THE TUG OF WAR
One evening, after they had been several days at sea, as Sophy and
Shafto were gazing down at the steerage passengers, she said:
“I have noticed such an odd person watching you—he looks as if he knew
you!”
“Knew me!” repeated Shafto. “What is he like?”
“A tall, broad-shouldered, lanky man—there he is, leaning over the
side, wearing a blue serge suit and a soft felt hat.”
Shafto stared for a moment, then he said:
“By George! I _do_ know him—though I can hardly believe my eyes. I’ll
go and speak to him and find out what this means,” and he hurried away
below.
“Hullo, Mung Baw!” he exclaimed. “Say, this is something like a
surprise! What are you doing here?”
“Much the same as yourself, sir. The Tug of War is drawing us all home.
I have left Mung Baw and the yellow robe behind me, and I’m now
Corporal Michael Ryan. I’m going into the Army again. Why, I’m only
thirty-four when all’s said and done. Of course, the shaven head ages a
fellow, but I’ll grow me hair on me passage home and, maybe, a
moustache as well; someone told me that kerosene oil is a grand thing.
And you are going to join up too, sir?”
“I hope so; I put in two terms at Sandhurst, so I shall have a try. I
should like to get into the Flying Corps.”
“And what will herself say,” with a glance towards Sophy on the main
deck, “to all this fighting and flying?”
“Oh, Miss Leigh won’t stand in my way—she intends to look for a job,
too. Tell me, Michael, do you really believe they will take you back
into the Service after your adventure in Upper Burma—and seven years’
absence without leave?”
“Well, since ye ask me, sir, in my opinion they might do worse;
annyhow, I’ll have a good try. I might get a sort of doctor’s
certificate—_mental_ you know. I’m a first-class shot, though naturally
a bit out of practice; and very hefty with the bayonet. I’d like well
to stir them Germans up, ever since one great ugly brute went out of
his way to give me a kick. I was black and blue for weeks. Did you hear
them the day before they were took off—just screeching mad, shoutin’
and drinkin’, as if the world was their own. Well, annyhow, I can
enlist as full private; I’m sound in wind and limb and, I tell ye, we
want all the men we can get, for I heard them Germans talkin’ very big
in Rangoon, saying they’d eat us all up within the next three
months—body, sleeves and trimmings!”
“Easier said than done,” rejoined Shafto; “although they have a
splendid army—and thousands of big guns.”
“I’d like well to have a hand in real fighting—none of your autumn
manoeuvres, but the proper thing; and after I put the war over, I’ll go
and see Ireland. It’s strange, although I’m Irish, I’ve never put a toe
in the country, and never been nearer it than a black native. My
father’s people were reared in the Galtees; it’s my Irish blood that’s
uppermost now and driving me home. I’ve often heard the boys talkin’ of
the grand purple mountains, the wonderful greenery everywhere, and the
lovely soft, moist air.”
“Well, Michael, I hope you may see it all some day. What put it into
your head to throw off the yellow robe and take this sudden start?”
“It was the barrack talk, sir; I heard them chaps cursin’ and groanin’
that they were stuck fast in Rangoon and had no chance of gettin’ a
look in, and says I to myself, what’s to hinder _you_ from goin’?”
“But how about the passage money?” inquired Shafto. “I thought you were
vowed to poverty and had nothing in your wooden bowl?”
“I had the ruby that you gave back to me. I believe it was a rare fine
stone. I had it in me mind to offer it to the Pagoda; it was well I
waited, as things turned out; a friend sold it for me in the bazaar—he
got four hundred pounds of English money. He says it was worth some
thousands; it was bought for a Pagoda, annyhow, and I have a nice big
sum lodged in a London bank, and when the war is over, please God, it
will help to settle me in a small place in Ireland. I took me passage
and bought some kit, and I have a few pounds in hand—so that I won’t be
stranded. At first I felt the clothes terrible awkward, especially the
trousers, after living in a petticoat so long; and I did not know what
to be doin’ with a knife and fork—and leadin’ such a quiet, cramped
sort of life I lost the use of meself; but I tramped up and down the
decks for a couple of hours of a morning, and a nice young fellow in
the pantry has lent me a pair of dumb-bells. By the time I get to
England I’ll be well set up with a black moustache—and mabbe, ye’ll
hardly know me!”
“How did you get rid of the yellow robe?”
“Oh, easy enough, and without any ceremony of disgrace whatever. Shure,
half the Burmans you meet have worn it for, p’r’aps, a year or two—but
it’s not everyone who has the vocation.”
“I can’t understand your ever taking to it.”
“Can ye not, sir?” rejoined the _ex-pongye_, laying a muscular hand on
the bulwark and fixing a far away, abstracted gaze upon the lazy green
sea. “I may as well tell ye that the first story I made out to ye was
not altogether the truth. I had in me mind a mental reservation. I just
slipped out of Army life and hid meself in the forests—all along of a
little girlie.” His lower lip trembled as he added: “She died, sir—and
I was just broke over it.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Shafto. “Well, such things have happened before.”
“It was like this, sir,” now turning and fixing a pair of tragic dark
eyes on his companion, “I was engaged to be married—same as yourself.
She was the daughter of a sergeant in the arsenal in Madras; her father
and mine were old friends, and when mine was killed in Afghanistan, me
mother just dwindled away and broke her heart. Sergeant Fairon and his
wife was real good to me and took me home; she mothered me and he
‘belted’ me, and they helped to start me for the Lawrence Asylum
Orphanage. I was about eight years of age then, and this little girl
was two. After a good spell I come back to St. George’s Fort, a
grown-up man and a corporal. Polly, she was grown up, too—and the
prettiest girl you could see in a thousand miles; we fell in love with
one another, and Sergeant Fairon had a sort of wish for me, being, they
said, the very spit of me own father, and though I knew in me heart
Polly was a million times too good for me and I was not fit to wipe her
shoes, still, I made bold to ask him for her and he said ‘Yes.’ I knew
I’d get permission to marry, for my name was never in the defaulters’
book, and Polly was fair as a lily—not one of your yellow ‘Cranies’ the
Colonel was so dead set agin. Well, I was just too happy to be lucky,
saving up me pay and Mrs. Fairon buying a few bits of house linen for
us, and Polly making her trousseau, when the regiment was shifted all
of a sudden from Madras to Mandalay and our plans were knocked on the
head.”
“Yes, that was bad luck,” said Shafto sympathetically.
“Still and all, I was full of hope, expecting my stripes and hearing
every mail from Polly, when one day the letter corporal handed me an
envelope with a deep black edge; it was from Sergeant Fairon telling me
Polly was dead; taken off in three hours with cholera. He enclosed half
a letter she was writing to me when she was called. Well, sir, I would
not believe it! No; I held out agin it for days; but of course I had to
give in. At first the grief was just a little scratch; but every day
the pain went deeper and deeper, as if some one was turning a knife in
my heart. To think I’d never look upon her again or hear her voice, and
her gay laugh, it seemed impossible—but, in the end, I _believed_, and
I felt as if I was groping about in black darkness! What had I to live
for? What was the good of going on?
“At times I thought of my rifle, but I put that idea aside because of
the regiment and the scandal in the newspapers—still, I was always
meditating some way _out_. I think now, if I’d opened my mind to one of
my pals, it would have been easier, and I’d not have felt it so cruel
hard; but somehow I’d never breathed the name of Polly to one of them—I
held her like a holy thing apart. I could not stand the talk and the
coarse chaff of the barrack-room, so I kept my trouble sealed up, till
at last it grew too big for me, and I made up my mind to do away with
myself, where no one would be a penny the wiser. I got a couple of
days’ leave—by way of seeing a pal at Tonghoo—and I went up the river
and away into the Jungles, and wandered about looking for some venomous
reptile to put an end to me in a natural way! But, if you’ll believe
me, sir, divil a bite could I get—not after searching for half a day;
and, av coorse, had I been looking without intention, I’d have found
dozens.
“What with walking miles in the blazing sun and nothing to eat, I
believe I fell down with a stroke, and some wood-cutters found me and
carried me into their village—a big place with a great thorn hedge and
gates to keep off the Dacoits. The head man they call a Thugyi took me
over, and his women nursed me; he was a rich fellow with four yoke of
oxen, and so no expense was spared; and there I lived for many a long
day, very strange and out of myself. I could not remember who I was,
nor where I came from; all the clothes I had to me name was a shirt and
a pair of drawers. By degrees, thanks to great charity and kindness, I
come round, I remembered everything only too well, and then I buried
Mick Ryan in the jungle and became a _pongye_. The peace and quiet ate
into me very bones, and I took on the yellow robe. The rest and the
holy life tamed me and did my soul good; and many an evening when I’d
be roaming in the forests, among the splendid tall trees and beautiful
flowers, with the birds and animals around me so tame and at their
ease, I’d have a feelin’ that Polly was walkin’ alongside of me, the
face on her shining with the light of heaven! But,” drawing himself
erect, “excuse me, sir, for bothering you with all this foolish, crazy
sort of talk.”
“Not at all,” said Shafto. “Thank you so much for telling me your
story. I am truly sorry for you, Ryan; it was hard lines losing your
Polly. Do you mind telling me some more? After you had recovered your
memory and become a _pongye_, what happened next?”
“Well, after a while, I chanced to see English papers and hear outside
news, an’ I got a cast in a cargo boat down the river. I had a sort o’
longin’ to see the soldiers, the love of the Service is in me blood, so
now and then I was drawn to Rangoon to get a sight of the khaki and to
hear the barrack yarns. Ye see, one quarter of me is Cingalese—I
suppose me grandfather on one side was a Buddhist, and that is how
_pongye_ life came so pleasant and aisy to me. The three quarters of me
is an Irish soldier, an’ every day the soldier within me grows an’ the
_pongye_ dies away.”
“And you will never return to Burma?”
“Never, no. I have laid out to go to Ireland and spend the rest of my
time there when the war is over.”
“Ah—I wonder when the war will be over?” said Shafto.
“God alone knows!” exclaimed the _pongye_. “They were talking in the
bazaar of the end coming about Christmas. I think meself it will be a
long business and an awkward business, too.”
“So do I,” agreed Shafto, recalling the sage remarks of George Gregory.
“Yes, it’s like a light stuck in an old thatch! We’ll have half the
world in it before long, an’ the greatest blaze as ever was known.”
“I see that Australia and Canada and South Africa are all coming to
lend a hand.”
“Well, we want every hand we can get—and every foot, too! I’ve heard
plenty of big talk in the bazaar, where the Germans have laid out a
mint of money. By all accounts they are going to take Persia, India,
Burma, the whole of our trade, money and fleet. Well, if that comes
off, it’ll be a cold world! By the way, sir,” he continued in another
tone, “did ye see Ma Chit the day we were leavin’ Rangoon, signin’ and
wavin’ to ye as we cast off?”
Shafto nodded curtly.
“An’ ye never tuk no notice! Ye might have given her just a small sign
to ease her heart—but I’m thinkin’ ye have a hard drop in ye.”
“I dare say I have,” assented Shafto, “and I’m glad of it, for now and
then it has prevented me from making an awful fool of myself.”
“Ah, well, sometimes the fools have the best of it; not that I’m sayin’
a word in favour of Ma Chit—only that if ye’d waved yer hand she’d a
gone away with a small bit of consolation and comfort.”
“By the way, Ryan, what did you mean by saying you were a magician?”
“Oh, that was only a bit of a boast, sir. I know a few tricks I learnt
in the regiment; one of the privates was a professional conjurer and
mighty clever when sober. When I showed off one or two little tricks
with stones, or buttons, or bits of string, the Burmans were sure I was
a real wizard, and looked up to me, so they did, and then the birds and
animals being so friendly—I was always so much at my ease with them,
and the childher—they said I cast _spells_!”
The steerage passengers were not a little surprised to note the
forgathering of a first-class passenger with this odd reserved person
(whose shaven head was associated in their opinion with the interior of
Rangoon jail). Nor was this all; now and then a remarkably pretty young
lady accompanied the said first-class passenger and brought fruit, and
books, and cakes, and the three appeared to be on the best of terms.
The _pongye_ and Shafto had many long talks together; they discussed
life among the Burmese, the prospects of war, the changes that might
awake and shake the world, and, appropriate supplement to the topic of
war, more than once they spoke of death.
“I’ve been so long with the Buddhists that the fear of the grave is
wore out of me,” said Ryan; “I’d a’most as soon be dead as not—it’s
only another new life—ye just step in, an’ meet yer old friends. I
suppose, sir, you do not go along with me there.”
“No,” replied Shafto, who had all an Englishman’s shrinking reluctance
to discuss his belief, or his inner life; “yours is a nice easy
path—too good to be true, I’m afraid. My creed is, to do our best, to
help other people, and to take what comes.”
“Goodness knows you have helped me, Mr. Shafto”—and the _pongye_ drew
back a step and looked at him queerly—“what with saving me life and
then makin’ sort o’ friends with me—as man to man—your kindness will
stand in me memory till the clay is over me!”
Shafto and the _pongye_ separated at Marseilles; the latter went round
by the Bay, whilst Mrs. Gregory and her party travelled overland, and
they did not meet again for nearly two years.