From lone hunt came the yearling cub
And brought a grown kill back;
With fangs aglut “'Tis nothing but
Presumption!” growled the pack.
RALPH CUNNINGHAM reached Peshawur at last with no less than nine tigers
to his gun, and that in itself would have been sufficient to damn him in
the eyes of more than half of the men who held commands there. Jealousy
in those days of slow promotion and intrenched influence had eaten
into the very understanding of men whose only excuse for rule over a
conquered people ought to have been understanding.
It was not considered decent for a boy of twenty-one to do much more
than dare to be alive. For any man at all to offer advice or information
to his senior was rank presumption. Criticism was high treason. Sport,
such as tiger-shooting, was for those whose age and apoplectic temper
rendered them least fitted for it. Conservatism reigned: “High Toryism,
sir, old port, and proud Prerogative!”
Mahommed Gunga grinned into his beard at the reception that awaited the
youngster whom he had trained for months now in the belief that India
had nothing much to do except reverence him. He laughed aloud, when he
could get away to do it, at the flush of indignation on his protege's
face. Tall, lean-limbed, full of health and spirits, he had paid his
duty call on a General of Division; with the boyish enthusiasm that says
so plainly, “Laugh with me, for the world is mine!” he had boasted
his good luck on the road, only to be snubbed thoroughly and told that
tiger-shooting was not what he came for.
He took the snub like a man and made no complaint to anybody; he did
not even mention it to the other subalterns, who, most of them, made no
secret of their dissatisfaction and its hundred causes. He listened,
and it was not very long before it dawned on him that, had not Mahommed
Gunga gone with him to pay a call as well, the General Division would
not have so much as interviewed him.
Mahommed Gunga soon became the bane of his existence. The veteran seemed
in no hurry to go back to his estate that must have been in serious need
of management by this time, but would ride off on mysterious errands and
return with a dozen or more black-bearded horsemen each time. He would
introduce them to Cunningham in public whenever possible under the eyes
of outraged seniors who would swear and, fume and ride away disgust
at the reverence paid to “a mere boy, sir--a bally, ignorant young
jackanapes!”
Had Cunningham been other than a born soldier with his soldier senses
all on edge and sleepless, he would have fallen foul of disgrace within
a month. He was unattached as yet, and that fact gave opportunity to
the men who looked for it to try to “take the conceit out of the cub, by
gad.”
“They “--everybody spoke of them as “they”--conceived the brilliant idea
of confronting the youngster with conditions which he lacked experience
to cope with. They set him to deal with circumstances which had long
ago proved too difficult for themselves, and awaited confidently the
outcome--the crass mistake, or oversight, or mere misfortune that, with
the aid of a possible court martial, would reduce him to a proper state
of humbleness.
Peshawur, the greatest garrison in northern India, was there on
sufferance, apparently. For lack of energetic men in authority to deal
with them, the border robbers plundered while the troops remained cooped
up within the unhealthiest station on the list. The government itself,
with several thousand troops to back it up, was paying blackmail to the
border thieves! There was not a government bungalow in all Peshawur that
did not have its “watchman,” hired from over the border, well paid to
sleep on the veranda lest his friends should come and take tribute in an
even more unseemly manner.
The younger men, whose sense of fitness had not yet been rotted by
climate and system and prerogative, swore at the condition; there were
one or two men higher up, destined to make history, whose voices, raised
in emphatic protest, were drowned in the drone of “Peace! Peace is the
thing to work for. Compromise, consideration, courtesy, these three are
the keys of rule.” They failed to realize that cowardice was their
real keynote, and that the threefold method that they vaunted was quite
useless without a stiffening of courage.
So brave men, who had more courtesy in each of their fingers than
most of the seniors had all put together, had to bow to a scandalous
condition that made England's rule a laughing-stock within a stone's
throw of the city limits. And they had to submit to the indecency of
seeing a new, inexperienced arrival picked for the task of commanding a
body of irregulars, for no other reason than because it was considered
wise to make an exhibition of him.
Cunningham became half policeman, half soldier, in charge of a small
special force of mounted men engaged for the purpose of patrol. He had
nothing to do with the selection of them; that business was attended
to perfunctorily by a man very high up in departmental service, who
considered Cunningham a nuisance. He was a gentleman who did not know
Mahommed Gunga; another thing he did not know was the comfortable feel
of work well done; so he was more than pleased when Mahommed Gunga
dropped in from nowhere in particular--paid him scandalously untrue
compliments without a blush or a smile and offered to produce the
required number of men at once.
Only fifty were required. Mahommed Gunga brought three hundred to select
from, and, when asked to do so in order to save time and trouble, picked
out the fifty best.
“There are your men!” said the Personage off-handedly, when they had
been sworn in in a group. “Be good enough to remember, Mr. Cunningham,
that you are now responsible for their behavior, and for the proper
night patrolling of the city limits.”
That was a tall order, and in spite of all of youth's enthusiasm was
enough to make any young fellow nervous. But Mahommed Gunga met him in
the street, saluted him with almost sacrilegious ceremony, and drew him
to one side.
“Have courage, now, bahadur! I ride away to visit my estates (he spoke
of them always in the plural, as though he owned a county or two). You
have under you the best eyes and the keenest blades along the border for
I attended to it! Be ruthless! Use them, work them--sweat them to death!
Keep away from messes and parades; seek no praise, for you will get none
in any case! Work! Work for what is coming!”
“You speak as though the fate of a continent were hanging in the
balance,” laughed Cunningham, shaking hands with him.
“I speak truth!” said Mahommed Gunga, riding off and leaving the
youngster wondering.
Now, there was nothing much the matter with the men on either side,
taken in the main, who hated one another on that far-pushed frontier.
Even the insufferable incompetents who held the rotting reins of control
were such because circumstance had blinded them. There was not a man
among the highly placed ones even who would have deliberately placed his
own importance or his own opinion in the scale against India's welfare.
There was not a border thief but was ready to respect what he could
recognize as strong-armed justice.
The root of the trouble lay in centralization of authority, and rigid
adherence to the rule of seniority. Combined, these two processes had
served to bring about a state of things that is nearly unbelievable when
viewed in the light of modern love for efficiency. Young men, with the
fire of ambition burning in them and a proper scorn for mere superficial
ceremony, had to sweat their tempers and bow down beneath the yoke of
senile pompousness.
Strong, savage, powder-weaned Hill-tribesmen--inheritors of egoistic
independence and a love of loot--laughed loud and long and openly at
System that prevented officers from taking arms against them until
authority could come by delegate from somebody who slept. By that time
they would be across the border, quarrelling among themselves about
division of the plunder!
They had respect in plenty for the youth and virile middle age that
dealt with them on the rare occasions when a timely blow was loosed.
Then they had proof that from that strange, mad country overseas there
came men who could lead men--men who could strike, and who knew enough
to hold their hands when the sudden blow had told--just men, who could
keep their plighted word. No border thief pretended that the British
could not rule him; to a man, they laughed because the possible was not
imposed. And to the last bold, ruffianly iconoclast they stole when,
where, and what they dared.
Things altered strangely soon after Ralph Cunningham, with the
diffidence of youth but the blood of a line of soldiers leaping in
him, took charge of his tiny force of nondescripts. They were neither
soldiers nor police. Nominally, he was everybody's dog, and so were
they; actually he found himself at the head of a tiny department of
his own, because it was nobody's affair to give him orders. They had
deliberately turned him loose “to hang himself,” and their hope that he
might get his head into a noose of trouble as soon as possible--the very
liberty they gave him, on purpose for his quick damnation--was the means
of making reputation for him.
Nobody advised him; so with singularly British phlegm and not more
than ordinary common sense he devised a method of his own for scotching
night-prowlers. He stationed his men at well-considered vantage-points,
and trusted them. With a party of ten, he patrolled the city ceaselessly
himself and whipped every “watchman” he caught sleeping. One by one, the
blackmailing brigade began to see the discomfort of a job that called
for real wakefulness, and deserted over the Hills to urge the resumption
of raids in force. One by one, the night-prowling fraternity were
shot as they sneaked past sentries. One by one, the tale of robberies
diminished. It was merely a question of one man, and he awake,
having power to act without first submitting a request to somebody in
triplicate on blue-form B.
The time came, after a month or two, when even natives dared to leave
their houses after dark. The time came very soon, indeed, when the
nearest tribes began to hold war councils and inveigh against the
falling off of the supply of plunder. Cunningham was complimented
openly. He was even praised by one of “Them.” So it was perfectly
natural, and quite in keeping with tradition, that he should shortly
be relieved, and that a senior to him should be placed in charge of his
little force, with orders to “organize” it.
The organization process lasted about twelve hours; at the end of that
time every single man had deserted, horse and arms! Two nights later,
the prowling and plundering was once more in full swing, and Cunningham
was blamed for it; it was obvious to any man of curry-and-port-wine
proclivities that his method, or lack of it, had completely undermined
his men's loyalty!
A whole committee of gray-headed gentlemen took trouble to point out
to him his utter failure; but a brigadier, who was not a member of that
committee, and who was considered something of an upstart, asked that
he might be appointed to a troop of irregular cavalry that had recently
been raised. With glee--with a sigh of relief so heartfelt and unanimous
that it could be heard across the street--the committee leaped at the
suggestion. The proper person was induced without difficulty to put
his signature to the required paper, and Cunningham found himself
transferred to irregular oblivion. Incidentally he found himself
commanding few less than a hundred men, so many of whose first names
were Mahommed or Mohammed that the muster-roll looked like a list of
Allah's prophets.
Cunningham was more than a little bit astonished, on the day he joined,
in camp, a long way from Peshawur, to find his friend Mahommed Gunga,
seated in a bell tent with the Brigadier. He caught sight of the long
black military boot and silver spur, and half-recognized the up-and-down
movement of the crossed leg long before he reached the tent. It was
like father and son meeting, almost, as the Rajput rose to greet him
and waited respectfully until he had paid his compliments to his new
commander. Cunningham felt throat-bound, and could scarcely more than
stammer his introduction of himself.
“I know who you are and all about you,” said the Brigadier. “Used to
know your father well. I applied to have you in my command partly for
your father's sake, but principally because Risaldar Mahommed Gunga
spake so highly of you. He tells me he has had an eye on you from the
start, and that you shape well. Remember, this is irregular cavalry, and
in many respects quite unlike regulars. You'll need tact and a firm hand
combined, and you mustn't ever forget that the men whom you will lead
are gentlemen.”
Cunningham reported to his Colonel, only to discover that he, too, knew
all about him. The Colonel was less inclined to be restricted as to
topic, and less mindful of discretion than the Brigadier.
“I hear they couldn't stand you in Peshawur. That's hopeful! If you'd
come with a recommendation from that quarter, I'd have packed you off
back again. I never in my life would have believed that a dozen men
could all shut their eyes so tightly to the signs--never!”
“The signs, sir?”
“Yes, the signs! Come and look your troop over.”
Cunningham found that the troop, too, had heard about his coming. He
did not look them over. When he reached the lines, they came out in a
swarm--passed him one by one, eyed him, as traders eye a horse--and then
saluted him a second time, with the greeting:
“Salaam, Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur!”
“Yes! You're in disgrace!” said his Colonel, noticing the color rising
to the youngster's cheeks.