IT had been raining heavily for one whole month--raining on a camp of
thirty thousand men, thousands of camels, elephants, horses, bullocks,
and mules, all gathered together at a place called Rawal Pindi, to be
reviewed by the Viceroy of India. He was receiving a visit from the Amir
of Afghanistan--a wild king of a very wild country; and the Amir had
brought with him for a bodyguard eight hundred men and horses who had
never seen a camp or a locomotive before in their lives--savage men and
savage horses from somewhere at the back of Central Asia. Every night a
mob of these horses would be sure to break their heel-ropes, and
stampede up and down the camp through the mud in the dark, or the
camels would break loose and run about and fall over the ropes of the
tents, and you can imagine how pleasant that was for men trying to go to
sleep. My tent lay far away from the camel lines, and I thought it was
safe; but one night a man popped his head in and shouted, "Get out,
quick! They're coming! My tent's gone!"
I knew who "they" were; so I put on my boots and waterproof and scuttled
out into the slush. Little Vixen, my fox-terrier, went out through the
other side; and then there was a roaring and a grunting and bubbling,
and I saw the tent cave in, as the pole snapped, and begin to dance
about like a mad ghost. A camel had blundered into it, and wet and angry
as I was, I could not help laughing. Then I ran on, because I did not
know how many camels might have got loose, and before long I was out of
sight of the camp, plowing my way through the mud.
[Illustration: "A CAMEL HAD BLUNDERED INTO MY TENT."]
At last I fell over the tail-end of a gun, and by that knew I was
somewhere near the Artillery lines where the cannon were stacked at
night. As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and
the dark, I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a
sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found, and lay along
the tail of another gun, wondering where Vixen had got to, and where I
might be.
Just as I was getting ready to sleep I heard a jingle of harness and a
grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears. He belonged to a
screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings
and chains and things on his saddle-pad. The screw-guns are tidy little
cannon made in two pieces, that are screwed together when the time comes
to use them. They are taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find
a road, and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country.
Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet squelching and
slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing to and fro like a strayed
hen's. Luckily, I knew enough of beast language--not wild-beast
language, but camp-beast language, of course--from the natives to know
what he was saying.
He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he called to
the mule, "What shall I do? Where shall I go? I have fought with a white
thing that waved, and it took a stick and hit me on the neck." (That was
my broken tentpole, and I was very glad to know it.) "Shall we run on?"
"Oh, it was you," said the mule, "you and your friends, that have been
disturbing the camp? All right. You'll be beaten for this in the
morning; but I may as well give you something on account now."
I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel two
kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. "Another time," he said,
"you'll know better than to run through a mule-battery at night,
shouting 'Thieves and fire!' Sit down, and keep your silly neck quiet."
The camel doubled up camel-fashion, like a two-foot rule, and sat down
whimpering. There was a regular beat of hoofs in the darkness, and a big
troop-horse cantered up as steadily as though he were on parade, jumped
a gun-tail, and landed close to the mule.
"It's disgraceful," he said, blowing out his nostrils. "Those camels
have racketed through our lines again--the third time this week. How's a
horse to keep his condition if he isn't allowed to sleep? Who's here?"
"I'm the breech-piece mule of number two gun of the First Screw
Battery," said the mule, "and the other's one of your friends. He's
waked me up too. Who are you?"
"Number Fifteen, E troop, Ninth Lancers--Dick Cunliffe's horse. Stand
over a little, there."
"Oh, beg your pardon," said the mule. "It's too dark to see much. Aren't
these camels too sickening for anything? I walked out of my lines to get
a little peace and quiet here."
"My lords," said the camel humbly, "we dreamed bad dreams in the night,
and we were very much afraid. I am only a baggage-camel of the 39th
Native Infantry, and I am not so brave as you are, my lords."
"Then why the pickets didn't you stay and carry baggage for the 39th
Native Infantry, instead of running all round the camp?" said the mule.
"They were such very bad dreams," said the camel. "I am sorry. Listen!
What is that? Shall we run on again?"
"Sit down," said the mule, "or you'll snap your long legs between the
guns." He cocked one ear and listened. "Bullocks!" he said;
"gun-bullocks. On my word, you and your friends have waked the camp very
thoroughly. It takes a good deal of prodding to put up a gun-bullock."
I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great sulky
white bullocks that drag the heavy siege-guns when the elephants won't
go any nearer to the firing, came shouldering along together; and almost
stepping on the chain was another battery-mule, calling wildly for
"Billy."
"That's one of our recruits," said the old mule to the troop-horse.
"He's calling for me. Here, youngster, stop squealing; the dark never
hurt anybody yet."
The gun-bullocks lay down together and began chewing the cud, but the
young mule huddled close to Billy.
"Things!" he said; "fearful and horrible things, Billy! They came into
our lines while we were asleep. D'you think they'll kill us?"
"I've a very great mind to give you a number one kicking," said Billy.
"The idea of a fourteen-hand mule with your training disgracing the
battery before this gentleman!"
"Gently, gently!" said the troop-horse. "Remember they are always like
this to begin with. The first time I ever saw a man (it was in Australia
when I was a three-year-old) I ran for half a day, and if I'd seen a
camel I should have been running still."
Nearly all our horses for the English cavalry are brought to India from
Australia, and are broken in by the troopers themselves.
"True enough," said Billy. "Stop shaking, youngster. The first time they
put the full harness with all its chains on my back, I stood on my fore
legs and kicked every bit of it off. I hadn't learned the real science
of kicking then, but the battery said they had never seen anything like
it."
"But this wasn't harness or anything that jingled," said the young mule.
"You know I don't mind that now, Billy. It was Things like trees, and
they fell up and down the lines and bubbled; and my head-rope broke, and
I couldn't find my driver, and I couldn't find you, Billy, so I ran off
with--with these gentlemen."
"H'm!" said Billy. "As soon as I heard the camels were loose I came away
on my own account, quietly. When a battery--a screw-gun mule calls
gun-bullocks gentlemen, he must be very badly shaken up. Who are you
fellows on the ground there?"
The gun-bullocks rolled their cuds, and answered both together: "The
seventh yoke of the first gun of the Big Gun Battery. We were asleep
when the camels came, but when we were trampled on we got up and walked
away. It is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good
bedding. We told your friend here that there was nothing to be afraid
of, but he knew so much that he thought otherwise. Wah!"
They went on chewing.
"That comes of being afraid," said Billy. "You get laughed at by
gun-bullocks. I hope you like it, young 'un."
The young mule's teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not
being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world; but the bullocks
only clicked their horns together and went on chewing.
"Now, don't be angry _after_ you've been afraid. That's the worst kind
of cowardice," said the troop-horse. "Anybody can be forgiven for being
scared in the night, _I_ think, if they see things they don't
understand. We've broken out of our pickets, again and again, four
hundred and fifty of us, just because a new recruit got to telling tales
of whip-snakes at home in Australia till we were scared to death of the
loose ends of our head-ropes."
[Illustration: "'ANYBODY CAN BE FORGIVEN FOR BEING SCARED IN THE NIGHT,'
SAID THE TROOP-HORSE."]
"That's all very well in camp," said Billy; "I'm not above stampeding
myself, for the fun of the thing, when I haven't been out for a day or
two; but what do you do on active service?"
"Oh, that's quite another set of new shoes," said the troop-horse. "Dick
Cunliffe's on my back then, and drives his knees into me, and all I
have to do is to watch where I am putting my feet, and to keep my hind
legs well under me, and be bridle-wise."
"What's bridle-wise?" said the young mule.
"By the Blue Gums of the Back Blocks," snorted the troop-horse, "do you
mean to say that you aren't taught to be bridle-wise in your business?
How can you do anything, unless you can spin round at once when the rein
is pressed on your neck? It means life or death to your man, and of
course that's life or death to you. Get round with your hind legs under
you the instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you haven't room to
swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind legs. That's
being bridle-wise."
"We aren't taught that way," said Billy the mule stiffly. "We're taught
to obey the man at our head: step off when he says so, and step in when
he says so. I suppose it comes to the same thing. Now, with all this
fine fancy business and rearing, which must be very bad for your hocks,
what do you _do_?"
"That depends," said the troop-horse. "Generally I have to go in among a
lot of yelling, hairy men with knives,--long shiny knives, worse than
the farrier's knives,--and I have to take care that Dick's boot is just
touching the next man's boot without crushing it. I can see Dick's lance
to the right of my right eye, and I know I'm safe. I shouldn't care to
be the man or horse that stood up to Dick and me when we're in a hurry."
"Don't the knives hurt?" said the young mule.
"Well, I got one cut across the chest once, but that wasn't Dick's
fault--"
"A lot I should have cared whose fault it was, if it hurt!" said the
young mule.
"You must," said the troop-horse. "If you don't trust your man, you may
as well run away at once. That's what some of our horses do, and I don't
blame them. As I was saying, it wasn't Dick's fault. The man was lying
on the ground, and I stretched myself not to tread on him, and he
slashed up at me. Next time I have to go over a man lying down I shall
step on him--hard."
[Illustration: "'THE MAN WAS LYING ON THE GROUND, AND I STRETCHED MYSELF
NOT TO TREAD ON HIM, AND HE SLASHED UP AT ME.'"]
"H'm!" said Billy; "it sounds very foolish. Knives are dirty things at
any time. The proper thing to do is to climb up a mountain with a
well-balanced saddle, hang on by all four feet and your ears too, and
creep and crawl and wriggle along, till you come out hundreds of feet
above any one else, on a ledge where there's just room enough for your
hoofs. Then you stand still and keep quiet,--never ask a man to hold
your head, young 'un,--keep quiet while the guns are being put together,
and then you watch the little poppy shells drop down into the tree-tops
ever so far below."
"Don't you ever trip?" said the troop-horse.
"They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen's ear," said Billy.
"Now and again _per-haps_ a badly packed saddle will upset a mule, but
it's very seldom. I wish I could show you our business. It's beautiful.
Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at.
The science of the thing is never to show up against the sky-line,
because, if you do, you may get fired at. Remember that, young 'un.
Always keep hidden as much as possible, even if you have to go a mile
out of your way. I lead the battery when it comes to that sort of
climbing."
"Fired at without the chance of running into the people who are firing!"
said the troop-horse, thinking hard. "I couldn't stand that. I should
want to charge, with Dick."
"Oh no, you wouldn't; you know that as soon as the guns are in position
_they'll_ do all the charging. That's scientific and neat; but
knives--pah!"
The baggage-camel had been bobbing his head to and fro for some time
past, anxious to get a word in edgeways. Then I heard him say, as he
cleared his throat, nervously:
"I--I--I have fought a little, but not in that climbing way or that
running way."
"No. Now you mention it," said Billy, "you don't look as though you were
made for climbing or running--much. Well, how was it, old Hay-bales?"
"The proper way," said the camel. "We all sat down--"
"Oh, my crupper and breastplate!" said the troop-horse under his breath.
"Sat down?"
"We sat down--a hundred of us," the camel went on, "in a big square, and
the men piled our packs and saddles outside the square, and they fired
over our backs, the men did, on all sides of the square."
"What sort of men? Any men that came along?" said the troop-horse. "They
teach us in riding-school to lie down and let our masters fire across
us, but Dick Cunliffe is the only man I'd trust to do that. It tickles
my girths, and, besides, I can't see with my head on the ground."
"What does it matter who fires across you?" said the camel. "There are
plenty of men and plenty of other camels close by, and a great many
clouds of smoke. I am not frightened then. I sit still and wait."
"And yet," said Billy, "you dream bad dreams and upset the camp at
night. Well! well! Before I'd lie down, not to speak of sitting down,
and let a man fire across me, my heels and his head would have something
to say to each other. Did you ever hear anything so awful as that?"
There was a long silence, and then one of the gun-bullocks lifted up his
big head and said, "This is very foolish indeed. There is only one way
of fighting."
"Oh, go on," said Billy. "_Please_ don't mind me. I suppose you fellows
fight standing on your tails?"
"Only one way," said the two together. (They must have been twins.)
"This is that way. To put all twenty yoke of us to the big gun as soon
as Two Tails trumpets." ("Two Tails" is camp slang for the elephant.)
"What does Two Tails trumpet for?" said the young mule.
"To show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the other side.
Two Tails is a great coward. Then we tug the big gun all
together--_Heya_--_Hullah! Heeyah! Hullah!_ _We_ do not climb like cats
nor run like calves. We go across the level plain, twenty yoke of us,
till we are unyoked again, and we graze while the big guns talk across
the plain to some town with mud walls, and pieces of the wall fall out,
and the dust goes up as though many cattle were coming home."
"Oh! And you choose that time for grazing do you?" said the young mule.
"That time or any other. Eating is always good. We eat till we are yoked
up again and tug the gun back to where Two Tails is waiting for it.
Sometimes there are big guns in the city that speak back, and some of us
are killed, and then there is all the more grazing for those that are
left. This is Fate--nothing but Fate. None the less, Two Tails is a
great coward. That is the proper way to fight. We are brothers from
Hapur. Our father was a sacred bull of Shiva. We have spoken."
"Well, I've certainly learned something to-night," said the troop-horse.
"Do you gentlemen of the screw-gun battery 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, "every one 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. Imagine 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 peashooter 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 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 piece, "I don't quite know whether you'd
understand."
"We don't, but we have to pull the guns," said the bullocks.
"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 other 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."
"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 thinking 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 explain.
"Surely. Yes, we have been here all night," said the bullocks.
Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled. "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 needed 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
forest, as I used to be, sleeping half the day and bathing when I 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 angrily. "Now,
just you explain to me why you don't like _this_!"
He began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trumpet.
"Stop that!" said Billy and the troop-horse together, and I could hear
them stamp and shiver. An elephant's trumpeting is always nasty,
especially on a dark night.
"I sha'n'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, little 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
some one 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 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?"