The Second Penguin Book of English Short Stories Read online

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,’ she almost sobbed. ‘You oughtn’t to, of course, but there – there isn’t another woman in the place, and we must help each other, you know; and we’ve all the wretched people and the little babies they are selling.’

  ‘I’ve seen some,’ said William.

  ‘Isn’t it ghastly? I’ve bought twenty; they’re in our camp; but won’t you have something to eat first? We’ve more than ten people can do here; and I’ve got a horse for you. Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come! You’re a Punjabi too, you know.’

  ‘Steady, Lizzie,’ said Hawkins, over his shoulder. ‘We’ll look after you, Miss Martyn. Sorry I can’t ask you to breakfast, Martyn. You’ll have to eat as you go. Leave two of your men to help Scott. These poor devils can’t stand up to load carts. Saunders’ (this to the engine-driver, half asleep in the cab), ‘back down and get those empties away. You’ve “line clear” to Anundrapillay; they’ll give you orders north of that. Scott, load up your carts from that B. P. P. truck, and be off as soon as you can. The Eurasian in the pink shirt is your interpreter and guide. You’ll find an apothecary of sorts tied to the yoke of the second wagon. He’s been trying to bolt; you’ll have to look after him. Lizzie, drive Miss Martyn to camp, and tell them to send the red horse down here for me.’

  Scott, with Faiz Ullah and two policemen, was already busy on the carts, backing them up to the back of the truck and unbolting the sideboards quietly, while the others pitched in the bags of millet and wheat. Hawkins watched him for as long as it took to fill one cart.

  ‘That’s a good man,’ he said. ‘If all goes well I shall work him – hard.’ This was Jim Hawkins’s notion of the highest compliment one human being could pay another.

  An hour later Scott was under way; the apothecary threatening him with the penalties of the law for that he, a member of the Subordinate Medical Department, had been coerced and bound against his will and all laws governing the liberty of the subject; the pink-shirted Eurasian begging leave to see his mother, who happened to be dying three miles away: ‘Only verree, verree short leave of absence, and will presently return, sar – ’; the two constables, armed with staves, bringing up the rear; and Faiz Ullah, a Muhammedan’s contempt for all Hindoos and foreigners in every line of his face, explaining to the drivers that though Scott Sahib was a man to be feared on all fours, he, Faiz Ullah, was Authority itself.

  The procession creaked past Hawkins’s camp – three stained tents under a clump of dead trees; behind them the famine-shed where a crowd of hopeless ones tossed their arms around the cooking kettles.

  ‘Wish to Heaven William had kept out of it,’ said Scott to himself, after a glance. ‘We’ll have cholera, sure as a gun, when the Rains come.’

  But William seemed to have taken kindly to the operations of the Famine Code, which, when famine is declared, supersede the workings of the ordinary law. Scott saw her, the centre of a mob of weeping women, in a calico riding-habit and a blue-grey felt hat with a gold puggaree.

  ‘I want fifty rupees, please. I forgot to ask Jack before he went away. Can you lend it me? It’s for condensed milk for the babies,’ said she.

  Scott took the money from his belt, and handed it over without a word. ‘For goodness sake take care of yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I shall be all right. We ought to get the milk in two days. By the way, the orders are, I was to tell you, that you’re to take one of Sir Jim’s horses. There’s a grey Cabuli here that I thought would be just your style, so I’ve said you’d take him. Was that right?’

  ‘That’s awfully good of you. We can’t either of us talk much about style, I’m afraid.’

  Scott was in a weather-stained drill shooting-kit, very white at the seams and a little frayed at the wrists. William regarded him thoughtfully, from his pith helmet to his greased ankle-boots. ‘You look very nice, I think. Are you sure you’ve everything you’ll need – quinine, chlorodyne, and so on?’

  ‘Think so,’ said Scott, patting three or four of his shooting-pockets as the horse was led up and he mounted and rode alongside his convoy.

  ‘Good-bye,’ he cried.

  ‘Good-bye, and good luck,’ said William. ‘I’m awfully obliged for the money.’ She turned on a spurred heel and disappeared into the tent, while the carts pushed on past the famine-sheds, past the roaring lines of the thick, fat fires, down to the baked Gehenna of the South.

  2

  So let us melt and make no noise,

  No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move;

  ’Twere profanation of our joys

  To tell the laity our love.

  A Valediction

  It was punishing work, even though he travelled by night and camped by day; but within the limits of his vision there was no man whom Scott could call master. He was as free as Jimmy Hawkins – freer, in fact, for the Government held the Head of the Famine tied neatly to a telegraph-wire, and if Jimmy had ever regarded telegrams seriously, the death-rate of that famine would have been much higher than it was.

  At the end of a few days’ crawling Scott learned something of the size of the India which he served; and it astonished him. His carts, as you know, were loaded with wheat, millet, and barley, good food-grains needing only a little grinding. But the people to whom he brought the life-giving stuffs were rice-eaters. They knew how to hull rice in their mortars, but they knew nothing of the heavy stone querns of the North, and less of the material that the white man convoyed so laboriously. They clamoured for rice – unhusked paddy, such as they were accustomed to – and, when they found that there was none, broke away weeping from the sides of the cart. What was the use of these strange hard grains that choked their throats? They would die. And then and there were many of them kept their word. Others took their allowance, and bartered enough millet to feed a man through a week for a few handfuls of rotten rice saved by some less unfortunate. A few put their shares into the rice-mortars, pounded it, and made a paste with foul water; but they were very few. Scott understood dimly that many people in the India of the South ate rice, as a rule, but he had spent his service in a grain Province, had seldom seen rice in the blade or the ear, and least of all would have believed that, in time of deadly need, men would die at arm’s length of plenty, sooner than touch food they did not know. In vain the interpreters interpreted; in vain his two policemen showed by vigorous pantomime what should be done. The starving crept away to their bark and weeds, grubs, leaves, and clay, and left the open sacks untouched. But sometimes the women laid their phantoms of children at Scott’s feet, looking back as they staggered away.

  Faiz Ullah opined it was the will of God that these foreigners should die, and therefore it remained only to give orders to burn the dead. None the less there was no reason why the Sahib should lack his comforts, and Faiz Ullah, a campaigner of experience, had picked up a few lean goats and had added them to the procession. That they might give milk for the morning meal, he was feeding them on the good grain that these imbeciles rejected. ‘Yes,’ said Faiz Ullah; ‘if the Sahib thought fit, a little milk might be given to some of the babies’; but, as the Sahib well knew, babies were cheap, and, for his own part, Faiz Ullah held that there was no Government order as to babies. Scott spoke forcefully to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and bade them capture goats where they could find them. This they most joyously did, for it was a recreation, and many ownerless goats were driven in. Once fed, the poor brutes were willing enough to follow the carts, and a few days’ good food – food such as human beings died for lack of – set them in milk again.

  ‘But I am no goatherd,’ said Faiz Ullah. ‘It is against my izzat [my honour].’

  ‘When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of izzat,’ Scott replied. ‘Till that day thou and the policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the order.’

  ‘Thus, then, it is done,’ grunted Faiz Ullah, ‘if the Sahib will have it so’; and he
showed how a goat should be milked, while Scott stood over him.

  ‘Now we will feed them,’ said Scott; ‘thrice a day we will feed them’; and he bowed his back to the milking, and took a horrible cramp.

  When you have to keep connection unbroken between a restless mother of kids and a baby who is at the point of death, you suffer in all your system. But the babies were fed. Morning, noon and evening Scott would solemnly lift them out one by one from their nest of gunny-bags under the cart-tilts. There were always many who could do no more than breathe, and the milk was dropped into their toothless mouths drop by drop, with due pauses when they choked. Each morning, too, the goats were fed; and since they would straggle without a leader, and since the natives were hirelings, Scott was forced to give up riding, and pace slowly at the head of his flocks, accommodating his step to their weaknesses. All this was sufficiently absurd, and he felt the absurdity keenly; but at least he was saving life, and when the women saw that their children did not die, they made shift to eat a little of the strange foods, and crawled after the carts, blessing the master of the goats.

  ‘Give the women something to live for,’ said Scott to himself, as he sneezed in the dust of a hundred little feet, ‘and they’ll hang on somehow. But this beats William’s condensed-milk trick all to pieces. I shall never live it down, though.’

  He reached his destination very slowly, found that a rice-ship had come in from Burma, and that stores of paddy were available; found also an overworked Englishman in charge of the shed, and, loading the carts, set back to cover the ground he had already passed. He left some of the children and half his goats at the famine-shed. For this he was not thanked by the Englishman, who had already more stray babies than he knew what to do with. Scott’s back was suppled to stooping now, and he went on with his wayside ministrations in addition to distributing the paddy. More babies and more goats were added unto him; but now some of the babies wore rags, and beads round their wrists or necks. ‘That,’ said the interpreter, as though Scott did not know, ‘signifies that their mothers hope in eventual contingency to resume them offeecially.’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ said Scott; but at the same time he marked, with the pride of ownership, how this or that little Ramaswamy was putting on flesh like a bantam. As the paddy-carts were emptied he headed for Hawkins’s camp by the railway, timing his arrival to fit in with the dinner-hour, for it was long since he had eaten at a cloth. He had no desire to make any dramatic entry, but an accident of the sunset ordered it that, when he had taken off his helmet to get the evening breeze, the low light should fall across his forehead, and he could not see what was before him; while one waiting at the tent door beheld, with new eyes, a young man, beautiful as Paris, a god in a halo of golden dust, walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at his knee ran small naked Cupids. But she laughed – William in a slate-coloured blouse, laughed consumedly till Scott, putting the best face he could upon the matter, halted his armies and bade her admire the kindergarten. It was an unseemly sight, but the proprieties had been left ages ago, with the tea-party at Amritsar Station, fifteen hundred miles to the northward.

  ‘They are coming on nicely,’ said William. ‘We’ve only five-and-twenty here now. The women are beginning to take them away again.’

  ‘Are you in charge of the babies, then?’

  ‘Yes – Mrs Jim and I. We didn’t think of goats, though. We’ve been trying condensed milk and water.’

  ‘Any losses?’

  ‘More than I care to think of,’ said William, with a shudder. ‘And you?’

  Scott said nothing. There had been many little burials along his route – many mothers who had wept when they did not find again the children they had trusted to the care of the Government.

  Then Hawkins came out carrying a razor, at which Scott looked hungrily, for he had a beard that he did not love. And when they sat down to dinner in the tent he told his tale in few words, as it might have been an official report. Mrs Jim snuffled from time to time, and Jim bowed his head judicially; but William’s grey eyes were on the clean-shaven face, and it was to her that Scott seemed to speak.

  ‘Good for the Pauper Province!’ said William, her chin in her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse which was the accepted evening-dress in camp.

  ‘It was awfully absurd at times,’ said Scott. ‘You see I didn’t know much about milking or babies. They’ll chaff my head off, if the tale goes north.’

  ‘Let ’em,’ said William, haughtily. ‘We’ve all done coolie-work since we came. I know Jack has.’ This was to Hawkins’s address, and the big man smiled blandly.

  ‘Your brother’s a highly efficient officer, William,’ said he, ‘and I’ve done him the honour of treating him as he deserves. Remember, I write the confidential reports.’

  ‘Then you must say that William’s worth her weight in gold,’ said Mrs Jim. ‘I don’t know what we should have done without her. She has been everything to us.’ She dropped her hand upon William’s, which was rough with much handling of reins, and William patted it softly. Jim beamed on the company. Things were going well with his world. Three of his more grossly incompetent men had died, and their places had been filled by their betters. Every day brought the rains nearer. They had put out the famine in five of the Eight Districts, and, after all, the death-rate had not been too heavy – things considered. He looked Scott over carefully, as an ogre looks over a man, and rejoiced in his thews and iron-hard condition.

  ‘He’s just the least bit in the world tucked up,’ said Jim to himself, ‘but he can do two men’s work yet.’ Then he was aware that Mrs Jim was telegraphing to him, and according to the domestic code the message ran: ‘A clear case. Look at them!’

  He looked and listened. All that William was saying was: ‘What can you expect of a country where they call a bhistee [a water-carrier] a tunni-cutch?’ and all that Scott answered was: ‘I shall be precious glad to get back to the Club. Save me a dance at the Christmas ball, won’t you?’

  ‘It’s a far cry from here to the Lawrence Hall,’ said Jim. ‘Better turn in early, Scott. It’s paddy-carts tomorrow; you’ll begin loading at five.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to give Mr Scott one day’s rest?’

  ‘Wish I could, Lizzie. ’Fraid I can’t. As long as he can stand up we must use him.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had one Europe evening, at least … By Jove, I’d nearly forgotten! What do I do about those babies of mine?’

  ‘Leave them here,’ said William – ‘we are in charge of that – and as many goats as you can spare. I must learn how to milk now.’

  ‘If you care to get up early enough tomorrow I’ll show you. I have to milk, you see; and, by the way, half of ’em have beads and things round their necks. You must be careful not to take ’em off, in case the mothers turn up.’

  ‘You forget I’ve had some experience here.’

  ‘I hope to goodness you won’t overdo it.’ Scott’s voice was unguarded.

  ‘I’ll take care of her,’ said Mrs Jim, telegraphing hundred-word messages as she carried William off, while Jim gave Scott his orders for the coming campaign. It was very late – nearly nine o’clock.

  ‘Jim you’re a brute,’ said his wife, that night; and the Head of the Famine chuckled.

  ‘Not a bit of it, dear. I remember doing the first Jandiala Settlement for the sake of a girl in a crinoline; and she was slender, Lizzie. I’ve never done as good a piece of work since. He’ll work like a demon.’

  ‘But you might have given him one day.’

  ‘And let things come to a head now? No, dear; it’s their happiest time.’

  ‘I don’t believe either of the dears know what’s the matter with them. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it lovely?’

 
‘Getting up at three to learn to milk, bless her heart I Ye gods, why must we grow old and fat?’

  ‘She’s a darling. She has done more work under me – ’

  ‘Under you! The day after she came she was in charge and you were subordinate, and you’ve stayed there ever since. She manages you almost as well as you manage me.’

  ‘She doesn’t, and that’s why I love her. She’s as direct as a man – as her brother.’

  ‘Her brother’s weaker than she is. He’s always coming to me for orders; but he’s honest, and a glutton for work. I confess I’m rather fond of William, and if I had a daughter – ’

  The talk ended there. Far away in the Derajat was a child’s grave more than twenty years old, and neither Jim nor his wife spoke of it any more.

  ‘All the same, you’re responsible,’ Jim added, after a moment’s silence.

  ‘Bless ’em!’ said Mrs Jim sleepily.

  Before the stars paled, Scott, who slept in an empty cart, waked and went about his work in silence; it seemed at that hour unkind to rouse Faiz Ullah and the interpreter. His head being close to the ground, he did not hear William till she stood over him in the dingy old riding-habit, her eyes still heavy with sleep, a cup of tea and a piece of toast in her hands. There was a baby on the ground, squirming on a piece of blanket, and a six-year-old child peered over Scott’s shoulder.

  ‘Hai, you little rip,’ said Scott, ‘how the deuce do you expect to get your rations if you aren’t quiet?’

  A cool white hand steadied the brat, who forthwith choked as the milk gurgled into his mouth.

  ‘Mornin’,’ said the milker. ‘You’ve no notion how these little fellows can wriggle.’

  ‘Oh yes, I have.’ She whispered, because the world was asleep. ‘Only I feed them with a spoon or a rag. Yours are fatter than mine…. And you’ve been doing this day after day, twice a day?’ The voice was almost lost.