by M. M. Kaye
This story has a very curious sequel. Many years later when Victoria and her century were dead and gone and Tacklow was a Major serving on Kitchener’s staff in Simla (Kitchener was then Commander-in-Chief, India), he told this tale at a dinner-party at the United Services Club and was urged by everyone present to do it again and dream another winner. But how on earth, demanded the indignant Tacklow, could anyone make themselves dream anything? Nevertheless, bowing to popular demand, he agreed to see what he could do about it, and thereafter set himself to try to dream about a race-meeting: though he had still never attended a real one. Every night, before he went to sleep, he would concentrate on horse-racing in the hope that it was just possible that one might dream about the last thing one had been thinking about before falling asleep. But no luck. Always, as sleep overtook him, his mind would wander off onto something else. Then suddenly, when he had given up trying, he dreamed the same dream. Once again he was standing among a crowd of racegoers. Once again he heard the same thunder of approaching hooves, caught the same flashing glimpse of jockeys’ heads streaking past, heard the roar of cheering and was tapped on the shoulder by a man who said that so-and-so had won. He turned, as he had before, to see the numbers going up on the board. But by now he was a married man, and it was at this crucial point that Mother turned over in her sleep and woke him before he saw it.
As I have said, his memory worked by sight and had he seen the number he would have remembered it But try as he might, he could not recall the name. All he could remember was that it had at least five syllables and began, he thought, with the letter ‘C’. The members of the United Services Club and half Army Headquarters fell on the sports pages of The Civil and Military Gazette, The Pioneer and The Statesman — India’s three main English-language newspapers — but no Derby runner had a name beginning with C. Or one of five syllables either!
Unfortunately, the Derby attracted a great many entrants and the Indian newspapers of that day did not bother to print the names of horses who were classed as ‘also-rans’ — the hopeless outsiders. And since wireless-telegraphy was still in its infancy and only used for more serious matters of State, it was not until the day after the race was run that India learnt that it had been won by a 100 to 1 outsider; a filly named ‘Senorinetta’ … five syllables and beginning with the sound of C! I was told later, by several middle-aged and, by then, very senior gentlemen who remembered the occasion, that the Corridors of Power in Simla echoed to the sounds of lamentation and hair-tearing for at least a week afterwards.
Tacklow never again tried to dream a race to order. He told me that he had tried to ‘dream true’, though without success, after reading George du Maurier’s haunting novel Peter Ibbetson. But that odd experience of his always intrigued me, and several years after his death I tried it myself: concentrating, as he had done, on race-meetings and horses before I fell asleep. Like him, I gave it up in disgust — and then suddenly dreamt I was at Epsom on Derby Day, standing against the rails at Tattenham Corner. Someone shouted: ‘Here they come!’ and the leading horses came sweeping round the bend. In the same moment a piece of waste paper, caught by the wind, flapped across the course in the path of the oncoming horses, and the leader jinked sharply sideways so that I saw the number — I think it was 6 — on its saddlecloth before it lost its place to those behind it. That was all. The dream ended there, and all I had learned from it was not to put any money on number 6. Which, not being a betting type, or a horsey one either, I was unlikely to do in any case; though I would certainly have bet my all on anything I had seen coming first past the winning-post. However, the story does not end there —
I was at that time in Ootacamund in southern India, and a few days later, on the day that the Derby was run, we were listening in to a running commentary on our radio. I have forgotten the name of number 6 — call it ‘George’s Joy’ — but the commentator at Tattenham Corner knew it and announced excitedly that ‘Here comes George’s Joy! — rounding the corner a good length ahead of Mabel’s Mum and Percy’s Pottage’ (or whatever). And in the next second, his voice rising to a frenzied shout, he informed us that George’s Joy had shied wildly at a piece of paper blowing across the course and was now virtually out of the race.…
Well, how does one explain that? It did me no good and it seems odd, to say the least of it, that I should have been handed a piece of totally useless advance information well before it had occurred.
Having passed top into Sandhurst, with record marks, Tacklow’s exit was a lot less spectacular. He passed out at number 16, though with honours, and shortly afterwards embarked for India to join a British regiment, the First Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment which was stationed at that time at Dugshai in the Simla hills. Here Tacklow got down to studying for his language exams; it being standard practice, right up to the outbreak of the Second World War, that all candidates for the Indian Army must serve an attachment to a British regiment stationed in that country until such time as they were reasonably fluent in at least two of India’s many major languages. Should they fail (I believe candidates were allowed three tries) they were sent back to England as unsuitable material for the armies of the Raj, and ended up in some British regiment instead.
That square-peg-in-a-round-hole, C. Kaye, who collected languages much as other young men collect birds’ eggs or stamps, passed his preliminary examinations with flying colours and was eventually posted to the 21st Punjabis; a Frontier Force regiment that vanished from the Army List in 1922 during one of the periodic amalgamations of several regiments. Since the 21st had been part of the Kurram Valley Field Force which was commanded by General Sir Frederick Roberts — ‘Bobs Bahadur’ — during the second Afghan War, I managed to insert a reference to it in The Far Pavilions solely because it was once my father’s regiment. And many years later, after the Raj had faded into history and legend and a large part of north-west India had become the new and independent country of Pakistan, I was shown his name, written in his own hand on the old Rolls of the Punjab Regiments, when I was invited to luncheon in the Regimental Centre by serving officers whose fathers had not even been born when that yellowed, faded ink was fresh.
The tales that Tacklow told me make up a sort of mental photograph-album-cum-diary, the pages of which bring him so clearly to mind that I might almost have known him in his youth. I can see him as a toddler because I have not only a photograph of him but an original water-colour sketch, painted by some doting aunt, which shows a small, fair-haired one-year-old in short socks and wearing a vast hat and a full-skirted white dress with puff sleeves and a blue sash that could have been worn equally well by a girl. Apparently the sexes in the nineteenth century were dressed exactly alike for the first few years of their lives.
I also have a clear mental picture of him, aged about six, and having been instructed by his autocratic mother — who was taking him to lunch with an elderly relative noted for her lavish hospitality — that he was to wait until he was asked before expressing a preference for any dish, surveying the selection on offer and announcing loudly: ‘When I’m asked, I shall say Pie!’ I can see him too as a schoolboy, fishing for trout in the chalk streams near Winchester or for salmon in the lochs and rivers of Scotland. One favourite inn, at Tummel Brig, used to serve a special kind of bap which as a boy he was particularly fond of; and revisiting the inn after a lapse of forty years he asked if they still made them. He was assured that they did, but when they were brought to the table in a covered dish, the waitress whispered in Tacklow’s ear: ‘Th’ Cook’s varra nairvous; she hopes ye won’t be thinkin’ she’s the same cook!’ There are no early photographs taken of him in Scotland, but there are a few of him in cricketing flannels and the traditional Wykehamist’s straw hat, sitting with folded arms and a stern expression among the other members of his house eleven; looking extraordinarily like his son, my brother Bill.
Another ancient photograph, that still survives, always stood for as long as I can remember, on his dressing-table whereve
r we happened to be. I removed it from the last of these a few days after he died. It is a very small studio photograph, mounted on heavy card that is printed in gold with the photographer’s name and town — Chas. Johnson, Gillingham — and it portrays an alert but otherwise undistinguished mongrel terrier. Foxy had been rescued by Tacklow only a few months after his arrival in India; starving, mangy, suspicious and forlorn, age unknown, but obviously once the property of a British Tommy who had abandoned the unfortunate creature when his regiment had been ordered home, for the dog answered instantly to a British voice and cringed away from an Indian one. Tacklow had a way with all animals. They seemed to know at once that here was someone they could trust, and all our family pets were never ours for more than a day or two at most; after that they attached themselves to him and were his and no one else’s. I honestly believe that he could have attracted and tamed a tyrannosaurus or a sabre-toothed tiger.
Foxy’s faith in humans must have been sorely strained when his original master left him, and he had very nearly reverted to the wild by the time Tacklow first befriended him. He was, it seems, a sorry sight; gaunt, ragged, dirty and inclined to snap and snarl or else cringe in expectation of a kick, he had been forced to live on his wits for some considerable time and the mongrel element in his ancestry was very apparent. Tacklow had not really wanted a dog. Dogs were a liability in a country where the threat of hydrophobia and a hideous death was ever present, and where there was only one place in all India, Kasauli, where anti-rabies vaccine was obtainable — and to reach Kasauli in time to take the treatment was not always possible. There were also other hazards that faced dogs in India. Snakes for instance, in particular the little dust-coloured kraits whose bite is fatal; or leopards, who relish the flesh of dogs. All the same Tacklow decided to adopt this disgraceful waif, and within a month all the diamonds in Golconda would not have bought Foxy from him. They doted on each other; and for twelve long and happy years they were never apart for more than a few hours, except for a brief interval during Tacklow’s first home leave.…
There being no quarantine regulations in those carefree days, Foxy had travelled home with him. But as I have already mentioned, my paternal grandmother, like her daughter my Aunt Molly, was a considerable battle-axe, and this formidable old despot (see photograph; the camera, in this case, does not lie!) gave one basilisk glare at the mongrel at her eldest son’s heels and banished Foxy to the stables. On no account whatever would he be permitted to enter the house; let alone sleep in it! There was no appeal. During the next few days Tacklow and his faithful adorer spent as much time as possible in the garden or the countryside together, and their nights apart; and when, after a few days, Tacklow had to go up to London to report himself to the War Office (it was probably still called The Horse Guards in those days) Foxy was perforce left behind in the stables.
Two days later Tacklow returned — to find his faithful hound not only installed in the house but occupying, as by right, the most comfortable chair in the drawing-room. How Foxy had managed this was never fully explained, but he had obviously succeeded in charming the flinty heart out of my grandmother’s solid, bombazine-and-lace-encased bosom. And from then until the end of that home leave and the departure of the two of them, hand in paw back to India, he remained a beloved and honoured guest and the apple of my grandmother’s eye — in which, it seems, there was actually a tear when he left! Foxy’s conquest of her is about the only interesting thing I know about my grandmother: apart from the fact that one of her sisters married the younger son of Scotland’s favourite poet, the immortal Robert Burns of ‘Comin’ through the Rye’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
As for Foxy, he died very peacefully of old age, and Tacklow, who was not prone to tears, confessed that he wept buckets and missed him so sorely that he made a solemn vow never, never again ‘to give his heart to a dog to tear’, as Kipling puts it. That vow was never broken. There were other pets of course: cats, monkeys, mongooses (or should that be ‘mongeese’?), squirrels, parrots and bulbuls; but never another dog. He never forgot Foxy. The little photograph that went with him everywhere right up to the day of his death is proof of that.
After Foxy, he acquired a pair of brown monkeys called Jacko and Jillo; an exhilarating but exhausting pair of pets, as anyone who has ever owned a monkey will know. The havoc that one small member of this tribe (let alone two) can cause in the space of sixty seconds has to be seen to be believed; I suppose it comes from having four hands instead of two, and excellent teeth. There was one occasion when the demon pair managed to capture a crow and were in the process of plucking out its feathers one by one when the shrieks of the victim alerted Tacklow, who rescued it, tailless, just in time; getting bitten in the process by Jillo and severely pecked by the ungrateful crow. The pair eventually joined forces with a troop of their wild brethren whom they had quite obviously invited in to share their owner’s bungalow, and when after a period of chaos and anarchy the friends were successfully evicted, Jacko and Jillo elected to go with them and were last seen in their company eating stolen corn-cobs on the roof of a shop in the bazaar. Tacklow said that he missed them, but that life was a lot more peaceful after their departure.
His next pet was a mongoose that had somehow got into his bathroom, and finding itself shut in, behaved like a lunatic; racketing around the walls and upsetting tin water-cans, soap-dishes, razors and other movable objects in its frenzy. The noise, which was considerable, merely increased its panic, and drew Tacklow to investigate; and since he had always wanted a mongoose, he shut himself into the bathroom with it and sat down cross-legged on the floor, where he remained without moving for over an hour — I think that his ability to remain silent and immovable for long periods was probably the secret of the rapport he was able to establish with animals and birds. After some ten or fifteen minutes the mongoose ceased to dash wildly round the room and retreated behind the upturned tin bathtub. But as Kipling says, every mongoose is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity and the motto of the mongoose family is ‘Run and Find Out’. This one ran true to form. It could not resist peering round the side of the bath to discover what this strange human creature was doing, and after a time it began to creep forward, inch by inch, until at long last, having cautiously investigated Tacklow’s shoes and then his ankles, it climbed up onto his knee, sniffed at his watch-chain and nibbled at a coat-button, and exhausted by its previous shenanigans, yawned and went to sleep. When, after a further hour, it woke up, it allowed itself to be stroked; and from then on they were the best of friends for two glorious years.
I once had a mongoose myself, and they are the most adorable and entertaining of creatures. Tacklow’s Rikki (the name was new in those days — Kipling’s Jungle Book, which contains the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, having only recently been published) was the best of companions. He slept on Tacklow’s pillow, went along with him to the office, and to the Mess where he shared his meals, sitting on his knee and occasionally venturing onto the table to take a drink of water from one of the finger-bowls. Like his famous namesake he kept the bungalow and the surrounding compound free from snakes, and he would accompany Tacklow on his morning rides and evening walks; tearing along across the scrub-covered plains between the kikar trees or along the river banks, and sitting up and chittering loudly when he wished to be picked up and given a lift. Tacklow told me that he always came when called and learned, on those evening walks, to come to heel when danger threatened or caution demanded it. The only thing he objected to was crossing the vast open space of the sun-scorched Parade Ground, where there was no cover and he knew that he was vulnerable to kites and other birds of prey. When Tacklow did that, Rikki would run between his feet in the protection of his shadow; but otherwise he came and went as he pleased. As did my Rikki, years later.
Unfortunately, Tacklow did not know that one of Rikki’s favourite hot-weather retreats, where he liked to take a nap when the temperature soared, was a culvert under the drive leading to the bungalow; and he
was there one hot afternoon in mid-June when the first storm of the approaching monsoon swept down without warning and a flash-flood fell like a cataract out of the sky. Within seconds the whole Cantonment was awash, and Rikki, trapped by a deluge of water pouring in from both sides of the culvert, was drowned.
After that, Tacklow acquired cats and the occasional parrot. Not intentionally, as he had acquired Rikki, but because they attached themselves to him and he allowed them to stay. But no cat ever took the place of Foxy; or of Rikki either. And each in turn bore the same name because by tradition all Kaye cats were called ‘Chips’.
All cats liked Tacklow. They would see him coming, and remarking to themselves in pleased surprise ‘Ah! — a man who likes cats!’, would rise to their paws and come to meet him, arching their backs, tails well up, and rubbing themselves against his ankles. A walk with him in any place where there were cats — Naples being a case in point! — closely resembled a ‘royal’ on walkabout. He would exchange a word or two with them and they would reply, presumably in Italian. But the creature that Tacklow would most have liked to own (failing a dog, of course) was an elephant. For it is true that they have a remarkably good memory, and since their life-span is a long one, with luck they could outlive you. They are also very intelligent and truly endearing. But unfortunately they need a lot of space and a great deal of care and attention, plus a vast amount of fodder. His pad-elephant, Pramekali, and her mahout* were only hired by Tacklow for a few seasons during the tail-end of the 1890s; and then only when he was on shooting leave in the Terai. But he loved her dearly and never forgot her, and would often say wistfully that if only he were rich he would buy a large estate — a zemindari — somewhere on the edge of the Terai, and acquire a baby elephant of his own and just live there and grow old with it.
