The Jungle Book 11 page

proper way to fight. We are brothers from Hapur. Our fa-

ther was a sacred bull of Shiva. We have spoken.’

‘Well, I’ve certainly learned something tonight,’ said

the troop-horse. ‘Do you gentlemen of the screw-gun bat-

tery feel inclined to eat when you are being fired at with big

guns, and Two Tails is behind you?’

‘About as much as we feel inclined to sit down and let

men sprawl all over us, or run into people with knives. I

never heard such stuff. A mountain ledge, a well-balanced

load, a driver you can trust to let you pick your own way,

and I’m your mule. But— the other things—no!’ said Billy,

with a stamp of his foot.

‘Of course,’ said the troop horse, ‘everyone is not made in

the same way, and I can quite see that your family, on your

father’s side, would fail to understand a great many things.’

‘Never you mind my family on my father’s side,’ said Billy

angrily, for every mule hates to be reminded that his father

was a donkey. ‘My father was a Southern gentleman, and he

could pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he

came across. Remember that, you big brown Brumby!’

Brumby means wild horse without any breeding. Imag-

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ine the feelings of Sunol if a car-horse called her a ‘skate,’

and you can imagine how the Australian horse felt. I saw

the white of his eye glitter in the dark.

‘See here, you son of an imported Malaga jackass,’ he

said between his teeth, ‘I’d have you know that I’m related

on my mother’s side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne

Cup, and where I come from we aren’t accustomed to being

ridden over roughshod by any parrot-mouthed, pig-headed

mule in a pop-gun pea-shooter battery. Are you ready?’

‘On your hind legs!’ squealed Billy. They both reared

up facing each other, and I was expecting a furious fight,

when a gurgly, rumbly voice, called out of the darkness to

the right— ‘Children, what are you fighting about there? Be

quiet.’

Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust, for

neither horse nor mule can bear to listen to an elephant’s

voice.

‘It’s Two Tails!’ said the troop-horse. ‘I can’t stand him. A

tail at each end isn’t fair!’

‘My feelings exactly,’ said Billy, crowding into the troop-

horse for company. ‘We’re very alike in some things.’

‘I suppose we’ve inherited them from our mothers,’ said

the troop horse. ‘It’s not worth quarreling about. Hi! Two

Tails, are you tied up?’

‘Yes,’ said Two Tails, with a laugh all up his trunk. ‘I’m

picketed for the night. I’ve heard what you fellows have been

saying. But don’t be afraid. I’m not coming over.’

The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud, ‘Afraid of

Two Tails—what nonsense!’ And the bullocks went on, ‘We

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are sorry that you heard, but it is true. Two Tails, why are

you afraid of the guns when they fire?’

‘Well,’ said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the

other, exactly like a little boy saying a poem, ‘I don’t quite

know whether you’d understand.’

‘We don’t, but we have to pull the guns,’ said the bull-

ocks.

‘I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than

you think you are. But it’s different with me. My battery

captain called me a Pachydermatous Anachronism the oth-

er day.’

‘That’s another way of fighting, I suppose?’ said Billy,

who was recovering his spirits.

‘You don’t know what that means, of course, but I do. It

means betwixt and between, and that is just where I am.

I can see inside my head what will happen when a shell

bursts, and you bullocks can’t.’

‘I can,’ said the troop-horse. ‘At least a little bit. I try not

to think about it.’

‘I can see more than you, and I do think about it. I know

there’s a great deal of me to take care of, and I know that

nobody knows how to cure me when I’m sick. All they can

do is to stop my driver’s pay till I get well, and I can’t trust

my driver.’

‘Ah!’ said the troop horse. ‘That explains it. I can trust

Dick.’

‘You could put a whole regiment of Dicks on my back

without making me feel any better. I know just enough to be

uncomfortable, and not enough to go on in spite of it.’

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‘We do not understand,’ said the bullocks.

‘I know you don’t. I’m not talking to you. You don’t know

what blood is.’

‘We do,’ said the bullocks. ‘It is red stuff that soaks into

the ground and smells.’

The troop-horse gave a kick and a bound and a snort.

‘Don’t talk of it,’ he said. ‘I can smell it now, just think-

ing of it. It makes me want to run—when I haven’t Dick on

my back.’

‘But it is not here,’ said the camel and the bullocks. ‘Why

are you so stupid?’

‘It’s vile stuff,’ said Billy. ‘I don’t want to run, but I don’t

want to talk about it.’

‘There you are!’ said Two Tails, waving his tail to ex-

plain.

‘Surely. Yes, we have been here all night,’ said the bull-

ocks.

Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jin-

gled. ‘Oh, I’m not talking to you. You can’t see inside your

heads.’

‘No. We see out of our four eyes,’ said the bullocks. ‘We

see straight in front of us.’

‘If I could do that and nothing else, you wouldn’t be need-

ed to pull the big guns at all. If I was like my captain—he

can see things inside his head before the firing begins, and

he shakes all over, but he knows too much to run away—if

I was like him I could pull the guns. But if I were as wise as

all that I should never be here. I should be a king in the for-

est, as I used to be, sleeping half the day and bathing when I

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liked. I haven’t had a good bath for a month.’

‘That’s all very fine,’ said Billy. ‘But giving a thing a long

name doesn’t make it any better.’

‘H’sh!’ said the troop horse. ‘I think I understand what

Two Tails means.’

‘You’ll understand better in a minute,’ said Two Tails an-

grily. ‘Now you just explain to me why you don’t like this!’

He began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trum-

pet.‘Stop that!’ said Billy and the troop horse together, and I

could hear them stamp and shiver. An elephant’s trumpet-

ing is always nasty, especially on a dark night.

‘I shan’t stop,’ said Two Tails. ‘Won’t you explain that,

please? Hhrrmph! Rrrt! Rrrmph! Rrrhha!’ Then he stopped

suddenly, and I heard a little whimper in the dark, and

knew that Vixen had found me at last. She knew as well as

I did that if there is one thing in the world the elephant is

more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog. So she

stopped to bully Two Tails in his pickets, and yapped round

his big feet. Two Tails shuffled and squeaked. ‘Go away, lit-

tle dog!’ he said. ‘Don’t snuff at my ankles, or I’ll kick at

you. Good little dog —nice little doggie, then! Go home,

you yelping little beast! Oh, why doesn’t someone take her

away? She’ll bite me in a minute.’

‘Seems to me,’ said Billy to the troop horse, ‘that our

friend Two Tails is afraid of most things. Now, if I had a full

meal for every dog I’ve kicked across the parade-ground I

should be as fat as Two Tails nearly.’

I whistled, and Vixen ran up to me, muddy all over, and

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licked my nose, and told me a long tale about hunting for me

all through the camp. I never let her know that I understood

beast talk, or she would have taken all sorts of liberties. So I

buttoned her into the breast of my overcoat, and Two Tails

shuffled and stamped and growled to himself.

‘Extraordinary! Most extraordinary!’ he said. ‘It runs in

our family. Now, where has that nasty little beast gone to?’

I heard him feeling about with his trunk.

‘We all seem to be affected in various ways,’ he went on,

blowing his nose. ‘Now, you gentlemen were alarmed, I be-

lieve, when I trumpeted.’

‘Not alarmed, exactly,’ said the troop-horse, ‘but it made

me feel as though I had hornets where my saddle ought to

be. Don’t begin again.’

‘I’m frightened of a little dog, and the camel here is

frightened by bad dreams in the night.’

‘It is very lucky for us that we haven’t all got to fight in

the same way,’ said the troop-horse.

‘What I want to know,’ said the young mule, who had

been quiet for a long time—‘what I want to know is, why we

have to fight at all.’

‘Because we’re told to,’ said the troop-horse, with a snort

of contempt.

‘Orders,’ said Billy the mule, and his teeth snapped.

‘Hukm hai!’ (It is an order!), said the camel with a gur-

gle, and Two Tails and the bullocks repeated, ‘Hukm hai!’

‘Yes, but who gives the orders?’ said the recruit-mule.

‘The man who walks at your head—Or sits on your

back—Or holds the nose rope—Or twists your tail,’ said

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Billy and the troop-horse and the camel and the bullocks

one after the other.

‘But who gives them the orders?’

‘Now you want to know too much, young un,’ said Billy,

‘and that is one way of getting kicked. All you have to do is

to obey the man at your head and ask no questions.’

‘He’s quite right,’ said Two Tails. ‘I can’t always obey, be-

cause I’m betwixt and between. But Billy’s right. Obey the

man next to you who gives the order, or you’ll stop all the

battery, besides getting a thrashing.’

The gun-bullocks got up to go. ‘Morning is coming,’ they

said. ‘We will go back to our lines. It is true that we only see

out of our eyes, and we are not very clever. But still, we are

the only people to-night who have not been afraid. Good-

night, you brave people.’

Nobody answered, and the troop-horse said, to change

the conversation, ‘Where’s that little dog? A dog means a

man somewhere about.’

‘Here I am,’ yapped Vixen, ‘under the gun tail with my

man. You big, blundering beast of a camel you, you upset

our tent. My man’s very angry.’

‘Phew!’ said the bullocks. ‘He must be white!’

‘Of course he is,’ said Vixen. ‘Do you suppose I’m looked

after by a black bullock-driver?’

‘Huah! Ouach! Ugh!’ said the bullocks. ‘Let us get away

quickly.’

They plunged forward in the mud, and managed some-

how to run their yoke on the pole of an ammunition wagon,

where it jammed.

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‘Now you have done it,’ said Billy calmly. ‘Don’t struggle.

You’re hung up till daylight. What on earth’s the matter?’

The bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that

Indian cattle give, and pushed and crowded and slued and

stamped and slipped and nearly fell down in the mud,

grunting savagely.

‘You’ll break your necks in a minute,’ said the troop-

horse. ‘What’s the matter with white men? I live with ‘em.’

‘They—eat—us! Pull!’ said the near bullock. The yoke

snapped with a twang, and they lumbered off together.

I never knew before what made Indian cattle so scared

of Englishmen. We eat beef—a thing that no cattle-driver

touches —and of course the cattle do not like it.

‘May I be flogged with my own pad-chains! Who’d have

thought of two big lumps like those losing their heads?’ said

Billy.

‘Never mind. I’m going to look at this man. Most of the

white men, I know, have things in their pockets,’ said the

troop-horse.

‘I’ll leave you, then. I can’t say I’m over-fond of ‘em my-

self. Besides, white men who haven’t a place to sleep in are

more than likely to be thieves, and I’ve a good deal of Gov-

ernment property on my back. Come along, young un, and

we’ll go back to our lines. Good-night, Australia! See you

on parade to-morrow, I suppose. Good-night, old Hay-

bale!—try to control your feelings, won’t you? Good-night,

Two Tails! If you pass us on the ground tomorrow, don’t

trumpet. It spoils our formation.’

Billy the Mule stumped off with the swaggering limp of

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an old campaigner, as the troop-horse’s head came nuzzling

into my breast, and I gave him biscuits, while Vixen, who is

a most conceited little dog, told him fibs about the scores of

horses that she and I kept.

‘I’m coming to the parade to-morrow in my dog-cart,’

she said. ‘Where will you be?’

‘On the left hand of the second squadron. I set the time

for all my troop, little lady,’ he said politely. ‘Now I must go

back to Dick. My tail’s all muddy, and he’ll have two hours’

hard work dressing me for parade.’

The big parade of all the thirty thousand men was held

that afternoon, and Vixen and I had a good place close to

the Viceroy and the Amir of Afghanistan, with high, big

black hat of astrakhan wool and the great diamond star in

the center. The first part of the review was all sunshine, and

the regiments went by in wave upon wave of legs all mov-

ing together, and guns all in a line, till our eyes grew dizzy.

Then the cavalry came up, to the beautiful cavalry canter of

‘Bonnie Dundee,’ and Vixen cocked her ear where she sat

on the dog-cart. The second squadron of the Lancers shot

by, and there was the troop-horse, with his tail like spun

silk, his head pulled into his breast, one ear forward and

one back, setting the time for all his squadron, his legs go-

ing as smoothly as waltz music. Then the big guns came by,

and I saw Two Tails and two other elephants harnessed in

line to a forty-pounder siege gun, while twenty yoke of oxen

walked behind. The seventh pair had a new yoke, and they

looked rather stiff and tired. Last came the screw guns, and

Billy the mule carried himself as though he commanded

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all the troops, and his harness was oiled and polished till it

winked. I gave a cheer all by myself for Billy the mule, but

he never looked right or left.

The rain began to fall again, and for a while it was too

misty to see what the troops were doing. They had made a

big half circle across the plain, and were spreading out into

a line. That line grew and grew and grew till it was three-

quarters of a mile long from wing to wing—one solid wall

of men, horses, and guns. Then it came on straight toward

the Viceroy and the Amir, and as it got nearer the ground

began to shake, like the deck of a steamer when the engines

are going fast.

Unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a

frightening effect this steady come-down of troops has on

the spectators, even when they know it is only a review. I

looked at the Amir. Up till then he had not shown the shad-

ow of a sign of astonishment or anything else. But now his

eyes began to get bigger and bigger, and he picked up the

reins on his horse’s neck and looked behind him. For a min-

ute it seemed as though he were going to draw his sword

and slash his way out through the English men and women

in the carriages at the back. Then the advance stopped dead,

the ground stood still, the whole line saluted, and thirty

bands began to play all together. That was the end of the re-

view, and the regiments went off to their camps in the rain,

and an infantry band struck up with—

The animals went in two by two,

Hurrah!

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The animals went in two by two,

The elephant and the battery mul’,

and they all got into the Ark

For to get out of the rain!

Then I heard an old grizzled, long-haired Central Asian

chief, who had come down with the Amir, asking questions

of a native officer.

‘Now,’ said he, ‘in what manner was this wonderful thing

done?’

And the officer answered, ‘An order was given, and they

obeyed.’

‘But are the beasts as wise as the men?’ said the chief.

‘They obey, as the men do. Mule, horse, elephant, or bull-

ock, he obeys his driver, and the driver his sergeant, and the

sergeant his lieutenant, and the lieutenant his captain, and

the captain his major, and the major his colonel, and the

colonel his brigadier commanding three regiments, and the

brigadier the general, who obeys the Viceroy, who is the ser-

vant of the Empress. Thus it is done.’

‘Would it were so in Afghanistan!’ said the chief, ‘for

there we obey only our own wills.’

‘And for that reason,’ said the native officer, twirling his

mustache, ‘your Amir whom you do not obey must come

here and take orders from our Viceroy.’

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Parade Song of the

Camp Animals

ELEPHANTS OF THE GUN TEAMS

We lent to Alexander the strength of Hercules,

The wisdom of our foreheads, the cunning of our knees;

We bowed our necks to service: they ne’er were loosed

again,—

Make way there—way for the ten-foot teams

Of the Forty-Pounder train!

GUN BULLOCKS

Those heroes in their harnesses avoid a cannon-bal ,

And what they know of powder upsets them one and al ;

Then we come into action and tug the guns again—

Make way there—way for the twenty yoke

Of the Forty-Pounder train!

CAVALRY HORSES

By the brand on my shoulder, the finest of tunes

Is played by the Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons,

And it’s sweeter than ‘Stables’ or ‘Water’ to me—

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The Cavalry Canter of ‘Bonnie Dundee’!

Then feed us and break us and handle and groom,

And give us good riders and plenty of room,

And launch us in column of squadron and see

The way of the war-horse to ‘Bonnie Dundee’!

SCREW-GUN MULES

As me and my companions were scrambling up a hil ,

The path was lost in rol ing stones, but we went forward stil ;

For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up

everywhere,

Oh, it’s our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to

spare!

Good luck to every sergeant, then, that lets us pick our road;

Bad luck to all the driver-men that cannot pack a load:

For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up

everywhere,

Oh, it’s our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to

spare!

COMMISSARIAT CAMELS

We haven’t a camelty tune of our own

To help us trol op along,

But every neck is a hair trombone

(Rtt-ta-ta-ta! is a hair trombone!)

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And this our marching-song:

Can’t! Don’t! Shan’t! Won’t!

Pass it along the line!

Somebody’s pack has slid from his back,

Wish it were only mine!

Somebody’s load has tipped off in the road—

Cheer for a halt and a row!

Urrr! Yarrh! Grr! Arrh!

Somebody’s catching it now!

ALL THE BEASTS TOGETHER

Children of the Camp are we,

Serving each in his degree;

Children of the yoke and goad,

Pack and harness, pad and load.

See our line across the plain,

Like a heel-rope bent again,

Reaching, writhing, rol ing far,

Sweeping all away to war!

While the men that walk beside,

Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed,

Cannot tell why we or they

March and suffer day by day.

Children of the Camp are we,

Serving each in his degree;

Children of the yoke and goad,

Pack and harness, pad and load!

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Date: 2015-02-03; view: 751