie, very blanched and un-
comfortable.
16 WEE WILLIE WINKIE
"Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur/ 9 said the tall-
est of the men, "and eat you afterward/'
"That is child's talk/' said Wee Willie Win-
kie. "Men do not eat men."
A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he
went on firmly, "And if you carry us away,
I tell you that all my regiment will come up in
a day and kill you all without leaving one.
Who will take my message to the Colonel
Sahib?"
Speech in any vernacular and Wee Willie
Winkie had a colloquial acquaintance with
three was easy to the boy who could not yet
manage his "r's" and "th's' ' aright.
Another man joined the conference, cry-
ing:
"O foolish men! What this babe says is
true. He is the heart's heart of those white
troops. For the sake of peace let them go both,
for if he be taken, the regiment will break loose
and gut the valley. Our villages are in the
valley, and we shall not escape. That regiment
are devils. They broke Khoda Yar's breast-
bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles ;
and if we touch this child they will fire and
rape and plunder for a month, till nothing re-
mains. Better to send a man back to take the
message and get a reward. I say that this
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 17
child is their God, and that they will spare none
of us, nor our women, if we harm him."
It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom
of the Colonel, who made the diversion, and
an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee
Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce,
waited the upshot. Surely his "wegiment,"
his own "wegiment/* would not desert him if
they knew of his extremity.
******
The riderless pony brought the news to the
1 95th, though there had been consternation in
the Colonel's household for an hour before.
The little beast came in through the parade
ground in front of the main barracks, where
the men were settling down to play Spoil-five
till the afternoon. Devlin, the Color-Sergeant
of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle
and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kick-
ing up each Room Corporal as he passed. "Up,
ye beggars! There's something happened to
the Colonel's son," he shouted.
"He couldn't fall off ! S'elp me, 'e couldn't
fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy. "Go an'
hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's
anywhere, an* maybe those Pathans have got
'im. For the love o' Gawd don't look for 'im
in the nullahs ! Let's go over the river."
i8 WEE WILLIE WINKIE
"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin.
"E Company, double out to the river sharp !"
So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly,
doubled for the dear life, and in the rear toiled
the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double
yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the
men of the I95th hunting for Wee Willie Win-
kie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Com-
pany, far too exhausted to swear, struggling
in the pebbles of the river-bed.
Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's
Bad Men were discussing the wisdom of carry-
ing off the child and the girl, a look-out fired
two shots.
"What have I said?'' shouted Din Mahom-
med. "There is the warning ! The pulton are
out already and are coming across the plain!
Get away! Let us not be seen with the boy!"
The men waited for an instant, and then, as
another shot was fired, withdrew into the hills,
silently as they had appeared.
"The wegiment is coming/' said Wee Willie
Winkie, confidently, to Miss Allardyce, "and
it's all wight. Don't cwy!"
He needed the advice himself, for ten min-
utes later, when his father came up, he was
seeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allar-
dycets lap.
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 19
And the men of the iQSth carried him home
with shouts and rejoicings; and Coppy, who
had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and,
to his intense disgust, kissed him openly in the
presence of the men.
But there was balm for his dignity. His
father assured him that not only would the
breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the
good-conduct badge would be restored as soon
as his mother could sew it on to his blouse-
sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel
a story that made him proud of his son.
"She belonged to you, Coppy/' said Wee
Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with
a grimy forefinger. "I knew she didn't ought
to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegi-
ment would come to me if I sent Jack home."
"You're a hero, Winkie," said Coppy "a
pukka hero !"
"I don't know what vat means," said Wee
Willie Winkie, "but you mustn't call me Win-
kie any more. I'm Percival Will'am Wil-
1'ams."
And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie
enter into his manhood.
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEE
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
Baa Baa, Black Sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full.
One for the Master, one for the Dame
None for the Little Boy that cries down the lane.
Nursery Rhyme.
THE FIRST BAG.
"When I was in my father's house, I was in a better
place."
THEY were putting Punch to bed the ayah
and the hamal and Meeta, the big Surti
boy with the red and gold turban. Judy, al-
ready tucked inside her mosquito-curtains, was
nearly asleep. Punch had been allowed to stay
up for dinner. Many privileges had been ac-
corded to Punch within the last ten days, and
a greater kindness from the people of his world
had encompassed his ways and works, which
were mostly obstreperous. He sat on the edge
of his bed and swung his bare legs defiantly.
"Punch-fca&a going to bye-lo?" said the
ayah, suggestively.
23
24 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
"No," said Punch. "Punch-&a&a wants the
story about the Ranee that was turned into a
tiger. Meeta must tell it, and the hamal shall
hide behind the door and make tiger-noises at
the proper time."
"But Judy-baba will wake up," said the ayah.
"Judy-baba is waking," piped a small voice
from the mosquito-curtains. "There was a
Ranee that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta,"
and she fell fast asleep again while Meeta be-
gan the story.
Never had Punch secured the telling of that
tale with so little opposition. He reflected for
a long time. The hamal made the tiger-noises
in twenty different keys.
" Top !" said Punch, authoritatively. "Why
doesn't Papa come in and say he is going to
give me put-put?"
"Punch-iafca is going away," said the ayah.
"In another week there will be no Punch-&a&a
to pull my hair any more." She sighed softly,
for the boy of the household was very dear to
her heart.
"Up the Ghauts in a train?" said Punch,
standing on his bed. "All the way to Nassick
where the Ranee-Tiger lives ?"
"Not to Nassick this year, little Sahib," said
Meeta, lifting him on his shoulder. "Down to
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 25
the sea where the cocoanuts are thrown, and
across the sea in a big ship. Will you take
Meeta with you to Belait?"
"You shall all come," said Punch, from the
height of Meeta's strong arms. "Meeta and
the ayah and the hamal and Bhini-in-the-Gar-
den, and the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snake-
man."
There was no mockery in Meeta's voice when
he replied "Great is the Sahib's favor/' and
laid the little man down in the bed, while the
ayah, sitting in the moonlight at the doorway,
lulled him to sleep with an interminable can-
ticle such as they sing in the Roman Catholic
Church at Parel. Punch curled himself into a
ball and slept.
Next morning Judy shouted that there was a
rat in the nursery, and thus he forgot to tell
her the wonderful news. It did not much mat-
ter, for Judy was only three and she would not
have understood. But Punch was five; and he
knew that going to England would be much
nicer than a trip to Nassick.
And Papa and Mamma sold the brougham
and the piano, and stripped the house, and cur-
tailed the allowance of crockery for the daily
26 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
meals, and took long council together over a
bundle of letters bearing the Rocklington post-
mark.
"The worst of it is that one can't be certain
of anything/' said Papa, pulling his moustache.
"The letters in themselves are excellent, and the
terms are moderate enough."
"The worst of it is that the children will
grow up away from me," thought Mamma:
but she did not say it aloud.
"We are only one case among hundreds,"
said Papa, bitterly. "You shall go Home again
in five years, dear."
"Punch will be ten then and Judy eight.
Oh, how long and long and long the time will
be ! And we have to leave them among stran-
gers."
"Punch is a cheery little chap. He's sure to
make friends wherever he goes."
"And who could help loving my Ju?"
They were standing over the cots in the nurs-
ery late at night, and I think that Mamma was
crying softly. After Papa had gone away, she
knelt down by the side of Judy's cot. The
ayah saw her and put up a prayer that the
memsahib might never find the love of her
children taken away from her and given to a
stranger.
Kip. 5 A
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 27
Mamma's own prayer was a slightly illogical
one. Summarized it ran : "Let strangers love
my children and be as good to them as I should
be, but let me preserve their love and their
confidence forever and ever. Amen." Punch
scratched himself in his sleep, and Judy moaned
a little. That seems to be the only answer to
the prayer : and, next day, they all went down
to the sea, and there was a scene at the Apollo
Bunder when Punch discovered that Meeta
could not come too, and Judy learned that the
ayah must be left behind. But Punch found a
thousand fascinating things in the rope, block,
and steam-pipe line on the big P. and O.
Steamer, long before Meeta and the ayah had
dried their tears.
"Come back, Punch-baba" said the ayah.
"Come back," said Meeta, "and be a Burra
Sahib."
"Yes," said Punch, lifted up in his father's
arms to wave good-bye. "Yes, I will come
back, and I will be a Burra Sahib Baha dur!"
At the end of the first day Punch demanded
to be set down in England, which he was cer-
tain must be close at hand. Next day there was
a merry breeze, and Punch was very sick.
"When I come back to Bombay," said Punch
on his recovery, "I will come by the road in
Kip. 5 B
28 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
a broom-gharri. This is a very naughty ship/ 1
The Swedish boatswain consoled him, and he
modified his opinions as the voyage went on.
There was so much to see and to handle and
ask questions about that Punch nearly forgot
the ayah and Meeta and the hamal, and with
difficulty remembered a few words of the
Hindustani once his second-speech.
But Judy was much worse. The clay before
the steamer reached Southampton, Mamma
asked her if she would not like to see the ayah
again. Judy's blue eyes turned to the stretch
of sea that had swallowed all her tiny past, and
she said: "Ayah! What ayah?"
Mamma cried over her and Punch marveled.
It was then that he heard for the first time
Mamma's passionate appeal to him never to let
Judy forget Mamma. Seeing that Judy was
young, ridiculously young, and that Mamma,
every evening for four weeks past, had come
into the cabin to sing her and Punch to sleep
with a mysterious rune that he called "Sonny,
my soul," Punch could not understand what
Mamma meant. But he strove to do his duty ;
for, the moment Mamma left the cabin, he said
to Judy : " Ju, you bemember Mamma ?"
" Torse I do," said Judy.
"Then always bemember Mamma, 'r else I
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 29
won't give you the paper ducks that the red-
haired Captain Sahib cut out for me."
So Judy promised always to "bemember
Mamma."
Many and many a time was Mamma's com-
mand laid upon Punch, and Papa would say the
same thing with an insistence that awed the
child.
"You must make haste and learn to write,
Punch," said Papa, "and then you'll be able to
write letters to us in Bombay."
"I'll come into your room," said Punch, and
Papa choked.
Papa and Mamma were always choking in
those days. If Punch took Judy to task for
not "bemembering," they choked. If Punch
sprawled on the sofa in the Southampton lodg-
ing-house and sketched his future in purple and
gold, they choked ; and so they did if Judy put
up her mouth for a kiss.
Through many days all four were vagabonds
on the face of the earth : Punch with no one
to give orders to, Judy too young for anything,
and Papa and Mamma grave, distracted, and
choking.
"Where," demanded Punch, wearied of a
loathsome contrivance on four wheels with a
mound of luggage atop "where is our broom-
30 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
gharri? This thing talks so much that 7 can't
talk. Where is our own broom-gharrif When
I was at Bandstand before we corned away, I
asked Inverarity Sahib why he was sitting in
it, and he said it was his own. And I said, 'I
will give it you 9 I like Inverarity Sahib and
I said, 'Can you put your legs through the
pully-wag loops by the windows?' And In-
verarity Sahib said No, and laughed. / can
put my legs through the pully-wag loops. I
can put my legs through these pully-wag loops.
Look! Oh, Mamma's crying again! I didn't
know. I wasn't not to do so"
Punch drew his legs out of the loops of the
four-wheeler: the door opened and he slid to
the earth, in a cascade of parcels, at the door
of an austere little villa whose gates bore the
legend "Downe Lodge." Punch gathered
himself together and eyed the house with dis-
favor. It stood on a sandy road, and a cold
wind tickled his knickerbockered legs.
"Let us go away," said Punch. "This is not
a pretty place."
But Mamma and Papa and Judy had quitted
the cab, and all the luggage was being taken
into the house. At the doorstep stood a woman
in black, and she smiled largely, with dry
chapped lips. Behind her was a man, big, bony,
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 31
grey, and lame as to one leg behind him a boy
of twelve, black-haired and oily in appearance.
Punch surveyed the trio, and advanced with-
out fear, as he had been accustomed to do in
Bombay when callers came and he happened to
be playing in the veranda.
"How do you do?" said he. "I am Punch."
But they were all looking at the luggage all
except the grey man, who shook hands with
Punch and said he was "a smart little fellow."
There was much running about and banging of
boxes, and Punch curled himself up on the
sofa in the dining-room and considered things.
"I don't like these people," said Punch.
"But never mind. We'll go away soon. We
have always went away soon from everywhere.
I wish we was gone back to Bombay soon"
The wish bore no fruit. For six days
Mamma wept at intervals, and showed the
woman in black all Punch's clothes a liberty
which Punch resented. "But p'raps she's a
new white ayah' 9 he thought. "I'm to call
her Antirosa, but she doesn't call me Sahib.
She says just Punch," he confided to Judy.
"What is Antirosa?"
Judy didn't know. Neither she nor Punch
had heard anything of an animal called an aunt.
Their world had been Papa and Mamma, who
32 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
knew everything, permitted everything, and
loved everybody even Punch when he used to
go into the garden at Bombay and fill his nails
with mould after the weekly nail-cutting, be-
cause, as he explained between two strokes of
the slipper to his sorely tried Father, his fingers
"felt so new at the ends."
In an undefined way Punch judged it ad-
visable to keep both parents between himself
and the woman in black and the boy in black
hair. He did not approve of them. He liked
the grey man, who had expressed a wish to be
called "Uncleharri." They nodded at each
other when they met, and the grey man showed
him a little ship with rigging that took up and
down.
"She is a model of the Brisk the little Brisk
that was sore exposed that day at Navarino."
The grey man hummed the last words and fell
into a reverie. "I'll tell you about Navarino,
Punch, when we go for walks together; and
you mustn't touch the ship, because she's the
Brisk."
Long before that walk, the first of many,
was taken, they roused Punch and Judy in the
chill dawn of a February morning to say
Good-bye; and of all people in the wide earth
to Papa and Mamma both crying this time.
Punch was very sleepy and Judy was cross.
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 35
"Don't forget us," pleaded Mamma. "OH,
my little son, don't forget us, and see that Judy
remembers too."
"I've told Judy to bemember," said Punch,
wriggling, for his father's beard tickled his
neck. "I've told Judy ten forty 'leven
thousand times. But Ju's so young quite a
baby isn't she?"
"Yes," said Papa, "quite a baby, and you
must be good to Judy, and make haste to learn
to write and and and" . . .
Punch was back in his bed again. Judy was
fast asleep, and there was the rattle of a cab
below. Papa and Mamma had gone away.
Not to Nassick; that was across the sea. To
some place much nearer, of course, and equally
of course, they would return. They came
back after dinner-parties, and Papa had come
back after he had been to a place called "The
Snows," and Mamma with him, to Punch and
Judy at Mrs. Inverarity's house in Marine
Lines. Assuredly they would come back again.
So Punch fell asleep till the true morning,
when the black-haired boy met him with the
information that Papa and Mamma had gone
to Bombay, and that he and Judy were to stay
at Downe Lodge "forever." Antirosa, tear-
fully appealed to for a contradiction, said that
34 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
Harry had spoken the truth, and that it be-
hooved Punch to fold up his clothes neatly on
going to bed. Punch went out and wept bit-
terly with Judy, into whose fair head he had
driven some ideas of the meaning of separation.
When a matured man discovers that he has
been deserted by Providence, deprived of his
God, and cast without help, comfort, or sym-
pathy, upon a world which is new and strange
to him, his despair, which may find expression
in evil-living, the writing of his experiences, or
the more satisfactory diversion of suicide, is
generally supposed to be impressive. A child,
under exactly similar circumstances as far as
its knowledge goes, cannot very well curse God
and die. It howls till its nose is red, its eyes
are sore, and its head aches. Punch and Judy,
through no fault of their own, had lost all their
world. They sat in the hall and cried; the
black-haired boy looking on from afar.
The model of the ship availed nothing,
though the grey man assured Punch that he
might pull the rigging up and down as much as
he pleased ; and Judy was promised free entry
into the kitchen. They wanted Papa and
Mamma gone to Bombay beyond the seas, and
their grief while it lasted was without remedy.
When the tears ceased the house was very
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 35
still. Antirosa had decided it was better to let
the children "have their cry out," and the boy
had gone to school. Punch raised his head
from the floor and sniffed mournfully. Judy
was nearly asleep. Three short years had not
taught her how to bear sorrow with full knowl-
edge. There was a distant, dull boom in the
air a repeated heavy thud. Punch knew that
sound in Bombay in the Monsoon. It was the
sea the sea that must be traversed before any
one could get to Bombay.
"Quick, Ju!" he cried, "we're close to the
sea. I can hear it! Listen! That's where
they've went. P'raps we can catch them if we
was in time. They didn't mean to go without
us. (They've only forgot."
"Iss," said Judy. "They've only forgotted.
Less go to the sea."
The hall-door was open and so was the gar-
den-gate.
"It's very, very big, this place," he said,
looking cautiously down the road, "and we will
get lost; but / will find a man and order him
to take me back to my house like I did in
Bombay."
He took Judy by the hand, and the two fled
hatless in the direction of the sound of the sea.
Downe Lodge was almost the last of a range of
36 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
newly built houses running out, through a
chaos of brick-mounds, to a heath where
gypsies occasionally camped and where the
Garrison Artillery of Rocklington practised.
There were few people to be seen, and the chil-
dren might have been taken for those of the
soldiery, who ranged far. Half an hour the
wearied little legs tramped across heath, potato-
field, and sand-dune.
"I'se so tired," said Judy, "and Mamma will
be angry."
"Mamma's never angry. I suppose she is
waiting at the sea now while Papa gets tickets.
We'll find them and go along with. Ju, you
mustn't sit down. Only a little more and we'll
come to the sea. Ju, if you sit down I'll thmack
you!" said Punch.
They climbed another dune, and came upon
the great grey sea at low tide. Hundreds of
crabs were scuttling about the beach, but there
was no trace of Papa and Mamma, not even of
a ship upon the waters nothing but sand and
mud for miles and miles.
And "Uncleharri" found them by cfiance
very muddy and very forlorn Punch dissolved
in tears, but trying to divert Judy with an
"ickle trab," and Judy wailing to the pitiless
horizon for "Mamma, Mammal" and again
"Mamma !"
THE SECOND BAG
Ah, well-a-day, for we are souls bereaved!
Of all the creatures under Heaven's wide scope
We are most hopeless, who had once most hope,
And most beliefless, who had most believed.
The City of Dreadful Night.
ALL this time not a word about Black Sheep.
He came later, and Harry the black-haired boy
was mainly responsible for his coming.
Judy who could help loving little Judy?*
passed, by special permit, into the kitchen and
thence straight to Aunty Rosa's heart. Harry
was Aunty Rosa's one child, and Punch was
the extra boy about the house. There was no
special place for him or his little affairs, and
he was forbidden to sprawl on sofas and ex-
plain his ideas about the manufacture of this
world and his hopes for his future. Sprawling
was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys
were not expected to talk. They were talked
to, and the talking to was intended for the bene-
fit of their morals. As the unquestioned despot
of the house at Bombay, Punch could not quite
understand how he came to be of no account in
this new life.
38 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
Harry might reach across the table and take
what he wanted: Judy might point and get
what she wanted. Punch was forbidden to do
either. The grey man was his great hope and
stand-by for many months after Mamma and
Papa left, and he had forgotten to tell Judy
to "bemember Mamma."
This lapse was excusable, because in the in-
terval he had been introduced by Aunty Rosa
to two very impressive things an abstraction
called God, the intimate friend and ally of
Aunty Rosa, generally believed to live behind
the kitchen-range because it was hot there
and a dirty brown book filled with unintelligible
dots and marks. Punch was always anxious to
oblige everybody. He, therefore, welded the
story of the Creation on to what he could recol-
lect of his Indian fairy tales, and scandalized
Aunty Rosa by repeating the result to Judy.
It was a sin, a grievous sin, and Punch was
talked to for a quarter of an hour, He could
not understand where the iniquity came in, but
was careful not to repeat the offence, because
Aunty Rosa told him that God had heard every
word he had said and was very angry. If this
were true why didn't God come and say so,
thought Punch, and dismissed the matter from
his mind. Afterward he learned to know the
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 39
Lord as the only thing in the world more aw-
ful than Aunty Rosa as a Creature that stood
in the background and counted the strokes of
the cane.
But the reading was, just then, a much
more serious matter than any creed. Aunty
Rosa sat him upon a table and told him that
A B meant ab.
"Why?" said Punch. "A is a and B is bee.
Why does A B mean ab?"
"Because I tell you it does," said Aunty
Rosa, "and you've got to say it."
Punch said it accordingly, and for a month,
hugely against his will, stumbled through the
brown book, not in the least comprehending
what it meant. But Uncle Harry, who walked
much and generally alone, was wont to come
into the nursery and suggest to Aunty Rosa
that Punch should walk with him. He seldom
spoke, but he showed Punch all Rocklington,
from the mud-banks and the sand of the back-
bay to the great harbors where ships lay at
anchor, and the dockyards where the hammers
were never still, and the marine-store shops,
and the shiny brass counters in the Offices
where Uncle Harry went once every three
months with a slip of blue paper and received
sovereigns in exchange ; for he held a wound*
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEE
pension. Punch heard, too, from his lips the
story of the battle of Navarino, where the
sailors of the Fleet, for three days afterward,
were deaf as posts and could only sign to each
other. "That was because of the noise of the
guns/' said Uncle Harry, "and I have got the
wadding of a bullet somewhere inside me
now."
Punch regarded him with curiosity. He
had not the least idea what wadding was, and
his notion of a bullet was a dockyard cannon-
ball bigger than his own head. How could
Uncle Harry keep a cannon-ball inside him?
He was ashamed to ask, for fear Uncle Harry
might be angry.
Punch had never known what anger real
anger meant until one terrible day when
Harry had taken his paint-box to paint a boat
with, and Punch had protested with a loud and
lamentable voice. Then Uncle Harry had ap-
peared on the scene and, muttering something
about "strangers' children," had with a stick
smitten the black-haired boy across the should-
ers till he wept and yelled, and Aunty Rosa
came in and abused Uncle Harry for cruelty to
his own flesh and blood, and Punch shuddered
to the tips of his shoes. "It wasn't my fault/'
he explained to the boy, but both Harry and
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 41
Aunty Rosa said that it was, and that Punch
had told tales, and for a week there were no
more walks with Uncle Harry.
But that week brought a great joy to Punch.
He had repeated till he was thrice weary the
statement that "the Cat lay on the Mat and the
Rat came in/'
"Now I can truly read," said Punch, "and
now I will never read anything in the world."
He put the brown book in the cupboard
where his school-books lived and accidentally
tumbled out a venerable volume, without
covers, labelled Sharpens Magazine. There
was the most portentous picture of a griffin
on the first page, with verses below. The Grif-
fin carried off one sheep a day from a German
village, till a man came with a "falchion" and
split the griffin open. Goodness only knew
what a falchion was, but there was the Griffin,
and his history was an improvement upon the
eternal Cat.
"This," said Punch, "means things, and now
I will know all about everything in all the
world." He read till the light failed, not un-
derstanding a tithe of the meaning, but tantal-
ized by glimpses of new worlds hereafter to be
revealed.
"What is a 'falchion'? What is a 'e-wee
42 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
lamb' ? What is a 'base ussurptr' ? What is a
Verdant me-acT?" he demanded, with flushed
cheeks, at bedtime, of the astonished Aunty
Rosa.
"Say your prayers and go to sleep," she re-
plied, and that was all the help Punch then or
afterward found at her hands in the new and
delightful exercise of reading.
"Aunty Rosa only knows about God and
things like that/' argued Punch. "Uncle
Harry will tell me/'
The next walk proved that Uncle Harry
could not help either ; but he allowed Punch to
talk, and even sat down on a bench to hear
about the Griffin. Other walks brought other
stories as Punch ranged further afield, for the
house held large store of old books that no one
ever opened from Frank Fairlegh in serial
numbers, and the earlier poems of Tennyson,
contributed anonymously to Sharpe's Maga-
zine, to '62 Exhibition Catalogues, gay with
colors and delightfully incomprehensible, and
odd leaves of Gulliver's Travels.
As soon as Punch could string a few pot-
hooks together, he wrote to Bombay, demand-
ing by return of post "all the books in all the
world." Papa could not comply with this
modest indent, but sent Grime's Fairy Tales
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 43
and a Hans Andersen. That was enough. If
he were only left alone Punch could pass, at
any hour he chose, into a land of his own, be-
yond the reach of Aunty Rosa and her God,
Harry and his teasements, and Judy's claims
to be played with.
"Don't disturb me, I'm reading. Go and
play in the kitchen," grunted Punch. "Aunty
Rosa lets you go there." Judy was cutting
her second teeth and was fretful. She ap-
pealed to Aunty Rosa, who descended on
Punch.
"I was reading," he explained, "reading a
book. I want to read."
"You're only doing that to show off," said
Aunty Rosa. "But we'll see. Play with Judy
now, and don't open a book for a week."
Judy did not pass a very enjoyable playtime
with Punch, who was consumed with indigna-
tion. There was a pettiness at the bottom of
the prohibition which puzzled him.
"It's what I like to do," he said, "and she's
found out that and stopped me. Don't cry,
Ju it wasn't your fault please don't cry, or
she'll say I made you."
Ju loyally mopped up her tears, and the two
played in their nursery, a room in the base-
44 SAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
ment and half underground, to which they
were regularly sent after the midday dinner
while Aunty Rosa slept. She drank wine
that is to say, something from a bottle in the
cellaret for her stomach's sake, but if she
did not fall asleep she would sometimes come
into the nursery to see that the children were
really playing. Now bricks, wooden hoops,
ninepins, and chinaware cannot amuse forever,
especially when all Fairyland is to be won by
the mere opening of a book, and, as often as
not, Punch would be discovered reading to
Judy or telling her interminable tales. That
was an offence in the eyes of the law, and Judy
would be whisked off by Aunty Rosa, while
Punch was left to play alone, "and be sure that
I hear you doing it."
It was not a cheering employ, for he had to
make a playful noise. At last, with infinite
craft, he devised an arrangement whereby the
table could be supported as to three legs on
toy bricks, leaving the fourth clear to bring
down on the floor. He could work the table
with one hand and hold a book with the other.
This he did till an evil day when Aunty Rosa
pounced upon him unawares and told him that
he was "acting a lie."
"If you're old enough to do that," she said
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 45
bet temper was always worse after dinner
"you're old enough to be beaten."
"But I'm I'm not a animal !" said Punch,
aghast. He remembered Uncle Harry and the
stick, and turned white. Aunty Rosa had
hidden a light cane behind her, and Punch was
beaten then and there over the shoulders. It
was a revelation to him. The room-door was
shut, and he was left to weep himself into re-
pentance and work out his own Gospel of Life.
Aunty Rosa, he argued, had the power to
beat him with many stripes. It was unjust and
cruel, and Mamma and Papa would never
have allowed it. Unless perhaps, as Aunty
Rosa seemed to imply, they had sent secret or-
ders. In which case he was abandoned indeed.
It would be discreet in the future to propitiate
Aunty Rosa, but, then, again, even in matteps
in which he was innocent, he had been accused
of wishing to "show off." He had "shown
off" before visitors when he had attacked a
strange gentleman Harry's uncle, not his
own with requests for information about the
Griffin and the falchion, and the precise nature
of the Tilbury in which Frank Fairlegh rode
all points of paramount interest which he
was bursting to understand. Clearly it would
not do to pretend to care for Aunty Rosa.
46 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
At this point Harry entered and stood afar
off, eyeing Punch, a disheveled heap in the
corner of the room, with disgust
"You're a liar a young liar," said Harry,
with great unction, "and you're to have tea
down here because you're not fit to speak to us.
And you're not to speak to Judy again till
Mother gives you leave. You'll corrupt her.
You're only fit to associate with the servant.
Mother says so."
Having reduced Punch to a second agony
of tears, Harry departed upstairs with the
news that Punch was still rebellious.
Uncle Harry sat uneasily in the dining-
room. "Damn it all, Rosa," said he, at last,
"can't you leave the child alone ? He's a good
enough little chap when I meet him."
"He puts on his best manners with you,
Henry," said Aunty Rosa, "but I'm afraid,
I'm very much afraid, that he is the Black
Sheep of the family."
Harry heard and stored up the name for fu-
ture use. Judy cried till she was bidden to
stop, her brother not being worth tears; and
the evening concluded with the return of
Punch to the upper regions and a private sit-
ting at which all the blinding horrors of Hell
were revealed to Punch with such store of im-
agery as Aunty Rosa's narrow mind possessed.
BAA BAA, BTACK SHEEP 47
Most grievous of all was Judy's round-eyed
reproach, and Punch went to bed in the depths
of the Valley of Humiliation. He shared his
room with Harry and knew the torture in
store. For an hour and a half he had to an-
swer that young gentleman's questions as to his
motives for telling a lie, and a grievous lie, the
precise quantity of punishment inflicted by
Aunty Rosa, and had also to profess his deep
gratitude for such religious instruction as
Harry thought fit to impart.
From that day began the downfall of
Punch, now Black Sheep.
"Untrustworthy in one thing, untrust-
worthy in all," said Aunty Rosa, and Harry
felt that Black Sheep was delivered into his
hands. He would wake him up in the night to
ask him why he was such a liar.
"I don't know," Punch would reply.
"Then don't you think you ought to get up
and pray to God for a new heart?"
"Y-yess."
"Get out and pray, then!" And Punch
would get out of bed with raging hate in his
heart against all the world, seen and unseen.
He was always tumbling into trouble. Harry
had a knack of cross-examining him as to his
day's doings, which seldom failed to lead him,
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
sleepy and savage, into half a dozen contradic-
tions *all duly reported to Aunty Rosa next
morning.
"But it wasn't a lie," Punch would begin,
charging into a labored explanation that
landed him more hopelessly in the mire. "I
said that I didn't say my prayers twice over in
the day, and that was on Tuesday. Once I
did. I know I did, but Harry said I didn't,"
and so forth, till the tension brought tears, and
he was dismissed from the table in disgrace.
"You usen't to be as bad as this ?" said Judy,
awe-stricken at the catalogue of Black Sheep's
crimes. "Why are you so bad now?"
"I don't know," Black Sheep would reply.
"I'm not, if I only wasn't bothered upside
down. I knew what I did, and I want to say
so; but Harry always makes it out different
somehow, and Aunty Rosa doesn't believe a
word I say. Oh, Ju! don't you say I'm bad
too."
"Aunty Rosa says you are," said Judy.
"She told the Vicar so when he came yester-
day."
"Why does she tell all the people outside the
house about me? It isn't fair," said Black
Sheep. "When I was in Bombay, and was
bad doing bad, not made-up bad like this
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 49
Mamma told Papa, and Papa told me he knew,
and that was all. Outside people didn't know
too even Meeta didn't know."
"I don't remember," said Judy, wistfully.
"I was all little then. Mamma was just as
fond of you as she was of me, wasn't she?"
" 'Course she was. So was Papa. So was
everybody."
"Aunty Rosa likes me more than she does
you. She says that you are a Trial and a
Black Sheep, and I'm not to speak to you more
than I can help."
"Always? Not outside of the times when
you mustn't speak to me at all ?"
Judy nodded her head mournfully. Black
Sheep turned away in despair, but Judy's arms
were round his neck.
"Never mind, Punch," she whispered. "I
will speak to you just the same as ever and
ever. You're my own brother though you are
though Aunty Rosa says you're Bad, and
Harry says you're a little coward. He says
that if I pulled you hair hard, you'd cry."
"Pull, then," said Punch.
Judy pulled gingerly.
"Pull hander as hard as you can ! There !
I don't mind how much you pull it now. If
you'll speak to me same as ever I'll let you pull
go BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
it as much as you like pull it out if you like.
But I know if Harry came and stood by and
made you do it I'd cry."
So the two children sealed the compact with
a kiss, and Black Sheep's heart was cheered
within him, and by extreme caution and care-
ful avoidance of Harry he acquired virtue, and
was allowed to read undisturbed for a week.
Uncle Harry took him for walks and consoled
him with rough tenderness, never calling him
Black Sheep. "It's good for you, I suppose,
Punch," he used to say. "Let us sit down.
I'm getting tired." His steps led him now not
to the beach, but to the Cemetery of Rockling-
ton, amid the potato-fields. For hours the grey
man would sit on a tombstone, while Black
Sheep read epitaphs, and then with a sigh
would stump home again.
"I shall lie there soon," said he to Black
Sheep, one winter evening, when his face
showed white as a worn silver coin under the
lights of the chapel-lodge. "You needn't tell
Aunty Rosa."
A month later, he turned sharp round, ere
half a .morning walk was completed, and
stumped back to the house. "Put me to bed,
Rosa," he muttered. "I've walked my last.
The wadding has found me out"
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 51
They put him to bed, and for a fortnight
the shadow of his sickness lay upon the house,
and Black Sheep went to and fro unobserved.
Papa had sent him some new books, and he
was told to keep quiet. He retired into his
own world, and was perfectly happy. Even at
night his felicity was unbroken. He could lie
in bed and string himself tales of travel and
adventure while Harry was downstairs.
"Uncle Harry's going to die/' said Judy,
who now lived almost entirely with Aunty
Rosa.
"I'm very sorry," said Black Sheep, soberly.
"He told me that a long time ago."
Aunty Rosa heard the conversation. "Will
nothing check your wicked tongue?" she said
angrily. There were blue circles round her
eyes.
Black Sheep retreated to the nursery and
read "Cometh up as a flower" with deep and
uncomprehending interest. He had been for-
bidden to read it on account of its "sinful-
ness," but the bonds of the Universe were
crumbling, and Aunty Rosa was in great grief.
"I'm glad/ 5 said Black Sheep. "She's un-
happy now. It wasn't a lie, though. / knew.
He told me not to tell."
That night Black Sheep woke wth a start
52 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
Harry was not in the room, and there was a
sound of sobbing on the next floor. Then the
voice of Uncle Harry, singing the song of
the Battle of Navarino, cut through the dark-
ness:
"Our vanship was the Asia
[The Albion and Genoa !"
"He's getting well/' thought Black Sheep,
who knew the song through all its seventeen
verses. But the blood froze at his little heart
as he thought. The voice leaped an octave and
rang shrill as a boatswain's pipe :
"And next came on the lovely Rose,
The Philomel, her fire-ship, closed,
And the little Brisk was sore exposed
That day at Navarino."
"That day at Navarino, Uncle Harry!"
shouted Black Sheep, half wild with excite-
ment and fear of he knew not what.
A door opened and Aunty Rosa screamed
up the staircase: "Hush! For God's sake
hush, you little devil. Uncle Harry is deadf
THE THIRD BAG.
Journeys end in lovers' meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
"I WONDER what will happen to me now/'
thought Black Sheep, when the semi-pagan
rites peculiar to the burial of the Dead in mid-
dle-class houses had been accomplished, and
Aunty Rosa, awful in black crape, had re-
turned to this life. "I don't think I've done
anything bad that she knows of. I suppose I
will soon. She will be very cross after Uncle
Harry's dying, and Harry will be cross too.
I'll keep in the nursery."
Unfortunately for Punch's plans, it was de-
cided that he should be sent to a day-school
which Harry attended. This meant a morning
walk with Harry, and perhaps an evening one ;
but the prospect of freedom in the interval
was refreshing. Harry'll tell everything I
do, but I won't do anything," said Black
Sheep. Fortified with this virtuous resolution,
he went to school only to find that Harry's
version of his character had preceded him, and
that life was a burden in consequence. He
4 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
took stock of his associates. Some of them
were unclean, some of them talked in dialect,
many dropped their h's, and there were two
Jews and a negro, or some one quite as dark,
in the assembly. "That's a hubshi," said Black
Sheep to himself. "Even Meeta used to laugh
at a hubshi. I don't think this is a proper
place." He was indignant for at least an hour,
till he reflected that any expostulation on his
part would be by Aunty Rosa construed into
"showing off/' and that Harry would tell the
boys.
"How do you like school?" said Aunty
Rosa, at the end of the day.
"I think it is a very nice place," said Punch,
quietly.
"I suppose you warned the boys of Black
Sheep's character?" said Aunty Rosa to
Harry.
"Oh, yes," said the censor of Black Sheep's
morals. "They know all about him."
"If I was with my father," said Black
Sheep, stung to the quick, "I shouldn't speak
to those boys. He wouldn't let me. They live
in shops. I saw them go into shops where
their fathers live and sell things."
"You're too good for that school, are you ?"
said Aunty Rosa, with a bitter smile. "You
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 55
ought to be grateful, Black Sheep, that those
boys speak to you at all. It isn't every school
that takes little liars."
Harry did not fail to make much capital out
of Black Sheep's ill-considered remark; with
the result that several boys, including the hub-
shi, demonstrated to Black Sheep the eternal
equality of the human race by smacking his
head, and his consolation from Aunty Rosa
was that it "served him right for being vain."
He learned, however, to keep his opinions to
himself, and by propitiating Harry in carrying
books and the like to secure a little peace. His
existence was not too joyful. From nine till
twelve he was at school, and from two to four,
except on Saturdays. In the evenings he was
sent down into the nursery to prepare his les-
sons for the next day, and every night came
the dreaded cross-questionings at Harry's
hand. Of Judy he saw but little. She was
deeply religious at six years of age Religion
is easy to come by and sorely divided be-
tween her natural love for Black Sheep and
her love for Aunty Rosa, who could do no
wrong.
The lean woman returned that love with in-
terest, and Judy, when she dared, took advan-
tage of this for the remission of Black Sheep's
56 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
penalties. Failures in lessons at school were
punished at home by a week without reading
other than school-books, and Harry brought
the news of such a failure with glee. Further,
Black Sheep was then bound to repeat his les-
sons at bedtime to Harry, who generally suc-
ceeded in making him break down, and con-
soled him by gloomiest forebodings for the
morrow. Harry was at once spy, practical
joker, inquisitor, and Aunty Rosa's deputy ex-
ecutioner. He filled his many posts to admira-
tion. From his actions, now that Uncle Harry
was dead, there was no appeal. Black Sheep
had not been permitted to keep any self-respect
at school: at home he was of course utterly
discredited, and grateful for any pity that the
servant girls they changed frequently at
Downe Lodge because they, too, were liars
might show. "You're just fit to row in the
same boat with Black Sheep," was a senti-
ment that each new Jane or Eliza might expect
to hear, before a month was over, from Aunty
Rosa's lips; and Black Sheep was used to ask
new girls whether they had yet been compared
to him. Harry was "Master Harry" in their
mouths; Judy was officially "Miss Judy"; but
Black Sheep was never anything more than
Black Sheep tout court.
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 7
As time went on and the memory of Papa
and Mamma became wholly overlaid by the
unpleasant task of writing them letters, under
Aunty Rosa's eye, each Sunday, Black Sheep
forgot what manner of life he had led in the
beginning of things. Even Judy's appeals to
"try and remember about Bombay" failed to
quicken him.
"I can't remember/' he said. "I know I
used to give orders and Mamma kissed me."
"Aunty Rosa will kiss you if you are good,"
pleaded Judy.
"Ugh ! I don't want to be kissed by Aunty
Rosa. She'd say I was doing it to get some-
thing more to eat."
The weeks lengthened into months, and the
holidays came; but just before the holidays
Black Sheep fell into deadly sin.
Among the many boys whom Harry had in-
cited to "punch Black Sheep's head because
he daren't hit back," was one more aggravat-
ing than the rest, who, in an unlucky moment,
fell upon Black Sheep when Harry was not
near. The blows stung, and Black Sheep
struck back at random with all the power at
his command. The boy dropped and whim-
pered. Black Sheep was astounded at his own
58 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
act, but, feeling the unresisting body under
him, shook it with both his hands in blind fury
and then began to throttle his enemy ; meaning
honestly to slay him. There was a scuffle, and
Black Sheep was torn off the body by Harry
and some colleagues, and cuffed home tingling
but exultant. Aunty Rosa was out; pending
her arrival, Harry set himself to lecture Black
Sheep on the sin of murder which he de-
scribed as the offence of Cain.
"Why didn't you fight him fair? What did
you hit him when he was down for, you little
cur?"
Black Sheep looked up at Harry's throat
and then at a knife on the dinner-table.
"I don't understand," he said, wearily.
"You always set him on me and told me I was
a coward when I blubbed. Will you leave me
alone until Aunty Rosa comes in? She'll beat
me if you tell her I ought to be beaten ; so it's
all right."
"It's all wrong," said Harry, magisterially.
"You nearly killed him, and I shouldn't won-
der if he dies."
"Will he die?" said Black Sheep.
"I dare say," said Harry, "and then you'll
be hanged."
"All right," said Black Sheep, possessing
;,' . ; ' ;';' ' >i-i ''';,;";'
; ;' : '. '^ ' : - :
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 59
himself of the table-knife. "Then I'll kill you
now. You says things and do things and
. . . and / don't know how things happen,
and you never leave me alone and I don't
care what happens!"
He ran at the boy with the knife, and Harry
fled upstairs to his room, promising Black
Sheep the finest thrashing in the world when
Aunty Rosa returned. Black Sheep sat at the
bottom of the stairs, the table-knife in his
hand, and wept for that he had not killed
Harry. The servant-girl came up from the
kitchen, took the knife away, and consoled
him. But Black Sheep was beyond consola-
tion. He would be badly beaten by Aunty
Rosa; then there would be another beating at
Harry's hand ; then Judy would not be allowed
to speak to him ; then the tale would be told at
school and then . . .
There was no one to help and no one to care,
and the best way out of the business was by
death. A knife would hurt, but Aunty Rosa
had told him a year ago, that if he sucked
paint he would die. He went into the nursery,
unearthed the now disused Noah's Ark, and
sucked the paint off as many animals as re-
mained. It tasted abominable, but he had
licked Noah's Dove clean by the time Aunty
Kip. 5 C
60 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
Rosa and Judy returned. He went upstairs
and greeted them with : "Please, Aunty Rosa,
I believe I've nearly killed a boy at school, and
I've tried to kill Harry, and when you've done
all about God and Hell, will you beat me and
get it over?"
The tale of the assault as told by Harry could
only be explained on the ground of possession
by the Devil. Wherefore Black Sheep was not
only most excellently beaten, once by Aunty
Rosa and once, when thoroughly cowed down,
by Harry, but he was further prayed for at
family prayers, together with Jane, who had
stolen a cold rissole from the pantry and
snuffled audibly as her enormity was brought
before the Throne of Grace. Black Sheep was
sore and stiff but triumphant. He would die
that very night and be rid of them all. No, he
would ask for no forgiveness from Harry, and
at bedtime would stand no questioning at
Harry's hands, even though addressed as
"Young Cain."
"I've been beaten," said he, "and I've done
other things. I don't care what I do. If you
speak to me to-night, Harry, I'll get out and
try to kill you. Now you can kill me if you
like."
Harry took his bed into the spare-room, and
Black Sheep lay down to die.
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 6l
It may be that the makers of Noah's Arks
know that their animals are likely to find their
way into young mouths, and paint them ac-
cordingly. Certain it is that the common,
weary next morning broke through the win-
dows and found Black Sheep quite well and
a good deal ashamed of himself, but richer by
the knowledge that he could, in extremity, se-
cure himself against Harry for the future.
When he descended to breakfast on the first
day of the holidays, he was greeted with the
news that Harry, Aunty Rosa, and Judy were
going away to Brighton, while Black Sheep
was to stay in the house with the servant. His
latest outbreak suited Aunty Rosa's plans ad-
mirably. It gave her good excuse for leaving
the extra boy behind. Papa in Bombay, who
really seemed to know a young sinner's wants
to the hour, sent, that week, a package of new
books. And with these, and the society of
Jane on board-wages, Black Sheep was left
alone for a month.
The books lasted for ten days. They were
eaten too quickly, in long gulps of four and
twenty hours at a time. Then came days of
doing absolutely nothing, of dreaming dreams
and marching imaginary armies up and down
stairs, of counting the number of banisters,
62 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
an3 of measuring the length and breadth of
every room in handspans fifty down the side,
thirty across, and fifty back again. Jane made
many friends, and, after receiving Black
Sheep's assurance that he would not tell of her
absences, went out daily for long hours.
Black Sheep would follow the rays of the sink-
ing sun from the kitchen to the dining-room
and thence upward to his own bed-room until
all was grey dark, and he ran down to the
kitchen fire and read by its light. He was
happy in that he was left alone and could read
as much as he pleased. But, later, he grew
afraid of the shadows of window-curtains and
the flapping of doors and the creaking of shut-
ters. He went out into the garden, and the
rustling of the laurel-bushes frightened him.
He was glad when tEey all returned Aunty
Rosa, Harry, and Judy full of news, and
Judy laden with gifts. Who could help loving
loyal little Judy ? In return for all her merry
babblement, Black Sheep confided to her that
the distance from the hall-door to the top of
the first landing was exactly one hundred and
eighty-four handspans. He had found it out
himself.
Then the old life recommenced; but with a
difference, and a new sin. To his other iniqui-
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 63
ties Black Sheep had now added a phenomenal
clumsiness was as unfit to trust in action as
he was in word. He himself could not ac-
count for spilling everything he touched, up-
setting glasses as he put his hand out, and
bumping his head against doors that were
manifestly shut. There was a grey haze upon
all his world, and it narrowed month by
month, until at last it left Black Sheep almost
alone with the flapping curtains that were so
like ghosts, and the nameless terrors of broad
daylight that were only coats on pegs after all.
Holidays came and holidays went and Black
Sheep was taken to see many people whose
faces were all exactly alike; was beaten when
occasion demanded, and tortured by Harry on
all possible occasions; but defended by Judy
through good and evil report, though she
hereby drew upon herself the wrath of Aunty
Rose.
The weeks were interminable and Papa and
Mamma were clean forgotten. Harry had
left school and was a clerk in a Banking-Office.
Freed from his presence, Black Sheep resolved
that he should no longer be deprived of his al-
lowance of pleasure-reading. Consequently
when he failed at school he reported that all
was well, and conceived a large contempt for
64 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
Aunty Rosa as he saw how easy it was to de-
ceive her. "She says I'm a little liar when I
don't tell lies, and now I do, she doesn't
know/' thought Black Sheep. Aunty Rosa
had credited him in the past with petty cun-
ning and stratagem that had never entered
into his head. By the light of the sordid
knowledge that she had revealed to him he
paid her back full tale. In a household where
the most innocent of his motives, his natural
yearning for a little affection, had been inter-
preted into a desire for more bread and jam
or to ingratiate himself with strangers and so
put Harry into the background, his work was
easy. Aunty Rosa could penetrate certain
kinds of hypocrisy, but not all. He set his
child's wits against hers and was no more
beaten. It grew monthly more and more of a
trouble to read the school-books, and even the
pages of the open-print story-books danced
and were dim. So Black Sheep brooded in the
shadows that fell about him and cut him off
from the world, inventing horrible punish-
ments for "dear Harry," or plotting another
line of the tangled web of deception that he
wrapped round Aunty Rosa.
Then the crash came and the cobwebs were
broken. It was impossible to foresee every-
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 65
thing. Aunty Rosa made personal inquiries
as to Black Sheep's progress and received in-
formation that startled her. Step by step,
with a delight as keen as when she convicted
an underfed housemaid of the theft of cold
meats, she followed the trail of Black Sheep's
delinquencies. For weeks and weeks, in or-
der to escape banishment from the book-
shelves, he had made a fool of Aunty Rosa, of
Harry, of God, of all the world! Horrible,
most horrible, and evidence of an utterly de-
praved mind.
Black Sheep counted the cost. "It will only
be one big beating and then she'll put a card
with 'Liar' on my back, same as she did be-
fore. Harry will whack me and pray for me,
and she will pray for me at prayers and tell
me I'm a Child of the Devil and give me
hymns to learn. But I've done all my reading
and she never knew. She'll say she knew all
along. She's an old liar too," said he.
For three days Black Sheep was shut in his
own bedroom to prepare his heart. "That
means two beatings. One at school and one
here. That one will hurt most." And it fell
even as he thought. He was thrashed at
school before the Jews and the hubshi, for the
heinous crime of bringing home false reports
66 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
of progress. He was thrashed at home by
Aunty Rosa on the same count, and then the
placard was produced. Aunty Rosa stitched
it between his shoulders and bade him go for
a walk with it upon him.
"If you make me do that," said Black Sheep,
very quietly, "I shall burn this house down,
and perhaps I'll kill you. I don't know
whether I can kill you you're so bony but
I'll try."
No punishment followed this blasphemy,
though Black Sheep held himself ready to
work his way to Aunty Rosa's withered throat,
and grip there till he was beaten off. Perhaps
Aunty Rosa was afraid, for Black Sheep, hav-
ing reached the Nadir of Sin, bore himself
with a new recklessness.
In the midst of all the trouble there came a
visitor from over the seas to Downe Lodge,
who knew Papa and Mamma, and was com-
missioned to see Punch and Judy. Black
Sheep was sent to the drawing-room and
charged into a solid tea-table laden with china.
"Gently, gently, little man," said the visitor,
turning Black Sheep's face to the light, slowly.
"What's that big bird on the palings ?"
"What bird?" asked Black Sheep.
The visitor looked deep down into Black
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 67
Sheep's eyes for half a minute, and then said,
suddenly : "Good God, the little chap's nearly
blind !"
It was a most business-like visitor. He
gave orders, on his own responsibility, that
Black Sheep was not to go to school or open
a book until Mamma came home. "She'll be
here in three weeks, as you know of course,"
said he, "and I'm Inverarity Sahib. I ushered
you into this wicked world, young man, and a
nice use you seem to have made of your time.
[You must do nothing whatever. Can you do
that?"
"Yes," said Punch, in a dazed way. He
had known that Mamma was coming. There
was a chance, then, of another beating. Thank
Heaven, Papa wasn't coming too. Aunty
Rosa had said of late that he ought to be
beaten by a man.
For the next three weeks Black Sheep was
strictly allowed to do nothing. He spent his
time in the old nursery looking at the broken
toys, for all of which account must be ren-
dered to Mamma. Aunty Rosa hit him over
the hands if even a wooden boat were broken.
But that sin was of small importance compared
to the other revelations, so darkly hinted at by
Aunty Rosa. "When your Mother comes, and
68 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
hears what I have to tell her, she may appre-
ciate you properly," she said, grimly, and
mounted guard over Judy lest that small
maiden should attempt to comfort her brother,
to the peril of her own soul.
And Mamma came in a four-wheeler and
a flutter of tender excitement Such a
Mamma! She was young, frivolously young,
and beautiful, with delicately flushed cheeks,
eyes that shone like stars, and a voice that
needed no additional appeal of outstretched
arms to draw little ones to her heart. Judy
ran straight to her, but Black Sheep hesitated.
Could this wonder be "showing off"? She
would not put out her arms when she knew of
his crimes. Meantime was it possible that by
fondling she wanted to get anything out of
Black Sheep? Only all his love and all his
confidence ; but that Black Sheep did not know.
Aunty Rosa withdrew and left Mamma, kneel-
ing between her children, half laughing, half
crying, in the very hall where Punch and Judy
had wept five years before.
"Well, chicks, do you remember me?"
"No," said Judy, frankly, "but I said 'God
bless Papa and Mamma,' evVy night."
"A little," said Black Sheep. "Remember I
wrote to you every week, anyhow. That isn't
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 69
to show off, but 'cause of what comes after*
ward."
"What comes after! What should come
after, my darling boy?" And she drew him to
her again. He came awkwardly, with many
angles. "Not used to petting," said the quick
Mother-soul. "The girl is."
"She's too little to hurt any one," thought
Black Sheep, "and if I said I'd kill her, she'd
be afraid. I wonder what Aunty Rosa will
tell."
There was a constrained late dinner, at the
end of which Mamma picked up Judy and put
her to bed with endearments manifold. Faith-
less little Judy had shown her defection from
Aunty Rosa already. And that lady resented
it bitterly. Black Sheep rose to leave the
room.
"Come and say good-night," said Aunty
Rosa, offering a withered cheek.
"Huh!" said Black Sheep. "I never kiss
you, and I'm not going to show off. Tell that
woman what I've done, and see what she
says."
Black Sheep climbed into bed feeling that
he had lost Heaven after a glimpse through
the gates. In half an hour "that woman" was
bending over him. Black Sheep flung up his
70 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
right arm. It wasn't fair to come and hit him
in the dark. Even Aunty Rosa never tried
that. But no blow followed.
"Are you showing off? I won't tell you
anything more than Aunty Rosa has, and she
doesn't know everything," said Black Sheep as
clearly as he could for the arms round his
neck.
"Oh my son my little, little son! It was
my fault my fault, darling and yet how
could we help it ? Forgive me, Punch." The
voice died out in a broken whisper, and two
hot tears fell on Black Sheep's forehead.
"Has she been making you cry too?" he
asked. "You should see Jane cry. But you're
nice, and Jane is a Born Liar Aunty Rosa
says so."
"Hush, Punch, hush! My boy, don't talk
like that. Try to love me a little bit a little
bit. You don't how how I want it. Punch-
baba, come back to me ! I am your Mother -
your own Mother and never mind the rest.
I know yes, I know, dear. It doesn't matter
now. Punch, won't you care for me a little?"
It is astonishing how much petting a big
boy of ten can endure when he is quite sure
that there is no one to laugh at him. Black
Sheep had never been made much of before,
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 71
and here was this beautiful woman treating
him Black Sheep, the Child of the Devil and
the Inheritor of the Undying Flame as
though he were a small God.
"I care for you a great deal, Mother dear/'
he whispered at last, "and I'm glad you've
come back ; but are you sure Aunty Rosa told
you everything?"
"Everything. What does it matter? But"
the voice broke with a sob that was also
laughter "Punch, my poor, dear, half blind
darling, don't you think it was a little foolish
of you?"
"No. It saved a lickin'."
Mamma shuddered and slipped away in the
darkness to write a long letter to Papa. Here
is an extract :
. . . "Judy is a dear, plump little prig
who adores the woman, and wears with as
much gravity as her religious opinions only
eight, Jack! a venerable horse-hair atrocity
which she calls her Bustle! I have just
burned it, and the child is asleep in my bed as
I write. She will come to me at once. Punch
I cannot quite understand. He is well nour-
ished, but seems to have been worried into a
system of small deceptions which the woman
magnifies into deadly sins. Don't you recol-
72 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP
lect our own up-bringing, dear, when the Fear
of the Lord was so often the beginning of
falsehood? I shall win Punch to me before
long. I am taking the children away into the
country to get them to know me, and, on the
whole, I am content, or shall be when you
come home, dear boy, and then, thank God,
we shall be all under one roof again at last !"
Three months later, Punch, no longer Black
Sheep, has discovered that he is the veritable
owner of a real, live, lovely Mamma, who is
also a sister, comforter, and friend, and that
he must protect her till the Father comes home.
Deception does not suit the part of a protector,
and, when one can do anything without ques-
tion, where is the use of deception?
"Mother would be awfully cross if you
walked through that ditch," says Judy, con-
tinuing a conversation.
"Mother's never angry," says Punch.
"She'd just say, 'You're a little pagal'; and
that's not nice, but I'll show."
Punch walks through the ditch and mires
himself to the knees. "Mother, dear," he
shouts, "I'm just as dirty as I can pos-,n&-ly
be!"
"Then change your clothes as quickly as you
can!" rings out Mother's clear voice
BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP 73
from the house. "And don't be a little pagal!"
"There! Told you so/' says Punch. "It's
all different now, and we are just as much
Mother's as if she had never gone."
Not altogether, Punch, for when young
lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of
Hate, Suspicion, and Despair, all the Love in
the world will not wholly take away that
knowledge; though it may turn darkened eyes
for a while to the light, and teach Faith where
no Faith was.
HIS MAJESTY THE KINfi
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
"Where the word of a King is, there is power: And
who may say unto him What doest thou?"
! And Chimo to sleep at ve foot of
ve bed, and ve pink pikky-book, and ve
bwead 'cause I will be hungwy in ve night
and vat's all, Miss Biddums. And now give
me one kiss and I'll go to sleep. So! Kite
quiet. Ow! Ve pink pikky-book has slidded
under ve pillow and ve bwead is cwumbling!
Miss Biddums! Miss Biddumsl I'm so un-
comfy! Come and tuck me up, Miss Bid-
dums."
His Majesty the King was going to bed ; and
poor, patient Miss Biddums, who had adver-
tised herself humbly as a "young person,
European, accustomed to the care of little chil-
dren," was forced to wait upon his royal
caprices. The going to bed was always a
lengthy process, because His Majesty had a
convenient knack of forgetting which of his
many friends, from the mehter's son to the
77
78 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
Commissioner's daughter, he had prayed for,
and, lest the Deity should take offence, was
used to toil through his little prayers, in all
reverence, five times in one evening. His
Majesty the King believed in the efficacy of
prayer as devoutly as he believed in Chimo the
patient spaniel, or Miss Biddums, who could
reach him down his gun "with cursuffun caps
reel ones" from the upper shelves of the
big nursery cupboard.
At the door of the nursery his authority
stopped. Beyond lay the empire of his father
and mother two very terrible people who had
no time to waste upon His Majesty the King.
His voice was lowered when he passed the
frontier of his own dominions, his actions were
fettered, and his soul was filled with awe be-
cause of the grim man who lived among a
wilderness of pigeonholes and the most fas-
cinating pieces of red tape, and the wonderful
woman who was always getting into or step-
ping out of the big carriage.
To the one belonged the mysteries of the
"duf tar-room" ; to the other the great, reflected
wilderness of the "Memsahib's room" where
the shiny, scented dresses hung on pegs, miles
and miles up in the air, and the just-seen
plateau of the toilet-table revealed an acreage
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 79
of speckly combs, broidered "hanafitch bags,"
and "white-headed" brushes.
There was no room for His Majesty the
King either in official reserve or mundane gor-
geousness. He had discovered that, ages and
ages ago before even Chimo cam.e to the
house, or Miss Biddums had ceased grizzling
over a packet of greasy letters which appeared
to be her chief treasure on earth. His Majesty
the King, therefore, wisely confined himself to
his own territories, where only Miss Biddums,
and she feebly, disputed his sway.
From Miss Biddums he had picked up his
simple theology and welded it to the legends of
gods and devils that he had learned in the ser-
vants' quarters.
To Miss Biddums he confided with equal
trust his tattered garments and his more serious
griefs. She would make everything whole.
She knew exactly how the Earth had been born,
and had reassured the trembling soul of His
Majesty the King that terrible time in July
when it rained continuously for seven days and
seven nights, and there was no Ark ready
and all the ravens had flown away! She was
the most powerful person with whom he was
brought into contact always excepting the two
remote and silent people beyond the nursery
door.
8o HIS MAJESTY THE KING
How was His Majesty the King to know that,
six years ago, in the summer of his birth, Mrs.
Austell, turning over her husband's papers, had
come upon the intemperate letter of a foolish
woman who had been carried away by the silent
man's strength and personal beauty? How
could he tell what evil the overlooked slip of
note-paper had wrought in the mind of a des-
perately jealous wife? How could he, despite
his wisdom, guess that his mother had chosen
to make of it excuse for a bar and a division
between herself and her husband, that strength-
ened and grew harder to break with each year ;
that she, having unearthed this skeleton in the
cupboard, had trained it into a household God
which should be about their path and about
their bed, and poison all their ways ?
These things were beyond the province of
His Majesty the King. He only knew that his
father was daily absorbed in some mysterious
work for a thing called the Sirkar and that his
mother was the victim alternately of the Nautch
and the Burrakhana. To these entertainments
she was escorted by a Captain-Man for whom
His Majesty the King had no regard.
"He doesn't laugh/' he argued with Miss
Biddums, who would fain have taught him
charity. "He only makes faces wiv his mouf ,
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 81
and when he wants to o-muse me I am not
o-mused." And His Majesty the King shook
his head as one who knew the deceitfulness of
this world.
Morning and evening it was his duty to
salute his father and mother the former with
a grave shake of the hand, and the latter with
an equally grave kiss. Once, indeed, he had
put his arms round his mother's neck, in the
fashion he used toward Miss Biddums. The
openwork of his sleeve-edge caught in an ear-
ring, and the last stage of His Majesty's little
overture was a suppressed scream and summary
dismissal to the nursery.
"It's w'ong," thought His Majesty the King,
"to hug Memsahibs wiv fings in veir ears. I
will amember." He never repeated the experi-
ment.
Miss Biddums, it must be confessed, spoiled
him as much as his nature admitted, in some
sort of recompense for what she called "the
hard ways of his Papa and Mamma." She,
like her charge, knew nothing of the trouble
between man and wife the savage contempt
for a woman's stupidity on the one side, or the
dull, rankling anger on the other. Miss Bid-
dums had looked after many little children in
her time, and served in many establishments*
82 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
Being a discreet woman, she observed little and
said less, and, when her pupils went over the
sea to the Great Unknown which she, with
touching confidence in her hearers, called
"Home," packed up her slender belongings and
sought for employment afresh, lavishing all
her love on each successive batch of ingrates.
Only His Majesty the King had repaid her
affection with interest; and in his uncompre-
hending ears she had told the tale of nearly all
her hopes, her aspirations, the hopes that were
dead, and the dazzling glories of her ancestral
home in "Ca/cutta, close to Wellington
Square."
Everything above the average was in the
eyes of His Majesty the King "Calcutta good."
When Miss Biddums had crossed his royal will,
he reversed the epithet to vex that estimable
lady, and all things evil were, until the tears
of repentance swept away spite, "Calcutta bad."
Now and again Miss Biddums begged for
him the rare pleasure of a day in the society of
the Commissioner's child the wilful four-
year-old Patsie, who, to the intense amazement
of His Majesty the King, was idolized by her
parents. On thinking the question out at
length, by roads unknown to those who have
left childhood behind, he came to the conclusion
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 83
tfiat Patsie was petted because she wore a big
blue sash and yellow hair.
This precious discovery he kept to himself.
The yellow hair was absolutely beyond his
power, his own tousled wig being potato-
brown; but something might be done toward
the blue sash. He tied a large knot in his
mosquito-curtains in order to remember to con-
sult Patsie on their next meeting. She was the
only child he had ever spoken to, and almost
the only one that he had even seen. The little
memory and the very large and ragged knot
held good.
"Patsie, lend me your blue wiband," said
His Majesty the King.
'Youl'l bewy it," said Patsie, doubtfully,
mindful of certain fearful atrocities committed
on her doll.
"No, I won't twoofanhonor. It's for me
to wear."
"Pooh!" said Patsie. "Boys don't wear
sa-ashes. Zey's only for dirls."
"I didn't know." The face of His Majesty
the King fell.
"Who wants ribands? Are you playing
horses, chicabiddies ?" said the Commissioner's
wife, stepping into the veranda.
" Joby wanted my sash," explained Patsie.
84 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
"I don't now/' said His Majesty the King,
hastily, feeling that with one of these terrible
"grown-ups" his poor little secret would be
shamelessly wrenched from him, and perhaps
most burning desecration of all laughed at.
"I'll give you a cracker-cap," said the Com-
missioner's wife. "Come along with me, Toby,
and we'll choose it."
The cracker-cap was a stiff, three-pointed
vermilion-and-tinsel splendor. His Majesty the
King fitted it on his royal brow. The Commis-
sioner's wife had a face that children instinc-
tively trusted, and her action, as she adjusted
the toppling middle spike, was tender.
"Will it do as well ?" stammered His Majesty
the King.
"As what, little one?"
"As ve wiban?"
"Oh, quite. Go and look at yourself in the
glass."
The words were spoken in all sincerity and
to help forward any absurd "dressing-up"
amusement that the children might take into
their minds. But the young savage has a keen
sense of the ludicrous. His Majesty the King
swung the great cheval-glass down, and saw
his head crowned with the staring horror of a
fool's cap a thing which his father would
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 85
rend to pieces if it ever came into his office.
He plucked it off, and burst into tears.
"Toby," said the Commissioner's wife,
gravely, "you shouldn't give way to temper. I
am very sorry to see it. It's wrong."
His Majesty the King sobbed inconsolably,
and the heart of Patsie's mother was touched.
She drew the child on to her knee. Clearly it
was not temper alone.
"What is it, Toby? Won't you tell me?
Aren't you well?"
The torrent of sobs and speech met, and
fought for a time, with chokings and gulpings
and gasps. Then, in a sudden rush, His
Majesty the King was delivered of a few in-
articulate sounds, followed by the words: *
"Go a way you- dirty little debbil !"
"Toby ! What do you mean ?"
"It's what he'd say. I knoiv it is ! He said
vat when vere was only a little, little eggy mess,
on my t-t-unic; and he'd say it again, and
laugh, if I went in wif vat on my head."
"Who would say that ?"
"M-m-my Papa! And I fought if I had ve
blue wiban, he'd let me play in ve waste-paper
basket under ve table."
"What blue riband, childie?"
"Ve same vat Patsie had ve big blue wiban
w-w- wound my t-t-tummy]"
86 HIS MAJESTY THE KING?
"What is it, Toby? There's something on
your mind. Tell me all about it, and perhaps
I can help."
"Isn't anyfing," sniffed His Majesty, mind-
ful of his manhood, and raising his head from
the motherly bosom upon which it was rest-
ing. "I only fought vat you you petted Pat-
sie 'cause she had ve blue wiban, and and if
I'd had ve blue wiban too, m-my Papa w-would
pet me."
The secret was out, and His Majesty the
King sobbed bitterly in spite of the arms round
him, and the murmur of comfort on his heated
little forehead.
Enter Patsie tumultously, embarrassed by
several lengths of the Commisioner's pet mah-
seer-rod. "Turn along, Toby! Zere's a chu-
chu lizard in ze chick, and I've told Chimo to
watch him till we turn. If we poke him wiz
zis his tail will go wiggle-wiggle and fall off.
Turn along! I can't weach."
"I'm comin'," said His Majesty the King,
climbing down from the Commissioner's wife's
knee after a hasty kiss.
Two minutes later, the chu-chu lizard's tail
was wriggling on the matting of the veranda,
and the children were gravely poking it with
splinters from the chick, to urge its exhausted
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 87
vitality into "just one wiggle more, 'cause it
doesn't hurt chu-chu"
The Commisioner's wife stood in the door-
way and watched : "Poor little mite ! A blue
sash . . . and my own precious Patsie ! I
wonder if the best of us, or we who love them
best, ever understand what goes on in their
topsy-turvy little heads/'
A big tear splashed on the Commissioner's
wife's wedding-ring, and she went indoors to
devise a tea for the benefit of His Majesty the
King.
"Their souls aren't in their tummies at that
age in this climate/' said the Commissioner's
wife, "but they are not far off. I wonder if I
could make Mrs. Austell understand. Poor
little fellow !"
With simple craft, the Commissioner's wife
called on Mrs. Austell and spoke long and lov-
ingly about children; inquiring specially for
His Majesty the King.
"He's with his governess," said Mrs. Austell,
and the tone intimated that she was not inter-
ested.
The Commissioner's wife, unskilled in the
art of war, continued her questionings. "I
don't know," said Mrs. Austell. "These things
are left to Miss Biddums, and, of course, she
does not ill-treat the child."
88 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
The Commissioner's wife left hastily. The
last sentence jarred upon her nerves. "Doesn't
ill-treat the child ! As if that were all ! I won-
der what Tom would say if I only 'didn't ill-
treat' Patsie !"
Thenceforward, His Majesty the King was
an honored guest at the Commissioner's house,
and the chosen friend of Patsie, with whom he
blundered into as many scrapes as the com-
pound and the servants' quarters afforded.
Patsie's Mamma was always ready to give
counsel, help, and sympathy, and, if need were
and callers few, to enter into their games with
an abandon that would have shocked the sleek-
haired subalterns who squirmed painfully in
their chairs when they came to call on her
whom they profanely nicknamed "Mother
Bunch."
Yet, in spite of Patsie and Patsie's Mamma,
and the love that these two lavished upon him,
His Majesty the King fell grievously from
grace, and committed no less a sin than that
of theft unknown, it is true, but burdensome.
There came a man to the door one day, when
His Majesty was playing in the hall and the
bearer had gone to dinner, with a packet for
his Majesty's Mamma. And he put it upon the
hall-table, said that there was no answer, and
departed.
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 89
Presently, the pattern of the dado ceased to
interest His Majesty, while the packet, a white,
neatly wrapped one of fascinating shape, inter-
ested him very much indeed. His Mamma was
out, so was Miss Biddums, and there was pink
string round the packet. He greatly desired
pink string. It would help him in many of his
little businesses the haulage across the floor
of his small cane-chair, the torturing of Chimo,
who could never understand harness and so
forth. If he took the string it would be his
own, and nobody would be any the wiser. He
certainly could not pluck up sufficient courage
to ask Mamma for it. Wherefore, mounting
upon a chair, he carefully untied the string and,
behold, the stiff white paper spread out in four
directions, and revealed a beautiful little leather
box with gold lines upon it! He tried to re-
place the string, but that was a failure. So he
opened the box to get full satisfaction for his
iniquity, and saw a most beautiful Star that
shone and winked, and was altogether lovely
and desirable.
"Vat," said His Majesty, meditatively, "is a
'parkle cwown, like what I will wear when I
go to heaven. I will wear it on my head >
Miss Biddums says so. I would like to wear
it now. I would like to play wiv it. I will take
90 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
it away and play wiv it, very careful, until
Mamma asks for it. I fink it was bought for
me to play wiv same as my cart/'
His Majesty the King was arguing against
his conscience, and he knew it, for he thought
immediately after : "Never mind. I will keep
it to play wiv until Mamma says where is it,
and then I will say: 'I tookt it and I am
sorry/ I will not hurt it because it is a 'parkle
cwown. But Miss Biddums will tell me to put
it back^ I will not show it to Miss Biddums/'
If Mamma had come in at that moment all
would have gone well. She did not, and His
Majesty the King stuffed paper, case, and
jewel into the breast of his blouse and marched
to the nursery.
"When Mamma asks I will tell," was the
salve that he laid upon his conscience. But
Mamma never asked, and for three whole days
His Majesty the King gloated over his treas-
ure. It was of no earthly use to him, but it was
splendid, and, for aught he knew, something
dropped from the heavens themselves. Still
Mamma made no inquiries, and it seemed to
him, in his furtive peeps, as though the shiny
stones grew dim. What was the use of a
" 'sparkle crown" if it made a little boy feel all
bad in his inside ? He had the pink string as
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 91
well as the other treasure, but greatly he
wished that he had not gone beyond the string.
It was his first experience of iniquity, and it
pained him after the flush of possession and
secret delight in the "'parkle cwown" had died
away.
Each day that he delayed rendered confes-
sion to the people beyond the nursery doors
more impossible. Now and again he deter-
mined to put himself in the path of the beauti-
fully attired lady as she was going out, and
explain that he and no one else was the posses-
sor of a "'parkle cwown," most beautiful and
quite uninquired for. But she passed hurriedly
to her carriage, and the opportunity was gone
before His Majesty the King could draw the
deep breath which clinches noble resolve. The
dread secret cut him off from Miss Biddums,
Patsie, and the Commissioner's wife, and
doubly hard fate when he brooded over it
Patsie said, and told her mother, that he was
cross.
The days were very long to His Majesty the
King, and the nights longer still. Miss Bid-
dums had informed him, more than once, what
was the ultimate destiny of "fieves," and when
he passed the interminable mud flanks of the
Central Jail, he shook in his little strapped
Sh0fiS ' Kip. 5-D
92 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
But release came after an afternoon spent in
playing boats by the edge of the tank at the
bottom of the garden. His Majesty the King
went to tea, and, for the first time in his mem-
ory, the meal revolted him. His nose was very
cold, and his cheeks were burning hot. There
was a weight about his feet, and he pressed his
head several times to make sure that it was not
swelling as he sat.
"I feel vevy funny," said His Majesty the
King, rubbing his nose. "Vere's a buzz-buzz
in my head."
He went to bed quietly. Miss Biddums was
out and the bearer undressed him.
The sin of the "'parkle cwown" was forgot-
ten in the acuteness of the discomfort to which
he roused after a leaden sleep of some hours.
He was thirsty, and the bearer had forgotten
to leave the drinking-water. "Miss Biddums !
Miss Biddums ! I'm so kirsty !"
No answer. Miss Biddums had leave to at-
tend the wedding of a Calcutta schoolmate.
His Majesty the King had forgotten that.
"I want a dwink of water!" he cried, but
his voice was dried up in his throat. "I want
a dwink ! Vere is ve glass ?"
He sat up in bed and looked round. There
was a murmur of voices from the other side
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 93
of the nursery door. It was better to face the
terrible unknown than to choke in the dark.
He slipped out of bed, but his feet were
strangely wilful, and he reeled once or twice.
Then he pushed the door open and staggered
a puffed and purple-faced little figure -into
the brilliant light of the dining-room full of
pretty ladies.
"I'm vevy hot! I'm vevy uncomfitivle,"
moaned His Majesty the King, clinging to the
porti&re, "and vere's no water in ve glass, and
I'm so kirsty. Give me a dwink of water."
An apparition in black and white His
Majesty the King could hardly see distinctly
lifted him up to the level of the table, and felt
his wrists and forehead. The water came, and
he drank deeply, his teeth chattering against
the edge of the tumbler. Then every one
seemed to go away every one except the huge
man in black and white, who carried him back
to his bed; the mother and father following.
And the sin of the "'parkle cwown" rushed
back and took possession of the terrified soul.
"I'm a fief!" he gasped. "I want to tell
Miss Biddums vat I'm a fief. Vere is Miss
Biddums?"
Miss Biddums had come and was bending
over him. "I'm a fief," he whispered. "A fief
94 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
like ve men in ve pwison. But I'll tell now.
I tookt ... I tookt ve 'parkle cwown
when the man that came left it in ve hall. I
bwoke ve paper and ve little bwown box, and
it looked shiny, and I tookt it to play wif, and
I was afwaid. It's in ve dooly-box at ve bot-
tom. No one never asked for it, but I was
afwaid. Oh, go an' get ve dooly-box I"
Miss Biddums obediently stooped to the low-
est shelf of the almirah and unearthed the big
paper box in which His Majesty the King kept
his dearest possessions. Under the tin soldiers,
and a layer of mud pellets for a pellet-bow,
winked and blazed a diamond star, wrapped
roughly in a half-sheet of note-paper whereon
were a few words.
Somebody was crying at the head of the bed,
and a man's hand touched the forehead of His
Majesty the King, who grasped the packet and
spread it on the bed.
"Vat is ve 'parkle cwown," he said, and
wept bitterly ; for now that he had made resti-
tution he would fain have kept the shining
splendor with him.
"It concerns you too," said a voice at the
head of the bed. "Read the note. This is not
the time to keep back anything."
(The note was curt, very much to the point,
HIS MAJESTY THE KING 95
and signed by a single initial. "// you wear
this to-morrow night I shall know what to
expect." The date was three weeks old.
A whisper followed, and the deeper voice
returned: "And you drifted as far apart as
that! I think it makes us quits now, doesn't
it? Oh, can't we drop this folly once and for
all? Is it worth it, darling?"
"Kiss me too/' said His Majesty the King,
dreamily. "You isn't vevy angwy, is you?"
The fever burned itself out, and His Majesty
the King slept.
When he waked, it was in a new world
peopled by his father and mother as well as
Miss Biddums: and there was much love in
that world and no morsel of fear, and more
petting than was good for several little boys.
His Majesty the King was too young to moral-
ize on the uncertainty of things human, or he
would have been impressed with the singular
advantages of crime ay, black sin. Behold,
he had stolen the "'parkle cwown," and his
reward was Love, and the right to play in the
waste-paper basket under the table "for al-
ways." .
He trotted over to spend an afternoon with
96 HIS MAJESTY THE KING
Patsie, and the Commissioner's wife would
have kissed him. "No, not vere," said His
Majesty the King, with superb insolence, fenc-
ing one corner of his mouth with his hand.
"Vat's my Mamma's place vere she kisses
me."
"Oh!" said the Commissioner's wife, briefly.
Then to herself : "Well, I suppose I ought to
be glad for his sake. Children are selfish little
grubs and I've got my Patsie*"
THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT
THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT
"And a little child shall lead them."
IN the Army List they still stand as "The
Fore and Fit Princess Hohenzollern-Sig-
maringen-Auspach's Merther-Tydsfilshire Own
Royal Loyal Light Infantry, Regimental Dis-
trict 329A," but the Army through all its bar-
racks and canteens knows them now as the
"Fore and Aft." They may in time do some-
thing that shall make their new title honorable,
but at present they are bitterly ashamed, and
the man who calls them "Fore and Aft" does
so at the risk of the head which is on his
shoulders.
Two words breathed into the stables of a
certain Cavalry Regiment will bring the men
out into the streets with belts and mops and
bad language; but a whisper of "Fore and
Aft" will bring out this regiment with rifles.
Their one excuse is that they came again
and did their best to finish the job in style.
But for a time all their world knows that they
99
100 THE DRUMS OP
were openly beaten, whipped, dumb-cowed,
shaking and afraid. The men know it; their
officers know it; the Horse Guards know it,
and when the next war comes the enemy will
know it also. There are two or three regi-
ments of the Line that have a black mark
against their names which they will then wipe
out, and it will be excessively inconvenient for
the troops upon whom they do their wiping.
The courage of the British soldier is offi-
cially supposed to be above proof, and, as a
general rule, it is so. The exceptions are de-
cently shoveled out of sight, only to be referred
to in the freshet of unguarded talk that occa-
sionally swamps a Mess-table at midnight.
Then one hears strange and horrible stories of
men not following their officers, of orders be-
ing given by those who had no right to give
them, and of disgrace that, but for the stand-
ing luck of the British Army, might have ended
in brilliant disaster. These are unpleasant
stories to listen to, and the Messes tell them un-
der their breath, sitting by the big wood fires,
and the young officer bows his head and thinks
to himself, please God, his men shall never
behave unhandily.
The British soldier is not altogether to be
blamed for occasional lapses; but this verdict
THE FORE AND AFT 101
he should not know. A moderately intelligent
General will waste six months in mastering the
craft of the particular war that he may be
waging; a Colonel may utterly misunderstand
the capacity of his regiment for three months
after it has taken the field; and even a Com-
pany Commander may err and be deceived as
to the temper and temperament of his own
handful : wherefore the soldier, and the soldier
of to-day more particularly, should not be
blamed for falling back. He should be shot
or hanged afterward pour encourager les
autres; but he should not be vilified in news-
papers, for that is want of tact and waste of
space.
He has, let us say, been in the service of the
Empress for, perhaps, four years. He will
leave in another two years. He has no in-
herited morals, and four years are not suffi-
cient to drive toughness into his fibre, or to
teach him how holy a thing is his Regiment.
He wants to drink, he wants to enjoy himself
in India he wants to save money and he
does not in the least like getting hurt. He has
received just sufficient education to make him
understand half the purport of the orders he
receives, and to speculate on the nature of
clean, incised, and shattering wounds. Thus,
102 THE DRUMS OF
if he is told to deploy under fire preparatory
to an attack, he knows that he runs a very
great risk of being killed while he is deploying,
and suspects that he is being thrown away to
gain ten minutes' time. He may either deploy
with desperate swiftness, or he may shuffle, or
bunch, or break, according to the discipline un-
der which he has lain for four years.
Armed with imperfect knowledge, cursed
with the rudiments of an imagination, ham-
pered by the intense selfishness of the lower
classes, and unsupported by any regimental as-
sociations, this young man is suddenly intro-
duced to an enemy who in eastern lands is al-
ways ugly, generally tall and hairy, and fre-
quently noisy. If he looks to the right and the
left and sees old soldiers men of twelve years'
service, who, he knows, know what they are
about taking a charge, rush, or demonstra-
tion without embarrassment, he is consoled and
applies his shoulder to the butt of his rifle with
a stout heart. His peace is the greater if he
hears a senior, who has taught him his soldier-
ing and broken his head on occasion, whisper-
ing : "They'll shout and carry on like this for
five minutes. Then they'll rush in, and then
we've got 'em by the short hairs!"
But, on the other hand, if he sees only men
THE FORE AND AFT 103
of his own term of service, turning white and
playing with their triggers and saying:
"What the Hell's up now?" while the Com-
pany Commanders are sweating into their
sword-hilts and shouting: "Front-rank, fix
bayonets. Steady there steady! Sight for
three hundred no, for five! Lie down, all!
Steady ! Front-rank, kneel !" and so forth, he
becomes unhappy ; and grows acutely miserable
when he hears a comrade turn over with the
rattle of fire-irons falling into the fender, and
the grunt of a pole-axed ox. If he can be
moved about a little and allowed to watch the
effect of his own fire on the enemy he feels
merrier, and may be then worked up to the
blind passion of fighting, which is, contrary to
general belief, controlled by a chilly Devil and
shakes men like ague. If he is not moved
about, and begins to feel cold at the pit of the
stomach, and in that crisis is badly mauled and
hears orders that were never given, he will
break, and he will break badly; and of all
things under the sight of the Sun there is noth-
ing more terrible than a broken British regi-
ment. When the worst comes to the worst
and the panic is really epidemic, the men must
be e'en let go, and the Company Commanders
had better escape to the enemy and stay there
104 THE DRUMS OF
for safety's sake. If they car> be made to come
again they are not pleasant men to meet, be-
cause they will not break twice.
About thirty years from this date, when we
have succeeded in half-educating everything
that wears trousers, our Army will be a beau-
tifully unreliable machine. It will know too
much and it will do too little. Later still, when
all men are at the mental level of the officer of
to-day it will sweep the earth. Speaking
roughly, you must employ either blackguards
or gentlemen, or, best of all, blackguards com-
manded by gentlemen, to do butcher's work
with efficiency and despatch. The ideal soldier
should, of course, think for himself the
Pocketbook says so. Unfortunately, to attain
this virtue, he has to pass through the phase of
thinking of himself, and that is misdirected
genius. A blackguard may be slow to think
for himself, but he is genuinely anxious to kill,
and a little punishment teaches him how to
guard his own skin and perforate another's.
A powerfully prayerful Highland Regiment,
officered by rank Presbyterians, is, perhaps, one
degree more terrible in action than a hard-
bitten thousand of irresponsible Irish ruffians
led by most improper young unbelievers. But
these things prove the rule which is that the
THE FORE AND AFT 105
midway men are not to be trusted alone. They
have ideas about the value of life and an up-
bringing that has not taught them to go on
and take the chances. They are carefully un-
provided with a backing of comrades who have
been shot over, and until that backing is re-
introduced, as a great many Regimental Com-
manders intend it shall be, they are more liable
to disgrace themselves than the size of the Em-
pire or the dignity of the Army allows. Their
officers are as good as good can be, because
their training begins early, and God has ar-
ranged that a clean-run youth of the British
middle classes shall, in the matter of backbone,
brains, and bowels, surpass all other youths.
For this reason a child of eighteen will stand
up, doing nothing, with a tin sword in his hand
and joy in his heart until he is dropped. If
he dies, he dies like a gentleman. If he lives,
he writes Home that he has been "potted,"
"sniped/* "chipped" or "cut over," and sits
down to besiege Government for a wound-
gratuity until the next little \var breaks out,
when he perjures himself before a Medical
Board, blarneys his Colonel, burns incense
round his Adjutant, and is allowed to go to the
Front once more.
Which homily brings me directly to a brace
106 THE DRUMS OF
of the most finished little fiends that ever
banged drum or tootled fife in the Band of a
British Regiment. They ended their sinful
career by open and flagrant mutiny and were
shot for it. Their names were Jakin and Lew
Piggy Lew and they were bold, bad drum-
mer-boys, both of them frequently birched by
the Drum-Major of the Fore and Aft.
Jakin was a stunted child of fourteen, and
Lew was about the same age. When not
looked after, they smoked and drank. They
swore habitually after the manner of the Bar-
rack-room, which is cold-swearing and comes
from between clinched teeth ; and they fought
religiously once a week. Jakin had sprung
from some London gutter and may or may not
have passed through Dr. Barnado's hands ere
he arrived at the dignity of drummer-boy.
Lew could remember nothing except the regi-
ment and the delight of listening to the Band
from his earliest years. He hid somewhere in
his grimy little soul a genuine love for music,
and was most mistakenly furnished with the
head of a cherub : insomuch that beautiful la-
dies who watched the Regiment in church were
wont to speak of him as a "darling." They
never heard his vitriolic comments on their
manners and morals, as he walked back to bar-
THE FORE AND AFT 107
racks with the Band and matured fresh causes
of offence against Jakin.
The other drummer-boys hated both lads on
account of their illogical conduct. Jakin might
be pounding Lew, or Lew might be rubbing
Jakin's head in the dirt, but any attempt at
aggression on the part of an outsider was met
by the combined forces of Lew and Jakin ; and
the consequences were painful. The boys were
the Ishmaels of the corps, but wealthy
Ishmaels, for they sold battles in alternate
weeks for the sport of the barracks when they
were not pitted against other boys; and thus
amassed money.
On this particular day there was dissention
in the camp. They had just been convicted
afresh of smoking, which is bad for little boys
who use plug-tobacco, and Lew's contention
was that Jakin had "stunk so 'orrid bad from
keepin' the pipe in pocket," that he and he alone
was responsible for the birching they were both
tingling under.
"I tell you I 'id the pipe back o' barricks,"
said Jakin, pacifically.
"You're a bloomin' liar," said Lew, without
heat.
"You're a bloomin' little bastard/' said
Jakin, strong in the knowledge that his own
ancestry was unknown.
108 THE DRUMS OF
Now there is one word in the extended vo-
cabulary of barrack-room abuse that cannot
pass without comment. You may call a man
a thief and risk nothing. You may even call
him a coward without finding more than a
boot whiz past your ear, but you must not call
a man a bastard unless you are prepared to
prove it on his front teeth.
"You might ha' kep' that till I wasn't so
sore," said Lew, sorrowfully, dodging round
Jakin's guard.
"I'll make you sorer," said Jakin, genially,
and got home on Lew's alabaster forehead.
All would have gone well and this story, as
the books say, would never have been written,
had not his evil fate prompted the Bazar-Ser-
geant's son, a long, employless man of five
and twenty, to put in an appearance after the
first round. He was eternally in need of
money, and knew that the boys had silver.
"Fighting again," said he. "Ill report you
to my father, and he'll report you to the Color-
Sergeant."
"What's that to you?" said Jakin, with an
unpleasant dilation of the nostrils.
"Oh! nothing to me. You'll get into
trouble, and you've been up too often to afford
that."
THE FORE AND AFT 109
"What the Hell do you know about what
we've done?" asked Lew the Seraph. "You
aren't in the Army, you lousy, cadging
civilian."
He closed in on the man's left flank.
"Jes' 'cause you find two gentlemen settlin'
their diff'rences with their fistes you stick in
your ugly nose where you aren't wanted. Run
'ome to your 'arf-caste slut of a Ma or we'll
give you what-for," said Jakin.
The man attempted reprisals by knocking
the boys' heads together. The scheme would
have succeeded had not Jakin punched him
vehemently in the stomach, or had Lew re-
frained from kicking his shins. They fought
together, bleeding and breathless, for half an
hour, and after heavy punishment, triumphant-
ly pulled down their opponent as terriers pull
down a jackal.
"Now," gasped Jakin, "I'll give you what-
for." He proceeded to pound the man's fea-
tures while Lew stamped on the outlying por-
tions of his anatomy. Chivalry is not a strong
point in the composition of the average drum-
mer-boy. He fights, as do his betters, to make
his mark.
Ghastly was the ruin that escaped, and aw-
ful was the wrath of the Bazar-Sergeant.
I io THE DRUMS OP
Awful too was the scene in Orderly-room when
the two reprobates appeared to answer the
charge of half -murdering a "civilian." The
Bazar-Sergeant thirsted for a criminal action,
and his son lied. The boys stood to attention
while the black clouds of evidence accumulated.
"You little devils are more trouble than the
rest of the Regiment put together," said the
Colonel, angrily. "One might as well admon-
ish thistledown, and I can't well put you in
cells or under stoppages. You must be flogged
again."
"Beg y' pardon, Sir. Can't we say nothin'
in our own defence, Sir." shrilled Jakin.
"Hey! What? Are you going to argue
with me ?" said the Colonel.
"No, Sir," said Lew. "But if a man come to
you, Sir, and said he was going to report you,
Sir, for 'aving a bit of a turn-up with a friend,
Sir, an' wanted to get money out o' you,
Sir"
The Orderly-room exploded in a roar of
laughter. "Well?" said the Colonel.
"That was what that measly jarnwar there
did, Sir, and Vd 'a' done it, Sir, if we 'adn't
prevented 'im. We didn't 'it 'im much, Sir.
'E 'adn't no manner o' right to interfere with
us, Sir. I don't mind bein' flogged by the
THE FORE AND AFT in
Drum-Major, Sir, nor yet reported by any
Corp'ral, but I'm but I don't think it's fair,
Sir, for a civilian to come an' talk over a man
in the Army."
A second shout of laughter shook the Or-
derly-room, but the Colonel was grave.
"What sort of characters have these boys ?"
he asked of the Regimental Sergeant-Ma j or.
"Accordin* to the Bandmaster, Sir," re-
turned that revered official the only soul in
the regiment whom the boys feared "they do
everything but lie, Sir."
"Is it like we'd go for that man for fun,
Sir ?" said Lew, pointing to the plaintiff.
"Oh, admonished, admonished!" said the
Colonel, testily, and when the boys had gone
he read the Bazar-Sergeant's son a lecture on
the sin of unprofitable meddling, and gave
orders that the Bandmaster should keep the
Drums in better discipline.
"If either of you come to practice again with
so much as a scratch on your two ugly little
faces," thundered the Bandmaster, "I'll tell
the Drum-Major to take the skin off your
backs. Understand that, you young devils."
Then he repented of his speech for just the
length of time that Lew, looking like a Seraph
in red worsted embellishments, took the place
II j THE DRUMS OF
of one of the trumpets in hospital and ren-
dered the echo of a battle-piece. Lew certainly
was a musician, and had often in his more ex-
alted moments expressed a yearning to master
every instrument of the Band.
"There's nothing to prevent your becoming
a Bandmaster, Lew," said the Bandmaster,
who had composed waltzes of his own, and
worked day and night in the interests of the
Band.
"What did he say?" demanded Jakin, after
practice.
"Said I might be a bloomin' Bandmaster, an'
be asked in to 'ave a glass o' sherry-wine on
Mess-nights."
"Ho! 'Said you might be a bloomin' non-
combatant, did 'e! That's just about wot 'e
would say. When I've put in my boy's service
it's a bloomin' shame that doesn't count for
pension I'll take on a privit. Then I'll be a
Lance in a year knowin' what I know about
the ins an' outs o' things. In three years I'll
be a bloomin' Sergeant. I won't marry then,
not I ! I'll 'old on and learn the orf 'cers' ways
an* apply for exchange into a reg'ment that
doesn't know all about me. Then I'll be a
bloomin' orf'cer. Then I'll ask you to 'ave a
glass o' sherry-wine, Mister Lew, an' you'll
THE FORE AND AFT
bloomin' well 'ave to stay in the hanty-room
while the Mess-Sergeant brings it to your dirty
'ands."
"S'pose /'m going to be a Bandmaster?
Not I, quite. Til be a orf'cer too. There's
nothin' like taking to a thing an' stickin' to it,
the Schoolmaster says. The reg'ment don't go
'ome for another seven years. I'll be a Lance
then or near to.
Thus the boys discussed their futures, and
conducted themselves with exemplary piety for
a week. That is to say, Lew started a flirtation
with the Color-Sergeant's daughter, aged thir-
teen, "not," as he explained to Jakin, "with
any intention o' matrimony, but by way o*
keepin' my 'and in." And the black-haired
Cris Delighan enjoyed that flirtation more than
previous ones, and the other drummer-boys
raged furiously together, and Jakin preached
sermons on the dangers of "bein' tangled along
o' petticoats."
But neither love nor virtue would have held
Lew long in the paths of propriety had not the
rumor gone abroad that the Regiment was to
be sent on active service, to take part in a war
which, for the sake of brevity, we will call
"The War of the Lost Tribes."
The barracks had the rumor almost before
114 THE DRUMS OF
the Mess-room, and of all the nine hundred
men in barracks not ten had seen a shot fired
in anger. The Colonel had, twenty years ago,
assisted at a Frontier expedition; one of the
Majors had seen service at the Cape; a con-
firmed deserter in E Company had helped to
clear streets in Ireland ; but that was all. The
Regiment had been put by for many years.
The overwhelming mass of its rank and file
had from three to four years' service ; the non-
commissioned officers were under thirty years
old ; and men and sergeants alike had forgotten
to speak of the stories written in brief upon the
Colors the New Colors that had been formally
blessed by an Archbishop in England ere the
Regiment came away.
They wanted to go to the Front they were
enthusiastically anxious to go but they had no
knowledge of what war meant, and there was
none to tell them. They were an educated regi-
ment, the percentage of school-certificates in
their ranks was high, and most of the men
could do more than read and write. They had
been recruited in loyal observance of the terri-
torial idea ; but they themselves had no notion
of that idea. They were made up of drafts from
an over-populated manufacturing district. The
system had put flesh and muscle upon their
THE FORE AND AFT 115
small bones, but it could not put heart into the
sons of those who for generations had done
overmuch work for overscanty pay, had
sweated in drying-rooms, stooped over looms,
coughed among white-lead and shivered on
lime-barges. The men had found food and
rest in the Army, and now they were going to
fight "niggers" people who ran away if you
shook a stick at them. Wherefore they cheered
lustily when the rumor ran, and the shrewd,
clerkly non-commissioned officers speculated on
the chances of batta and of saving their pay.
At Headquarters, men said: "The Fore and
Fit have never been under fire within the last
generation. Let us, therefore, break them in
easily by setting them to guard lines of com-
munication/' And this would have been done
but for the fact that British Regiments were
wanted badly wanted at the Front, and
there were doubtful Native Regiments that
could fill the minor duties. "Brigade 'em with
two strong Regiments/' said Headquarters.
"They may be knocked about a bit, but they'll
learn their business before they come through.
Nothing like a night-alarm and a little cutting-
up of stragglers to make a Regiment smart in
the field. Wait till they've had half a dozen
sentries' throats cut."
Ii6 THE DRUMS OF
The Colonel wrote with delight that the tem-
per of his men was excellent, that the Regiment
was all that could be wished and as sound as
a bell. The Majors smiled with a sober joy,
and the subalterns waltzed in pairs down the
Mess-room after dinner and nearly shot them-
selves at revolver practice. But there was con-
sternation in the hearts of Jakin and Lew.
What was to be done with the drums ? Would
the Band go to the Front? How many of the
drums would accompany the Regiment?
They took council together, sitting in a tree
and smoking.
"It's more than a bloomin' toss-up they'll
leave us be'ind at the Depot with the women.
You'll like that," said Jakin, sarcastically.
" 'Cause o' Cris, y' mean ? Wot's a woman,
or a 'ole bloomin' depot o' women, Alongside o'
the chanct of field-service ? You know I'm as
keen on goin' as you/' said Lew.
" 'Wish I was a bloomin' bugler," said
Jakin, sadly. "They'll take Tom Kidd along,
that I can plaster a wall with, an' like as not
they won't take us."
"Then let's go an' make Tom Kidd so
bloomin' sick 'e can't bugle no more. You 'old
'is 'ands an' I'll kick him," said Lew, wriggling
on the branch.
THE FORE AND AFT 117
"That ain't no good neither. We ain't the
sort o' characters to presoon on our rep'tations
they're bad. If they leave the Band at the
Depot we don't go, and no error there. If
they take the Band we may get cast for medical
unfitness. Are you medical fit, Piggy?" said
Jakin, digging Lew in the ribs with force.
"Yus," said Lew, with an oath. "The Doc-
tor says your 'eart's weak through smokin' on
an empty stummick. Throw a chest an' I'll try
yen"
Jakin threw out his chest, which Lew smote
with all his might. Jakin turned very pale,
gasped, crowed, screwed up his eyes and said,
"That's all right."
"You'll do," said Lew. "I've 'eard o' men
dyin' when you 'it 'em fair on the breast-bone."
"Don't bring us no nearer goin', though,"
said Jakin. "Do you know where we're or-
dered?"
"Gawd knows, an' 'e won't split on a pal.
Somewheres up to the Front to kill Paythans
hairy big beggars that turn you inside out if
they get 'old o' you. They say their women
are good-looking, too."
"Any loot?" asked the abandoned Jakin.
"Not a bloomin' anna, they say, unless you
dig up the ground an' see what the niggers 'ave
Ii8 THE DRUMS OF
'id. They're a poor lot/' Jakin stood upright
on the branch and gazed across the plain.
"Lew," said he, "there's the Colonel coming.
'Colonel's a good old beggar. Let's go an' talk
to 'im."
Lew nearly fell out of the tree at the au-
dacity of the suggestion. Like Jakin he feared
not God neither regarded he Man, but there
are limits even to the audacity of a drummer-
boy, and to speak to a Colonel was . . .
But Jakin had slid down the trunk and
doubled in the direction of the Colonel. That
officer was walking wrapped in thought and
visions of a C. B. yes, even a K. C. B., for
had he not at command one of the best Regi-
ments of the Line the Fore and Fit? And
he was aware of two small boys charging down
upon him. Once before it had been solemnly
reported to him that "the Drums were in a
state of mutiny"; Jakin and Lew being the
ringleaders. This looked like an organized
conspiracy.
The boys halted at twenty yards, walked to
the regulation four paces, and saluted together,
each as well set-up as a ramrod and little taller.
The Colonel was in a genial mood ; the boys
appeared very forlorn and unprotected on the
desolate plain, and one of them was hand-
same.
THE FORE AND AFT 119
"Well !" said the Colonel, recognizing them.
"Are you going to pull me down in the open?
I'm sure I never interfere with you, even
though" he sniffed suspiciously "you have
been smoking."
It was time to strike while the iron was hot
Their hearts beat tumultously.
"Beg y' pardon, Sir, 5 ' began Jakin. "The
Reg'ment's ordered on active service, Sir?"
"So I believe," said the Colonel, courteously.
"Is the Band goin', Sir?" said both together.
Then, without pause, "We're goin', Sir, ain't
we?"
"You!" said the Colonel, stepping back the
more fully to take in the two small figures.
"You! You'd die in the first march."
"No, we wouldn't, Sir. We can march with
the Regiment anywheres p'rade an' anywhere
else," said Jakin.
"If Tom Kidd goes 'e'll shut up like a clasp-
knife," said Lew. "Tom 'as very close veins
in both 'is legs, Sir."
"Very how much?"
"Very close veins, Sir. That's why they
swells after long p'rade, Sir. If J e can go, we
can go, Sir."
Again the Colonel looked at them long and
intently.
120 THE DRUMS OP
"Yes, the Band is going/' he said, as gravely
as though he had been addressing a brother
officer. "Have you any parents, either of you
two?"
"No, Sir," rejoicingly from Lew and Jakin.
"We're both orphans, Sir. There's no one to
be considered of on our account, Sir."
"You poor little sprats, and you want to go
up to the Front with the Regiment, do you?
Why?"
"I've wore the Queen's Uniform for two
years/' said Jakin. "It's very 'ard, Sir, that a
man don't get no recompense for doin' 'is
dooty, Sir."
"An' an' if I don't go, Sir," interrupted
Lew, "the Bandmaster 'e says 'e'll catch an'
make a bloo a blessed musician o' me, Sir.
Before I've seen any service, Sir."
The Colonel made no answer for a long time.
Then he said quietly : "If you're passed by the
Doctor I dare say you can go. I shouldn't
smoke if I were you."
The boys saluted and disappeared. The
Colonel walked home and told the story to his
wife, who nearly cried over it. The Colonel
was well pleased. If that was the temper of
the children, what would not the men do ?
Jakin and Lew entered the boys' barrack*
THE FORE AND AFT 121
room with great stateliness, and refused to
hold any conversation with their comrades for
at least ten minutes. Then bursting with pride,
Jakin drawled : "I've bin intervooin' the Colo-
nel. Good old beggar is the Colonel. Says I
to 'im, 'Colonel/ says I, 'let me go to the Front,
along o' the Reg'ment/ 'To the Front you
shall go/ says 'e, 'an' I only wish there was
more like you among the dirty little devils that
bang the bloomin' drums/ Kidd, if you throw
your 'coutrements at me for tellin' you the truth
to your own advantage, your legs'll swell."
None the less there was a Battle-Royal in the
barrack-room, for the boys were consumed with
envy and hate, and neither Jakin nor Lew be-
haved in a conciliatory wise.
"I'm goin' out to say adoo to my girl/' said
Lew, to cap the climax. "Don't none o' you
touch my kit because it's wanted for active
service, me bein' specially invited to go by the
Colonel."
He strolled forth and whistled in the clump
of trees at the back of the Married Quarters till
Cris came to him, and, the preliminary kisses
being given and taken, Lew began to explain
the situation.
"I'm goin' to the Front with the Reg'ment,"
he said, valiantly.
122 THE DRUMS OF
"Piggy, you're a little liar," said Cris, but
her heart misgave her, for Lew was not in the
habit of lying.
"Liar yourself, Cris," said Lew, slipping an
arm round her. "I'm goin'. When the Reg'-
ment marches out you'll see me with 'em, all
galliant and gay. Give us another kiss, Cris,
on the strength of it."
"If you'd on'y a-stayed at the Depot where
you ought to ha' bin you could get as many of
'em as as you dam please," whimpered Cris,
putting up her mouth.
"It's 'ard, Cris. I grant you it's 'ard. But
what's a man to do? If I'd a-stayed at the De-
pot, you wouldn't think anything of me."
"Like as not, but I'd 'ave you with me,
Piggy. An' all the thinkin' in the world isn't
like kissin'."
"An' all the kissin' in the world isn't like
'avin' a medal to wear on the front o' your
coat."
"You won't get no medal."
"Oh, yus, I shall though. Me an' Jakin are
the only acting-drummers that'll be took along.
All the rest is full men, an' we'll get our medals
with them."
"They might ha' taken anybody but you,
Piggy. You'll get killed you're so venture-
THE FORE AND AFT 123
some. Stay with me, Piggy, darlin', down at
the Depot, an' I'll love you true forever."
"Ain't you goin' to do that now, Cris ? You
said you was."
"O' course I am, but th' other's more com-
fortable. Wait till you've growed a bit, Piggy.
You aren't no taller than me now."
"I've bin in the army for two years an' I'm
not goin' to get out of a chanct o' seein' service
an' don't you try to make me do so. I'll come
back, Cris, an' when I take on as a man I'll
marry you marry you when I'm a Lance."
"Promise, Piggy?"
Lew reflected on the future as arranged by
Jakin a short time previously, but Cris's mouth
was very near his own.
"I promise, s'elp me Gawd !" said he.
Cris slid an arm round his neck.
"I won't 'old you back no more. Piggy. Go
away an' get your medal, an' I'll make you a
new button-bag as nice as I know how," she
whispered.
"Put some o' your 'air into it, Cris, an' I'll
keep it in my pocket so long's I'm alive."
Then Cris wept anew, and the interview
ended. Public feeling among the drummer-
boys rose to fever pitch and the lives of Jakin
and Lew became unenviable. Not only had
Kip. 5 E
124 THE DRUMS OF
they been permitted to enlist two years before
the regulation boy's age fourteen but, by
virtue, it seemed, of their extreme youth, they
were allowed to go to the Front which thing
had not happened to acting-drummers within
the knowledge of boy. The Band which was
to accompany the Regiment had been cut down
to the regulation twenty men, the surplus re-
turning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew were
attached to the Band as supernumeraries,
though they would much have preferred being
Company buglers.
" 'Don't matter much," said Jakin, after the
medical inspection. "Be thankful that we're
'lowed to go at all. The Doctor 'e said that if
we could stand what we took from the Bazar-
Sergeant's son we'd stand pretty nigh any-
thing."
"Which we will," said Lew, looking tenderly
at the ragged and ill-made housewife that Cris
had given him, with a lock of her hair worked
into a sprawling "L" upon the cover.
"It was the best I could," she sobbed. "I
wouldn't let mother nor the Sergeant's tailor
'elp me. Keep it always, Piggy, an' remember
I love you true."
They marched to the railway station, nine
hundred and sixty strong, and every soul in
THE FORE AND AFT 125
cantonments turned out to see them go. The
drummers gnashed their teeth at Jakin and Lew
marching with the Band, the married women
wept upon the platform, and the Regiment
cheered its noble self black in the face.
"A nice level lot," said the Colonel to the
Second-in-Command, as they watched the first
four companies entraining.
"Fit to do anything/' said the Second-in-
Command, enthusiastically. "But it seems to
me they're a thought too young and tender for
the work in hand. It's bitter cold up at the
Front now/'
"They're sound enough/' said the Colonel.
"We must take our chance of sick casualties."
So they went northward, ever northward,
past droves and droves of camels, armies of
camp followers, and legions of laden mules, the
throng thickening day by day, till with a shriek
the train pulled up at a hopelessly congested
junction where six lines of temporary track
accommodated six forty-wagon trains; where
whistles blew, Babus sweated and Commissariat
officers swore from dawn till far into the night
amid the wind-driven chaff of the fodder-bales
and the lowing of a thousand steers.
"Hurry up you're badly wanted at the
Front/' was the message that greeted the Fore
126 THE DRUMS OP
and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross
carriages told the same tale.
" 'Tisn't so much the bloomin' fighting,"
gasped a headbound trooper of Hussars to a
knot of admiring Fore and Afts. " 'Tisn't so
much the bloomin' fightin', though there's
enough o' that. It's the bloomin' food an' the
bloomin' climate. Frost all night 'cept when
it hails, and biling sun all day, and the water
stinks fit to knock you down. I got my 'ead
chipped like a egg; I've got pneumonia too, an'
my guts is all out o' order. 'Tain't no bloomin'
picnic in those parts, I can tell you."
"What are the niggers like?" demanded a
private.
"There's some prisoners in that train yon-
der. Go an' look at 'em. They're the aris-
tocracy o' the country. The common folk are
a dashed sight uglier. If you want to know
what they fight with, reach under my seat an*
pull out the long knife that's there."
They dragged out and beheld for the first
time the grim, bone-handled, triangular Afghan
knife. It was almost as long as Lew.
"That's the thing to jint ye," said the
trooper, feebly.
"It can take off a man's arm at the shoulder
as easy as slicing butter. I halved the beggar
THE FORE AND AFT 127
that used that 'un, but there's more of his likes
up above. They don't understand thrust in',
but they're devils to slice."
The men strolled across the tracks to inspect
the Afghan prisoners. They were unlike any
"niggers" that the Fore and Aft had ever met
these huge, black-haired, scowling sons of
the Beni-Israel. As the men stared the Af-
ghans spat freely and muttered one to another
with lowered eyes.
"My eyes! Wot awful swine!" said Jakin,
who was in the rear of the procession. "Say
old man, how you got piickrowed, eh? Kis-
wasti you wasn't hanged for your ugly face,
hey?"
The tallest of the company turned, his leg-
irons, clanking at the movement, and stared at
the boy. "See!" he cried to his fellows in
Pushto. "They send children against us.
What a people, and what fools!"
"Hya!" said Jakin, nodding his head
cherrily. "You go down-country. Khana get,
peenikapanee get live like a bloomin' Raja
ke marfik. That's a better bandobust than
baynit get in your innards. Good-bye, ole man.
Take care o' your beautiful figure-'ed, an' try
to look kushy"
The men laughed and fell in for their first
128 THE DRUMS OF
march when they began to realize that a sol-
dier's life was not all beer and skittles. They
were much impressed with the size and bestial
ferocity of the niggers whom they had now
learned to call "Paythans," and more with the
exceeding discomfort of their own surround-
ings. Twenty old soldiers in the corps would
have taught them how to make themselves
moderately snug at night, but they had no old
soldiers, and, as the troops on the line of march
said, "they lived like pigs." They learned the
heart-breaking cussedness of camp-kitchens and
camels and the depravity of an E. P. tent and a
wither-wrung mule. They studied animalculae
in water, and developed a few cases of dysen-
tery in their study.
At the end of their third march they were
disagreeably surprised by the arrival in their
camp of a hammered iron slug which, fired
from a steadyrest at seven hundred yards,
flicked out the brains of a private seated by
the fire. This robbed them of their peace for a
night, and was the beginning of a long-range
fire carefully calculated to that end. In the
daytime they saw nothing except an occasional
puff of smoke from a crag above the line of
march. At night there were distant spurts of
flame and occasional casualties, which set the
THE FORE AND AFT 129
whole camp blazing into the gloom, and, occa-
sionally, into opposite tents. Then they swore
vehemently and vowed that this was magnifi-
cent but not war.
Indeed it was riot. The Regiment could not
halt for reprisals against the franctireurs of
the country-side. Its duty was to go forward
and make connection with the Scotch and
Gurkha troops with which it was brigaded.
The Afghans knew this, and knew too, after
their first tentative shots, that they were deal-
ing with a raw regiment. Thereafter they de-
voted themselves to the task of keeping the
Fore and Aft on the strain. Not for anything
would they have taken equal liberties with a
seasoned corps with the wicked little Gurkhas,
whose delight it was to lie out in the open on
a dark night and stalk their stalkers with the
terrible, big men dressed in women's clothes,
who could be heard praying to their God in the
night-watches, and whose peace of mind no
amount of "sniping" could shake or with
those vile Sikhs, who marched so ostentatiously
unprepared and who dealt out such grim re-
ward to those who tried to profit by that un-
preparedness. This white regiment was differ-
entquite different. It slept like a hog, and,
like a hog, charged in every direction when it
130 THE DRUMS OF
was roused. Its sentries walked with a footfall
that could be heard for a quarter of a mile,
would fire at anything that moved even a
driven donkey and when they had once fired,
could be scientifically "rushed" and laid out a
horror and an offence against the morning sun.
Then there were camp-followers who straggled
and could be cut up without fear. Their
shrieks would disturb the white boys, and the
loss of their services would inconvenience them
sorely.
Thus, at every march, the hidden enemy be-
came bolder and the regiment writhed and
twisted under attacks it could not avenge. The
crowning triumph was a sudden night-rush
ending in the cutting of many tent-ropes, the
collapse of the sodden canvas and a glorious
knifing of the men who struggled and kicked
below. It was a great deed, neatly carried out,
and it shook the already shaken nerves of the
Fore and Aft. All the courage that they had
been required to exercise up to this point was
the "two o'clock in the morning courage" ; and
they, so far, had only succeeded in shooting
their comrades and losing their sleep.
Sullen, discontented, cold, savage, sick, with
their uniforms dulled and unclean, the "Fore
and Aft" joined their Brigade.
THE FORE AND AFT 131
"I hear you had a tough time of it coming
up," said the Brigadier. But when he saw the
hospital-sheets his face fell.
"This is bad," said he to himself. "They're
as rotten as sheep." And aloud to the Colonel,
"I'm afraid we can't spare you just yet. We
want all we have, else I should have given you
ten days to recruit in."
The Colonel winced. "On my honor, Sir,"
he returned, "there is not the least necessity to
think of sparing us. My men have been rather
mauled and upset without a fair return. They
only want to go in somewhere where they can
see what's before them."
" 'Can't say I think much of the Fore and
Fit," said the Brigadier, in confidence to his
Brigade-Major. "They've lost all their soldier-
ing, and, by the trim of them, might have
marched through the country from the other
side. A more fagged-out set of men I never
put eyes on."
"Oh, they'll improve as the work goes on.
The parade gloss has been rubbed off a little,
but they'll put on field polish before long," said
the Brigade-Major. "They've been mauled,
and they don't quite understand it."
They did not. All the hitting was on one
side, and it was cruelly hard hitting with
132 THE DRUMS OF
accessories that made them sick. There was
also the real sickness that laid hold of a strong
man and dragged him howling to the grave.
Worst of all, their officers knew just as little
of the country as the men themselves, and
looked as if they did. The Fore and Aft were
in a thoroughly unsatisfactory condition, but
they believed that all would be well if they could
once get a fair go-in at the enemy. Pot-shots
up and down the valleys were unsatisfactory,
and the bayonet never seemed to get a chance.
Perhaps it was as well, for a long-limbed Af-
ghan with a knife had a reach of eight feet,
and could carry away enough lead to disable
three Englishmen. The Fore and Fit would
like some rifle-practice at the enemy all seven
hundred rifles blazing together. That wish
showed the mood of the men.
The Gurkhas walked into their camp, and in
broken, barrack-room English strove to frat-
ernize with them ; offered them pipes of tobac-
co and stood them treat at the canteen. But
the Fore and Aft, not knowing much of the
nature of the Gurkhas, treated them as they
would treat any other "niggers," and the little
men in green trotted back to their firm friends
the Highlanders, and with many grins confided
to them : "That dam white regiment no dam
THE FORE AND AFT 133
use. Sulky ugh! Dirty ugh! Hya, any
tot for Johnny?" Whereat the Highlanders
smote the Gurkhas as to the head, and told
them not to vilify a British Regiment, and the
Gurkhas grinned cavernously, for the High-
landers were their elder brothers and entitled to
the privileges of kinship. The common soldier
who touches a Gurkha is more than likely to
have his head sliced open.
Three days later the Brigadier arranged a
battle according to the rules of war and the
peculiarity of the Afghan temperament. The
enemy were massing in inconvenient strength
among the hills, and the moving or many green
standards warned him that the tribes were "up"
in aid of the Afghan regular troops. A
Squadron and a half of Bengal Lancers repre-
sented the available Cavalry, and two screw-
guns, borrowed from a column thirty miles
away, the Artillery at the General's disposal.
"If they stand, as I've a very strong notion
that they will, I fancy we shall see an infantry
fight that will be worth watching," said the
Brigadier. "We'll do it in style. Each regi-
ment shall be played into action by its Band,
and we'll hold the Cavalry in reserve."
"For all the reserve?" somebody asked.
"For all the reserve ; because we're going to
134 THE DRUMS OF
crumple them up," said the Brigadier, who was
an extraordinary Brigadier, and did not believe
in the value of a reserve when dealing with
Asiatics. And, indeed, when you come to think
of it, had the British Army consistently waited
for reserves in all its little affairs, the bound-
aries of Our Empire would have stopped at
Brighton beach.
That battle was to be a glorious battle.
The three regiments debouching from three
separate gorges, after duly crowning the
heights above, were to converge from the
centre, left, and right upon what we will call
the Afghan army, then stationed toward the
lower extremity of a flat-bottomed valley.
Thus it will be seen that three sides of the val-
ley practically belonged to the English, while
the fourth was strictly Afghan property. In
the event of defeat the Afghans had the rocky
hills to fly to, where the fire from the guerilla
tribes in aid would cover their retreat. In the
event of victory these same tribes would rush
down and lend their weight to the rout of the
British.
The screw-guns were to shell the head of
each Afghan rush that was made in close for-
mation, and the Cavalry, held in reserve in the
right valley, were to gently stimulate the break-
THE FORE AND AFT 135
up which would follow on the combined attack.
The Brigadier, sitting upon a rock overlooking
the valley, would watch the battle unrolled at
his feet. The Fore and Aft would debouch
from the central gorge, the Gurkhas from the
left, and the Highlanders from the right, for
the reason that the left flank of the enemy
seemed as though it required the most hammer-
ing. It was not every day that an Afghan
force would take ground in the open, and the
Brigadier was resolved to make the most of it.
"It we only had a few more men," he said,
plaintively, "we could surround the creatures
and crumble 'em up thoroughly. As it is, I'm
afraid we can only cut them up as they run.
It's a great pity."
The Fore and Aft had enjoyed unbroken
peace for five days, and were beginning, in
spite of dysentery, to recover their nerve. But
they were not happy, for they did not know
the work in hand, and had they known, would
not have known how to do it. Throughout
those five days in which old soldiers might
have taught them the craft of the game, they
discussed together their misadventures in the
past how such an one was alive at dawn and
dead ere the dusk, and with what shrieks and
struggles such another had given up his soul
136 THE DRUMS OF
under the Afghan knife. Death was a new and
horrible thing to the sons of mechanics who
were used to die decently of zymotic disease;
and their careful conservation in barracks had
done nothing to make them look upon it with
less dread.
Very early in the dawn the bugles began to
blow, and the Fore and Aft, filled with a mis-
guided enthusiasm, turned out without waiting
for a cup of coffee and a biscuit ; and were re-
warded by being kept under arms in the cold
while the other regiments leisurely prepared for
the fray. All the world knows that it is ill
taking the breeks off a Highlander. It is much
iller to try to make him stir unless he is con-
vinced of the necessity for haste.
The Fore and Aft awaited, leaning upon
their rifles and listening to the protests of their
empty stomachs. The Colonel did his best to
remedy the default of lining as soon as it was
borne in upon him that the affair would not
begin at once, and so well did he succeed that
the coffee was just ready when the men
moved off, their Band leading. Even then
there had been a mistake in time, and the Fore
and Aft came out into the valley ten minutes
before the proper hour. Their Band wheeled
to the right after reaching the open, and retired
THE FORE AND AFT 137
behind a little rocky knoll still playing while
the regiment went past.
It was not a pleasant sight that opened on
the uninstructed view, for the lower end of the
valley appeared to be filled by an army in posi-
tion real and actual regiments attired in red
coats, and of this there was no doubt firing
Martini-Henry bullets which cup up the ground
a hundred yards in front of the leading com-
pany. Over that pock-marked ground the regi-
ment had to pass, and it opened the ball with a
general and profound courtesy to the piping
pickets; ducking in perfect time, as though it
had been brazed on a rod. Being half -capable
of thinking for itself, it fired a volley by the
simple process of pitching its rifle into its
shoulder and pulling the trigger. The bullets
may have accounted for some of the watchers
on the hillside, but they certainly did not affect
the mass of enemy in front, while the noise of
the rifles drowned any orders that might have
been given.
"Good God!" said the Brigadier, sitting on
the rock high above all. 'That regiment has
spoiled the whole show. Hurry up the others,
and let the screw-guns get off."
But the screw-guns, in working round the
heights, had stumbled upon a wasp's nest of a
138 THE DRUMS OF
small mud fort which they incontinently shelled
at eight hundred yards, to the huge discomfort
of the occupants, who were unaccustonmed to
weapons of such devilish precision.
The Fore and Aft continued to go forward,
but with shortened stride. Where were the
other regiments, and why did these niggers use
Martinis ? They took open order instinctively,
lying down and firing at random, rushing a
few paces forward and lying down again, ac-
cording to the regulations. Once in this forma-
tion, each man felt himself desperately alone,
and edged in toward his fellow for comfort's
sake.
Then the crack of his neighbor's rifle at his
ear led him to fire as rapidly as he could again
for the sake of the comfort of the noise. The
reward was not long delayed. Five volleys
plunged the files in banked smoke impenetrable
to the eye, and the bullets began to take ground
twenty or thirty yards in front of the firers, as
the weight of the bayonet dragged down, and
to the right arms wearied with holding the
kick of the leaping Martini. The Company
Commanders peered helplessly through the
smoke, the more nervous mechanically trying
to fan it away with their helmets.
"High and to the left!" bawled a Captain
THE FORE AND AFT 139
till he was hoarse. "No good! Cease firing,
and let it drift away a bit."
Three and four times the bugles shrieked the
order, and when it was obeyed the Fore and
Aft looked that their foe should be lying before
them in mown swaths of men. A light wind
drove the smoke to leeward, and showed the
enemy still in position and apparently un-
affected. A quarter of a ton of lead had been
buried a furlong in front of them, as the ragged
earth attested.
That was not demoralizing. They were
waiting for the mad riot to die down, and were
firing quietly into the heart of the smoke. A
private of the Fore and Aft spun up his com-
pany shrieking with agony, another was kick-
ing the earth and gasping, and a third, ripped
through the lower intestines by a jagged bullet,
was calling aloud on his comrades to put him
out of his pain. These were the casualties, and
they were not soothing to hear or see. The
smoke cleared to a dull haze.
Then the foe began to shout with a great
shouting and a mass a black mass detached
itself from the main body, and rolled over the
ground at horrid speed. It was composed of,
perhaps, three hundred men, who would shout
and fire and slash if the rush of their fifty com-
I 4 o THE DRUMS OP
rades who were determined to die carried home.
The fifty were Ghazis, half -maddened with
drugs and wholly mad with religious f anaticsm.
When they rushed the British fire ceased, and
in the lull the order was given to close ranks
and meet them with the bayonet.
Any one who knew the business could have
told the Fore and Aft that the only way of
dealing with a Ghazi rush is by volleys at long
ranges ; because a man who means to die, who
desires to die, who will gain heaven by dying,
must, in nine cases out of ten, kill a man who
has a lingering prejudice in favor of life if he
can close with the latter. Where they should
have closed and gone forward, the Fore and
Aft opened out and skirmished, and where
they should have opened out and fired, they
closed and waited.
A man dragged from his blankets half
awake and unfed is never in a pleasant frame
of mind. Nor does his happiness increase
when he watches the whites of the eyes of three
hundred six-foot fiends upon whose beards the
foam is lying, upon whose tongues is a roar
of wrath, and in whose hands are three- foot
knives.
The Fore and Aft heard the Gurkha bugles
bringing that regiment forward at the double,
THE FORE AND AFT 141
while the neighing of the Highland pipes came
from the left. They strove to stay where they
were, though the bayonets wavered down the
line like the oars of a ragged boat. Then they
felt body to body the amazing physical strength
of their foes ; a shriek of pain ended the rush,
and the knives fell amid scenes not to be told.
The men clubbed together and smote blindly
as often as not at their own fellows. Their
front crumpled like paper, and the fifty Ghazis
passed on ; their backers, now drunk with suc-
cess, fighting as madly as they.
Then the rear-ranks were bidden to close up,
and the subalterns dashed into the stew alone.
For the rear-rank had heard the clamor in
front, the yells and the howls of pain, and had
seen the dark stale blood that makes afraid.
They were not going to stay. It was the rush-
ing of the camps over again. Let their officers
go to Hell, if they chose; they would get away
from the knives.
"Come on!" shrieked the subalterns, and
their men, cursing them, drew back, each clos-
ing into his neighbor and wheeling round.
Charteris and Devlin, subalterns of the last
company, faced their death alone in the belief
that their men would follow.
"You've killed me, you cowards," sobbed
142 THE DRUMS OF
Devlin and dropped, cut from the shoulder-
strap to the centre of the chest, and a fresh de-
tachment of his men retreating, always retreat-
ing, trampled him under foot as they made for
the pass whence they had emerged.
I kissed her in the kitchen and I kissed her in the hall.
Child'un, child'un, follow me!
Oh Golly, said the cook, is he gwine to kiss us all?
Halla Halla Halla Hallcujah!
The Gurkhas were pouring through the left
gorge and over the heights at the double to the
invitation of their regimental Quickstep. The
black rocks were crowned with dark green
spiders as the bugles gave tongue jubilantly :
In the morning! In the morning by the bright light!
When Gabriel blows his trumpet in the morning!
The Gurkha rear-companies tripped and
blundered over loose stones. The front-files
halted for a moment to take stock of the valley
and to settle stray boot-laces. Then a happy
little sigh of contentment soughed down the
ranks, and it was as though the land smiled,
for behold there below was the enemy, and it
was to meet them that the Gurkhas had doubled
so hastily. There was much enemy. There
would be amusement. The little men hitched
THE FORE AND AFT 143
their kukris well to hand, and gaped expectant-
ly at their officers as terriers grin ere the stone
is cast for them to fetch. The Gurkhas'
ground sloped downward to the valley, and
they enjoyed a fair view of the proceedings.
They sat upon the bowlders to watch, for their
officers were not going to waste their wind in
assisting to repulse a Ghazi rush more than
half a mile away. Let the white men look to
their own front.
"Hi! yi!" said the Subadar-Major, who
was sweating profusely. "Dam fools yonder,
stand close-order! This is no time for close
order, it's the time for volleys. Ugh !"
Horrified, amused, and indignant, the
Gurkhas beheld the retirement let us be gentle
of the Fore and Aft with a running chorus
of oaths and commentaries.
"They run! The white men run! Colonel
Sahib, may we also do a little running?" mur-
mured RunBir Thappa, the Senior Jemadar.
But the Colonel would have none of it. "Let
the beggars be cut up a little," said he wrath-
f ully. " 'Serves 'em right. They'll be prodded
into facing round in a minute." He looked
through his field-glasses, and caught the glint
of an officer's sword.
"Beating 'em with the flat damned con-
144 THE DRUMS OP
scripts! How the Ghazis are walking into
them!" said he.
The Fore and Aft, heading back, bore with
them their officers. The narrowness of the
pass forced the mob into solid formation, and
the rear-rank delivered some sort of a waver-
ing volley. The Ghazis drew off, for they did
not know what reserves the gorge might hide.
Moreover, it was never wise to chase white
men too far. They returned as wolves return
to cover, satisfied with the slaughter that they
had done, and only stopping to slash at the
wounded on the ground. A quarter of a mile
had the Fore and Aft retreated, and now,
jammed in the pass, was quivering with pain,
shaken and demoralized with fear, while the
officers, maddened beyond control, smote the
men with the hilts and the flats of their swords.
"Get back! Get back, you cowards you
women! Right about face column of com-
panies, form you hounds !" shouted the Colo-
nel, and the subalterns swore aloud. But the
Regiment wanted to go to go anywhere out
of the range of those merciless knives. It
swayed to and fro irresolutely with shouts and
outcries, while from the right the Gurkhas
dropped volley after volley of cripple-stopper
Snider bullets at long range into the mob of
the Ghazis returning: to their own troops.
THE FORE AND AFT 145
The Fore and Aft Band, though protected
from direct fire by the rocky knoll under which
it had sat down, fled at the first rush. Jakin:
and Lew would have fled also, but their short
legs left them fifty yards in the rear, and by
the time the Band had mixed with the regi-
ment, they were painfully aware that they
would have to close in alone and unsupported.
"Get back to that rock," gasped Jakin.
"They won't see us there."
And they returned to the scattered instru-
ments of the Band ; their hearts nearly bursting
their ribs.
"Here's a nice show for us" said Jakin.
throwing himself full length on the ground.
"A bloomin' fine show for British Infantry!
Oh, the devils ! They've gone an' left us alone
here! Wot'll we do?"
Lew took possession of a cast-off water
bottle, which naturally was full of canteen rum,
and drank till he coughed again.
"Drink," said he, shortly. "They'll come
back in a minute or two you see."
Jakin drank, but there was no sign of the
regiment's return. They could hear a dull
clamor from the head of the valley of retreat,
and saw the Ghazis slink back, quickening their
pace as the Gurkhas fired at them.
146 THE DRUMS OF
"We're all that's left of the Band, an' we'll
be cut up as sure as death/' said Jakin.
'Til die game, then," said Lew, thickly,
fumbling with his tiny drummer's sword. The
drink was working on his brain as it was on
Jakin's.
"'Old on! I know something better than
fightin'," said Jakin, "stung by the splendor of
a sudden thought" due chiefly to rum. "Tip
our bloomin' cowards yonder the word to come
back. The Paythan beggars are well away.
Come on, Lew ! We won't get hurt. Take the
fife an' give me the drum. The Old Step for
all your bloomin' guts are worth! There's a
few of our men coming back now. Stand up,
ye drunken little defaulter. By your right *
quick march !"
He slipped the drum-sling over his shoulder,
thrust the fife into Lew's hand, and the two
boys marched out of the cover of the rock into
the open, making a hideous hash of the first
bars of the "British Grenadiers."
As Lew had said, a few of the Fore and Aft
were coming back sullenly and shamefacedly
under the stimulus of blows and abuse; their
red coats shone at the head of the valley, and
behind them were wavering bayonets. But be-
tween this shattered line and the enemy,
THE FORE AND AFT 147
with Afghan suspicion feared that the hasty
retreat meant an ambush, and had not moved
therefore, lay half a mile of a level ground
dotted only by the wounded.
The tune settled into full swing and the boys
kept shoulder to shoulder, Jakin banging the
drum as one possessed. The one fife made a
thin and pitiful squeaking, but the tune carried
far, even to the Gurkhas.
"Come on, you dogs!" muttered Jakin, to
himself. "Are we to play forhever?" Lew was
staring straight in front of him and marching
more stiffly than ever he had done on parade.
And in bitter mockery of the distant mob,
the old tune of the Old Line shrilled and rat-
tled:
Some talk of Alexander,
And some of Hercules;
Of Hector and Lysander,
And such great names as these!
There was a far-off clapping of hands from
the Gurkhas, and a roar from the Highlanders
in the distance, but never a shot was fired by
British or Afghan. The two little red dots
moved forward in the open parallel to the ene-
my's front.
148 THE DRUMS OF
But of all the world's great heroes
There's none that can compare
With a tow-row-row-row-row-row,
To the British Grenadier!
The men of the Fore and Aft were gatfier-
ing thick at the entrance into the plain. The
Brigadier on the heights far above was speech-
less with rage. Still no movement from the
enemy. The day stayed to watch the children.
Jakin halted and beat the long roll of the As-
sembly, while the fife squealed despairingly.
"Right about face! Hold up, Lew, you're
drunk/' said Jakin. They wheeled and
marched back:
Those heroes of antiquity
Ne'er saw a cannon-ball,
Nor knew the force o' powder,
"Here they come!" said Jakin. "Go on,
Lew :"
To scare their foes withal!
The Fore and Aft were pouring out of the
valley. What officers had said to men in that
time of shame and humiliation will never be
known; for neither officers nor men speak of
it now.
THE FORE AND AFT 149
"They are coming anew!" shouted a priest
among the Afghans. "Do not kill the boys!
Take them alive, and they shall be of our
faith/'
But the first volley had been fired, and Lew
dropped on his face. Jakin stood for a minute,
spun round and collapsed, as the Fore and Aft
came forward, the maledictions of their officers
in their ears, and in their hearts the shame of
open shame.
Half the men had seen the drummers die,
and they made no sign. They did not even
shout. They doubled out straight across the
plain in open order, and they did not fire.
"This," said the Colonel of Gurkhas, softly,
"is the real attack, as it ought to have been de-
livered. Come on, my children."
"Ulu-lu-lu-lu I" squealed the Gurkhas, and
eame down with a joyful clinking of kukris
those vicious Gurkha knives.
On the right there was no rush. The High-
lander, cannily commending their souls to God
( for it matters as much to a dead man whether
he has been shot in a Border scuffle or at
Waterloo), opened out and fired according to
their custom, that is to say without heat and
without intervals, while the screw-guns, having
disposed of the impertinent mud fort afore-
ISO THE DRUMS OP
mentioned, dropped shell after shell into the
clusters round the flickering green standards
on the heights.
"Charrging is an unfortunate necessity,"
murmured the Color-Sergeant of the right
company of the Highlanders.
"It makes the men sweer so, but I am
thinkin* that it will come to a charrge if these
black devils stand much longer. Stewart,
man, you're firing into the eye of the sun, and
he'll not take any harm for Government am-
muneetion. A foot lower and a great deal
slower ! What are the English doing ? They're
very quiet there in the centre. Running
again ?"
The English were not running. They were
hacking and hewing and stabbing, for though
one white man is seldom physically a match for
an Afghan in a sheepskin or wadded coat, yet,
through the pressure of many white men be-
hind, and a certain thirst for revenge in his
heart, he becomes capable of doing much with
both ends of his rifle. The Fore and Aft held
their fire till one bullet could drive through
five or six men, and the front of the Afghan
force gave on the volley. They then selected
their men, and slew them with deep gasps and
short hacking coughs, and groanings of leather
THE FORE AND AFT 151
belts against strained bodies, and realized for
the first time that an Afghan attacked is far
less formidable than an Afghan attacking ;
which fact old soldiers might have told them.
But they had no old soldiers in their ranks.
The Gurkhas' stall at the bazar was the
noisiest, for the men were engaged to a nasty
noise as of beef being cut on the block with
the kukri, which they preferred to the bayonet ;
well knowing how the Afghan hates the halfv
moon blade.
As the Afghans wavered, the green stand-
ards on tHe mountain moved down to assist
them in a last rally. Which was unwise. The
Lancers chafing in the right gorge had thrice
despatched their only subaltern as galloper to
report on the progress of affairs. On the third
occasion he returned, with a bullet-graze on his
knee, swearing strange oaths in Hindoostani,
and saying that all things were ready. So that
Squadron swung round the right of the High-
landers with a wicked whistling of wind in the
pennons of its lances, and fell upon the rem-
nant just when, according to all the rules of
war, it should have waited for the foe to show
more signs of wavering.
But it was a dainty charge, deftly delivered,
and it ended by the Cavalry finding itself at
152 THE DRUMS OF
the head of the pass by which the Afghans in-
tended to retreat ; and down the track that the
lances had made streamed two companies of
the Highlanders, which was never intended by
the Brigadier. The new development was suc-
cessful. It detached the enemy from his base
as a sponge is torn from a rock, and left him
ringed about with fire in that pitiless plain.
And as a sponge is chased round the bath-tub
by the hand of the bather, so were the Afghans
chased till they broke into little detachments
much more difficult to dispose of than large
masses.
"See!" quoth the Brigadier. "Everything
has come as I arranged. We've cut their base,
and now we'll bucket 'em to pieces."
A direct hammering was all that the Brig-
adier had dared to hope for, considering the
size of the force at his disposal ; but men who
stand or fall by the errors of their opponents
may be forgiven for turning Chance into De-
sign. The bucketing went forward merrily.
The Afghan forces were upon the run -the run
of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their
shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and
threes, and, with a shriek, up rose the lance-
butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper
cantering forward cleared his point. The
THE PORE AND AFT 153
Lancers kept between their prey and the steep
hills, for all who could were trying to escape
from the valley of death. The Highlanders
gave the fugitives two hundred yards' law, and
then brought them down, gasping and choking
ere they could reach the protection of the bowl-
ders above. The Gurkhas followed suit; but
the Fore and Aft were killing on their own ac-
count, for they had penned a mass of men
between their bayonets and a wall of rock, and
the flash of the rifles was lighting the wadded
coats.
"We cannot hold them, Captain Sahib!"
panted a Ressaider of Lancers. "Let us try
the carbine. The lance is good, but it wastes
time/'
They tried the carbine, and still the enemy
melted away fled up the hills by hundreds
when there were only twenty bullets to stop
them. On the heights the screw-guns ceased
firing they had run out of ammunition and
the Brigadier groaned, for the musketry fire
could not sufficiently smash the retreat. Long
before the last volleys were fired, the litters
were out in force looking for the wounded.
The battle was over, and, but for want of fresh
troops, the Afghans would have been wiped
off the earth. As it was they counted their
154 THE DRUMS OP
dead by hundreds, and nowhere were the dead
thicker than in the track of the Fore and Aft.
But the Regiment did not cheer with the
Highlanders, nor did they dance uncouth
dances with the Gurkhas among the dead.
They looked under their brows at the Colonel
as they leaned upon their rifles and panted.
"Get back to camp, you. Haven't you dis-
graced yourself enough for one day! Go and
look to the wounded. It's all you're fit for,"
said the Colonel. Yet for the past hour the
Fore and Aft had been doing all that mortal
commander could expect. They had lost
heavily because they did not know how to set
about their business with proper skill, but they
had borne themselves gallantly, and this was
their reward.
A young and sprightly Color-Sergeant, who
had begun to imagine himself a hero, offered
his water-bottle to a Highlander, whose tongue
was black with thirst. "I drink with no
cowards," answered the youngster, huskily,
and, turning to a Gurkha, said, "Hya, Johnny !
Drink water got it ?" The Gurkha grinned and
passed his bottle. The Fore and Aft said no
word.
They went back to camp when the field of
Strife had been a little mopped up and made
THE FOKE AND AFT 155
presentable, and the Brigadier, who saw him-
self a Knight in three months, was the only
soul who was complimentary to them. The
Colonel was heart-broken and the officers were
savage and sullen.
"Well," said the Brigadier, "they are. young
troops of course, and it was not unnatural that
they should retire in disorder for a bit."
"Oh, my only Aunt Maria!" mummured a
junior Staff Officer. "Retire in disorder! It
was a bally run!"
"But they came again as we all know," cooed
the Brigadier, the Colonel's ashy-white face be-
fore him, "and they behaved as well as could
possibly be expected. Behaved beautifully, in-
deed. I was watching them. It's not a matter
to take to heart, Colonel. As some German
General said to his men, they wanted to be
shooted over a little, that was all." To him-
self he said : "Now they're blooded I can give
'em responsible work. It's as well that they got
what they did. 'Teach 'em more than half a
dozen rifle flirtations, that will later run
alone and bite. Poor old Colonel, though."
All that afternoon the heliograph winked and
flickered on the hills, striving to tell the good
news to a mountain forty miles away. And in
the evening there arrived, dusty, sweating, and
Kip. 5F
156 THE DRUMS OF
sore, a misguided Correspondent who had gone
out to assist at a trumpery village-burning and
who had read off the message from afar, curs-
ing his luck the while.
"Let's have the details somehow as full as
ever you can, please. It's the first time IVe
ever been left this campaign," said the Cor-
respondent to the Brigadier ; and the Brigadier^
nothing loath, told him how an Army of Com-
munication had been crumpled up, destroyed,
and all but annihilated by the craft, strategy,
wisdom, and foresight of the Brigadier.
But some say, and among these be the
Gurkhas who watched on the hillside, that that
battle was won by Jakin and Lew, whose little
bodies were borne up just in time to fit two
gaps at the head of the big ditch-grave for the
dead under the heights of JagaL
CITY OF THE DREADFUL NIGHT
CONTENTS
CHAP. PACK
I. A REAL LIVE CITY 161
II. THE REFLECTIONS OF A SAVAGE . 170
III. THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS . . 181
IV. ON THE BANKS OF THE HUGLI . 194
V. WITH THE CALCUTTA POLICE . . 206
VI. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT . 215
VII. DEEPER AND DEEPER STILL . . . 229
VIII. CONCERNING LUCIA 239
IX. A RAILWAY SETTLEMENT . . . 251
X. THE MIGHTY SHOP 262
XI. AT VULCAN'S FORGE 275
XII. ON THE SURFACE 288
XIII. IN THE DEPTHS 300
XIV. THE PERILS OF THE PIT . . . . 313
XV. IN AN OPIUM FACTORY . . 325
CHAPTER I
A REAL LIVE CITY
WE are all backwoodsmen and barbarians
together we others dwelling beyond
the Ditch, in the outer darkness of the Mofus-
sil. There are no such things as commission-
ers and heads of departments in the world, and
there is only one city in India. Bombay is too
green, too pretty and too stragglesome ; and
Madras died ever so long ago. Let us take off
our hats to Calcutta, the many-sided, the
smoky, the magnificent, as we drive in over the
Hugli Bridge in the dawn of a still February
morning. We have left India behind us at
Howrah Station, and now we enter foreign
parts. No, not wholly foreign. Say rather
too familiar.
All men of certain age know the feeling of
caged irritation an illustration in the
Graphic, a bar of music or the light words of a
friend from home may set it ablaze that
comes from the knowledge of our lost heritage
of London. At home they, the other men, our
161
J6* CITY OF THE
equals, have at their disposal all that town can
supply the roar of the streets, the lights, the
music, the pleasant places, the millions of their
own kind, and a wilderness full of pretty,
fresh-colored English-women, theatres and
restaurants. It is their right. They accept it
as such, and even affect to look upon it with
contempt. And we, we have nothing except
the few amusements that we painfully build up
for ourselves the dolorous dissipations of
gymkhanas where every one knows everybody
else, or the chastened intoxication of dances
where ali engagements are booked, in ink, ten
days ahead, and where everybody's antece-
dents are as patent as his or her method of
waltzing. We have been deprived of our in-
heritance. The men at home are enjoying it
all, not knowing how fair and rich it is, and
we at the most can only fly westward for a few
months and gorge what, properly speaking,
should take seven or eight or ten luxurious
years. This is the lost heritage of London;
and the knowledge of the forfeiture, wilful or
forced, comes to most men at times and sea-
sons, and they get cross.
Calcutta holds out false hopes of some re-
turn. The dense smoke hangs low, in the chill
of the morning, over an ocean of roofs, and,
DREADFUL NIGHT 163
as the city wakes, there goes up to the smoke
a deep, full-throated boom of life and motion
and humanity. For this reason does he who
sees Calcutta for the first time hang joyously
out of the ticca-gharri and sniff the smoke,
and turn his face toward the tumult, saying:
"This is, at last, some portion of my heritage
returned to me. This is a city. There is life
here, and there should be all manner of pleas-
ant things for the having, across the river and
under the smoke." When Leland, he who
wrote the Hans Breitmann Ballads, once de-
sired to know the name of an austere, plug-
hatted red-skin of repute, his answer, from the
lips of a half-bred, was :
"He Injun. He big Injun. He heap big In-
jun. He dam big heap Injun. He dam
mighty great big heap Injun. He Jones!"
The litany is an expressive one, and exactly
describes the first emotions of a wandering
savage adrift in Calcutta. The eye has lost its
sense of proportion, the focus has contracted
through overmuch residence in up-country sta-
tions twenty minutes' canter from hospital
to parade-ground, you know and the mind
has shrunk with the eye. Both say together,
as they take in the sweep of shipping above
and below the Hugli Bridge: "Why, this is
164 CITY OP THE
London ! This is the docks. This is Imperial
This is worth coming across India to see !"
Then a distinctly wicked idea takes posses-
sion of the mind: "What a divine what a
heavenly place to loot!' 9 This gives place to a
much worse devil that of Conservatism. It
seems not only wrong but a criminal thing to
allow natives to have any voice in the control
of such a city adorned, docked, wharfed,
fronted and reclaimed by Englishmen, exist-
ing only because England lives, and dependent
for its life on England. All India knows of
the Calcutta Municipality; but has any one
thoroughly investigated the Big Calcutta
Stink? There is only one. Benares is fouler
in point of concentrated, pent-up muck, and
there are local stenches in Peshawur which are
stronger than the B. C S. ; but, for diffused,
soul-sickening expansiveness, the reek of Cal-
cutta beats both Benares and Peshawur.
Bombay cloaks her stenches with a veneer of
assafoetida and /m#a-tobacco ; Calcutta is above
pretence. There is no tracing back the Cal-
cutta plague to any one source. It is faint, it
is sickly, and it is indescribable ; but Americans
at the Great Eastern Hotel say that it is some-
thing like the smell of the Chinese quarter in
San Francisco. It is certainly not an Indian
DREADFUL NIGHT 165
smell. It resembles the essence of corruption
that has rotted for the second time the
clammy odor of blue slime. And there is no
escape from it. It blows across the maidan; it
comes in gusts into the corridors of the Great
Eastern Hotel; what they are pleased to call
the "Palaces of Chouringhi" carry it; it swirls
round the Bengal Club; it pours out of by-
streets with sickening intensity, and the breeze
of the morning is laden with it. It is first
found, in spite of the fume of the engines, in
Howrah Station. It seems to be worst in the
little lanes at the back of Lai Bazar where the
drinking-shops are, but it is nearly as bad op-
posite Government House and in the Public
Offices. The thing is intermittent. Six mod-
erately pure mouthfuls of air may be drawn
without offence. Then comes the seventh
wave and the queasiness of an uncultured
stomach. If you live long enough in Calcutta
you grow used to it. The regular residents ad-
mit the disgrace, but their answer is : "Wait till
the wind blows off the Salt Lakes where all the
sewage goes, and then you'll smell something."
That is their defence ! Small wonder that they
consider Calcutta is a fit place for a permanent
Viceroy. Englishmen who can calmly exten-
uate one shame by another are capable of ask-
ing for anything and expecting to ^et it,
166 CITY OF THE
If an up-country station holding three thou-
sand troops and twenty civilians owned such
a possession as Calcutta does, the Deputy
Commissioner or the Cantonment Magistrate
would have all the natives off the board of
management or decently shoveled into the
background until the mess was abated. Then
they might come on again and talk of "high-
handed oppression" as much as they liked.
That stink, to an unprejudiced nose, damns
Calcutta as a City of Kings. And, in spite of
that stink, they allow, they even encourage, na-
tives to look after the place! The damp,
drainage-soaked soil is sick with the teeming
life of a hundred years, and the Municipal
Board list is choked with the names of natives
men of the breed born in and raised off this
surfeited muck-heap! They own property,
these amiable Aryans on the Municipal and
the Bengal Legislative Council. Launch a
proposal to tax them on that property, and
they naturally howl. They also howl up-coun-
try, but there the halls for mass-meetings are
few, and the vernacular papers fewer, and
with a zubbar dusti Secretary and a President
whose favor is worth the having and whose
wrath is undesirable, men are kept clean de-
spite themselves, and may not poison their
DREADFUL NIGHT 167
neighbors. Why, asks a savage, let them vote
at all? They can put up with this filthiness.
They cannot have any feelings worth caring
a rush for. Let them live quietly and hide
away their money under our protection, while
we tax them till they know through their
purses the measure of their neglect in the past,
and when a little of the smell has been abol-
ished, bring them back again to talk and take
the credit of enlightenment. The better
classes own their broughams and barouches;
the worse can shoulder an Englishman into
the kennel and talk to him as though he were
a khitmatgar. They can refer to an English
lady as an aurat; they are permitted a freedom
not to put it too coarsely of speech which,
if used by an Englishman toward an English-
man, would end in serious trouble. They are
fenced and protected and made inviolate.
Surely they might be content with all those
things without entering into matters which
they cannot, by the nature of their birth, un-
derstand.
Now, whether all this genial diatribe be the
outcome of an unbiased mind or the result first
of sickness caused by that ferocious stench,
and secondly of headache due to day-long
smoking to drown the stench, is an open ques-
168 CITY OF THE
tion. Anyway, Calcutta is a fearsome place
for a man not educated up to it
A word of advice to other barbarians. Do
not bring a north-country servant into Cal-
cutta. He is sure to get into trouble, because*
he does not understand the customs of the city.
A Punjabi in this place for the first time es-
teems it his bounden duty to go to the Ajaib-
ghar the Museum. Such an one has gone
and is even now returned very angry and
troubled in the spirit. "I went to the Mu-
seum," says he, "and no one gave me any gali.
I went to the market to buy my food, and then
I sat upon a seat. There came a chaprissi who
said : 'Go away, I want to sit here/ I said : 'I
am here first/ He said: 'I am a chaprissi!
nikal jao!' and he hit me. Now that sitting-
place was open to all, so I hit him till he wept.
He ran away for the Police, and I went away
too, for the Police here are all Sahibs. Can I
have leave from two o'clock to go and look
for that chaprissi and hit him again?"
Behold the situation ! An unknown city full
o smell that makes one long for rest and re-
tirement, and a champing naiikar, not yet six
hours in the stew, who has started a blood-feud
with an unknown chaprissi and clamors to go
forth to the fray. General orders that, what-
DREADFUL NIGHT 169
ever may be said or done to him, he must not
say or do anything in return lead to an elo-
quent harangue on the quality of izzat and the
nature of "face blackening." There is no
izzat in Calcutta, and this Awful Smell black-
ens the face of any Englishman who sniffs it.
Alas! for the lost delusion of the heritage
that was to be restored. Let us sleep, let us
sleep, and pray that Calcutta may be better
to-morrow.
At present it is remarkably like sleeping
with a corpse.
CHAPTER II
THE REFLECTIONS OF A SAVAGE
MORNING brings counsel. Does Calcutta
smell so pestiferously after all? Heavy rain
has fallen in the night. She is newly-washed,
and the clear sunlight shows her at her best.
Where, oh where, in all this wilderness of life
shall a man go ? Newman and Co. publish a
three-rupee guide which produces first despair
and then fear in the mind of the reader. Let
us drop Newman and Co. out of the topmost
window of the Great Eastern, trusting to luck
and the flight of the hours to evolve wonders
and mysteries and amusements.
The Great Eastern hums with life through
all its hundred rooms. Doors slam merrily,
and all the nations of the earth run up and
down the staircases. This alone is refreshing,
because the passers bump you and ask you to
stand aside. Fancy finding any place outside a
Levee-room where Englishmen are crowded
170
DREADFUL NIGHT 171
together to this extent! Fancy sitting down
seventy strong to table d'hote and with a deaf-
ening clatter of knives and forks ! Fancy find-
ing a real bar whence drinks may be obtained !
and, joy of joys, fancy stepping out of the
hotel into the arms of a live, white, helmeted,
buttoned, truncheoned Bobby! A beautiful,
burly Bobby just the sort of man who,
seven thousand miles away, staves off the stut-
tering witticism of the three-o'clock-in-the-
morning reveler by the strong badged arm of
authority. What would happen if one spoke
to this Bobby ? Would he be offended ? He is
not offended. He is affable. He has to patrol
the pavement in front of the Great Eastern and
to see that the crowding ticca-gharris do not
jam. Toward a presumably respectable white
he behaves as a man and a brother. There is no
arrogance about him. And this is disappoint-
ing. Closer inspection shows that he is not a
real Bobby after all. He is a Municipal Police
something and his uniform is not correct; at
least if they have not changed the dress of the
men at home. But no matter. Later on we
will inquire into the Calcutta Bobby, because
he is a white man, and has to deal with some
of the "toughest" folk that ever set out of mal-
ice aforethought to paint Job Charnock's city
172 CITY OF THE
vermilion. You must not, you cannot cross
Old Court House Street without looking care-
fully to see that you stand no chance of being
run over. This is beautiful. There is a steady
roar of traffic, cut every two minutes by the
deeper roll of the trams. The driving is eccen-
tric, not to say bad, but there is the traffic
more that unsophisticated eyes have beheld for
a certain number of years. It means business,
it means money-making, it means crowded and
hurrying life, and it gets into the blood and
makes it move. Here be big shops with plate-
glass fronts all displaying the well-known
names of firms that we savages only corre-
spond with through the V. P. P. and Parcels
Post. They are all here, as large as life, ready
to supply anything you need if you only care
to sign. Great is the fascination of being able
to obtain a thing on the spot without having to
write for a week and wait for a month, and
then get something quite different. No won-
der pretty ladies, who live anywhere within a
reasonable distance, come down to do their
shopping personally.
"Look here. If you want to be respectable
you mustn't smoke in the streets. Nobody
does it." This is advice kindly tendered by a
friend in a black coat. There is no Leve or
DREADFUL NIGHT 173
Lieutenant-Governor in sight; but he wears
the frock-coat because it is daylight, and he
can be seen. He also refrains from smoking
for the same reason. He admits that Provi-
dence built the open air to be smoked in, but
he says that "it isn't the thing." This man
has a brougham, a remarkably natty little pill-
box with a curious wabble about the wheels.
He steps into the brougham and puts on
top hat, a shiny black "plug/ 5
There was a man up-country once who
owned a top-hat. He leased it to amateur the-
atrical companies for some seasons until the
nap wore off. Then he threw it into a tree and
wild bees hived in it. Men were wont to come
and look at the hat, in its palmy days, for the
sake of feeling homesick. It interested all the
station, and died with two seers of babul flower
honey in its bosom. But top-hats are not in-
tended to be worn in India. They are as sa-
cred as home letters and old rosebuds. The
friend cannot see this. He allows that if he
stepped out of his brougham and walked about
in the sunshine for ten minutes he would get
a bad headache. In half-an-hour he would
probably catch sunstroke. He allows all this,
but he keeps to his hat and cannot see why a
barbarian is moved to inextinguishable laugh-
174 CITY OF THE
ter at the sight. Every one who owns a
brougham and many people who hire ticca-
gharris keep top-hats and black frock-coats.
The effect is curious, and at first fills the be-
holder with surprise.
And now, "let us see the handsome houses
where the wealthy nobles dwell." Northerly
lies the great human jungle of the native city,
stretching from Burra Bazar to Chitpore.
That can keep. Southerly is the maidan and
Chouringhi. "If you get out into the centre of
the maidan you will understand why Calcutta
is called the City of Palaces." The traveled
American said so at the Great Eastern. There
is a short tower, falsely called a "memorial,"
standing in a waste of soft, sour green. That
is as good a place to get to as any other. Near
here the newly-landed waler is taught the
whole duty of the trap-horse and careers
madly in a brake. Near here young Calcutta
gets upon a horse and is incontinently run
away with. Near here hundreds of kine feed,
close to the innumerable trams and the whirl
of traffic along the face of Chouringhi Road.
The size of the maidan takes the heart out of
any one accustomed to the "gardens" of up-
country, just as they say Newmarket Heath
cows a horse Accustomed to a more sbut-in
DREADFUL NIGHT 175
course. The huge level is studded with brazen
statues of eminent gentlemen riding fretful
horses on diabolically severe curbs. The ex-
panse dwarfs the statues, dwarfs everything
except the frontage of the faraway Chour-
inghi Road. It is big it is impressive. There
is no escaping the fact. They built houses in
old days when the rupee was two shillings and
a penny. Those houses are three-storied, and
ornamented with service-staircases like houses
in the Hills. They are also very close to-
gether, and they own garden walls of pukka-
masonry pierced with a single gate. In their
shut-upness they are British. In their spa-
ciousness they are Oriental, but those service-
staircases do not look healthy. We will form
an amateur sanitary commission and call upon
Chouringhi.
A first introduction to the Calcutta durwan
is not nice. If he is chewing pan, he does not
take the trouble to get rid of his quid. If he
is sitting on his charpoy chewing sugarcane,
he does not think it worth his while to rise.
He has to be taught those things, and he can-
not understand why he should be reproved.
Clearly he is a survival of a played-out sys-
tem. Providence never intended that any na-
tive should be made a concierge more insolent
176 CITY OF THE
than any of the French variety. The people
of Calcutta put an Uria in a little lodge close
to the gate of their house, in order that loafers
may be turned away, and the houses protected
from theft. The natural result is that the
durwan treats everybody whom he does not
know as a loafer, has an intimate and vendi-
ble knowledge of all the outgoings and incom-
ings in that house, and controls, to a large ex-
tent, the nomination of the naukar-log. They
say that one of the estimable class is now suing
a bank for about three lakhs of rupees. Up-
country, a Lieutenant-Governor's chaprissi has
to work for thirty years before he can retire
on seventy thousand rupees of savings. The
Calcutta durwan is a great institution. The
head and front of his offence is that he will in-
sist upon trying to talk English. How he pro-
tects the houses Calcutta only knows. He can
be frightened out of his wits by severe speech,
and is generally asleep in calling hours. If a
rough round of visits be any guide, three times
out of seven he is fragrant of drink. So much
for the durwan. Now for the houses he
guards.
Very pleasant is the sensation of being ush-
ered into a pestiferously stablesome drawing-
room. "Does this always happen ?" "No,
DREADFUL NIGHT 177
not unless you shut up the room for some
time; but if you open the jhilmills there are
other smells. You see the stables and the ser-
vants' quarters are close too." People pay
five hundred a month for half-a-dozen rooms
filled with attr of this kind. They make no
complaint. When they think the honor of the
city is at stake they say defiantly: "Yes, but
you must remember we're a metropolis. We
are crowded here. We have no room. We
aren't like your little stations." Chouringhi is
a stately place full of sumptuous houses, but it
is best to look at it hastily. Stop to consider
for a moment what the cramped compounds,
the black soaked soil, the netted intricacies of
the service-staircases, the packed stables, the
seethment of human life round the durwans'
lodges and the curious arrangement of little
open drains means, and you will call it a
whited sepulchre.
Men living in expensive tenements suffer
from chronic sore-throat, and will tell you
cheerily that "we've got typhoid in Calcutta
now." Is the pest ever out of it? Everything
seems to be built with a view to its comfort.
It can lodge comfortably on roofs, climb along
from the gutter-pipe to piazza, or rise from
sink to veranda and thence to the topmost
1 78 CITY OF THE
story. But Calcutta says that all is sound and
produces figures to prove it ; at the same time
admitting that healthy cut flesh will not read-
ily heal. Further evidence may be dispensed
with.
Here come pouring down Park Street on
the maidan a rush of broughams, neat buggies,
the lightest of gigs, trim office brownberrys,
shining victorias, and a sprinkling of veritable
hansom cabs. In the broughams sit men in
top-hats. In the other carts, young men, all
very much alike, and all immaculately turned
out. A fresh stream from Chouringhi joins
the Park Street detachment, and the two to-
gether stream away across the maidan toward
the business quarter of the city. This is Cal-
cutta going to office the civilians to the Gov-
ernment Buildings and the young men to their
firms and their blocks and their wharves. Here
one sees that Calcutta has the best turn-out in
the Empire. Horses and traps alike are envia-
bly perfect, and mark the touchstone of civ-
ilization the lamps are in the sockets. This is
distinctly refreshing. Once more we will take
off our hats to Calcutta, the well-appointed,
the luxurious. The country-bred is a rare
beast here ; his place is taken by the waler, and
the waler, though a ruffian at heart, can be
DREADFUL NIGHT 179
made to look like a gentleman. It would be
indecorous as well as insane to applaud the
winking harness, the perfectly lacquered pan-
els, and the liveried saises. They show well in
the outwardly fair roads shadowed by the Pal-
aces.
How many sections of the complex society
of the place do the carts carry ? Imprimis, the
Bengal Civilian who goes to Writers' Build-
ings and sits in a perfect office and speaks flip-
pantly of "sending things into India," mean-
ing thereby the Supreme Government. He is
a great person, and his mouth is full of pro-
motion-and-appointment "shop." Generally he
is referred to as a "rising man." Calcutta
seems full of "rising men." Secondly, the
Government of India man, who wears a famil-
iar Simla face, rents a flat when he is not up
in the Hills, and is rational on the subject of
the drawbacks of Calcutta. Thirdly, the man
of the "firms," the pure non-official who fights
under the banner of one of the great houses of
the City, or for his own hand in a neat office,
or dashes about Clive Street in a brougham
doing "share work" or something of the kind.
He fears not "Bengal," nor regards he "In-
dia." He swears impartially at both when
their actions interfere with his operations.
i8o CITY OF THE
His "shop" is quite unintelligible. He is like
the English city man with the chill off, lives
well and entertains hospitably. In the old
days he was greater than he is now, but still he
bulks large. He is rational in so far that he
will help the abuse of the Municipality, but
womanish in his insistence on the excellencies
of Calcutta. Over and above these who are
hurrying to work are the various brigades,
squads and detachments of the other interests.
But they are sets and not sections, and revolve
round Belvedere, Government House, and
Fort William. Simla and Darjeeling claim
them in the hot weather. Let them go. They
wear top-hats and frock-coats.
It is time to escape from Chouringhi Road
and get among the long-shore folk, who have
no prejudices against tobacco, and who all use
pretty nearly the same sort of hat*
CHAPTER III
THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS
He set up conclusions to the number of nine thou-
sand seven hundred and sixty four ... he went
afterward to the Sorbonne, where he maintained argu-
ment against the theologians for the space of six
weeks, from four o'clock in the morning till six in the
evening, except for an interval of two hours to refresh
themselves and take their repasts, and at this were
present the greatest part of the lords of the court, the
masters of request, presidents, counsellors, those of the
accompts, secretaries, advocates, and others; as also
the sheriffs of the said town. Pantagruel.
"THE Bengal Legislative Council is sitting
now. You will find it in an octagonal wing of
Writers' Buildings: straight across the
maidan. It's worth seeing." "What are they
sitting on ?" "Municipal business. No end of
a debate." So much for trying to keep low
company. The long-shore loafers must stand
over. Without doubt this Council is going to
hang some one for the state of the City, and
Sir Steuart Bayley will be chief executioner.
One does not come across Councils every day.
Writers* Buildings are large. You can
trouble the busy workers of half-a-dozen de-
i8z
182 CITY OF THE
partments before you stumble upon the black-
stained staircase that leads to an upper cham-
ber looking out over a populous street. Wild
chaprissis block the way. The Councillor Sa-
hibs are sitting, but any one can enter. "To
the right of the Lat Sahib's chair, and go
quietly." Ill-mannered minion! Does he ex-
pect the awe-stricken spectator to prance in
with a jubilant war-whoop or turn Catherine-
wheels round that sumptuous octagonal room
with the blue-domed roof ? There are gilt cap-
itals to the half pillars and an Egyptian pat-
terned lotus-stencil makes the walls decorously
gay. A thick piled carpet covers all the floor,
and must be delightful in the hot weather.
On a black wooden throne, comfortably cush-
ioned in green leather, sits Sir Steuart Bayley,
Ruler of Bengal. The rest are all great men,
or else they would not be there. Not to know
them argues oneself unknown. There are a
dozen of them, and sit six aside at two slightly
curved lines of beautifully polished desks.
Thus Sir Steuart Bayley occupies the frog of
a badly made horseshoe split at the toe. In
front of him, at a table covered with books
and pamphlets and papers, toils a secretary.
There is a seat for the Reporters, and that is
all. The place enjoys a chastened gloom, and
DREADFUL NIGHT 183
its very atmosphere fills one with awe. This
is the heart of Bengal, and uncommonly well
upholstered. If the work matches the first-
class furniture, the inkpots, the carpet, and the
resplendent ceiling, there will be something
worth seeing. But where is the criminal who
is to be hanged for the stench that runs up and
down Writers' Buildings staircases, for the
rubbish heaps in the Chitpore Road, for the
sickly savor of Chouringhi, for the dirty little
tanks at the back of Belvedere, for the street
full of smallpox, for the reeking gharri-stand
outside the Great Eastern, for the state of the
stone and dirt pavements, for the condition of
the gullies of Shampooker, and for a hundred
other things?
"This, I submit, is an artificial scheme in
supersession of Nature's unit, the individual/'
The speaker is a slight, spare native in a flat
hat-turban, and a black alpaca frock-coat. He
looks like a vakil to the boot-heels, and, with
his unvarying smile and regulated gesticula-
tion, recalls memories of up-country courts.
He never hesitates, is never at a loss for a
word, and never in one sentence repeats him*
self. He talks and talks and talks in a level
voice, rising occasionally half an octave when
a point has to be driven home. Some of his
CITY OF THE
periods sound very familiar. This, for in-
stance, might be a sentence from the Mirror:
"So much for the principle. Let us now ex-
amine how far it is supported by precedent."
This sounds bad. When a fluent native is dis-
coursing of "principles" and "precedents," the
chances are that he will go on for some time.
Moreover, where is the criminal, and what is
all this talk about abstractions? They want
shovels not sentiments, in this part of the
world.
A friendly whisper brings enlightenment.:
"They are plowing through the Calcutta Mu-
nicipal Bill plurality of votes you know ; here
are the papers." And so it is ! A mass of mo-
tions and amendments on matters relating to
ward votes. Is A to be allowed to give two
votes in one ward and one in another ? Is sec-
tion ten to be omitted, and is one man to be
allowed one vote and no more? How many
votes does three hundred rupees' worth of
landed property carry? Is it better to kiss a
post or throw it in the fire? Not a word
about carbolic acid and gangs of domes. The
little man in the black choga revels in his sub-
ject. He is great on principles and precedents,
and the necessity of "popularizing our sys-
tem." He fears that under certain circum-
DREADFUL NIGHT 185
stances "the status of the candidates will de-
cline." He riots in "self-adjusting majori-
ties/' and the healthy influence of the educated
middle classes.
For a practical answer to this, there steals
across the council chamber just one faint
whiff. It is as though some one laughed low
and bitterly. But no man heeds. The Eng-
lishmen look supremely bored, the native
members stare stolidly in front of them. Sir
Steuart Bayley's face is as set as the face of
the Sphinx. For these things he draws his
pay, and his is a low wage for heavy labor.
But the speaker, now adrift, is not altogether
to be blamed. He is a Bengali, who has got
before him just such a subject as his soul lov-
eth an elaborate piece of academical reform
leading no-whither. Here is a quiet room full
of pens and papers. Apparently there is no
time limit to the speeches. Can you wondei
that he talks ? He says "I submit" once every
ninety seconds, varying the form with "I do
submit." The popular element in the electoral
body should have prominence. Quite so. He
quotes one John Stuart Mill to prove it.
There steals over the listener a numbing sense
of nightmare. He has heard all this before
somewhere yea ; even down to J. S. Mill and
186 CITY OF THE
the references to the "true interests of the rate-
payers/' He sees what is coming next. Yes,
there is the old Sabha Anjuman journalistic
formula "Western education is an exotic
plant of recent importation." How on earth
did this man drag Western education into this
discussion ? Who knows ? Perhaps Sir Steuart
Bayley does. He seems to be listening. The
others are looking at their watches. The spell
of the level voice sinks the listener yet deeper
into a trance. He is haunted by the ghosts of
all the cant of all the political platforms of
Great Britain. He hears all the old, old ves-
try phrases, and once more he smells the smell.
That is no dream. Western education is an
exotic plant. It is the upas tree, and it is all
our fault. We brought it out from England
exactly as we brought out the ink bottles and
the patterns for the chairs. We planted it and
it grew monstrous as a banian. Now we are
choked by the roots of it spreading so thickly
in this fat soil of Bengal. The speaker con-
tinues. Bit by bit. We builded this dome,
visible and invisible, the crown of Writers'
Buildings, as we have built and peopled the
buildings. Now we have gone too far to re-
treat, being "tied and bound with the chain of
our own sins." The speech continues. We
DREADFUL NIGHT 187
made that florid sentence. That torrent of
verbiage is ours. We taught him what was
constitutional and what was unconstitutional
in the days when Calcutta smelt. Calcutta
smells still, but we must listen to all that he has
to say about the plurality of votes and the
threshing of wind and the weaving of ropes of
sand. It is our fault absolutely.
The speech ends, and there rises a grey Eng-
lishman in a black frock-coat. He looks a
strong man, and a worldly. Surely he will
say: "Yes, Lala Sahib, all this may be true
talk, but there's a burra krab smell in this
place, and everything must be safkaroed in a
week, or the Deputy Commissioner will not
take any notice of you in durbar." He says
nothing of the kind. This is a Legislative
Council, where they call each other "Honor-
able So-and-So's." The Englishman in the
frock-coat begs all to remember that "we are
discussing principles, and no consideration of
the details ought to influence the verdict on
the principles." Is he then like the rest? How
does this strange thing come about ? Perhaps
these so English office fittings are responsible
for the warp. The Council Chamber might
be a London Board-room. Perhaps after long
years among the pens and papers its occupants
Kip. 5 G
188 CITY OF THE
grow to think that it really is, and in this be-
lief give resumes of the history of Local Self-
Government in England.
The black frock-coat, emphasizing his points
with his spectacle-case, is telling his friends
how the parish was first the unit of self-gov-
ernment. He then explains how burgesses
were elected, and in tones of deep fervor an-
nounces: "Commissioners of Sewers are
elected in the same way." Whereunto all this
lecture ? Is he trying to run a motion through
under cover of a cloud of words, essaying the
well-known "cuttle-fish rick" of the West?
He abandons England for a while, and now
we get a glimpse of the cloven hoof in a casual
reference to Hindus and Mahomedans. The
Hindus will lose nothing by the complete es-
tablishment of plurality of votes. They will
have the control of their own wards as they
used to have. So there is race-feeling, to be
explained away, even among these beautiful
desks. Scratch the Council, and you come to
the old, old trouble. The black frock-coat sits
down, and a keen-eyed, black-bearded Eng-
lishman rises with one hand in his pocket to
explain his views on an alteration of the vote
qualification. The idea of an amendment
seems to have just struck him. He hints that
DREADFUL NIGHT 189
he will bring it forward later on. He te aca-
demical like the others, but not half so good a
speaker. All this is dreary beyond words.
Why do they talk and talk about owners and
occupiers and burgesses in England and the
growth of autonomous institutions when the
city, the great city, is here crying out to be
cleansed ? What has England to do with Cal-
cutta's evil, and why should Englishmen be
forced to wander through mazes of unprofit-
able argument against men who cannot under-
stand the iniquity of dirt?
A pause follows the black-bearded man's
speech. Rises another native, a heavily-built
Babu, in a black gown and a strange head-
dress. A snowy white strip of cloth is thrown
jharun-wise over his shoulders. His voice is
high, and not always under control. He be-
gins: "I will try to be as brief as possible."
This is ominous. By the way, in Council there
seems to be no necessity for a form of address.
The orators plunge in medias res, and only
when they are well launched throw an occa-
sional "Sir" toward Sir Steuart Bayley, who
sits with one leg doubled under him and a dry
pen in his hand. This speaker is no good. He
talks, but he says nothing, and he only knows
where he is drifting to. He says : "We must
190 CITY OF THE
remember that we are legislating for the Me-
tropolis of India, and therefore we should
borrow our institutions from large English
towns, and not from parochial institutions/'
If you think for a minute, that shows a large
and healthy knowledge of the history of Local
Self-Government. It also reveals the attitude
of Calcutta. If the city thought less about it-
self as a metropolis and more as a midden, its
state would be better. The speaker talks pat-
ronizingly of "my friend/' alluding to the
black frock-coat. Then he flounders afresh,
and his voice gallops up the gamut as he de-
clares, "and therefore that makes all the differ-
ence." He hints vaguely at threats, something
to do with the Hindus and the Mahomedans,
but what he means it is difficult to discover.
Here, however, is a sentence taken verbatim.
It is not likely to appear in this form in the
Calcutta papers. The black frock-coat had
said that if a wealthy native "had eight votes
to his credit, his vanity would prompt him to
go to the polling-booth, because he would feel
better than half-a-dozen gharri-wans or petty
traders." (Fancy allowing a gharri-wan to
vote! He has yet to learn how to drive!)
Hereon the gentleman with the white cloth:
"Then the complaint is that influential voters
DREADFUL NIGHT 191
will not take the trouble to vote. In my hum-
ble opinion, if that be so, adopt voting papers.
That is the way to meet them. In the same
way The Calcutta Trades' Association you
abolish all plurality of votes: and that is the
way to meet them." Lucid, is it not ? Up flies
the irresponsible voice, and delivers this state-
ment : "In the election for the House of Com-
mons plurality are allowed for persons having
interest in different districts." Then hopeless,
hopeless fog. It is a great pity that India ever
heard of anybody higher than the heads of the
Civil Service. The country appeals from the
Cheta to the Burra Sahib all too readily as it is.
Once more a whiff. The gentleman gives a
defiant jerk of his shoulder-cloth, and sits
down.
Then Sir Steuart Bayley : "The question be-
fore the Council is," etc. There is a ripple of
"Ayes" and "Noes," and the "Noes" have it,
whatever it may be. The black-bearded gen-
tleman springs his amendment about the vot-
ing qualifications. A large senator in a white
waistcoat, and with a most genial smile, rises
and proceeds to smash up the amendment.
Can't see the use of it. Calls it in effect rub-
bish. The black frock-coat rises to explain his
friend's amendment, and incidentally makes a
192 CITY OF THE
funny little slip. He is a knight, and his
friend has been newly knighted. He refers to
him as "Mister." The black choga, he who
spoke first of all, speaks again, and talks of the
"sojourner who comes here for a little time,
and then leaves the land." Well it is for the
black choga that the sojourner does come, or
there would be no comfy places wherein to
talk about the power that can be measured by
wealth and the intellect "which, sir, I submit,
cannot be so measured." The amendment is
lost, and trebly and quadruply lost is the lis-
tener. In the name of sanity and to preserve
the tattered shirt tails of a torn illusion, let us
escape. This is the Calcutta Municipal Bill.
They have been at it for several Saturdays.
Last Saturday Sir Steuart Bayley pointed out
that at their present rate they would be about
two years in getting it through. Now they
will sit till dusk, unless Sir Steuart Bayley,
who wants to see Lord Connemara off, puts
up the black frock-coat to move an adjourn-
ment. It is not good to see a Government
close to. This leads to the formation of bla-
tantly self-satisfied judgments, which may be
quite as wrong as the cramping system with
which we have encompassed ourselves. And
in the streets outside Englishmen summarize
DREADFUL NIGHT 193
tfie situation brutally, thus : "The whole thing
is a farce. Time is money to us. We can't
stick out those everlasting speeches in the mu-
nicipality. The natives choke us off, but we
know that if things get too bad the Govern-
ment will step in and interfere, and so we
worry along somehow/' Meantime Calcutta
continues to cry out for the bucket and the
broom.
CHAPTER IV
ON THE BANKS OF THE HUGO
THE clocks of the city have struck two.
Where can a man get food? Calcutta is not
rich in respect of dainty accommodation. You
can stay your stomach at Peliti's or Bonsard's,
but their shops are not to be found in Hastings
Street, or in the places where brokers fly to and
fro in office-jauns, sweating and growing
visibly rich* There must be some sort of en-
tertainment where sailors congregate. "Honest
Bombay Jack" supplies nothing but Burma
cheroots and whisky in liquor-glasses, but in
Lai Bazar, not far from 'The Sailors' Coffee-
rooms," a board gives bold advertisement that
"officers and seamen can find good quarters."
In evidence a row of neat officers and seamen
are sitting on a bench by the "hotel" door
smoking. There is an almost military likeness
in their clothes. Perhaps "Honest Bombay
Jack" only keeps one kind of felt hat and one
brand of suit. When Jack of the mercantile
marine is sober, he is very sober. When he is
194
DREADFUL NIGHT 195
drunk he is but ask the river police what a
lean, mad Yankee can do with his nails and
teeth. These gentlemen smoking on the bench
are impassive almost as Red Indians. Their
attitudes are unrestrained, and they do not
wear braces. Nor, it would appear from the
bill of fare, are they particular as to what they
eat when they attend table d'hote. The fare is
substantial and the regulation peg every
house has its own depth of peg if you will re-
frain from stopping Ganymede something to
wonder at. Three fingers and a trifle over
seen.? to be the use of the officers and seamen
who are talking so quietly in the doorway.
One says he has evidently finished a long
story "and so he shipped for four pound ten
with a first mate's certificate and all, and that
was in a German barque." Another spits with
conviction and says genially, without raising
his voice: "That was a hell of a ship; who
knows her?" No answer from the panchayet,
but a Dane or a German wants to know
whether the Myra is "up" yet. A dry, red-
haired man gives her exact position in the river
(How in the world can he know?) and the
probable hour of her arrival. The grave de-
bate drifts into a discussion of a recent river
accident, whereby a big steamer was damaged,
196 CITY OF THE
and had to put back and discharge cargo. A
burly gentleman who is taking a constitutional
down Lai Bazar strolls up and says: "I tell
you she fouled her own chain with her own
forefoot. Hev you seen the plates?" "No."
"Then how the can any like you
say what it well was ?" He passes
on, having delivered his highly-flavored opin-
ion without heat or passion. No one seems to
resent the expletives.
Let us get down to the river and see this
stamp of men more thoroughly. Clarke Russell
has told us that their lives are hard enough in
all conscience. What are their pleasures and
diversions? The Port Office, where live the
gentlemen who make improvements in the Port
of Calcutta, ought to supply information. It
stands large and fair, and built in an oriental-
ized manner after the Italians at the corner of
Fairlie Place upon the great Strand Road, and
a continual clamor of traffic by land and by
sea goes up throughout the day and far into
the night against its windows. This is a place
to enter more reverently than the Bengal Legis-
lative Council, for it houses the direction of the
uncertain Hugli down to the Sandheads, owns
enormous wealth, and spends huge sums on the
frontaging of river banks, the expansion of
DREADFUL NIGHT 197
jetties, and the manufacture of docks costing
two hundred lakhs of rupees. Two million tons
of sea-going shippage yearly find their way up
and down the river by the guidance of the Port
Office, and the men of the Port Office know
more than it is good for men to hold in their
heads. They can without reference to tele-
graphic bulletins give the position of all the big
steamers, coming up or going down, from the
Hugli to the sea, day by day with their ton-
nage, the names of their captains and the nature
of their cargo. Looking out from the veranda
of their offices over a lancer-regiment of masts,
they can declare truthfully the name of every
ship within eye-scope, with the day and hour
when she will depart.
In a room at the bottom of the building
lounge big men, carefully dressed. Now there
is a type of face which belongs almost exclu-
sively to Bengal Cavalry officers majors for
choice. Everybody knows the bronzed, black-
moustached, clear-speaking Native Cavalry
officer. He exists unnaturally in novels, and
naturally on the frontier. These men in the
big room have its caste of face so strongly
marked that one marvels what officers are do-
ing by the river. "Have they come to book
passengers for home ?" "Those men ! They're
198 CITY OF THE
pilots. Some of them draw between two and
three thousand rupees a month. They are re-
sponsible for half-a-million pounds' worth of
cargo sometimes." They certainly are men,
and they carry themselves as such. They con-
fer together by twos and threes, and appeal f re*
quently to shipping lists.
"Isn't a pilot a man who always wears a
peajacket and shouts through a speaking-
trumpet?" "Well, you can ask those gentle-
men if you like. You've got your notions from
home pilots. Ours aren't that kind exactly.
They are a picked service, as carefully weeded
as the Indian Civil. Some of 'em have
brothers in it, and some belong to the old Indian
army families." But they are not all equally
well paid. The Calcutta papers sometimes
echo the groans of the junior pilots who are
not allowed the handling of ships over a cer-
tain tonnage. As it is yearly growing cheaper
to build one big steamer than two little ones,
these juniors are crowded out, and, while the
seniors get their thousands, some of the young-
sters make at the end of one month exactly
thirty rupees. This is a grievance with them ;
and it seems well-founded.
In the flats above the pilots' room are hushed
and chapel-like offices, all sumptuously fitted,
DREADFUL NIGHT 199
where Englishmen write and telephone and
telegraph, and deft Babus forever draw maps
of the shifting Hugli. Any hope of under-
standing the work of the Port Commissioners
is thoroughly dashed by being taken through
the Port maps of a quarter of a century past.
Men have played with the Hugli as children
play with a gutter-runnel, and, in return, the
Hugli once rose and played with men and ships
till the Strand Road was littered with the raffle
and the carcasses of big ships. There are
photos on the walls of the cyclone of '64, when
the Thunder came inland and sat upon an
American barque, obstructing all the traffic.
Very curious are these photos, and almost im-
possible to believe. How can a big, strong
steamer have her three masts razed to deck
level? How can a heavy, country boat be
pitched on to the poop of a high-walled liner?
and how can the side be bodily torn out of a
ship ? The photos say that all these things are
possible, and men aver that a cyclone may come
again and scatter the craft like chaff. Outside
the Port Office are the export and import sheds,
buildings that can hold a ship's cargo a-piece,
all standing on reclaimed ground. Here be
several strong smells, a mass of railway lines,
and a multitude of men. "Do you see where
go* CTTY DP THE
tfiat trolly is standing, behind the big P. and O.
berth? In that place as nearly as may be the
Govindpur went down about twenty years ago,
and began to shift out!" "But that is solid
ground. " "She sank there, and the next tide
made a scour-hole on one side of her. The re-
turning tide knocked her into it. Then the mud
made up behind her. Next tide the business
was repeated always the scour-hole in the
mud and the filling up behind her. So she
rolled and was pushed out and out until she
got in the way of the shipping right out yon-
der, and we had to blow her up. When a ship
sinks in mud or quicksand she regularly digs
her own grave and wriggles herself into it
deeper and deper till she reaches moderately
solid stuff. Then she sticks." Horrible idea, is
it not, to go down and down with each tide
into the foul Hugli mud ?
Close to the Port Offices is the Shipping
Office, where the captains engage their crews.
The men must produce their discharges from
their last ships in the presence of the shipping
master, or as they call him "The Deputy
Shipping." He passes them as correct after
having satisfied himself that they are not de-
serters from other ships, and they then sign
articles for the voyage. This is the ceremony,
DREADFUL NIGHT 2OI
beginning with the "dearly beloved" of the
crew-hunting captain down to "amazement" of
the identified deserter. There is a dingy build-
ing, next door to the Sailors' Home, at whose
gate stand the cast-ups of all the seas in all
manner of raiment. There are Seedee boys,
Bombay serangs and Madras fishermen of the
salt villages, Malays who insist upon marrying
native women grow jealous and run amok:
Malay-Hindus, Hindu-Malay-whites, Burmese,
Burma-whites, Burma-native-whites, Italians
with gold earrings and a thirst for gambling,
Yankees of all the States, with Mulattoes and
pure buck-niggers, red and rough Danes,
Cingalese, Cornish boys who seem fresh taken
from the plough-tail," "corn-stalks" from colo-
nial ships where they got four pound ten a
month as seamen, tun-bellied Germans, Cock-
ney mates keeping a little aloof from the crowd
and talking in knots together, unmistakable
"Tommies" who have tumbled into seafaring
life by some mistake, cockatoo-tufted Welsh-
men spitting and swearing like cats, broken-
down loafers, grey-headed, penniless, and piti-
ful, swaggering boys, and very quiet men with
gashes and cuts on their faces. It is an ethno-
logical museum where all the specimens are
playing comedies and tragedies. The head of
it all is the "Deputy Shipping," and he sits.
302 CITY OF THE
supported by an English policeman whose fists
are knobby, in a great Chair of State. The
"Deputy Shipping" knows all the iniquity of
the riverside, all the ships, all the captains, and
a fair amount of the men. He is fenced
off from the crowd by a strong wooden
railing, behind which are gathered those
who "stand and wait," the unemployed
of the mercantile marine. They have had their
spree poor devils and now they will go to
sea again on as low a wage as three pound ten
a month, to fetch up at the end in some Shang-
hai stew or San Francisco hell. They have
turned their backs on the seductions of the
Howrah boarding-houses and the delights of
Colootollah. If Fate will, "Nightingales" will
know them no more for a season, and their suc-
cessors may paint Collinga Bazar vermilion.
But what captain will take some of these bat-
tered, shattered wrecks whose hands shake and
whose eyes are red ?
Enter suddenly a bearded captain, who has
made his selection from the crowd on a pre-
vious day, and now wants to get his men
passed. He is not fastidious in his choice. His
eleven seem a tough lot for such a mild-eyed,
civil-spoken man to manage. But the captain
in the Shipping Office and the captain on the
ship are two different things. He brings his
DREADFUL NIGHT 205
crew up to the "Deputy Shipping's" bar, and
hands in their greasy, tattered discharges. But
the heart of the "Deputy Shipping" is hot with-
in him, because, two days ago, a Howrah crimp
stole a whole crew from a down-dropping ship,
insomuch that the captain had to come back
and whip up a new crew at one o'clock in the
day. Evil will it be if the "Deputy Shipping"
finds one of these bounty-jumpers in the chosen
crew of the Blenkindoon, let us say.
The "Deputy Shipping" tells the story with
heat. "I didn't know they did such things in
Calcutta," says the captain. "Do such things!
They'd steal the eye-teeth out of your head
there, Captain." He picks up a discharge and
calls for Michael Donelly, who is a loose-knit,
vicious-looking Irish-American who chews,
"Stand up, man, stand up!" Michael Donelly
wants to lean against the desk, and the English
policeman won't have it. "What was your last
ship?" "Fairy Queen." "When did you leave
her ?" " 'Bout 'leven days." "Captain's name ?"
"Flahy." "That'll do. Next man: Jules An-
derson." Jules Anderson is a Dane. His
statements tally with the discharge-certificate
of the United States, as the Eagle attestetlt
He is passed and falls back. Slivey, the Eng-
lishman, and David, a huge plum-colored negro
204 CITY OF THE
who ships as cook are also passed. Then comes
Bassompra, a little Italian, who speaks English.
"What's your last ship ?" "Ferdinand." "No,
after that?" "German barque." Bassompra
does not look happy. "When did she sail?"
"About three weeks ago." "What's her
name?" "Haidee." "You deserted from
her?" "Yes, but she's left port." The "Dep-
uty Shipping" runs rapidly through a shipping-
list, throws it down with a bang. " 'Twon't
do. No German barque Haidee here for three
months. How do I know you don't belong to
the Jackson's crew ? Cap'ain, I'm afraid you'll
have to ship another man. He must stand
over. Take the rest away and make 'em sign."
The bead-eyed Bassompra seems to have lost
his chance of a voyage, and his case will be in-
quired into. The captain departs with his men
and they sign articles for the voyage, while the
"Deputy Shipping" tells strange tales of the
sailorman's life. "They'll quit a good ship for
the sake of a spree, and catch on again at three
pound ten, and by Jove, they'll let their skippers
pay 'em at ten rupees to the sovereign poor
beggars ! As soon as the money's gone they'll
ship, but not before. Every one under rank of
captain engages here. The competition makes
first mates ship sometimes for five pounds or
as low as four ten a month." (The gentleman
DREADFUL NIGHT 205
in the boarding-house was right, you see.)
"A first mate's wages are seven ten or eight,
and foreign captains ship for twelve pounds a
month and bring their own small stores
everything, that is to say, except beef, peas,
flour, coffee and molasses."
These things are not pleasant to listen to
while the hungry-eyed men in the bad clothes
lounge and scratch and loaf behind the railing.
iWhat comes to them in the end ? They die, it
seems, though that is not altogether strange.
They die at sea in strange and horrible ways;
they die, a few of them, in the Kintals, being
lost and suffocated in the great sink of Cal-
cutta ; they die in strange places by the water-
side, and the Hugli takes them away under the
mooring chains and the buoys, and casts them
up on the sands below, if the River Police have
missed the capture. They sail the sea because
they must live; and there is no end to their
toil. Very, very few find haven of any kind,
and the earth, whose ways they do not under-
stand, is cruel to them, when they walk upon
it to drink and be merry after the manner of
beasts. Jack ashore is a pretty thing when he
is in a book or in the blue jacket of the Navy.
Mercantile Jack is not so lovely. Later on,
we will see where his "sprees" lead him.
CHAPTER V
WITH THE CALCUTTA POLICE
"The City was of Night perchance of Death,
But certainly of Night."
-The City of Dreadful Nigh*.
IN the beginning, the Police were respon-
sible. They said in a patronizing way that,
merely as a matter of convenience, they would
prefer to take a wanderer round the great city
themselves, sooner than let him contract a
broken head on his own account in the slums.
They said that there were places and places
where a white man, unsupported by the arm of
the law, would be robbed and mobbed ; and that
there were other places where drunken seamen
would make it very unpleasant for him. There
was a night fixed for the patrol, but apologies
were offered beforehand for the comparative
insignificance of the tour.
"Come up to the fire lookout in the first
place, and then you'll be able to see the city/'
206
DREADFUL NIGHT 207
This was at No. 22, Lai Bazar, which is the
headquarters of the Calcutta Police, the centre
of the great web of telephone wires where Jus-
tice sits all day and all night looking after one
million people and a floating population of one
hundred thousand. But her work shall be
dealt with later on. The fire lookout is a little
sentry-box on the top of the three-storied police
offices. Here a native watchman waits always,
ready to give warning to the brigade below if
the smoke rises by day or the flames by night
in any ward of the city. From this eyrie, in
the warm night, one hears the heart of Calcutta
beating. Northward, the city stretches away
three long miles, with three more miles of
suburbs beyond, to Dum-Dum and Barrack-
pore. The lamplit dusk on this side is full of
noises and shouts and smells. Close to the
Police Office, jovial mariners at the sailors'
coffee-shop are roaring hymns. Southerly, the
city's confused lights give place to the orderly
lamp-rows of the maidan and Chouringhi,
where the respectabilities live and the Police
have very little to do. From the east goes up
to the sky the clamor of Sealdah, the rumble
of the trains and the voices of all Bow Bazar
chaffering and making merry. Westward are
the business quarters, hushed now, the lamps
208 CITY OF THE
of the shipping on the river, and the twinkling
lights on the Howrah side. It is a wonderful
sight this Pisgah view of a huge city resting
after the labors of the day. "Does the noise
of traffic go on all through the hot weather?"
"Of course. The hot months are the busiest in
the year and money's tightest. You should see
the brokers cutting about at that season. Cal-
cutta can't stop, my dear sir." "What happens
then ?" "Nothing happens ; the death-rate goes
up a little. That's all!" Even in February,
the weather would, up-country, be called
muggy and stifling, but Calcutta is convinced
that it is her cold season. The noises of the
city grow perceptibly; it is the night side of
Calcutta waking up and going abroad. Jack in
the sailors' coffee-shop is singing joyously:
"Shall we gather at the River the beauti-
ful, the beautiful, the River?" What an in-
congruity there is about his selections. How-
ever, that it amuses before it shocks the
listeners, is not to be doubted. An English-
man, far from his native land is liable to
become careless, and it would be remarkable if
he did otherwise in ill-smelling Calcutta. There
is a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard below.
Some of the Mounted Police have come in from
somewhere or other out of the great darkness.
DREADFUL NIGHT 209
A clog-dance of iron hoofs follows, and an
Englishman's voice is heard soothing an
agitated horse who seems to be standing on
his hind legs. Some of the Mounted Police
are going out into the great darkness. "What's
on?" "Walk round at Government House.
The Reserve men are being formed up below.
They're calling the roll." The Reserve men
are all English, and big English at that. They
form up and tramp out of the courtyard to line
Government Place, and see that Mrs. Lollipop's
brougham does not get smashed up by Sirdar
Chuckerbutty Bahadur's lumbering C-spring
barouche with the two raw Walers. Very
military men are the Calcutta European Police
in their set-up, and he who knows their com-
position knows some startling stories of gen-
tlemen-rankers and the like. They are, despite
the wearing climate they work in and the wear-
ing work they do, as fine five-score of English-
men as you shall find east of Suez.
Listen for a moment from the fire lookout to
the voices of the night, and you will see why
they must be so. Two thousand sailors of fifty
nationalities are adrift in Calcutta every Sun-
day, and of these perhaps two hundred are dis-
tinctly the worse for liquor. There is a mild
row going on, even now, somewhere at the back
210 CITY OF THE
of Bow Bazar, which at nightfall fills witK
sailor-men who have a wonderful gift of fall-
ing foul of the native population. To keep the
Queen's peace is of course only a small portion
of Police duty, but it is trying. The burly
president of the lock-up for European drunks
Calcutta central lock-up is worth seeing*
rejoices in a sprained thumb just now, and has
to do his work left-handed in consequence.
But his left hand is a marvelously persuasive
one, and when on duty his sleeves are turned
up to the shoulder that the jovial mariner may
see that there is no deception. The president's
labors are handicapped in that the road of sin
to the lock-up runs through a grimy little gar-
den the brick paths are worn deep with the
tread of many drunken feet where a man can
give a great deal of trouble by sticking his toes
into the ground and getting mixed up with the
shrubs. "A straight run in" would be much
more convenient both for the president and the
drunk. Generally speaking and here Police
experience is pretty much the same all over the
civilized world a woman drunk is a good deal
worse than a man drunk. She scratches and
bites like a Chinaman and swears like several
fiends. Strange people may be unearthed in
the lock-ups. Here is a perfectly true story,
DREADFUL NIGHT 211
not three weeks old. A visitor, an unofficial
one, wandered into the native side of the spa-
cious accommodation provided for those who
have gone or done wrong. A wild-eyed Babu
rose from the fixed charpoy and said in the
best of English : "Good-morning, sir." "Good-
morning; who are you, and what are you in
for?" Then the Babu, in one breath: "I
would have you know that I do not go to prison
as a criminal but as a reformer. You've read
the Vicar of Wakefield"? "Ye-es." "Well, /
am the Vicar of Bengal at least that's what I
call myself." The visitor collapsed. He had
not nerve enough to continue the conversation.
Then said the voice of the authority: "He's
down in connection with a cheating case at
Serampore. May be shamming. But he'll be
looked to in time."
The best place to hear about the Police is
the fire lookout. From that eyrie one can see
how difficult must be the work of control over
the great, growling beast of a city. By all
means let us abuse the Police, but let us see
what the poor wretches have to do with their
three thousand natives and one hundred Eng-
lishmen. From Howrah and Bally and the
other suburbs at least a hundred thousand peo-
ple come in to Calcutta for the day and leave
212 CITY OF THE
at night. Also Chandernagore is handy for
the fugitive law-breaker, who can enter in the
evening and get away before the noon of the
next day, having marked his house and broken
into it.
"But how can the prevalent offence be house-
breaking in a place like this ?" "Easily enough.
When you've seen a little of the city, you'll see.
Natives sleep and lie about all over the place,
and whole quarters are just so many rabbit-
warrens. Wait till you see the Machua Bazar.
Well, besides the petty theft and burglary, we
have heavy cases of forgery and fraud, that
leave us with our wits pitted against a Ben-
gali's. When a Bengali criminal is working a
fraud of the sort he loves, he is about the
cleverest soul you could wish for. He gives us
cases a year long to unravel. Then there are
the murders in the low houses very curious
things they are. You'll see the house where
Sheikh Babu was murdered presently, and
you'll understand. The Burra Bazar and Jora
Bagan sections are the two worst ones for
heavy cases; but Colootollah is the most ag-
gravating. There's Colootollah over yonder
that patch of darkness beyond the lights. That
section is full of tuppenny-ha'-penny petty
cases, that keep the men up all night and make
DREADFUL NIGHT 213
swear. You'll see Colootollah, and then
perhaps you'll understand. Bamun Bustee is
the quietest of all, and Lai Bazar and Bow
Bazar, as you can see for yourself, are the
rowdiest. You've no notion what the natives
come to the thannahs for. A naukar will come
in and want a summons against his master for
'refusing him half-an-hour's chuti. I suppose
it does seem rather revolutionary to an up-
country man, but they try to do it here. Now
wait a minute, before we go down into the city
and see the Fire Brigade turned out. Business
is slack with them just now, but you time 'em
and see." An order is given, and a bell strikes
softly thrice. There is an orderly rush of men,
the click of a bolt, a red fire-engine, spitting
and swearing with the sparks flying from the
furnace, is dragged out of its shelter. A huge
brake, which holds supplementary horses, men,
and hatchets, follows, and a hose-cart is the
third on the list. The men push the heavy
things about as though they were pith toys.
Five horses appear. Two are shot into the
fire-engine, two monsters these into the
brake, and the fifth, a powerful beast, war-
ranted to trot fourteen miles an hour, backs
into the hose-cart shafts. The men clamber
up, some one says softly, "All ready there/'
214 CITY OF THE
and with an angry whistle the fire-engine, fol-
lowed by the other two, flies out into Lai Bazar,
the sparks trailing behind. Time I min. 40
sees. "They'll find out it's a false alarm, and
come back again in five minutes." "Why?"
"Because there will be no constables on the road
to give 'em the direction of the fire, and because
the driver wasn't told the ward of the outbreak
when he went out !" "Do you mean to say that
you can from this absurd pigeon-loft locate the
wards in the night-time?" "Of course: what
would be the good of a lookout if the man
couldn't tell where the fire was ?" "But it's all
pitchy black, and the lights are so confusing."
"Ha! Ha! You'll be more confused in ten
minutes. You'll have lost your way as you
never lost it before. You're going to go round
Bow Bazar section."
"And the Lord have mercy on my soul!"
Calcutta, the darker portion of it, does not look
an inviting place to dive into at night.
CHAPTER VI
THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT
"And since they cannot spend or use aright
The little time here given them in trust,
But lavish it in weary undelight
Of foolish toil, and trouble, strife and lust
They naturally claimeth to inherit
The Everlasting Future that their merit
May have full scope. ... As surely is most
just"
The City of Dreadful Night.
THE difficulty is to prevent this account
from growing steadily unwholesome. But
one cannot rake through a big city without en-
countering muck.
The Police kept their word. In five short
minutes, as they had prophesied, their charge
was lost as he had never been lost before.
"Where are we now?" "Somewhere off the
Chitpore Road, but you wouldn't understand
if you were told. Follow now, and step pretty
much where we step there's a good deal of
filth hereabouts."
The thick greasy night shuts in everything.
We have gone beyond the ancestral houses of
215
2l6 CITY OF THE
the Ghoses of the Boses, beyond the lamps, tfie
smells, and the crowd of Chitpore Road, and
have come to a great wilderness of packed
houses just such mysterious, conspiring tene-
ments as Dickens would have loved. There is
no breath of breeze here, and the air is per-
ceptibly warmer. There is little regularity in
the drift, and the utmost niggardliness in the
spacing of what, for want of a better name, we
must call the streets. If Calcutta keeps such
luxuries as Commissioners of Sewers and Pav-
ing, they die before they reach this place. The
air is heavy with a faint, sour stench the es-
sence of long-neglected abominations and it
cannot escape from among the tall, three-sto-
ried houses. "This, my dear sir, is a perfectly
respectable quarter as quarters go. That house
at the head of the alley, with the elaborate
stucco-work round the top of the door, was
built long ago by a celebrated midwife. Great
people used to live here once. Now it's the
Aha! Look out for that carriage/' A big
mail-phaeton crashes out of the darkness and,
recklessly driven, disappears. The wonder is
how it ever got into this maze of narrow
streets, where nobody seems to be moving, and
where the dull throbbing of the city's life only
comes faintly and by snatches. "Now it's the
DREADFUL NIGHT 217
what?" "St. John's Wood of Calcutta for
the rich Babus. That 'fitton' belonged to one
of them." "Well, it's not much of a place to
look at?" "Don't judge by appearances.
About here live the women who have beggared
kings. We aren't going to let you down into
unadulterated vice all at once. You must see
it first with the gilding on and mind that
rotten board."
Stand at the bottom of a lift and look up-
ward. Then you will get both the size and the
design of the tiny courtyard round which one
of these big dark houses is built. The central
square may be perhaps ten feet every way, but
the balconies that run inside it overhang, and
seem to cut away half the available space. To
reach the square a man must go round many
corners, down a covered-in way, and up and
down two or three baffling and confused
steps. There are no lamps to guide, and the
janitors of the establishment seem to be com-
pelled to sleep in the passages. The central
square, the patio or whatever it must be called,
reeks with the faint, sour smell which finds its
way impartially into every room. "Now you
will understand," say the Police kindly, as
their charge blunders, shin-first, into a well-
dark winding staircase, "that these are not the
2i8 CITY OP THE
sort of places to visit alone." "Who wants to?
Of all the disgusting, inaccessible dens Holy
Cupid, what's this ?"
A glare of light on the stair-head, a clink of
innumerable bangles, a rustle of much fine
gauze, and the Dainty Iniquity stands re-
vealed, blazing literally blazing with jew-
elry from head to foot. Take one of the fair-
est miniatures that the Delhi painters draw,
and multiply it by ten ; throw in one of Angel-
ica Kaufmann's best portraits, and add any-
thing that you can think of from Beckford to
Lalla Rookh, and you will still fall short of the
merits of that perfect face. For an instant,
even the grim, professional gravity of the Po-
lice is relaxed in the presence of the Dainty
Iniquity with the gems, who so prettily invites
every one to be seated, and proffers such re-
freshments as she conceives the palates of the
barbarians would prefer. Her Abigails are
only one degree less gorgeous than she. Half
a lakh, or fifty thousand pounds' worth it is
easier to credit the latter statement than the
former are disposed upon her little body.
Each hand carries five jeweled rings which are
connected by golden chains to a great jeweled
boss of gold in the centre of the back of the
hand. Earrings weighted with emeralds and
DREADFUL NIGHT 219
pearls, diamond nose-rings, and how many
other hundred articles make up the list of
adornments. English furniture of a gorgeous
and gimcrack kind, unlimited chandeliers and
a collection of atrocious Continental prints
something, but not altogether, like the glazed
plaques on bon-bon boxes are scattered about
the house, and on every landing let us trust
this is a mistake lies, squats, or loafs a Ben-
gali who can talk English with unholy fluency.
The recurrence suggests only suggests, mind
a grim possibility of the affectation of exces-
sive virtue by day, tempered with the sort of
unwholesome enjoyment after dusk this loaf-
ing and lobbying and chattering and smoking,
and unless the bottles lie, tippling among the
foul-tongued handmaidens of the Dainty Ini-
quity. How many men follow this double, de-
leterious sort of life? The Police are dis-
creetly dumb.
"Now don't go talking about 'domiciliary
visits' just because this one happens to be a
pretty woman. We've got to know these
creatures. They make the rich man and the
poor spend their money; and when a man
can't get money for 'em honestly, he comes
under our notice. Nozv do you see ? If there
was any 'domiciliary visit' about it, the whole
Kip. 5 H
320 CITY OP THE
houseful would be hidden past our finding as
soon as we turned up in the courtyard. We're
friends to a certain extent" And, indeed, it
seemed no difficult thing to be friends to any
extent with the Dainty Iniquity who was so
surpassingly different from all that experience
taught of the beauty of the East. Here was
the face from which a man could write Lalla
Rookhs by the dozen, and believe every word
that he wrote. Hers was the beauty that
Byron sang of when he wrote
"Remember, if you come here alone, the
chances are that you'll be clubbed, or stuck, or,
anyhow, mobbed. You'll understand that this
part of the world is shut to Europeans abso-
lutely. Mind the steps, and follow on." The
vision dies out in the smells and gross dark-
ness of the night, in evil, time-rotten brick-
work, and another wilderness of shut-up
houses, wherein it seems that people do con-
tinually and feebly strum stringed instruments
of a plaintive and wailsome nature.
Follows, after another plunge into a passage
of a courtyard, and up a staircase, the appar-
ition of a Fat Vice, in whom is no sort of ro-
mance, nor beauty, but unlimited coarse hu-
mor. She too is studded with jewels, and her
house is even finer than the house of the other,
DREADFUL NIGHT 221
and more infested with the extraordinary men
who speak such good English and are so def-
erential to the Police. The Fat Vice has been
a great leader of fashion in her day, and
stripped a zemindar Raja to his last acre in-
somuch that he ended in the House of Correc-
tion for a theft committed for her sake. Na-
tive opinion has it that she is a "monstrous
well-preserved woman." On this point, as on
some others, the races will agree to differ.
The scene changes suddenly as a slide in a
magic lantern. Dainty Iniquity and Fat Vice
slide away on a roll of streets and alleys, each
more squalid than its predecessor. We are
"somewhere at the back of the Machua Ba-
zar/' well in the heart of the city. There are
no houses here nothing but acres and acres,
it seems, of foul wattle-and-dab huts, any one
of which would be a disgrace to a frontier vil-
lage. The whole arrangement is a neatly con-
trived germ and fire trap, reflecting great
credit upon the Calcutta Municipality.
"What happens when these pigsties catch
fire?" "They're built up again," say the Po-
lice, as though this were the natural order of
things. "Land is immensely valuable here."
All the more reason, then, to turn several
Hausmanns loose into the city, with instruc-
222 CITY OF THE
tions to make barracks for the population that
cannot find room in the huts and sleeps in the
open ways, cherishing dogs and worse, much
worse, in its unwashen bosom. "Here is a
licensed coffee-shop. This is where your nau-
kers go for amusement and to see nautches."
There is a huge chappar shed, ingeniously or-
namented with insecure kerosene lamps, and
crammed with gharri-wans, khitmatgars,
small storekeepers and the like. Never a sign
of a European. Why? "Because if an Eng-
lishman messed about here, he'd get into
trouble. Men don't come here unless they're
drunk or have lost their way." The gharri-
wans they have the privilege of voting, have
they not ? look peaceful enough as they squat
on tables or crowd by the doors to watch the
nautch that is going forward. Five pitiful
draggle-tails are huddled together on a bench
under one of the lamps, while the sixth is
squirming and shrieking before the impassive
crowd. She sings of love as understood by the
Oriental the love that dries the heart and
consumes the liver. In this place, the words
that would look so well on paper, have an evil
and ghastly significance. The gharri wans
stare or sup tumblers and cups of a filthy de-
coction, and the kunchenee howls with re-
DREADFUL NIGHT 223
newed vigor in the presence of the Police.
Where the Dainty Iniquity was hung with
gold and gems, she is trapped with pewter and
glass ; and where there was heavy embroidery
on the Fat Vice's dress, defaced, stamped tin-
sel faithfully reduplicates the pattern on the
tawdry robes of the kunchenee. So you see, if
one cares to moralize, they are sisters of the
same class.
Two or three men, blessed with uneasy con-
sciences, have quietly slipped out of the coffee-
shop into the mazes of the huts beyond. The
Police laugh, and those nearest in the crowd
laugh applausively, as in duty bound. Perhaps
the rabbits grin uneasily when the ferret lands
at the bottom of the burrow and begins to clear
the warren.
"The chandoo-shops shut up at six, so you'll
have to see opium-smoking before dark some
day. No, you won't, though." The detective
nose sniffs, and the detective body makes for a
half-opened door of a hut whence floats the
fragrance of the black smoke. Those of the in-
habitants who are able to stand promptly clear
out they have no love for the Police and
there remain only four men lying down and
one standing up. This latter has a pet mon-
goose coiled round his neck. He speaks Eng*
024 CITY OF THE
lish fluently. Yes, he has no fear. It was a
private smoking party and "No business
to-night show how you smoke opium."
"Aha ! You want to see. Very good, I show.
Hiya! you" he kicks a man on the floor
"show how opium-smoking." The kickee
grunts lazily and turns on his elbow. The
mongoose, always keeping to the man's neck,
erects every hair of its body like an angry cat,
and chatters in its owner's ear. The lamp for
the opium-pipe is the only one in the room,
and lights a scene as wild as anything in the
witches' revel ; the mongoose acting as the fa-
miliar spirit. A voice from the ground says,
in tones of infinite weariness: "You take
afim, so" a long, long pause, and another
kick from the man possessed of the devil the
mongoose. "You take afimf" He takes a
pellet of the black, treacly stuff on the end of a
knitting-needle. "And light afim." He
plunges the pellet into the night-light, where
it swells and fumes greasily. "And then you
put it in your pipe." The smoking pellet is
jammed into the tiny bowl of the thick, bam-
boo-stemmed pipe, and all speech ceases, ex-
cept the unearthly noise of the mongoose.
The man on the ground is sucking at hfs piper
end when the smoking pellet has ceased tc
DREADFUL NIGHT
smoke will be half way to Nibhan. "Now you
go," says the man with the mongoose. "I am
going smoke/' The hut door closes upon a
red-lit view of huddled legs and bodies, and
the man with the mongoose sinking, sinking
onto his knees his head bowed forward and
the little hairy devil chattering on the nape of
his neck.
After this the fetid night air sems almost
cool, for the hut is as hot as a furnace. "See
the pukka chandu shops in full blast to-mor-
row. Now for Colootollah. Come through
the huts. There is no decoration about this
vice."
The huts now gave place to houses very tall
and spacious and very dark. But for the nar-
rowness of the streets we might have stumbled
upon Chouringhi in the dark. An hour and a
half has passed, and up to this time we have
not crossed our trail once. "You might knock
about the city for a night and never cross the
game line. Recollect Calcutta isn't one of your
poky up country cities of a lakh and a half of
people/' "How long does it take to know it
then ?" "About a lifetime, and even then some
of the streets puzzle you. 5 ' "How much has
the head of a ward to know?" "Every house
in his ward if he can, who owns it, what sort
226 CITY OF THE
of character the inhabitants are, who are their
friends, who go out and in, who loaf about
the place at night, and so on and so on."
"And he knows all this by night as well as by
day?" "Of course. Why shouldn't he?"
"No reason in the world. Only it's pitchy
black just now, and I'd like to see where this
alley is going to end." "Round the corner be-
yond that dead wall. There's a lamp there.
Then you'll be able to see." A shadow flits
out of a gully and disappears. "Who's that?"
"Sergeant of Police just to see where we're go-
ing in case of accidents." Another shadow
staggers into the darkness. "Who's that?'
"Man from the fort or a sailor from the ships.
I couldn't quite see." The Police open a shut
door in a high wall, and stumble unceremoni-
ously among a gang of women cooking their
food. The floor is of beaten earth, the steps
that lead into the upper stories are unspeak-
ably grimy, and the heat is the heat of April.
The women rise hastily, and the Hgh* of the
bull's eye for the Police have now lighted a
lantern in regular "rounds of London" fash-
ion shows six bleared faces one a half na-
tive, half Chinese one, and the other Bengali.
"There are no men here !" they cry. "The
house is empty." Then they grin and jabber
DREADFUL NIGHT
and chew pan and spit, and hurry up the steps
into the darkness. A range of three big rooms
has been knocked into one here, and there is
some sort of arrangment of mats. But an
average country-bred is more sumptuously ac-
commodated in an Englishman's stable. A
home horse would snort at the accommodation.
"Nice sort of place, isn't it ?" say the Police,
genially. "This is where the sailors get
robbed and drunk." "They must be blind
drunk before they come/' "Na Na! Na
sailor men ee yah!" chorus the women,
catching at one word they understand. "Arl
gone!" The Police take no notice, but tramp
down the big room with the mat loose-boxes.
A woman is shivering in one of these.
"What's the matter ?" "Fever. Seek. Vary,
vary seek." She huddles herself into a heap
on the charpoy and groans.
A tiny, pitch-black closet opens out of the
long room, and into this the Police plunge.
"Hullo! What's here?" Down flashes the
lantern, and a white hand with black nails
comes out of the gloom. Somebody is asleep
or drunk in the cot The ring of lantern light
travels slowly up and down the body. "A
sailor from the ships. He's got his dungarees
on. He'll be robbed before the morning most
*i 8 CITY OF THE
likely/ 1 The man is sleeping like a little child,
both arms thrown over his head, and he is not
unhandsome. He is shoeless, and there are
huge holes in his stockings. He is a pure-
blooded white, and carries the flush of inno-
cent sleep on his cheeks.
The light is turned off, and the Police de-
part; while the woman in the loose-box
shivers, and moans that she is "seek: vary,
wry, seek," It is not surprising.
CHAPTER VII
DEEPER AND DEEPER STILL
I built myself a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;
I said: "O Soul, make merry and carouse.
Dear Soul for all is well."
The Palace of Art.
"AND where next? I don't like Colootol-
lah." The Police and their charge are stand-
ing in the interminable waste of houses under
the starlight "To the lowest sink of all," say
the Police after the manner of Virgil when he
took the Italian with the indigestion to look
at the frozen sinners. "And where's that?"
"Somewhere about here; but you wouldn't
know if you were told." They lead and they
lead and they lead, and they cease not from
leading till they come to the last circle of the
Inferno a long, long, winding, quiet road.
'There you are; you can see for yourself."
But there is nothing to be seen. On one
side are houses gaunt and dark, naked and
229
230 CITY' OF
devoid of furniture; on the other, low, mean
stalls, lighted, and with shamelessly open
doors, wherein women stand and lounge, and
mutter and whisper one to another. There is
a hush here, or at least the busy silence of an
officer of counting-house in working hours.
One look down the street is sufficient. Lead
on, gentlemen of the Calcutta Police. Let us
escape from the lines of open doors, the flaring
lamps within, the glimpses of the tawdry toi-
let-tables adorned with little plaster dogs,
glass balls from Christmas-trees, and for
religion must not be despised though women
be fallen pictures of the saints and statuettes
of the Virgin. The street is a long one, and
other streets, full of the same pitiful wares,
branch off from it.
"Why are they so quiet? Why don't they
make a row and sing and shout, and so on?"
"Why should they, poor devils? 5 ' say the Po-
lice, and fall to telling tales of horror, of
women decoyed into palkis and shot into this
trap. Then other tales that shatter one's be-
lief in all things and folk of good repute.
"How can you Police have faith in human-
ity r
*TIiaf s Because you're seeing it all in a
lump for the first time, and it's not nice that
DREADFUL NIGHT 2$l
way. Makes a man jump rather, doesn't it?
But, recollect, you've asked for the worst
places, and you can't complain/' "Who's com-
plaining? Bring on your atrocities. Isn't that
a European woman at that door?" "Yes.
Mrs. D - , widow of a soldier, mother of
seven children :" "Nine, if you please, and
good-evening to you," shrills Mrs. D - ,
leaning against the door-post, her arms folded
on her bosom. She is a rather pretty, slightly-
made Eurasian, and whatever shame she may
have owned she has long since cast behind her.
A shapeless Burmo-native trot, with high
cheek-bones and mouth like a shark, calls Mrs.
Mem-Sahib." The word jars un-
speakably. Her life is a matter between her-
self and her Maker, but in that she the
widow of a soldier of the Queen has stooped
to this common foulness in the face of the city,
she has offended against the white race. The
Police fail to fall in with this righteous indig-
nation. More. They laugh at it out of the
wealth of their unholy knowledge. "You're
from up-country, and of course you don't un-
derstand. There are any amount of that lot
in the city." Then the secret of the insolence
of Calcutta is made plain. Small wonder the
natives fail to respect the Sahib, seeing what
232 CITY OF THE
they sec and knowing what they know. In tfe
good old days, the honorable the directors de-
ported him or her who misbehaved grossly,
and the white man preserved his izzat. He
may have been a ruffian, but he was a ruffian
on a large scale. He did not sink in the pres-
ence of the people. The natives are quite
right to take the wall of the Sahib who has
been at great pains to prove that he is of the
same flesh and blood.
All this time Mrs. D stands on the
threshold of her room and looks upon the men
with unabashed eyes. If the spirit of that
English soldier, who married her long ago by
the forms of the English Church, be now flit*
ting bat-wise above the roofs, how singularly
pleased and proud it must be ! Mrs. D is
a lady with a story. She is not averse to tell-
ing it. "What was ahem the case in which
you were er hmn > concerned, Mrs.
D ?" "They said I'd poisoned my hus-
band by putting something into his drinking
water." This is interesting. How much
modesty has this creature ? Let us see. "And
ah did you?" "'Twasn't proved," said
Mrs. D with a laugh, a pleasant, lady-like
laugh that does infinite credit to her education
and upbringing. Worthy Mrs. D ! It
DREADFUL NIGHT 333
would pay a novelist a French one let us say
to pick you out of the stews and make you
talk.
The Police move forward, into a region of
Mrs. D- s. This is horrible; but they are
used to it, and evidently consider indignation
affectation. Everywhere are the empty houses,
and the babling women in print gowns. The
clocks in the city are close upon midnight, but
the Police show no signs of stopping. They
plunge hither and thither, like wreckers into
the surf; and each plunge brings up a sample
of misery, filth and woe.
"Sheikh Babu was murdered just here/'
they say, pulling up in one of the most trou-
blesome houses in the ward. It would never
do to appear ignorant of the murder of Sheikh
Babu. "I only wonder that more aren't
killed." The houses with their breakneck
staircases, their hundred corners, low roofs,
hidden courtyards and winding passages, seem
specially built for crime of every kind. A
woman Eurasian rises to a sitting position
on a board-charpoy and blinks sleepily at the
Police. Then she throws herself down with a
grunt. "What's the matter with you?" "I
live in Markiss Lane and" this with intense
gravity "I'm so drunk*" She has a rather
334 CITY OF THE
striking gipsy-like face, but her language
might be improved.
"Come along/' say the Police, "well head
back to Bentinck Street, and put you on the
road to the Great Eastern." They walk long
and steadily, and the talk falls on gambling
hells. "You ought to see our men rush one of
'em. They like the work natives of course.
When we've marked a hell down, we post men
at the entrances and carry it. Sometimes the
Chinese bite, but as a rule they fight fair. It's
a pity we hadn't a hell to show you. Let's go
in here there may be something forward."
"Here" appears to be in the heart of a Chinese
quarter, for the pigtails do they ever go to
bed ? are scuttling about the streets. "Never
go into a Chinese place alone," say the Police,
and swung open a postern gate in a strong,
green door. Two Chinamen appear.
"What are we going to see?" "Japanese
gir No, we aren't, by Jove! Catch that
Chinaman, quick." The pigtail is trying to
double back across a courtyard into an inner
chamber; but a large hand on his shoulder
spins him round and puts him in rear of the
line of advancing Englishmen, who are, be it
observed, making a fair amount of noise with
their boots. A second door is thrown open,
DREADFUL NIGHT 235
and the visitors advance into a large, square
room blazing with gas. Here thirteen pig-
tails, deaf and blind to the outer world, are
bending over a table. The captured Chinaman
dodges uneasily in the rear of the procession.
Five ten fifteen seconds pass, the English-
men standing in the full light less than three
paces from the absorbed gang who see noth-
ing. Then burly Superintendent Lamb brings
down his hand on his thigh with a crack like a
pistol-shot and shouts: "How do, John?" Fol-
lows a frantic rush of scared Celestials, almost
tumbling over each other in their anxiety to
get clear. Gudgeon before the rush of the
pike are nothing to John Chinaman detected
in the act of gambling. One pigtail scoops up
a pile of copper money, another a chinaware
soup-bowl, and only a little mound of accusing
cowries remains on the white matting that
covers the table. In less than half a minute
two facts are forcibly brought home to the
visitor. First, that a pigtail is largely com-
posed of silk, and rasps the palm of the hand
as it slides through; and secondly, that the
forearm of a Chinaman is surprisingly muscu-
lar and well-developed. "What's going to be
done?" "Nothing. They're only three of us,
and all the ringleaders would get away. Look
336 CITY OF THE
at the doors. We've got 'em safe any time we
want to catch 'em, if this little visit doesn't
make 'em shift their quarters. Hi! John.
No pidgin to-night. Show how you makee
play. That fat youngster there is our in-
former."
Half the pigtails have fled into the dark-
ness, but the remainder, assured and trebly as-
sured that the Police really mean "no pidgin,"
return to the table and stand round while the
croupier proceeds to manipulate the cowries,
the little curved slip of bamboo and the soup-
bowl. They never gamble, these innocents.
They only come to look on, and smoke opium
in the next room. Yet a^ the game progresses
their eyes light up, and one by one they lose in
to deposit their price on odd or even the
number of the cowries that are covered and
left uncovered by the little soup-bowl. My-
than is the name of the amusement, and, what-
ever may be its demerits, it is clean. The Po-
lice look on while their charge plays and loots
a parchment-skinned horror one of Swift's
Struldburgs, strayed from Laputa of the
enormous sum of two annas. The return of
this wealth, doubled, sets the loser beating his
forehead against the table from sheer grati-
tude.
DREADFUL NIGHT 237
"Most immoral game this. A man might
drop five whole rupees, if he began playing at
sun-down and kept it up all night. Don't you
ever play whist occasionally? "
"Now, we didn't bring you round to make
fun of this department. A man can lose as
much as ever he likes and he can fight as well,
and if he loses all his money he steals to get
more. A Chinaman is insane about gambling,
and half his crime comes from it. It must be
kept down/' "And the other business. Any
sort of supervision there?" "No; so long as
they keep outside the penal code. Ask Dr.
about that. It's outside our department.
Here we are in Bentinck Street and you can be
driven to the Great Eastern in a few minutes.
Joss houses ? Oh, yes. If you want more hor-
rors, Superintendent Lamb will take you round
with him to-morrow afternoon at five. Re-
port yourself at the Bow Bazar Thanna at five
minutes to. Good-night."
The Police depart, and in a few minutes the
silent, well-ordered respectability of Old Coun-
cil House Street, with the grim Free Kirk at
the end of it, is reached. All good Calcutta
has gone to bed, the last tram has passed, and
the peace of the night is upon the world.
Would it be wise and rational to climb the
238 CITY OF THE
spire of that kirk, and shout after the fashion
of the great Lion-slayer of Tarescon : "O true
believers! Decency is a fraud and a sham.
There is nothing clean or pure or wholesome
under the stars, and we are all going to perdi-
tion together. Amen!" On second thoughts
it would not; for the spire is slippery, the night
it hot, and the Police have been specially care-
ful to warn their charge that he must not be
carried away by the sight of horrors that can-
not be written or hinted at.
"Good-morning/' says the Policeman, tramp-
ing the pavement in front of the Great East-
ern, and he nods his head pleasantly to show
that he is the representative of Law and Peace
and that the city of Calcutta is safe from it-
self for the present
CHAPTER VIII
CONCERNING LUCIA
"Was a woman such a woman cheeks so round and
lips so red?
On the neck the small head buoyant like the bell
flower in its bed."
TIME must be filled in somehow till five this
afternoon, when Superintendent Lamb will re-
veal more horrors. Why not, the trams aid-
ing, go to the Old Park Street Cemetery? It
is presumption, of course, because none other
than the great Sir W. W. Hunter once went
there, and wove from his visit certain fascinat-
ing articles for the Englishman; the memory
of which lingers even to this day, though they
were written fully two years since.
But the Great Sir W. W. went in his Legis-
lative Consular brougham and never in an un-
bridled tram-car which pulled up somewhere
in the middle of Dhurrumtollah. "You want
go Park Street ? No trams going Park Street
You get out here." Calcutta tram conductors
are not polite. Some day one of them will be
239
240 CITY OF THE
hurt. The car shuffles unsympathetically
down the street, and the evicted is stranded in
Dhurrumtollah, which may be the Hammer-
smith Highway of Calcutta. Providence ar-
ranged this mistake, and paved the way to a
Great Discovery now published for the first
time. Dhurrumtollah is full of the People of
India, walking in family parties and groups
and confidential couples. And the people of
India are neither Hindu nor Mussulman
Jew, Ethiop, Gueber nor expatriated British.
They are the Eurasians, and there are hun-
dreds and hundreds of them in Dhurrumtollah
now. There is Papa with a shiny black hat
fit for a counsellor of the Queen, and Mamma,
whose silken attire is tight upon her portly fig-
ure, and The Brood made up of straw-hatted,
olive-cheeked, sharp-eyed little boys, and leggy
maidens wearing white, open-work stockings
calculated to show dust. There are the young
men who smoke bad cigars and carry them-
selves lordily such as have incomes. There
are also the young women with the beautiful
eyes and the wonderful dresses which always
fit so badly across the shoulders. And they
carry prayer-books or baskets, because they
are either going to mass or the market. With-
out doubt, these are the people of India, They
DREADFUL NIGHT 341
were born in it, bred in it, and will die in it.
The Englishman only comes to the country,
and the natives of course were there from the
first, but these people have been made here,
and no one has done anything for them except
talk and write about them. Yet they belong,
some of them, to old and honorable families,
hold "houses, messuages, and tenements" in
Sealdah, and are rich, a few of them. They
all look prosperous and contented, and they
chatter eternally in that curious dialect that
no one has yet reduced to print. Beyond what
little they please to reveal now and again in
the newspapers, we know nothing about their
life which touches so intimately the white on
the one hand and the black on the other. It
must be interesting more interesting than
the colorless Anglo-Indian article; but who
has treated of it? There was one novel once
in which the second heroine was an Eurasi-
enne. She was a strictly subordinate character,
and came to a sad end. The poet of the race,
Henry Derozio he of whom Mr. Thomas
Edwards wrote a history--" was bitten with
Keats and Scott and Shelley, and overlooked
in hia search for material things that lay near-
est to him. All this mass of humanity in Dhur*
rumtollah is unexploited and almost unknown.
24* CITY OF THE
Wanted, therefore, a writer from among tfie
Eurasians, who shall write so that men shall
be pleased to read a story of Eurasian life;
then outsiders will be interested in the People
of India, and will admit that the race has pos-
sibilities.
A futile attempt to get to Park Street from
Dhurrumtollah ends in the market the Hogg
Market men call it. Perhaps a knight of that
name built it. It is not one-half as pretty as
the Crawford Market, in Bombay, but . . .
it appears to be the trysting-place of Young
Calcutta. The natural inclination of youth is
to lie abed late, and to let the seniors do all the
hard work. Why, therefore, should Pyramus
who has to be ruling account forms at ten, and
Thisbe, who cannot be interested in the price
of second quality beef, wander, in studiously
correct raiment, round and about the stalls be-
fore the sun is well clear of the earth ? Pyra-
mus carries a walking stick with imitation sil-
ver straps upon it, and there are cloth tops to
his boots; but his collar has been two days
worn. Thisbe crowns her dark head with a
blue velvet Tam-o'-Shanter ; but one of her
boots lacks a button, and there is a tear in the
left-hand glove. Mamma, who despises
gloves, is rapidly filling a shallow basket, that
DREADFUL NIGHT 243
the coolie-boy carries, with vegetables, pota-
toes, purple brinjals, and Oh, Pryamus! Do
you ever kiss Thisbe when Mamma is not
near? garlic yea, lusson of the bazar.
Mamma is generous in her views on garlic.
Pryamus comes round the corner of the stall
looking for nobody in particular not he
and is elaborately polite to Mamma. Some-
how, he and Thisbe drift off together, and
Mamma, very portly and very voluble, is left
to chaffer and sort and select alone. In the
name of the Sacred Unities do not, young peo-
ple, retire to the meat-stalls to exchange con-
fidences! Come up to this end, where the
roses are arriving in great flat baskets, where
the air is heavy with the fragrance of flowers,
and the young buds and greenery are littering
all the floor. They won't they prefer talking
by the dead, unromantic muttons, where there
are not so many buyers. How they babble!
There must have been a quarrel to make up.
Thisbe shakes the blue velvet Tam-o'-Shanter
and says : "O yess I" scornfully. Pyramus an-
swers: "No-a, no-a. Do-ant say thatt."
Mamma's basket is full and she picks up
Thisbe hastily. Pyramus departs. He never
came here to do any marketing. He came to
meet Thisbe, who in ten years will own a fig-
244 CITY OF THE
ure very much like Mamma's. May their ways
be smooth before them, and after honest ser-
vice of the Government, may Pyramus retire
on Rs. 250 per mensen, into a nice little house
somewhere in Monghyr or Chunar.
From love by natural sequence to death.
Where is the Park Street Cemetery ? A hun-
dred gharri~wans leap from their boxes and
invade the market, and after a short struggle
one of them uncarts his capture in a burial*
ground a ghastly new place, close to a tram*
way. This is not what is wanted. The living
dead are here the people whose names are
not yet altogether perished and whose tomb-
stones are tended. "Where are the old dead ?"
"Nobody goes there/' says the gharri-wan.
"It is up that road." He points up a long and
utterly deserted thoroughfare, running be-
tween high walls. This is the place, and the
entrance to it, with its mollee waiting with one
brown, battered rose, its grilled door and its
professional notices, bears a hideous likeness
to the entrance of Simla churchyard. But,
once inside, the sightseer stands in the heart of
utter desolation all the more forlorn for be-
ing swept up. Lower Park Street cuts a great
graveyard in two. The guide-books will tell
you when the place was opened and when it
DREADFUL NIGHT 245
was closed. The eye is ready to swear that
it is as old as Herculaneum and Pompeii. The
tombs are small houses. It is as though we
walked down the streets of a town, so tall are
they and so closely do they stand a town
shriveled by fire, and scarred by frost and
siege. They must have been afraid of their
friends rising up before the due time that they
weighted them with such cruel mounds of ma-
sonry. Strong man, weak woman, or some-
body's "infant son aged fifteen months" it is
all the same. For each the squat obelisk, the
defaced classic temple, the cellaret of chunam,
or the candlestick of brickwork the heavy
slab, the rust-eaten railings, the whopper-
jawed cherubs and the apoplectic angels. Men
were rich in those days and could afford to put
a hundred cubic feet of masonry into the grave
of even so humble a person as "Jno. Clements,
Captain of the Country Service, 1820."
When the "dearly beloved" had held rank an-
swering to that of Commissioner, the efforts
are still more sumptuous and the verse . . .
Well, the following speaks for itself:
"Soft on thy tomb shall fond Remembrance shed
The warm yet unavailing tear,
And purple flowers that deck the honored dead
Shall strew the loved and honored bier."
246 CITY OF THE
Failure to comply with the contract does not,
let us hope, entail to forfeiture of the earnest-
money ; or the honored dead might be grieved
The slab is out of his tomb, and leans foolishly
against it; the railings are rotted, and there
are no more lasting ornaments than blisters
and stains, which are the work of the weather,
and not the result of the "warm yet unavail-
ing tear." The eyes that promised to shed
them have been closed any time these seventy
years.
Let us go about and moralize cheaply on
the tombstones, trailing the robe of pious re-
flection up and down the pathways of the
grave. Here is a big and stately tomb sacred
to "Lacia," who died in 1776 A. D., aged 23.
Here also be verses which an irreverent thumb
can bring to light Thus they wrote, when
their hearts were heavy in them, one hundred
and sixteen years ago:
"What needs the emblem, what the plaintive strain.
What all the arts that sculpture e'er expressed.
To tell the treasure that these walls contain?
Let those declare it most who knew her best.
"The tender pity she would oft display
Shall be with interest at her shrine returned,
Connubial love, connubial tears repay,
And Lncia loved shall still be Lucia mourned
DREADFUL NIGHT 247
Though closed the lips, though stopped the tuneful
breath,
The silent, clay-cold monitress shall teach-
in all the alarming eloquence of death
With double pathos to the heart shall preach.
"Shall teach the virtuous maid, the faithful wife,
If young and fair, that young and fair was she,
Then close the useful lesson of her life,
And tell them what she is, they soon must be."
That goes well, even after all these years, does
it not ? and seems to bring Lucia very near, in
spite of what the later generation is pleased to
call the stiltedness of the old-time verse.
Who will declare the merits of Lucia dead
in her spring before there was even a Hickey's
Gazette to chronicle the amusements of Cal-
cutta, and publish, with scurrilous asterisks,
the liaisons of heads of departments? What
pot-bellied East Indiaman brought the "virtu-
ous maid" up the river, and did Lucia "make
her bargain," as the cant of those times went,
on the first, second, or third day after arrival ?
Or did she, with the others of the batch, give
a spinsters' ball as a last trial following the
custom of the country? No. She was a fair
Kentish maiden, sent out, at a cost of five hun-
dred pounds, English money, under the cap-
taiVs charge, to wed the man of her choice^
848 CITY OF THE
and he knew Clive well, had had dealings with
Omichand, and talked to men who had lived
through the terrible night in the Black Hole.
He was a rich man, Lucia's battered tomb
proves it, and he gave Lucia all that her heart
could wish. A green-painted boat to take the
air in on the river of evenings. Coffree slave-
boys who could play on the French horn, and
even a very elegant, neat coach with a genteel
rutlan roof ornamented with flowers very
highly finished, ten best polished plate glasses,
ornamented with a few elegant medallions en-
riched with mother-o'-pearl, that she might
take her drive on the course as befitted a fac-
tor's wife. All these things he gave her. And
when the convoys came up the river, and the
guns thundered, and the servants of the Hon-
orable the East India Company drank to the
king's health, be sure that Lucia before all the
other ladies in the fort had her choice of the
new stuffs from England and was cordially
hated in consequence. Tilly Kettle painted her
picture a little before she died, and the hot-
blooded young writers did duel with small-
swords in the fort ditch for the honor of pilot-
ing her through a minuet at the Calcutta thea-
tre or the Punch House. But Warren Hast-
ings danced with her instead, and the writers
DREADFUL NIGHT 249
were confounded every man of them. She
was a toast far up the river. And she walked
in the evening on the bastions of Fort-William,
and said: "La! I protest!" It was there that
she exchanged congratulations with all her
friends on the 2Oth of October, when those
who were alive gathered together to felicitate
themselves on having come through another
hot season; and the men even the sober fac-
tor saw no wrong here got most royally and
Britishly drunk on Madeira that had twice
rounded the Cape. But Lucia fell sick, and
the doctor he who went home after seven
years with five lakhs and a half, and a corner
of this vast graveyard to his account said
that it was a pukka or putrid fever, and the
system required strengthening. So they fed
Lucia on hot curries, and mulled wine worked
up with spirits and fortified with spices, for
nearly a week; at the end of which time she
closed her eyes on the weary, weary river and
the fort forever, and a gallant, with a turn for
belles lettres, wept openly as men did then and
had no shame of it, and composed the verses
above set, and thought himself a neat hand at
the pen stap his vitals! But the factor was
so grieved that he could write nothing at all
could only spend his money and he counted
250 CITY OF THE
his wealth by lakhs on a sumptuous grave,
A little later on he took comfort, and when
the next batch came out
But this has nothing whatever to do with the
story of Lucia, the virtuous maid, the faith-
ful wife. Her ghost went to Mrs. Westland's
powder ball, and looked very beautiful
CHAPTER IX
A RAILWAY SETTLEMENT
JAMALPUR is the headquarters of the E. L
Railway. This in itself is not a startling state-
ment. The wonder begins with the exploration
of Jamalpur, which is a station entirely made
by, and devoted to, the use of those untiring
servants of the public, the railway folk. They
have towns of their own at Toondla and As-
sensole, a sun-dried sanitarium at Bandikui;
and Howrah, Ajmir, Allahabad, Lahore and
Pindi know their colonies. But Jamalpur is
unadulteratedly "Railway," and he who has
nothing to do with the E. I. Railway in some
shape or another feels a stranger and an "in-
terloper." Running always east and southerly,
the train carries him from the torments of the
northwest into the wet, woolly warmth of Ben-
gal, where may be found the hothouse heat
that has ruined the temper of the good people
of Calcutta. Here the land is fat and greasy
with good living, and the wealth of the bodies
of innumerable dead things; and here just
above Mokameh may be seen fields stretch-
251
Kip. 51
252 CITY OF THE
f
ing, without stick, stone or bush to break the
view, from the railway line to the horizon.
Up-country innocents must look at the map
to learn that Jamalpur is near the top left-hand
corner of the big loop that the E. I. R. throws
out round Bhagalpur and part of the Bara-
Banki districts. Northward of Jamalpur, as
near as may be, lies the Ganges and Tirhoot,
and eastward an offshoot of the volcanic
Rajmehal range blocks the view.
A station which has neither Judge, Commis-
sioner, Deputy or 'Stunt, which is devoid of
law courts, ticca-gharris, District Superin-
tendents of Police, and many other evidences
of an overcultured civilization, is a curiosity.
"We administer ourselves/' says Jamalpur,
proudly, "or we did till we had lokal sluff
brought in and now the racket-marker admin-
isters us." This is a solemn fact The station,
which had its beginnings thirty odd years ago,
used, till comparatively recent times, to control
its own roads, sewage, conservancy, and the
like. But, with the introduction of local self-
government, it was ordained that the "inesti-
mable boon" should be extended to a place
made by, and maintained for, Europeans, and
a brand new municipality was created and nom-
inated according to the many rules of the game.
DREADFUL NIGHT 253
In the skirmish that ensued, the club racket-
marker fought his way to the front, secured a
place on a board largely composed of Babus,
and since that day Jamalpur's views on "local
sluff" have not been fit for publication. To
understand the magnitude of the insult, one
must study the city for station, in the strict
sense of the word, it is not. Crotons, palms,
mangoes, mellingtonias, teak, and bamboos
adorn it, and the poinsetta and bougainvillea.
the railway creeper and the bignoniavenusta
make it gay with many colors. It is laid out
with military precision on the right-hand side
of the line going down to Calcutta to each
house its just share of garden and green jilmil,
its red surki path, its growth of trees, and its
neat little wicket gate. Its general aspect, in
spite of the Dutch formality, is that of an Eng-
lish village, such a thing as enterprising stage-
managers put on the theatres at home. The
hills have thrown a protecting arm round
nearly three sides of it, and on the fourth it is
bounded by what are locally known as the
"shed ;" in other words, the station, offices, and
workshops of the company. The E. I. R. only
exists for outsiders. Its servants speak of it
reverently, angrily, despite fully, or enthusias-
tically as "The Company ;" and they never omit
254 CITY OF THE
the big, big C. Men must have treated the
Honorable East India Company in something
the same fashion ages ago. "The Company"
in Jamalpur is Lord Dufferin, all the Members
of Council, the Body-Guard, Sir Frederick
Roberts, Mr. Westland, whose name is at the
bottom of the currency notes, the Oriental Life
Assurance Company, and the Bengal Govern-
ment all rolled into one. At first, when a
stranger enters this life, he is inclined to scoff
and ask, in his ignorance: "What is this Com-
pany that you talk so much about ?" Later on,
he ceases to scoff, and his mouth opens slowly ;
for the Company is a "big" thing almost big
enough to satisfy an American.
Ere beginning to describe its doings, let it be
written, and repeated several times hereafter,
that the E. L R. passenger carriages, and es-
pecially the second-class, are just now horrid,
being filthy and unwashen, dirty to look at, and
dirty to live in. Having cast this small stone,
we will examine Jamalpur. When it was laid
out, in or before the Mutiny year, its designers
allowed room for growth, and made the houses
of one general design some of brick, some of
Itone, some three, four, and six-roomed, some
single men's barracks and some two-storied
all for the use of the employees. King's Road,
DREADFUL NIGHT 255
Prince's Road, Queen's Road, and Victoria
Road Jamalpur is loyal cut the breadth of
the station; and Albert Road, Church Street,
and Steam Road the length of it. Neither on
these roads nor on any of the cool-shaded
smaller ones is anything unclean or unsightly to
be found. There is a dreary bustee in the
neighborhood which is said to make the most
of any cholera that may be going, but Jamalpur
itself is specklessly and spotlessly neat. From
St. Mary's Church to the railway station, and
from the buildings where they print daily about
half a lakh of tickets to the ringing, roaring,
rattling workshops, everything has the air of
having been cleaned up at ten that very morn-
ing and put under a glass case. Also there is
a holy calm about the roads totally unlike any-
thing in an English manufacturing town.
Wheeled conveyances are few, because every
man's bungalow is close to his work, and when
the day has begun and the offices of the "Loco."
and "Traffic" have soaked up their thousands
of natives and hundreds of Europeans, you
shall pass under the dappled shadows of the
teak trees, hearing nothing louder than the
croon of some bearer playing with a child in the
veranda or the faint tinkle of a piano. This is
pleasant, and produces an impression of
256 CITY OF THE
Watteau-like refinement tempered with Ar-
cadian simplicity. The dry, anguished howl of
the "buzzer," the big steam whistle, breaks the
hush, and all Jamalpur is alive with the tramp-
ing of tiffin-seeking feet. The Company gives
one hour for meals between eleven and twelve.
On the stroke of noon there is another rush
back to the works or the offices, and Jamalpur
sleeps through the afternoon till four or half-
past, and then rouses for tennis at the institute.
It is a quiet, restful place to live or die in,
but not great for enterprise. Tropical or semi-
tropical cities are never remarkable for exces-
sive energy or activity. Nor do the inhabitants
arrive at fortune made by the exertion of the
persons possessing it. Fortunes are made in
such places, but by the dull continuous labor of
inferiors and natives for some supervisor or
director, usually foreign.
In the hot weather it splashes in the swim-
ming bath, or reads, for it has a library of sev-
eral thousand books. One of the most flourish-
ing lodges in the Bengal jurisdiction "St.
George in the East" lives at Jamalpur, and
meets twice a month. Its members point out
with justifiable pride that all the fittings were
made by their own hands ; and the lodge in its
accoutrements and the energy of the craftsmen
DREADFUL NIGHT 257
can compare with any in India. But the insti-
tute seems to be the central gathering place, and
its half-dozen tennis-courts and neatly-laid-out
grounds seem to be always full. Here, if a
stranger could judge, the greater part of the
flirtation of Jamalpur is carried out, and here
the dashing apprentice the apprentices are the
liveliest of all learns that there are problems
harder than any he studies at the night school,
and that the heart of a maiden is more in-
scrutable than the mechanism of a locomotive.
On Tuesdays and Fridays, as a printed notifi-
cation witnesseth, the volunteers parade. A
and B Companies, one hundred and fifty strong
in all, of the E. I. R. Volunteers, are stationed
here with the band. Their uniform, grey with
red facings, is not lovely, but they know how
to shoot and drill. They have to. The Com-
pany makes it a condition of service that a
man must be a volunteer; and volunteer in
something more than name he must be, or some
one will ask the reason why. Seeing that there
are no regulars between Howrah and Dinapore,
the Company does well in exacting this toll.
Some of the old soldiers are wearied of drill,
some of the youngsters don't like it, but the
way they entrain and detrain is worth seeing.
They are as mobile a corps as can be desired,
258 CITY OF THE
and perhaps ten or twelve years hence the Gov-
ernment may possibly be led to take a real in-
terest in them and spend a few thousand rupees
in providing them with real soldiers' kits not
uniform and rifle merely. Their ranks include
all sorts and conditions of men heads of the
"loco." and "traffic," the Company is no great
respecter of rank clerks in the "audit," boys
from mercantile firms at home, fighting with
the intricacies of time, fare and freight tables ;
guards who have grown grey in the service of
the Company; mail and passenger drivers with
nerves of cast iron, who can shoot through a
long afternoon without losing temper or flurry-
ing; light-built East Indians; Tyne-side men,
slow of speech and uncommonly strong in the
arm ; lathy apprentices who have not yet "filled
out;" fitters, turners, foremen, full assistant
and sub-assistant station-masters, and a host of
others. In the hands of the younger men the
regulation Martini-Henry naturally goes off
the line occasionally on a shikar expedition.
There is a twelve-hundred yards' range run-
ning down one side of the station, and the con-
dition of the grass by the firing butt tells its
own tale. Scattered in the ranks of the volun-
teers are a fair number of old soldiers, for the
Company has a weakness for recruiting from
DREADFUL NIGHT 259
the army for its guards, who may, in time, be-
come station-masters. A good man from the
army, with his papers all correct and certificates
from his commanding officer, may, after de-
positing twenty pounds to pay his home pas-
sage, in the event of his services being dis-
pensed with, enter the Company's service on
something less than one hundred rupees a
month and rise in time to four hundred as a
station-master. A railway bungalow and
they are as substantially built as the engines
cannot cost him more than one-ninth of the pay
of his grade, and the Provident Fund provides
for his latter end.
Think for a moment of the number of men
that a line running from Howrah to Delhi
must use, and you will realize what an enor-
mous amount of patronage the Company holds
in its hands. Naturally a father who has
worked for the line expects the line to do
something for the son; and the line is not
backward in meeting his wishes where pos-
sible. The sons of old servants may be taken
on at fifteen years of age, or thereabouts, as
apprentices in the "shops," receiving twenty
rupees in the first and fifty in the last year of
the indentures. Then they come on the books
as full "men" on perhaps Rs. 65 a month, and
260 CITY OF THE
the road is open to them in many ways. They
may become foremen of departments on Rs.
500 a month, or drivers earning with over-
time Rs. 370; or if they have been brought
into the audit or the traffic, they may control
innumerable Babus and draw several hundreds
of rupees monthly ; or, at eighteen or nineteen,
they may be ticket-collectors, working up to
the grade of guard, etc. Every rank of the
huge, human hive has a desire to see its sons
placed properly, and the native workmen,
about three thousand, in the locomotive de-
partment only, are, said one man, "making a
family affair of it altogether. You see all
those men turning brass and looking after the
machinery? They've all got relatives, and a
lot of 'em own land out Monghyr-way close
to us. They bring on their sons as soon as
they are old enough to do anything, and the
Company rather encourages it. You see the
father is in a way responsible for his son, and
he'll teach him all he knows, and in that way
the Company has a hold on them all. You've
no notion how sharp a native is when he's
working on his own hook. All the district
round here, right up to Monghyr, is more or
less dependent on the railway."
The Babus in the traffic department, in the
DREADFUL NIGHT 261
stores, issue department, in all the departments
where men sit through the long, long Indian
day among ledgers, and check and pencil and
deal in figures and items and rupees, may be
counted by hundreds. Imagine the struggle
among them to locate their sons in comfortable
cane-bottomed chairs, in front of a big pewter
inkstand and stacks of paper! The Babus
make beautiful accountants, and if we could
only see it, a merciful Providence has made
the Babu for figures and detail. Without him
on tht Bengal side, the dividends of any com-
pany would be eaten up by the expenses of
English or country-bred clerks. The Babu is
a great man, and, to respect him, you must see
five score or so of him in a room a hundred
yards long bending over ledgers, ledgers, and
yet more ledgers silent as the Sphinx and
busy as a bee. He is the lubricant of the great
machinery of the Company whose ways and
works cannot be dealt with in a single scrawl.
CHAPTER X
THE MIGHTY SHOPS
A STUDY of this Republic of Jamalpur is not
easy. The railway folk, like the army and
civilian castes, have their own language and
life, which an outsider cannot hope to under-
stand. For instance, when Jamalpur refers
to itself as being "on the long siding," a
lengthy explanation is necessary before the
visitor grasps the fact that the whole of the
two hundred and thirty odd miles of the loop
from Luckeeserai to Kanu- Junction via Bhag-
alpur is thus contemptuously treated. Jamal-
pur insists that it is out of the world, and
makes this an excuse for being proud of itself
and all its institutions. But in one thing it
is badly, disgracefully provided. At a mod-
erate estimate there must be about two hun-
dred Europeans with their families in this
place. They can, and do, get their small sup-
plies from Calcutta, but they are dependent
on the tender mercies of the bazar for their
meat, which seems to be hawked from door
262
DREADFUL NIGHT 263
to door. Also, there is a Raja who owns or
has an interest in the land on which the station
stands, and he is averse to cow-killing. For
these reasons, Jamalpur is not too well sup-
plied with good meat, and what it wants is a
decent meat-market with cleanly controlled
slaughtering arrangements. The Company,
who gives grants to the schools and builds the
institute and throws the shadow of its pro-
tection all over the place, might help this
scheme forward.
The heart of Jamalpur is the "shops," and
here a visitor will see more things in an hour
than he can understand in a year. Steam
Street very appropriately leads to the forty or
fifty acres that the "shops" cover, and to the
busy silence of the loco, superintendent's office,
where a man must put down his name and his
business on a slip of paper before he can pene-
trate into the Temple of Vulcan. About three
thousand five hundred men are in the "shops,"
and, ten minutes after the day's work has be-
gun, the asistant superintendent knows exactly
how many are "in." The heads of depart-
ments silent, heavy-handed men, captains of
five hundred or more have their names fairly
printed on a board which is exactly like a pool-
marker. They "star a life" when they come
CITY OF THE
in, and their few names alone represent sal-
aries to the extent of six thousand a month.
They are men worth hearing deferentially.
They hail from Manchester and the Clyde, and
the great ironworks of the North, and pleasant
as cold water in a thirsty land is it to hear
again the full Northumbrian burr or the long-
drawn Yorkshire "aye." Under their great
gravity of demeanor a man who is in charge
of a few lakhs' worth of plant cannot afford
to be riotously mirthful lurks melody and
humor. They can sing like North-countrymen.
and in their hours of ease go back to the speech
of the iron countries they have left behind,
when "Ab o' th f yate" and all "Ben Briarly's"
shrewd wit shakes the warm air of Bengal
with deep-chested laughter. Hear "Ruglan'
Toon," with a chorus as true as the fall of
trip-hammers, and fancy that you are back
again in the smoky, rattling, ringing North.
But this is the "unofficial" side. Let us go
forward through the gates under the mango
trees, and set foot at once in sheds which have
as little to do with mangoes as a locomotive
with Lakshmi. The "buzzer" howls, for it is
nearly tiffin time. There is a rush from every
quarter of the shops, a cloud of flying natives,
and a procession of more sedately pacing Eng-
DREADFUL NIGHT 265
lishmen, and in three short minutes you are
left absolutely alone among arrested wheels
and belts, pulleys, cranks, and cranes in a
silence only broken by the soft sigh of a far-
away steam-valve or the cooing of pigeons.
You are, by favor freely granted, at liberty to
wander anywhere you please through the de-
serted works. Walk into a huge, brick-built,
tin-roofed stable, capable of holding twenty-
four locomotives under treatment, and see
what must be done to the Iron Horse once in
every three years if he is to do his work well.
On reflection, Iron Horse is wrong. An en-
gine is a she as distinctly feminine as a ship
or a mine. Here stands the Echo, her wheels
off, resting on blocks, her underside machinery
taken out, and her side scrawled with mysteri-
ous hieroglyphics in chalk. An enormous
green-painted iron harness-rack bears her
piston and eccentric rods, and a neatly-painted
board shows that such and such Englishmen
are the fitter, assistant and apprentice engaged
in editing the Echo. An engine seen from
the platform and an engine viewed from
underneath are two very different things. The
one is as unimpressive as a ticca-gharri; the
other as imposing as a man-of-war in the
yard.
266 CITY OP THE
In this manner is an engine treated for
navicular-laminitis, backsinew, or whatever it
is that engines most suffer from. No. 607, we
will say, goes wrong at Dinapore, Assensole,
Buxar, or wherever it may be, after three
years' work. The place she came from is
stencilled on the boiler, and the foreman ex-
amines her. Then he fills in a hospital sheet,
which bears one hundred and eighty printed
heads under which an engine can come into the
shops. No. 607 needs repair in only one hun-
dred and eighteen particulars, ranging from
mud-hole flanges and blower-cocks to lead-
plugs, and platform brackets which have
shaken loose. This certificate the foreman
signs, and it is framed near the engine for the
benefit of the three European and the eight or
nine natives who have to mend No. 607. To
the ignorant the superhuman wisdom of the
examiner seems only equalled by the audacity
of the two men and the boy who are to under-
take what is frivolously called the "job." No
607 is in a sorely mangled condition, but 403
is much worse. She is reduced to a shell
is a very lean woman of an engine, bearing
only her funnel, the iron frame and the saddle
that supports the boiler. All the pretty little
instruction primers say that an engine takes
DREADFUL NIGHT 267
to pieces like a watch, but it is not good to see
an engine so treated. Better had a man be-
lieve that "they light the fire under the water,
y'know, and that makes the water steam, and
that gets into those piston things, and that
drives the train."
Four-and-twenty engines in every stage of
decomposition stand in one huge shop. A
traveling crane runs overhead, and the men
have hauled up one end of a bright vermilion
loco. The effect is the silence of a scornful
stare just such a look as a colonel's portly
wife gives through her pince-nez at the au-
dacious subaltern. Engines are the "liveliest"
things that man ever made. They glare
through their spectacle-plates, they tilt their
noses contemptuously, and when their insides
are gone they adorn themselves with red lead
and leer like decayed beauties ; and in the Jam-
alpur works there is no escape from them. The
shops can hold fifty without pressure, and on
occasion as many again. Everywhere there
are engines, and everywhere brass domes lie
about on the ground like huge helmets in a
pantomime. The silence is the weirdest touch
of all. Some sprightly soul an apprentice be
sure has daubed in red lead on the end of an
iron tool box a caricature of some friend who
*68 CITY OF THE
is evidently a riveter. The picture has all the
interest of an Egyptian cartouche, for it shows
that men have been here, and that the engines
do not have it all their own way.
And so, out in the open, away from the
three great sheds between and under more en-
gines, till we strike a wilderness of lines all
converging to one turn-table. Here be ele-
phant stalls ranged round a half -circle, and in
each stall stands one engine, and each engine
stares at the turn-table. A stolid and discon-
certing company is this ring of eyed monsters ;
324, 432, and 8 are shining like Bon Marche
toys. They are ready for their turn of duty,
and are as spruce as hansoms. Lacquered
chocolate, picked out with black, red and white,
Is their dress, and delicate lemon graces the
ceilings of the cabs. The driver should be a
gentleman in evening dress with white kid
gloves, and there should be gold-headed cham-
pagne bottles in the spick and span tenders.
Huckleberry Finn says of a timber raft: "It
amounted to something being captain of that
raft." Thrice enviable is the man who, draw-
ing Rs. 220 a month, is allowed to make Rs.
150 overtime out of locos. Nos. 324, 432 or 8.
Fifty yards beyond this gorgeous trinity are
ten to twelve engines who have put in to
DREADFUL NIGHT 269
Jamalpur to bait. They are alive, their fires
are lighted, and they are swearing and purring
and growling one at another as they stand,
alone all alone. Here is evidently one of the
newest type No. 25, a giant who has just
brought the mail in and waits to be cleaned up
preparatory to going out afresh.
The tiffin hour has ended. The buzzer
blows, and with a roar, a rattle and a clang
the shops take up their toil. The hubbub that
followed on the prince's kiss to the sleeping
beauty was not so loud or sudden. Experi-
ence, with a foot-rule in his pocket, authority
in his port, and a merry twinkle in his eye,
comes up and catches Ignorance walking gin-
gerly round No. 25. "That's one of the best
we have," says Experience, "a four-wheeled
coupled bogie they call her. She's by Dobbs.
She's done her hundred and fifty miles to-day ;
and she'll run in to Rampur Haut this after-
noon ; then she'll rest a day and be cleaned up.
Roughly, she does her three hundred miles in
the four-and-twenty hours. She's a beauty.
She's out from home, but we can build our
own engines all except the wheels. We're
building ten locos, now, and we've got a dozen
boilers ready if you care to look at them.
How long does a loco, last? That's just as
270 CITY OF THE
may be. She will do as much as her driver
lets her. Some men play the mischief with a
loco, and some handle 'em properly. Our
drivers prefer Hawthorne's old four-wheel
coupled engines because they give the least
bother. There is one in that shed, and it's a
good 'un to travel. But 80,000 miles generally
sees the gloss off an engine, and she goes into
the shops to be overhauled and re-fitted and
re-planed, and a lot of things that you wouldn't
understand if I told you about them. No. I,
the first loco, on the line, is running still, but
very little of the original engine must be left
by this time. That one there, called the Fawn,
came out in the Mutiny year. She's by
Slaughter and Grunning, and she's built for
speed in front of a light load. French-looking
sort of thing, isn't she? That's because her
cylinders are on a tilt. We used her for the
mail once, but the mail has grown heavier and
heavier, and now we use six-wheel coupled
eighteen inch, inside cylinder, 45-ton locos, to
shift thousand-ton trains. No! All locos,
aren't alike. It isn't merely pulling a lever.
The company likes its drivers to know their
locos., and a man will keep his Hawthorne for
two or three years. The more mileage he gets
out of her before she has to be overhauled the
DREADFUL NIGHT 271
better man he is. It pays to let a man have
his fancy engine. The Company knows that.
Other lines don't. There's the . They
run the life out of the men and the locos, to-
gether. They'll run an engine into the clean-
ing shed wherever it may be, and then another
driver jumps on and runs her back again, and
so on till they've run the inside out of her.
The drivers don't care. 'Tisn't their engine?
The other man's always said to have damaged
her, and so the get their stock into a
sweet state. 'Come in with a slide bar about
red hot, and everything else to match. A man
must take an interest in his loco., and that
means she must belong to him. Some locos,
won't do anything, even if you coax and
humor them. I don't think there are any un-
lucky ones now, but some years ago No. 31
wasn't popular. The drivers went sick or took
leave when they were told off for her. She
killed her driver on the Jubbulpore line, she
left the rails at Kajra, she did something or
other at Rampur Haunt, and Lord knows what
she didn't do or try to do in other places ! All
the drivers fought shy of her, and in the end
she disappeared. They said she was con-
demned, but I shouldn't wonder if the Com-
pany changed her number quietly, and changed
273 CITY OF THE
4.
the luck at the same time. You see, the Gov-
ernment Inspector comes and looks at our
stock now and again, and when an engine's
condemned he puts his dhobi mark on her, and
she's broken up. Well, No. 31 was con-
demned, but there was a whisper that they only
shifted her number, and ran her out again.
When the drivers didn't know, there were no
accidents. I don't think we've got an unlucky
one running now. Some are different from
others, but there are no man-eaters. Yes, a
driver of the mail is somebody. He can make
Rs. 370 a month if he's a covenanted man.
We get a lot of our drivers in the country, and
we don't import from England as much as we
did. Stands to reason that, now there's more
competition both among lines and in the labor
market, the Company can't afford to be as gen-
erous as it used to be. It doesn't trap a man
though. It's this way with the drivers. A
native driver gets about Rs. 20 a month, and
in his way he's supposed to be good enough for
branch work and shunting and such. Well,
an English driver'!! get from Rs. 80 to Rs.
220, and overtime. The English driver knows
what the native gets, and in time they tell the
driver that the native'll improve. The driver
has that to think of. You see ? That's com*
DREADFUL NIGHT 273
petition ! A driver, one day with another, does
his hundred miles a day. Say a man leaves
Buxar at 2 p. m. he gets to Allahabad at
7 p. m. That's 163 miles. He rests at Allaha-
bad till 8 :2O next morning, when he goes back
to Buxar, and rests till about 2 p. m. the next
day. Then goes to Mokameh, reaches
Mokameh at 7 p. m., stays till 4 next morning,
and gets back to Buxar at 9:20 a. m. Then
it all begins over again. He has got about
three thousand pounds' worth of the Com-
pany's property to look after under his own
hand, and the Lord knows how much value
in the train behind him. Oh, he's got quite
enough to think of when he's on his engine."
Experience returns to the engine-sheds, now
full of clamor, and enlarges on the beauties of
sick locomotives. The fitters and the assist-
ants and the apprentices are hammering and
punching and gauging, and otherwise tech-
nically disporting themselves round their enor-
mous patients, and their language, as caught
in snatches, is beautifully unintelligible.
But one flying sentence goes straight to the
heart. It is the cry of humanity over the task
of life, done into unrefined English. An ap-
prentice, grimed to his eyebrows, his cloth cap
well on the back of his curly head and his
274 CITY OF THE
hands deep in his pockets, is sitting on the edge
of a toolbox ruefully regarding the very
much disorganized engine whose slave is he.
A handsome boy, this apprentice, and well
made. He whistles softly between his teeth
and his brow puckers. Then he addresses the
engine, saying, half in expostulation and half
in despair: "Oh, you condemned old female
dog!" -He puts the sentence more crisply
much more crisply and Ignorance chuckles
sympathetically.
Ignorance also is puzzled over these engines.
CHAPTER XI
AT THE VULCAN'S FORGE
IN the wilderness of the railway shops and
machinery that planes and shaves, and bevels
and stamps, and punches and hoists and nips
the first idea that occurs to an outsider,
when he has seen the men who people the
place, is that it must be the birthplace of inven-
tions a pasture-ground of fat patents. If a
writing-man, who plays with shadows and
dresses dolls that others may laugh at their
antics, draws help and comfort and new
methods of working old ideas from the stored
shelves of a library, how, in the name of Com-
monsense, his god, can a doing-man, whose
mind is set upon things that snatch a few mo-
ments from flying Time or put power into
weak hands, refrain from going forward and
adding new inventions to the hundreds among
which he daily moves?
Appealed to on this subject, Experience,
who had served the E. I. R. loyally for many
years, held his peace. "We don't go in much
276 CITY OF THE
for patents; but/' he added, with a praise-
worthy attempt to turn the conversation,
"we can build you any mortal thing you like.
We've got the Bradford Leslie for the Sahib-
gunge ferry. Come and see the brass-work
for her bows. It's in the casting-shed."
It would have been cruel to have pressed
Experience further, and Ignorance, to fore-
date matters a little, went about to discover
why Experience shied off this question, and
why the men of Jamalpur had not each and
all invented and patented something. He won
his information in the end, but it did not come
from Jamalpur. That must be clearly under-
stood. It was found anywhere you please be-
tween Howrah and Hoti Mardan ; and here it
is that all the world may admire a prudent and
far-sighted Board of Directors. Once upon a
time, as every one in the profession knows,
two men invented the D. and O. sleeper cast
iron, of five pieces, very serviceable. The men
were in the Company's employ, and their mas-
ters said: "Your brains are ours. Hand us
over those sleepers." Being of pay and posi-
tion, D. and O. made some sort of resistance
and got a royalty or a bonus. At any rate,
the Company had to pay for its sleepers. But
thereafter, and the condition exists to this
DREADFUL NIGHT 277
they caused it to be written in each servant's
covenant, that if by chance he invented aught,
his invention was to belong to the Company.
Providence has mercifully arranged that no
man or syndicate of men can buy the "holy
spirit of man" outright without suffering in
some way or another just as much as the pur-
chase. America fully, and Germany in part,
recognizes this law. The E. I. Railway's
breach of it is thoroughly English. They say,
or it is said of them, that they say : "We are
afraid of our men, who belong to us waking
and sleeping, wasting their time on trying to
invent."
It is wholly impossible, then, for men of
mechanical experience and large sympathies to
check the mere patent-hunter and bring for-
ward the man with an idea? Is there no
supervision in the "shops," or have the men
who play tennis and billiards at the institute
not a minute which they can rightly call their
very own? Would it ruin the richest Com-
pany in India to lend their model shop and
their lathes to half-a-dozen, or, for the matter
of that, half-a-hundred, abortive experiments?
A Massachusetts organ factory, a Racine
buggy shop, an Oregon lumber yard would
laugh at the notion. An American toy-maker
278 CITY DP THE
might swindle an employee after the invention,
but he would in his own interests help the man
to "see what comes of the thing." Surely a
wealthy, a powerful and, as all Jamalpur bears
witness, a considerate Company might cut that
clause out of the covenant and await the issue.
There would be quite enough jealousy between
'man and man, grade and grade, to keep down
all the keenest souls; and with due respect to
the steam-hammer and the rolling-mill we
have not yet made machinery perfect. The
"shops" are not likely to spawn unmanageable
Stephensons or grasping Brunels; but in the
minor turns of mechanical thought that find
concrete expressions in links, axle-boxes, joint-
packings, valves and spring-stirrups something
might something would be done were the
practical prohibition removed. Will a North-
countryman give you anything but warm hos-
pitality for nothing? Or if you claim from
him overtime service as a right, will he fall
to work zealously? "Onything but t' brass,"
is his motto, and his ideas are his "brass."
Gentlemen in authority, if this should meet
your august eyes, spare it a minute's thought,
and, clearing away the floridity, get to the
heart of the mistake and see if it cannot be
rationally put right. Above all, remember that
DREADFUL NIGHT 279
Jamalpur supplied no information. It was as
mute as an oyster. There is no one within
your jurisdiction to ahem "drop upon."
Let us, after this excursion into the offices,
return to the shops and only ask Experience
such questions as he can without disloyalty an-
swer.
"We used once," says he, leading to the
foundry, "to sell our old rails and import new
ones. Even when we used 'em for roof beams
and so on, we had more than we knew what
to do with. Now we have got rolling-mills,
and we use the rails to make tie-bars for the
D. and O. sleepers and all sorts of things. We
turn out five hundred D. and O. sleepers a
day. Altogether, we use about seventy-five
tons of our own iron a month here. Iron in
Calcutta costs about five-eight a hundred-
weight; ours cost between three-four and
three-eight, and on that item alone we save
three thousand a month. Don't ask me how
many miles of rails we own. There are fifteen
hundred miles of line, and you can make your
own calculation. All those things like babies'
graves, down in that shed, are the moulds of
the D. and O. sleepers. We test them by
dropping three hundredweight and three hun-
dred quarters of iron on top of them from a
280 CITY OF THE
height of seven feet, or eleven sometimes.
fThey don't often smash. We have a notion
here that our iron is as good as the home
stuff."
A sleek, white and brindled pariah thrusts
himself into the conversation. His home ap-
pears to be on the warm ashes of the bolt-
maker. This is a horrible machine, which
chews red-hot iron bars and spits them out
perfect bolts. Its manners are disgusting, and
it gobbles over its food.
"Hi, Jack!" says Experience, stroking the
interloper, "you've been trying to break your
leg again. That's the dog of the works. At
least he makes believe that the works belong
to him. He'll follow any one of us about the
shops as far as the gate, but never a step fur-
ther. You can see he's in first-class condition.
The boys give him his ticket, and, one of these
days, he'll try to get on to the Company's
books as a regular worker. He's too clever to
live." Jack heads the procession as far as the
walls of the rolling-shed and then returns to
his machinery room. He waddles with fatness
and despises strangers.
"How would you like to be hot-potted
there?" says Experience, who has read and
who is enthusiastic over She, as he points to
DREADFUL NIGHT 281
the great furnaces whence the slag is being
dragged out by hooks. "Here is the old ma-
terial going into the furnace in that big iron
bucket. Look at the scraps of iron. There's
an old D. and O. sleeper, there's a lot of clips
from a cylinder, there's a lot of snipped-up
rails, there's a driving-wheel block, there's an
old hook, and a sprinkling of boiler-plates and
rivets."
The bucket is tipped into the furnace with
a thunderous roar and the slag below pours
forth more quickly. "An engine," says Ex-
perience, reflectively, "can run over herself, so
to say. After she's broken up she is made
into sleepers for the line. You'll see how
she's broken up later." A few paces further
on, semi-nude demons are capering over strips
of glowing hot iron which are put into a mill
as rails and emerge as thin, shapely tie-bars.
The natives wear rough sandals and some pre-
tence of aprons, but the greater part of them
is "all face." "As I said before," says Ex-
perience, "a native's cuteness when he's work-
ing on ticket is something startling. BeyoncI
occasionally hanging on to a red-hot bar too
long and so letting their pincers be drawn
through the mills, these men take precious
good care not to go wrong. Our machinery; is
282 CITY OF THE
fenced and guard-railed as much as possible,
and these men don't get caught up by the belt-
ing. In the first place, they're careful the
father warns the son and so on and in the
second, there's nothing about 'em for the belt-
ing to catch on unless the man shoves his hand
in. Oh, a native's no fool! He knows that
it doesn't do to be foolish when he's dealing
with a crane or a driving-wheel. You're look-
ing at all those chopped rails ? We make our
iron as they blend baccy. We mix up all sorts
to get the required quality. Those rails have
just been chopped by this tobacco-cutter
thing." Experience bends down and sets a
vicious-looking, parrot-headed beam to work.
There is a quiver a snap and a dull smash
and a heavy 76-pound rail is nipped in two like
a stick of barley-sugar.
Elsewhere, a bull-nosed hydraulic cutter is
rail cutting as if it enjoyed the fun. In an-
other shed stand the steam-hammers; the un-
employed ones murmuring and muttering to
themselves, as is the uncanny custom of all
steam-souled machinery. Experience, with
his hand on a long lever, makes one of the
monsters perform: and though Ignorance
knows that a man designed and men do con-
tinually build steam hammers, the effect is as
DREADFUL NIGHT 283
though Experience were maddening a chained
beast. The massive block slides down the
guides, only to pause hungrily an inch above
the anvil, or restlessly throb through a foot
and a half of space, each motion being con-
trolled by an almost imperceptible handling of
the levers. "When these things are newly
overhauled, you can regulate your blow to
within an eighth of an inch/' says Experience.
"We had a foreman here once who could work
'em beautifully. He had the touch. One day
a visitor, no end of a swell in a tall, white hat,
came round the works, and our foreman bor-
rowed the hat and brought the hammer down
just enough to press the knap and no more.
'How wonderful !' said the visitor, putting his
hand carelessly upon this lever rod here."
Experience suits the action to the word and
the hammer thunders on the anvil. "Well you
can guess for yourself. Next minute there
wasn't enough left of that tall, white hat to
make a postage-stamp of. Steam-hammers
aren't things to play with. Now we'll go over
to the stores and see what happens to the old
stock."
Experience leads the way to the Golgotha of
Jamalpur. A great tripod, whence depends a
pulley, chain, and hooks, hangs over a circular
Kip. 5 J
284 CITY OF THE
fence, strong as an elephant stockade. Inside
the stockade is a pit some ten feet deep and
twelve or fourteen in diameter. The logs that
shore its sides are scarred and bruised and
dented and splintered in horrible fashion : even
the timbers of the stockade bear the marks of
manglement, and at the bottom of the pit lie
two enormous iron balls, each nearly a ton's
weight, and each bearing a handle. One look
at the tripod and chain above and a rent cylin-
der below explains everything. A row of
hopelessly decayed engines and tenders are the
"subjects" of this grim dissecting-room.
"You see," says Experience, "they hook on
one of these balls to that chain, and haul it up
by the winch in that fenced shed. Then they
drop it on whatever is to be broken up, and
well, they dropped it upon that cylinder, and
you can see for yourself what happened.
Now, it has often struck me that Rider Hag-
gard might use this place for a sort of variety
entertainment, you know. No need to put a
man in the pit. Just keep him inside the stock-
ade when the ball fell, and let him dodge the
splinters. A shell would be a joke to it. We
break up old cannons here. There's the breach
of one of them, but some are so curious I've
saved them and mounted 'em yonder. They
DREADFUL NIGHT 285
look neat on the red gravel by that fountain
don't they ?"
Whatever apparent disorder there might
have been in the works, the store department
is as clean as a new pin, and stupefying in its
naval order. Copper plates, bar, angle, and
rod iron, duplicate cranks and slide bars, the
piston rods of the Bradford Leslie steamer,
engine grease, files and hammer-heads every
conceivable article, from leather laces of belt-
ings to head-lamps, necessary for the due and
proper working of a long line, is stocked,
stacked, piled, and put away in appropriate
compartments. In the midst of it all, neck
deep in ledgers and indent forms, stands the
many-handed Babu, the steam of the engine
whose power extends from Howrah to Ghazia-
bad.
One small set of pigeon-holes contains the
bulk of the daily correspondence. It is notice-
able that "Sir Bradford Leslie" has a pigeon-
hole all to himself. A surreptitious grab at
one paper shows that a sergeant-instructor of
volunteers, four hundred miles away, has had
something done to his kitchen table. And this
department knows all about it? Wahr Wah!
One can only gape vacantly. The E. I. R. is a
great chief. When it cracks its whip, we stand
286 CITY OF THE
on our hind legs, and walk round the ring
backward. Jamalpur does not say this, but
that is the feeling in the air.
The Company does everything, and knows
everything. The gallant apprentice may be a
wild youth with an earnest desire to go occa-
sionally "upon the bend." But three times a
week, between 7 and 8 p. m., he must attend
the night-school and sit at the feet of M. Bon-
naud, who teaches him mechanics and statis-
tics so thoroughly that even the awful Govern-
ment Inspector is pleased. And when there is
no night-school the Company will by no means
wash its hands of its men out of working-
hours. No man can be violently restrained
from going to the bad if he insists upon it, but
in the service of the Company a man has every
warning; his escapades are known, and a
judiciously-arranged transfer sometimes keeps
a good fellow clear of the down-grade. No
one can flatter himself that in the multitude he
is overlooked, or believe that between 4 p. m.
and 9 a. m. he is at liberty to misdemean him-
self. Sooner or later, but generally sooner,
his goings-on are known, and he is reminded
that "Britons never shall be slaves" to things
that destroy good work as well as souls.
Maybe the Company acts only in its own in-
terest, but the result is good.
DREADFUt NIGHT 287
Best and prettiest of the many good and
pretty things in Jamalpur is the institute of a
Saturday when the Volunteer Band is playing
and the tennis courts are full and the babydom
of Jamalpur fat, sturdy children frolic
round the bandstand. The people dance but
big as the institute is, it is getting too small
for their dances they act, they play billiards,
they study their newspapers, they play cards
and everything else, and they flirt in a sumpt-
uous building, and in the hot weather the gal-
lant apprentice ducks his friend in the big
swimming-bath. Decidedly the railway folk
make their lives pleasant.
Letus go down southward to the big Giridih
collieries and see the coal that feeds the furnace
that smelts the iron that makes the sleeper that
bears the loco, that pulls the carriage that holds
the freight that comes from the country that is
made richer by the Great Company Bahadur,
the East Indian Railway.
CHAPTER XII
ON THE SURFACE
SOUTHWARD, always southward and east-
erly, runs the Calcutta Mail from Luckeeserai,
till she reaches Madapur in the Sonthal Par-
ganas. From Madapur a train, largely made
up of coal-trucks, heads westward into the
Hazaribagh district and toward Giridih. A
week would not have exhausted "Jamalpur and
its environs," as the guide-books say. But
since time drives and man must e'en be driven,
the weird, echoing bund in the hills above
Jamalpur, where the owls hoot at night and
hyenas come down to laugh over the grave of
"Qullem Roberts, who died from the effects of
an encounter with a tiger near this place, A. D.
1864," goes undescribed. Nor is it possible to
deal with Monghyr, the headquarters of the
district, where one sees for the first time the
age of old Bengal in the sleepy, creepy station,
built in a time-eaten fort, which runs out into
the Ganges, and is full of quaint houses, with
fat-legged balustrades on the roofs. Pensioners
288
PREADFUL NIGHT 289
Certainly, and probably a score of ghosts, live
in Monghyr. All the country seems haunted.
Is there not at Pir Bahar a lonely house on a
bluff, the grave of a young lady, who, thirty
years ago, rode her horse down the khud and
perished ? Has not Monghyr a haunted house
in which tradition say skeptics have seen much
more than they could account for? And is it
not notorious throughout the countryside that
the seven miles of road between Jamalpur and
Monghyr are nightly paraded by tramping
battalions of spectres, phantoms of an old-time
army massacred, who but Sir W. W. Hunter
knows how long ago ? The common voice at-
tests all these things, and an eerie cemetery
packed with blackened, lichened, candle-extin-
guished tombstones persuades the listener to
believe all that he hears. Bengal is second *
or third is it? in order of seniority among
the Provinces, and like an old nurse, she tells
many witch-tales.
But ghosts have nothing to do with col-
lieries, and that ever-present Company, the
E. I. R., has more or less made Giridih prin-
cipally more. "Before the E. I. R. came,"
say the people, "we had one meal a day. Now
we have two." Stomachs do not tell fibs,
whatever mouths may say. That Company,
290 CITY OF THE
in the course of business, throws about five
lakhs a year into the Hazaribah district in the
form of wages alone, and Giridih Bazar has
to supply the wants of twelve thousand men,
women and children. But we have now the
authority of a number of high-souled and in-
telligent native prints that the Sahib of all
grades spends his time in "sucking the blood
out of the country," and "flying to England
to spend his ill-gotten gains." It is curious to
watch a Sahib engaged in this operation. He
but no matter. His way shall be dealt with
later on.
Giridih is perfectly mad quite insane!
Geologically, the big, thick books show that
the country is in the metamorphic higher
grounds that rise out of the alluvial flats of
Lower Bengal between the Osri and the Bara-
kar rivers. Translated, this sentence means
that you can twist your ankle on pieces of pure
white, pinky and yellowish granite, slip over
weather-worn sandstone, grievously cut your
boots over flakes of trap, and throw horn-
blende pebbles at the dogs. Never was such a
place for stone-throwing as Giridih. The gen-
eral aspect of the country is falsely park-like,
because it swells and sings in a score of grass-
covered undulations, and is adorned with plan*
DREADFtL NIGHT
tation-like sal jungle. There are low hills on
every side, and twelve miles away bearing
south the blue bulk of the holy hills of Paras-
nath, greatest of the Jain Tirthankars, over-
looks the world. In Bengal they consider four
thousand five hundred feet good enough for
a Dagshai or Kasauli, and once upon a time
tried to put troops on Parasnath. There was
a scarcity of water, and Thomas of those days
found the silence and seclusion prey upon his
spirits. Since twenty years, therefore, Paras-
nath has been abandoned by Her Majesty's
Army.
As to Giridih itself, the last few miles of
train bring up the reek of the "Black Coun-
try." Memory depends on smell. A noseless
man is devoid of sentiment, just as a noseless
woman, in this country, must be devoid of
honor. That first breath of the coal should
be the breath of the murky, clouded tract be-
tween Yeadon and Dale or Barnsley, rough
and hospitable Barnsley or Dewsbury and
Batley and the Derby Canal, on a Sunday
afternoon when the wheels are still and the
young men and maidens walk stolidly in pairs.
Unfortunately, it is nothing more than Giridih
seven thousand miles away from home and
blessed with a warm and genial sunshine, soon
CITY OF THE
to turn into something very much worse. The
insanity of the place is visible at the station
door. A G. B. T. cart once married a bathing-
machine, and they called the child turn-turn.
You who in flannel and Cawnpore harness
drive bamboo-carts about up-country roads,
remember that Giridih turn-turn is painfully
pushed by four men, and must be entered
crawling on all-fours, head first. So strange
are the ways of Bengal.
"They drive mad horses in Giridih animals
that become hysterical as soon as the dusk
falls and the countryside blazes with the fires
of the great coke ovens. If you expostulate
tearfully, they produce another horse, a raw,
red fiend whose ear has to be screwed round
and round, and round and round, in a twitch
before she will by any manner of means con-
sent to start Also, the roads carry neat little
eighteen inch trenches at their sides, admir-
ably adapted to hold the flying wheel. Skirl-
ing about this savage land in the dark, the
white population beguile the time by raptur-
ously recounting past accidents, insisting
throughout on the super-equine "steadiness"
of their cattle. Deep and broad and wide is
their jovial hospitality; but somebody the
Tirhoot planters for choice ought to start a
DREADFUL NIGHT 293
mission to teach the men of Giridih what to
drive. They know how, or they would be sev-
erally and separately and many times dead, but
they do not, they do not indeed, know that
animals who stand on one hind leg and beckon
with all the rest, or try to pigstick in harness,
are not trap-horses worthy of endearing
names, but things to be pole-axed. Their feel-
ings are hurt when you say this. "Sit tight,"
say the men of Giridih; "we're insured! We
can't be hurt."
And now with grey hairs, dry mouth, and
chattering teeth to the colliers. The E. I. R.
estate, bought or leased in perpetuity from the
Serampore Raja, may be about four miles long
and between one and two miles across. It is
in two pieces, the Serampore field being sepa-
rated from Karharbari (or Kurhurballi or
Kabarbari) field by the property of the Ben-
gal Coal Company. The Raneegunge Coal
Association lies to the east of all other work-
ings. So we have three companies at work on
about eleven square miles of land.
There is no such thing as getting a full view
of the whole place. A short walk over a
grassy down gives on to an outcrop of very
dirty sandstone, which in the excessive inno-
cence of their hearts most visitors will natur*
294 CITY OF THE
ally take to be the coal lying neatly on the sur-
face. Up to this sandstone the path seems to
be made of crushed sugar, so white and shiny
is the quartz. Over the brow of the down
comes in sight the old familiar pit-head wheel,
spinning for the dear life, and the eye loses it-
self in a maze of pumping sheds, red-tiled,
mud-walled miners' huts, dotted all over the
landscape and railway lines that seem to run
on every kind of gradient. There are lines
that dip into valleys and disappear round the
shoulders of slopes, and lines that career on
the tops of rises and disappear over the brow
of the slopes. Along these lines whistle and
pant metre-gauge engines, some with trucks at
their tail and others rattling back to the pit-
bank with the absurd air of a boy late for
school that an unemployed engine always as-
sumes. There are six engines in all, and as it
is easiest to walk along the lines one sees a
good deal of them. They bear not altogether
unfamiliar names. Here, for instance, passes
the "Cockburn" whistling down a grade with
thirty tons of coal at her heels; while the
"Whitly" and the "Olpherts" are waiting for
their complements of truck. Now a Mr. T.
F. Cockburn was superintendent of these
mines nearly thirty years ago, in the days be-
It
t
DREADFUL NIGHT 295
fore the chord lines from Kanu to Luckeeserai
was built, and all the coal was carted to the
latter place: and surely Mr. Olpherts was an
engineer who helped to think out a new
sleeper. What may these things mean?
Apotheosis of the manager/' is the reply.
Christen the engines after the managers.
You'll find Cockburn, Dunn, Whitly, Abbott,
Olpherts and Saise knocking about the place.
Sounds funny, doesn't it? Doesn't sound so
funny, when one of these idiots does his best
to derail Saise, though, by putting a line down
anyhow. Look at that line ! Laid out in knots
by Jove!" To the unprofessional eye the
rails seem all correct ; but there must be some-
thing wrong, because "one of those idiots" is
asked why in the name of all he considers sa-
cred he does not ram the ballast properly.
"What would happen if you threw an en-
gine off the line ?" "Can't say that I know ex-
actly. You see, our business is to keep them
on, and we do that. Here's rather a curiosity.
You see that pointsman ! They say he's an old
mutineer, and when he relaxes he boasts of the
Sahibs he has killed. He's glad enough to eat
the Company's salt now." Such a withered
old face was the face of the pointsman at No.
II point! The information suggested a host
206 CITY OF THE
of questions, and the answers were these:
"You won't be able to understand till you've
been down into a mine. We work our men in
two ways : some by direct payment' sirkari~-
under our own hand, and some by contractors.
The contractor undertakes to deliver us the
coal, supplying his own men, tools and props.
He's responsible for the safety of his men, and
of course the Company knows and sees his
work. Just fancy, among these five thousand
people, what sort of effect the khuber of an ac-
cident would produce! It would go all
through the Sonthal Parganas. We have any
amount of Sonthal besides Mahomedans and
Hindus of every possible caste, down to those
Musahers who eat pig. They don't require
much administering in the civilian sense of the
word. On Sundays, as a rule, if any man has
had his daughter eloped with, or anything of
that kind, he generally comes up to the man-
ager's bungalow to get the matter put straight.
If a man is disabled through accident he
knows that as long as he's in the hospital he
gets full wages, and the Company pays for
the food of any of his women-folk who come
to look after him. One of course: not the
whole clan. That makes our service popular
with the people poor beggars. Don't you be-
DREADFUL NIGHT 297
lieve that a native is a fool. You can train
him to everything except responsibility.
There's a rule in the workings that if there is
any dangerous work, no we haven't choke
damps, I will show you when we get down
no gang must work without an Englishman to
look after them. A native wouldn't be wise
enough to understand what the danger was,
or where it came in. Even if he did, he'd shirk
the responsibility. We can't afford to risk a
single life. All our output is just as much as
the Company want about a thousand tons per
working day. Three hundred thousand in the
year. We could turn out more ? Yes a little.
Well, yes, twice as much. I won't go on, be-
cause you wouldn't believe me. There's the
coal under us, and we work it at any depth
from following up an outcrop down to six
hundred feet That is our deepest shaft. We
have no necessity to go deeper. At home the
mines are sometimes fifteen hundred feet
down. Well, the thickness of this coal here
varies from anything you please to anything
you please. There's enough of it to last your
time and one or two hundred years longer.
Perhaps even longer than that. Look at that
Stuff. That's big coal from the pit."
It was aristocratic-looking coal, just like
298 CITY OF THE
the picked lumps that are stacked in baskets
of coal agencies at home with the printed leg-
end atop "only 23$ a ton." But there was no
picking in this case. The great piled banks
were all "equal to samples," and beyond them
lay piles of small, broken, "smithy" coal.
"The Company doesn't sell to the public. This
small, broken coal is an exception. That is
sold, but the big stuff is for the engines and the
shops. It doesn't cost much to get out, as you
say ; but our men can earn as much as twelve
rupees a month. Very often when they've
earned enough to go on with they retire from
the concern till they've spent their money and
then come on again. It's piecework and they
are improvident. If some of them only lived
like other natives they would have enough to
buy land and cows with. When there's a
press of work they make a good deal by over-
time, but they don't seem to keep it. You
should see Giridih Bazar on a Sunday if you
want to know where the money goes. About
ten thousand rupees change hands once a week
there. If you want to get at the number of
people who are indirectly dependent or profit
by the E. I. R. you'll have to conduct a census
of your own. After Sunday is over the men
generally lie off on Monday and take it easy
DREADFUL NIGHT
on Tuesday. Then they work hard for the
next four days and make it up. Of course
there's nothing in the wide world to prevent a
man from resigning and going away to wher-
ever he came from behind those hills if he's
a Sonthal. He loses his employment, that's
all. And they have their own point of honor.
A man hates to be told by his friends that he
has been guilty of nimakharami. And now
we'll go to breakfast You shall be 'pitted'
te-morrow to any depth you likeu"
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE DEPTHS
"PITTED to any extent you please." The
only difficulty was for Joseph to choose his pit.
Giridih was full of them. There was an arch
in the side of a little hill, a blackened brick
arch leading into thick night. A stationary
engine was hauling a procession of coal-laden
trucks "tubs" is the technical word out of
its depths. The tubs were neither pretty nor
clean. "We are going down in those when
they are emptied. Put on your helmet, and
keep it on and keep your head down." The
trucks were unloaded into the wagons of the
metre-gauge colliery line in this wise. Drawn
out by the engine along the line, they were
pulled on to a platform of smooth iron, dex-
terously swung round by black demons in at-
tendance, and slid on to what is technically
termed a "tippler." This is a most crafty ar-
rangement, partaking of the nature of a drop
and a safety-stirrup. The tub goes forward
until it is brought up by the curved ends of
300
DREADFUL NIGHT 301
the metals it travels on, and sticks in a sort of
gigantic stirrup. Then, gravely and solemnly,
it overbalances itself, turns through half a cir-
cle, and shoots its load into the big truck be*
low. Some of the "tipplers" are fixed on trav-
eling platforms and can be moved down the
whole length of a waiting coal-train. The
Ratel is it not? is the eccentric beast in the
Zoo who runs round his cage and turns head-
over-heels at a given place. These absurd
tubs are Ratels, and the gravity of their self-
arranged somersaults is very comic.
But there is nothing mirth-provoking in go-
ing down a coal-mineeven though it be only
a shallow incline running to one hundred and
forty feet vertical below the earth. "Get into
the tub and lie down. Hang it, no! This is
not a railway carriage : you can't see the coun-
try out of the windows. Lie down in the dust
and don't lift your head. Let her go !"
The tubs strain on the wire rope and slide
down fourteen hundred feet of incline, at first
through a chastened gloom, and then through
darkness. An absurd sentence from a trial re-
port rings in the head : "About this time pris-
oner expressed a desire for the consolations of
religion." A hand with a reeking flare-lamp
hangs over the edge of the tub, and there is a
302 CITY OF THE
glimpse of a blackened solah topee near it, for
those accustomed to the pits have a merry trick
of going down sitting or crouching on the
coupling of the rear tub. The noise is deafen-
ing, and the roof is very close indeed. The
tubs bump, and the occupant crouches lovingly
in the coal dust. What would happen if the
train went off the line? The desire for the
"consolations of religion" grows keener and
keener as the air grows closer and closer. The
tubs stop in darkness spangled, not lifted, by
the light of the flare-lamps which many black-
devils carry. Underneath and on both sides
there is the greasy blackness of the coal, and,
above, a roof of grey sandstone, smooth as
the flow of a river at evening. "Now, remem-
ber that if you don't keep your topee on, you'll
get your head broken, because you will forget
to stoop. If you hear any tubs coming up
behind you step off to one side. There's a
tramway under your feet, and be careful not to
trip over it."
The miner has a gait as peculiarly his own
as Tommy's measured paces or the blue-
jacket's roll. Big men who slouch in the light
of day become almost things of beauty under
ground. Their foot is on their native heather ;
and the slouch is a very necessary act of horn-
DREADFUL NIGHT 303
age to the great earth, which if a man observe
not, he shall without doubt have his solah topee
bless the man who invented pith hats!
grievously cut and dented, and himself dow-
ered with an aching head.
The road turns and winds and the roof be-
comes lower, but those accursed tubs still rat-
tle by on the tramways. The roof throws
back their noises, and when all the place is full
of a grumbling and a growling, how under
earth is one to know whence danger will turn
up next ? Also, the air is choking, and brings
about, to the unacclimatized, a singing in the
ears, a hotness of the eyeballs, and a jumping
of the heart. "That's because the pressure
here is different from the pressure up above.
It'll wear off in a minute. We don't notice it.
Wait till you get down a four-hundred-foot
pit. Then your ears will begin to sing, if you
like." Most people know the One Night of
each hot weather that still, clouded night
just before the rain breaks, when there seems
to be no more breathable air under the bowl of
the pitiless skies, and all the weight of the si-
lent, dark house lies on the chest of the sleep-
hunter. This is the feeling in a coal-mine
only more so much more so, for the darkness
is the "gross darkness of the inner sepulchre."
'304 CITY OF THE
It is Hard to see which is the black coal and
which the passage driven through it. From
far away, down the side galleries, comes the
regular beat of the pick thick and muffled as
the beat of the laboring heart. "Six men to
a gang, and they aren't allowed to work
alone. They make six-foot drives through the
coal two and sometimes three men working
together. The rest clear away the stuff and
load it into the tubs. We have no props in this
gallery because we have a roof as good as a
ceiling. The coal lies under the sandstone
here. It's beautiful sandstone." It was beau-
tiful sandstone as hard as a billiard table
and devoid of any nasty little bumps and jags
which cut into the hat.
There was a roaring down one road the
roaring of infernal fires. This is not a pleas*
ant thing to hear in the dark. It is too sugges-
tive. "That's our ventilating shaft. Can't
you feel the air getting brisker? Come and
look."
Imagine a great iron-bound crate of burn-
ing coal, hanging over a gulf of darkness
faintly showing the brickwork of the base of a
chimney. "We're at the bottom of the shaft.
That fire makes a draught that sucke up the
foul air from the bottom of the pit. Therein
DREADFUL NIGHT 305
another downdraw shaft in another part of the
mine where the clean air comes in. We aren't
going to set the mines on fire. Jhere's an
earth and kutcha brick floor at the bottom of
the pit ; the crate hangs over* It isn't so deep
as you think." Then a devil a naked devil
came in with a pitchfork and fed the spouting
flames. This was perfectly in keeping with
the landscape, but it was not pretty. "That's
only a little shaft. We've got one, an oval,
eighteen feet by twelve, and four hundred and
fifty feet deep. They aren't sunk like wells.
Our sandstones are stronger than any bricks.
We brick through the twenty feet of surface
soil, but we can sink straight through the
sandstone, knowing that the sinkings will
stand. Now we'll go to the place where they
are taking out the coal."
More trucks, more muffled noises, more
darkness made visible, and more devils male
and female coming out of darkness and van-
ishing. Then a picture to be remembered. A
great Hall of Eblis, twenty feet from inky-
black floor to grey roof, upheld by huge pil-
lars of shining coal and filled with flitting and
passing devils. On a shattered pillar near the
roof stood a naked man, his flesh olive-colored
in the light of the lamps, hewing down a mass
306 CITY OF THE
of coal that still clove to the roof. Behind him
was the wall of darkness, and when the lamps
shifted he disappeared like a ghost. The
devils were shouting directions, and the man
howled in reply, resting on his pick and wiping
the sweat from his brow. When he smote the
coal crushed and slid and rumbled from the
darkness into the darkness, and the devils cried
shabash! The man stood erect like a bronze
statue, he twisted and bent himself like a Japa-
nese grotesque, and anon threw himself on his
side after the manner of the dying gladiator.
Then spoke the still small voice of fact: "A
first-class workman if he would only stick to
it. But as soon as he makes a little money he
lies off and spends it. That's the last of a pil-
lar that we've knocked out. See here. These
pillars of coal are square, about thirty feet each
way. As you can see, we make the pillar first
by cutting out all the coal between. Then we
drive a square tunnel, about seven feet wide,
through and across the pillar, propping it with
baulks. There's one fresh cut."
Two tunnels crossing at right angles had
been driven through a pillar which in its un-
der-cut condition seemed like the rough draft
of a statue for an elephant. "When the pillar
Stands only on four legs we chip away one leg
DREADFUL NIGHT, 307
at a time from a square to an hour-glass shape,
and then either the whole of the pillar crashes
down from the roof or else a quarter or a half.
If the coal lies against the sandstones it carries
away clear, but in some places it brings down
stone and rubbish with it. The chipped-away
legs of the pillars are called stooks." "Who
has to make the last cut that breaks a leg
through?" "Oh! Englishmen of all sorts.
We can't trust natives for the job unless it's
very easy. The natives take kindly to the pil-
lar work though. They are paid just as much
for their coal as though they had hewed it out
of the solid. Of course we take very good
care to see that the roof doesn't come in on
us. You would never understand how and why
we prop our roofs with those piles of sleepers.
Anyway, you can see that we cannot take out
a whole line of pillars. We work 'em en ech-
elon, and those big beams you see running
from floor to roof are our indicators. They
show when the roof is going to give. Oh!
dear no, there's no dramatic effect about it.
No splash, you know. Our roofs give plenty
of warning by cracking and then baito slowly.
The parts of the work that we have cleared
out and allowed to fall in are called goafs'.
You're on the edge of a goaf now. All that
Kip-s-N
308 CITY OF THE
darkness there marks the limit of the mine.
We have worked that out piece-meal, and the
props are gone and the place is down. The
roof of any pillar-working is tested every
morning by tapping pretty hard tapping/'
"Hi yi! yi!" shout all the devils in chorus,
and the Hall of Eblis is full of rolling sound.
The olive man has brought down an avalanche
of coal. "It is a sight to see the whole of one
of the pillars come away. They make an aw-
ful noise. It would startle you out of your
wits. Some of 'em are ninety feet square.
But there's not an atom of risk/'
("Not an atom of risk." Oh, genial and
courteous host, when you turned up next day
blacker than any sweep that ever swept, with
a neat, half-inch gash on your forehead won
by cutting a "stook" and getting caught by a
bounding coal-knob how long and earnestly
did you endeavor to show that "stook-cutting"
was an employment as harmless and unexcit-
ing as wool-samplering?)
"If you knew about mining, you'd see that
our ways are rather primitive, but they're
cheap, and they're safe as houses. Doms and
Bauris, Kols and Beldars don't understand re-
finements in mining. They'd startle an Eng-
lish pit where there was fire-damp. Do you
DREADFUL NIGHT 309
know it's a solemn fact that if you drop a
Davy lamp or snatch it quickly you can blow
a whole English pit inside out with all the
miners? Good for us that we don't know
what fire-damp is here. We can use the flare-
lamps."
After the first feeling of awe and wonder is
worn out, a mine becomes monotonous. How
could a mine be anything but monotonous?
Mile after mile of blackness stretching before
the eyes as far as sight will carry, which is
not saying much, even when one has been
some time accustomed to the lack of light.
There is only the humming, palpitating dark-
ness, the rumble of the tubs and the endless
procession of galleries to arrest the attention.
And one pit to the uninitiated is as like to an-
other as two peas. Tell a miner this and he
laughs slowly and softly. To him the pits
have each distinct personalities, and each must
be dealt with a different way. A descent from
the pit-bank, and not from the mouth of an
incline, is sickening chanel-passage sicken-
ing. Over pulley-wheels, mounted on shear-
legs, thirty, forty, or fifty feet high, passes the
wire rope that is fastened to the "cages" the
two lifts on which the empty coal tubs go
down and the loaded ones come up. A cage
310 CITY OF THE
cither has wooden guides at the four corner*
of the shaft or grips wire guide-ropes to
steady it as it is let down. An engine drives
the drum on which the wire-rope hauling line
is coiled.
Very curious is a pit-bank when the work is
in full swing. A hammer close to the winding
engine strikes one, the driver places his foot
on the lever: there is a roar far down the
shaft, and an iron-railed platform with the
loaded tub on it flies up and settles with a clang
on four catches. The tub is run out into a
"tippler" and discharges itself into a coal-
truck. By the time it is run back empty into
the second cage, a loaded truck is made ready
at the bottom of the shaft, and as the empty
truck sinks the full rises.
The hammer strikes three. The "winder"
by the engine pulls the lever thrice, no empty
tub is put into the cage, and the speed of the
rise is not so great. There springs up a miner.
He is a man, if we could get through the coal
dust, and on his account special precautions
are taken, and woe betide the pit-men who
neglect them. All these things are lovely to
look at. But the actual descent is not so good.
If you swing a child vehemently, the little in-
nocent is likely to complain that he feels as
DREADFUL NIGHT 311
though his "tummy were left in the air/' Now
this is the exact sensation of dropping into a
pit. The hangman adjusts the white cap.
That is to say, you cram your hat down and
go drop away from the day and every one
you ever loved, and your "tummy." That
comes down later. You arrive destitute of any
inside, and are told for your comfort that in
some of the English mines you can go down
two thousand feet at the rate of sixty miles an
hour. Two hundred feet at a considerably
slower rate is enough quite enough. Try it
once or twice, and see what the air is like.
The return journey is said to possess an ele-
ment of risk. For this reason. If the
"winder" of the engine at the top stopped to
think, or hunted for a flea, or got a fit, or was
choked by a fly, his engine would continue to
wind and wind until the cage was hauled up
to the pulley-wheels thirty feet in the air,
where it would have three courses open to it.
It might jam, break the wire rope and fall
back unbridled into the pit, or part into several
pieces, or be hauled with one tremendous
bound right over the pulley-wheels and come
down a bundle of shattered ribs. In any case
the occupant would not be in a position to de-
scribe the precise nature of the accident. But
312 CITY OF THE
a native "winder" knows these things, and
thinks of them every time the three taps come
to his ears. For him "over- winding" would
mean loss of post and pay. Therefore he does
not overwind. He generally has a keen riv-
alry with a fellow-winder at another pit-bank,
and lays himself out to see if he cannot bring
more tons of coal to the bank than his bhai.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PERILS OF THE PITS
AN engineer, who has built a bridge, can
strike you nearly dead with professional facts ;
the captain of a seventy-horse power Ganges
river steamer can, in one hour, tell legends
about the Sandheads and the James and Mary
shoal sufficient to fill half a Pioneer^ but a
couple of days spent on, above, and in a coal
mine yields more mixed information than two
engineers and three captains. It is hopeless
to pretend to understand it all.
When your host says : "Ah, such an one is a
thundering good fault-reader!" you smile
hazily, and by way of keeping up the conversa-
tion, adventure on the statement that fault-
reading and palmistry are very popular amuse-
ments. Then men laugh consumedly, and en-
ter into explanations.
Every one knows that coal strata, in com-
mon with women, horses, and official superi-
ors, have "faults" caused by some colic of the
earth in the days when things were settling
313
314 CITY OP THE
into their places. A coal seam is suddenly
sliced off as a pencil is cut through with one
slanting blow of the penknife, and one-half is
either pushed up or pushed down any number
of feet. The miners work the seam till they
come to this break-off, and then call for an ex-
pert to "read the fault," It is sometimes very
hard to discover whether the sliced-off beam
has gone up or down. Theoretically the end
of the broken piece should show the direction.
Practically its indications are not always clear.
Then a good "fault-reader/* who must more
than know geology, is a useful man, and is
much prized, for the Giridih fields are full of
faults and "dykes." Tongues of what was
once molten lava thrust themselves sheer into
the coal, and the disgusted miner finds that for
about twenty feet on each side of the tongue
all the coal has been burned away.
The head of the mine is supposed to foresee
these things and ever so many more. He can
tell you, without looking at the map, what is
the geological formation of any thousand
square miles of India ; he knows as much about
brickwork and the building of houses, arches,
and shafts as an average P. W. D. man; he
has not only to know the intestines of a pump-
ing or winding engine, but must be able to take
DREADFUL NIGHT 315
them to pieces with his own hands, indicate on
the spot such parts as need repair, and make
drawings of anything that requires renewal;
he knows how to lay out and build railways
with a grade of one in twenty-seven; he has
to carry in his head all tJie signals and points
between and over which his locomotive en-
gines work ; he has to be an electrician capable
of controlling the apparatus that fires the dy-
namite charges in the pits, and must thor-
oughly understand boring operations with
thousand-foot drills. Over and above this, he
must know by name, at least, one thousand of
the men on the works, and must fluently speak
the vernaculars of the low castes. If he has
Sonthali, which is more elaborate than Greek,
so much the better for him. He must know
how to handle men of all grades, and, while
himself holding aloof, must possess sufficient
grip of the men's private lives to be able to
see at once the merits of a charge of at-
tempted abduction preferred by a clucking,
croaking Kol against a fluent English-speak-
ing Brahmin. For he is literally the Light of
Justice, and to him the injured husband or the
wrathful father looks for redress. He must
be on the spot and take all responsibility when
any specially risky job is under way in the pit.
Kip. 5 K
3i6 CITY OF THE
and he can claim no single hour of the day or
the night for his own. From eight in the
morning till one in the afternoon he is coated
with coal-dust and oil. From one till eight in
the evening he has office work. After eight
o'clock he is free to attend to anything that he
may be wanted for.
This is a soberly-drawn picture of a life that
Sahibs on the mines actually enjoy. They are
spared all private socio-official worry, for the
Company, in its mixture of State and private
interest, is as perfectly cold-blooded and de-
void of bias as any great, grinding Depart-
ment of the Empire. If certain things be done,
well and good. If certain things be not done
the defaulter goes, and his place is filled by
another. The conditions of service are graven
on stone. There may be generosity : there un-
doubtedly is justice, but above all there is free-
dom within broad limits. No irrepressible
shareholder cripples the executive arm with
suggestions and restrictions, and no private
piques turn men's blood to gall within them.
Therefore men work like horses and are happy.
When he can snatch a free hour, the grimy,
sweating, cardigan-jacketed, ammunition-
booted, pick-bearing ruffian turns into a well-
kept English gentleman, who plays a good
DREADFUL NIGHT 317
game of billiards, and has a batch of new books
from England every week. The change is
sudden, but in Giridih nothing is startling. It
is right and natural that a man should be al-
ternately Valentine and Orson, specially Orson.
It is right and natural to drive always be-
hind a mad horse away and away toward the
lonely hills till the flaming coke ovens become
glow-worms on the dark horizon, and in the
wilderness to find a lovely English maiden
teaching squat, filty Sonthal girls how to be-
come Christians. Nothing is strange in Giri-
dih, and the stories of the pits, the raffle of
conversation that a man picks up as he passes,
are quite in keeping with the place. Thanks
to the law, which enacts that an Englishman
must look after the native miners, and if any
be killed, he and he alone has to explain satis-
factorily that the accident was not due to pre-
ventable causes, the death-roll is kept astound-
ingly low. In one "bad" half-year six men
out of the five thousand were killed, in another
four, and in another none at all. Given
"butcher bills" as small as these, it is not as-
tonishing that the men in charge do their best
to cut them down at any cost of time and
sleep. As has been said before, a big accident
would scare off the workers, for, in spite of
CITY OF THE
the age of the mines nearly thirty years tHe
hereditary pitman has not yet been evolved.
But to small accidents the men are orientally
apathetic. Be pleased to read of a death
among the five thousand.
A gang has been ordered to cut clay for the
luting of the coke furnaces. The clay is piled
in a huge bank in the open sunlight above
ground. A coolie hacks and hacks till he has
hewn out a small cave with twenty feet of clay
above him. Why should he trouble to climb
up the bank and bring down the eave of the
cave? It is easier to cut in. The Sirdar of the
gang is watching round the shoulder of the
bank. The coolie cuts lazily as he stands:
Sunday is very near, and he will get gloriously
drunk in Giridih Bazar with his week's earn-
ings. He digs his own grave stroke by stroke,
for he has not sense enough to see that under-
cut clay is dangerous. He is a Sonthal from
the hills. There is a smash and a dull thud,
and his grave has shut down upon him in an
avalanche of heavy-caked clay.
The Sirdar calls to the Babu of tHe Ovens,
and with the promptitude of his race the Babu
loses his head. He runs puffily, without giv-
ing orders, anywhere, everywhere. Finally he
runs to the Sahib's house. The Sahib is at tHe
DREADFUL NIGHT 319
other end of the collieries. He runs back.
The Sahib has gone home to wash. Then his
indiscretion strikes him. He should have sent
runners fleet-footed boys from the coal-
screening gangs. He sends them and they fly.
One catches the Sahib just changed after his
bath. "There is a man dead at such a place"
he gasps, omitting to say whether it is a sur-
face or a pit accident. On goes the grimy pit
kit, and in three minutes the Sahib's dogcart is
flying to the place indicated.
They have dug out the Sonthal. His head
is smashed in, spine and breastbone are broken,
and the gang Sirdar, bowing double, throws
the blame of the accident on the poor, shape-
less, battered dead. "I had warned him, but
he would not listen! Twice I warned him!
These men are witnesses."
The Babu is shaking like a jelly. "OK, sar,
I have never seen a man killed before! Look
at that eye, sar! I should have sent runners.
I ran everywhere. I ran to your house. You
were not in. I was running for hours. It was
not my fault! It was the fault of the gang
Sirdar." He wrings his hands and gurgles.
The best of accountants, but the poorest of
coroners is he. No need to ask how the acci-
dent happened. No need to listen to the Sir*
gao CITY OF THE
dar and his "witnesses." The Sonttial had
been a fool, but it was the Sirdar's business to
protect him against his own folly. "Has he
any people here ?"
"Yes, his rukni, his kept-woman, and his
sister's brother-in-law. His home is far-off."
The sister's brother-in-law breaks through'
the crowd howling for vengeance on the Sir-
dar. He will send for the police, he will have
the price of his bhai's blood full tale. The
windmill arms and the angry eyes fall, for the
Sahib is making the report of the death.
"Will this Sirkar give me pensin? I am his
wife," a woman clamors, stamping her pewter-
ankleted feet. "He was killed in your service.
Where is his pensinf I am his wife." "You
lie ! You're his rukni. Keep quiet ! Go ! The
pensin comes to us." The sister's brother-in-
law is not a refined man, but the rukni is his
match. They are silenced. The Sahib takes
the report, and the body is borne away. Be-
fore to-morrow's sun rises the Sirdar may find
himself a simple "surface-coolie," earning
nine pice a day; and, in a week some Sonthal
woman behind the hills may discover that she
is entitled to draw monthly great wealth from
the coffers of the Sirkar. But this will not
happen if the sister's brother-in-law can pre-
vent it. He goes off swearing at the rukni.
DREADFUL NIGHT, 321
But, in the meantime, what have the rest of
the dead man's gang been doing ? They have,
if you please, abating not one stroke, dug out
all the clay, and would have it verified. They
have seen their comrade die. He is dead.
Bus! Will the Sirdar take the tale of clay?
And yet, were twenty men to be crushed by
their own carelessness in the pit, these impas-
sive workers would scatter like panic-stricken
horses.
But, turning from this sketch, let us set in
order some of the stories of the pits. These
are quaint tales. The miner-folk laugh when
they tell them. In some of the mines the coal
is blasted out by the dynamite which is fired
by electricity from a battery on the surface.
Two men place the charges, and then signal to
be drawn up in the cage which hangs in the
pit-eye. On one occasion two natives were en-
trusted with the job. They performed their
parts beautifully till the end, when the vaster
idiot of the two scrambled into the cage, gave
signal, and was hauled up before his friend
could enter.
Thirty or forty yards up the shaft all pos-
sible danger for those in the cage was over,
and the charge was accordingly exploded.
Then it occurred to the man in the cage that
3*2 CITY OF THE
his friend stood a very good chance of being
by this time riven to pieces and choked.
But the friend was wise in his generation.
He had missed the cage, but found a coal-tub
one of the little iron trucks and turning
this upside down, had crawled into it. His ac-
count of the explosion has never been pub-
lished. When the charge went off, his shelter
was battered in so much that men had to hack
him out, for the tub had made, as it were, a
tinned sardine of its occupant. He was abso-
lutely uninjured, but his feelings were lacer-
ated. On reaching the pit-bank his first words
were : "I do not desire to go down the pit with
that man any more." His wish had been al-
ready gratified, for "that man" had fled. Later
on, the story goes, when "that man" found that
the guilt of murder was not at his door, he re-
turned, and was ma3e a surface-coolie, and his
bhai-band jeered at him as they passed to their
better-paid occupation.
Occasionally there are mild cyclones in the
pits. An old working, perhaps a mile away,
will collapse : a whole gallery sinking in bodily.
Then the displaced air rushes through the in-
habited mine, and, to quote their own expres-
sion, blows the pitmen about "like dry leaves."
Few things are more amusing than the specta-
DREADFUL NIGHT, 323
cle of a burly Tyne-side foreman who, failing
to dodge around a corner in time, is "put
down" by the wind, sitting fashion, on a
knobby lump of coal.
But most impressive of all is a tale they tell
of a fire in a pit many years ago. The coal
caught light. They had to send earth and
bricks down the shaft and build great dams
across the galleries to choke the fire. Imagine
the scene, a few hundred feet underground,
with the air growing hotter and hotter each
moment, and the carbonic acid gas trickling
through the dams. After a time the rough
dams gaped, and the gas poured in afresh, and
the Englishmen went down and leeped the
cracks between roof and dam-sill with any-
thing they could get. Coolies fainted, and had
to be taken away, but no one died, and behind
the kutcha dams they built great masonry
ones, and bested that fire; though for a long
time afterward, whenever they pumped water
into it, the steam would puff out from crevices
in the ground above.
It is a queer life that they lead, these men of
the coal-fields, and a "big" life to boot. To
describe one-half of their labors would need a
week at the least, and would be incomplete
then. "If you want to see anything," they
334 dTY OF THE
say, "you should go over to the Baragunda
copper-mines ; you should look at the Barakar
ironworks; you should see our boring opera-
tions five miles away ; you should see how we
sink pits; you should, above all, see Giridih
Bazar on a Sunday. Why, you haven't seen
anything. There's no end of a Sonthal Mis-
sion hereabouts. All the little dev dears
have gone on a picnic. Wait till they come
back, and see 'em learning to learn."
Alas! one cannot wait. At the most one
can but thrust an impertinent pen skin-deep
into matters only properly understood by spe-
cialists.
CHAPTER XV
IN AN OPIUM FACTORY
ON the banks of the Ganges, forty miles be-
low Benares as the crow flies, stands the
Ghazipur Factory, an opium mint as it were,
whence issue the precious cakes that are to re-
plenish the coffers of the Indian Government
The busy season is setting in, for with April
the opium comes in from districts after having
run the gauntlet of the district officers of the
Opium Department, who will pass it as fit for
use. Then the really serious work begins un-
der a roasting sun. The opium arrives by
challans, regiments of one hundred jars, each
holding one maund and each packed in a bas-
ket and sealed atop. The district officer sub-
mits forms never was such a place for
forms as the Ghazipur Factory showing the
quality and weight of each pot, and with the
jars come a ziladar responsible for the safe
carriage of the challans, their delivery and
their virginity. If any pots are broken or
tampered with an unfortunate individual
326 CITY OF THE
called the import officer, and appointed to
work like a horse from dawn till dewy eve,
must examine the ziladar in charge of the
challan and reduce his statement to writing.
Fancy getting any native to explain how a
matka has been smashed. But the perfect
flower is about as valuable as silver.
Then all the pots have to be weighed, and
the weights Calcutta Mint, if you please
and the beams must be daily tested. The
weight of each pot is recorded on the pot, in
a book, and goodness knows where else, and
every one has to sign certificates that the
weighing is correct. Nota bene. The pots
have been weighed once in the district and
once in the factory. Therefore a certain num-
ber of them are taken at random and weighed
afresh before they are opened. This is only
the beginning of the long series of checks. All
sorts of inquiries are made about light pots,
and then the testing begins. Every single,
serially-numbered pot has to be tested for
quality. A native called the purkhea drives
his fist into the opium, rubs and smells it, and
calls out the class for the benefit of the opium
examiner. A sample picked between finger
and thumb is thrown into a jar, and if the
opium examiner thinks the purkhea has said
DREADFUL NIGHT, 327
sooth, the class of the jar is marked in chalk,
and everything is entered in a book. Every
ten samples are put in a locked box with du-
plicated keys, and sent over to the laboratory
for assay. With the tenth boxful and this
marks the end of the challan of a hundred jars
the Englishman in charge of the testing
signs the test paper, and enters the name of
the native tester and sends it over to the labor-
atory. For convenience sake, it may be as
well to say that, unless distinctly stated to the
contrary, every single thing in Ghazipur is
locked, and every operation is conducted under
more than police supervision.
In the laboratory each set of ten samples is
thoroughly mixed by hand, a quarter ounce
lump is then tested for starch adulteration by
iodine which turns the decoction blue, and, if
necessary, for gum adulteration by alcohol
which makes the decoction filmy. If adultera-
tion be shown, all the ten pots of that set are
tested separately. When the sinful pot is dis-
covered, all the opium is tested in four-pound
lumps. Over and above this test, three sam-
ples of one hundred grains each are taken
from the jummakaroed set of ten samples,
dried on a steam table and then weighed for
consistence. The result is written down in a
328 CITY OF THE
ten-columned form in the assay register, and
by the mean result are those ten pots paid fof.
This, after everything has been done in dupli-
cate and countersigned, completes the test and
assay. If a district officer has classed the
opium in a glaringly wrong way, he is thus
caught and reminded of his error. No one
trusts any one in Ghazipur. They are always
weighing, testing and assaying.
Before the opium can be used it must be
"alligated" in big vats. The pots are emptied
into these, and special care is taken that none
of the drug sticks to the hands of the coolies.
Opium has a special knack of doing this, and
therefore coolies are searched at most inoppor-
tune moments. There are a good many Ma-
homedans in Ghazipur, and they would all like
a little opium. The pots after emptying are
smashed up and scraped, and heaved down the
steep river bank of the factory, wfiere they
help to keep the Ganges in its place, so many
are they, as do the little earthern bowls in
which the opium cakes are made. People are
forbidden to wander about the river front of
the factory in searcfi of remnants of opium on
the strands. There are no remnants, but peo-
ple will not credit this. After vatting, as has
been said, the big vats, holding from one to
DREADFUL NIGHT 339
three thousand maunds, are probed with test
rods, and the samples are treated just like sam-
ples of the challans, everybody writing every-
thing in duplicate and signing it. Having se-
cured the mean consistence of each vat, the
requisite quantity of each blend Calcutta Mint
scales again, and an unlimited quantity of su-
pervision is weighed out, thrown into an al-
ligation vat, of 250 maunds, and worked up by
the feet of coolies, who hang on to ropes and
drag their legs painfully through the probe.
Try to wade in mud of 70 consistency, and
see what it is like.
This completes the working of the opium.
It is now ready to be made into cakes after a
final assay. Man has done nothing to improve
it since it streaked the capsule of the poppy
this mysterious drug. Perhaps half a hun-
dred sinners have tried to adulterate it and
been paid out accordingly, but that has been
the utmost. April, May, and June are the
months for receiving opium, and in the winter
months come the packing and the dispatch.
At the beginning of the cold weather Ghazi-
pur holds locked up a trifle, say, of three and a
half millions sterling in opium. Now, there
may be only a paltry three-quarters of a mil-
lion on hand, and that is going out at the rate
J330 CITY OF THE
of one Viceroy's salary for two and a half years
per diem. For such a flea-bite it seems absurd
to prohibit smoking in the factory or to stud
the place with tanks and steam fire-engines.
Really, Ghazipur is unnecessarily timid. A
long time ago some one threatened to cast
down a tree sacred to Mahadeo. In a very
few days, just as soon as Mahadeo got news
of the insult, a fire broke out and damaged
thousands of pounds' worth of opium.
But all this time we have not gone through
the factory. There are ranges and ranges of
gigantic godowns, huge barns that can hold
over half-a-million pounds' worth of opium.
There are acres of bricked floor, regiments on
regiments of chests; and yet more godowns
and more godowns. The heart of the whole
is the laboratory which is full of the sick faint
smell of a chandu-khana. This makes Ghazi-
pur indignant. "That's the smell of opium.
We don't need chandu here. You don't know
what real opium smells like. Chandu-khana
indeed! That's refined opium under treatment
for morphia, and cocaine and perhaps nar-
coine" "Very well, let's see some of the real
opium made for the China market." "We
shan't be making any for another six weeks at
earliest ; but we can show you one cake made,
DREADFUL NIGHT 331
and you must imagine two hundred and fifty
men making 'em as hard as they can up to one
every four minutes/' A Sirdar of cake-mak-
ers is called, and appears with a miniature
dhobis washing board on which he sits, a little
square box of dark wood, a tin cup, an earthen
bowl, and a mass of poppy petal chupattis. A
larger earthen bowl holds a mass of what looks
like bad Cape tobacco. "What's that?"
'Trash dried poppy leaves, not petals, broken
up and used for packing cakes in. You'll see
presently." The cake-maker sits down and
receives a lump of opium, weighed out, of one
seer seven chittacks and a half, neither more
nor less. "That's pure opium of seventy con-
sistence." Every allowance is weighed.
"What are they weighing that brown water
for ?" "That's lewa thin opium at fifty con-
sistence. It's the paste. He gets four chittacks
and a half." "And do they weigh the
pattis?" "Of course. Five chittacks of
pattis about sixteen chupattis of all three
kinds." This is overwhelming. This Sirdar
takes a brass hemispherical cup and wets it
with a rag. Then he tears a chupatti across
so that it fits into the cup without a wrinkle,
and pastes it with the thin opium, the lewa.
After this his actions become incomprehensi-
332 CITY OF THE
blc, but there is evidently a deep method in
them. Chupatti after chupatti is torn across,
dressed with lewa and pressed down into the
cup, the fringes hanging over the edge of the
bowl. He takes half chupattis and fixes them
skilfully, picking now first-class and now sec-
ond-class ones. Everything is gummed into
everything else with the lewa, and he presses
all down by twisting his wrists inside the bowl.
"He is making the gattia now." Gattia means
a tight coat at any rate, so there is some ray of
enlightenment. Torn chupatti follows torn
chupatti, till the bowl is lined half-an-inch deep
with them, and they all glisten with the greasy
lewa. He now takes up an ungummed chu-
patti and fits it carefully all round. The opium
is dropped tenderly upon this, and a curious
washing motion of the hand follows. The
opium is drawn up into a cone as one by one
the Sirdar picks up the overlapping portions of
the chupattis that hung outside the bowl and
plasters them against the drug. He makes
a dever waist-belt while he keeps all the flags
in place, and so strengthens the midriff of the
lump. He tucks in the top of the cone with
his thumbs, brings the fringe of chupattis over
to dose the opening, and pastes fresh leaves
upon all. The cone has now taken a spherical
DREADFUL NIGHT 333
shiape, and he gives it the finishing touch by
gumming a large chupatti, one of the "moon'*
kind, set aside from the first, on the top, so
deftly that no wrinkle is visible. The cake is
now complete, and all the Celestials of the
middle kingdom shall not be able to disprove
that it weighs two seers one and three-quarter
chittacks, with a play of half a chittack for the
personal equation.
The Sirdar takes it up and rubs it in the
bran-like poppy trash in the big bowl, so that
two-thirds of it are powdered with the trash
and one-third is fair and shiny chupatti.
'That is the difference between a Ghazipur
and a Patna cake. Our cakes have always an
unpowdered head. The Patna ones are rolled
in trash all over. You can tell them anywhere
by that mark. Now well cut this one open
and you can see how a section looks." One
half of an inch as nearly as may be is the thick-
ness of the chupatti shell all round the cake,
and even in this short time so firmly has the
lewa set that any attempt at sundering the
skins of chupatti is followed by the rending of
the poppy petals that compose the chupatti.
"You've seen in detail what a cake is made of
* that is to say, pure opium 70 consistence,
poppy-petal pancakes, lewa, of 52^50 consist*
334 CITY OF THE
ence, and a powdering of poppy-trash." "But
why arc you so particular about the shell?"
"Because of the China market. The Chinaman
likes every inch of the stuff we send him, and
uses it. He boils the shell and gets out every
grain of the lewa used to gum it together. He
smokes that after he has dried it. Roughly
speaking, the value of the cake we've just cut
open is two pound ten. All the time it is in
our hands we have to look after it and check
it, and treat it as though it were gold. It
mustn't have too much moisture in it, or it will
swell and crack, and if it is too dry John
Chinaman won't have it. He values his opium
for qualities just the opposite of those in
Smyrna opium. Smyrna opium gives as much
as ten per cent, of morphia, and is nearly solid
90 consistence. Our opium does not give
more than three or three and a half per cent,
of morphia, on the average, and, as you know,
it is only 70 or in Patna 75 consistence. That
is the drug the Chinaman likes. He can get
the maximum of extract out of it by soaking
it in hot water, and he likes the flavor. He
knows it is absolutely pure too, and it comes
to him in good condition." "But has nobody
found out any patent way of making these
cakes and putting skins on them by machin-
DREADFUL NIGHT 335
cry?" "Not yet. Poppy to poppy. There's
nothing better. Here are a couple of cakes
made in 1849, when they tried experiments in
wrapping them in paper and cloth. You can
see that they are beautifully wrapped and sewn
like cricket balls, but it would take about half-
an-hour to make such cakes, and we could not
be sure of keeping the aroma in them. Noth-
ing like poppy plant for poppy drug."
And this is the way the drug, which yields
such a splendid income to the Indian Govern-
ment is prepared. To tell how it is thereafter
kept in store, packed for export, put upon
the market at certain fixed periods, and shipped
away, for John Chinaman's consumption
chiefly, would be a tame story. The interest
lies in the actual manufacture and manipula-
tion of the cakes, and we have seen how this is
done in the busy factory at Ghazipur.
ffHE ENfc
