Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front of me. The first one said:—‘It’s him!’ The second said:—‘So it is!’ And they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped their foreheads. ‘We see there was a light burning across the road and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my friend here, The office is open. Let’s come along and speak to him as turned us back from the Degumber State,’ said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of the other.

  I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with loafers. ‘What do you want?’ I asked.

  ‘Half an hour’s talk with you cool and comfortable, in the office,’ said the red-bearded man. ‘We’d like some drink—the Contrack doesn’t begin yet, Peachey, so you needn’t look—but what we really want is advice. We don’t want money. We ask you as a favour, because you did us a bad turn about Degumber.’

  I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. ‘That’s something like,’ said he. ‘This was the proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, let me introduce to you Brother Peachey Carnehan, that’s him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about our professions the better, for we have been most things in our time. Soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and correspondents of the Backwoodsman when we thought the paper wanted one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first and see that’s sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We’ll take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us light.’

  I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober so I gave them each a tepid peg.

  ‘Well and good,’ said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth from his moustache. ‘Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn’t big enough for such as us.’

  They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot’s beard seemed to fill half the room and Carnehan’s shoulders the other half, as they sat on the big table. Carnehan continued:— ‘The country isn’t half worked out because they that governs it won’t let you touch it. They spend all their blessed time in governing it, and you can’t lift a spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that without all the Government saying—“Leave it alone and let us govern.” Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where a man isn’t crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contrack on that. Therefore, we are going away to be Kings.’

  ‘Kings in our own right,’ muttered Dravot.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘You’ve been tramping in the sun, and it’s a very warm night, and hadn’t you better sleep over the notion? Come tomorrow.’

  ‘Neither drunk nor sunstruck,’ said Dravot. ‘We have slept over the notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong men can Sar-a-whack. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it’s the top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles from Peshawur. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we’ll be the thirty-third. It’s a mountaineous country, and the women of those parts are very beautiful.’

  ‘But that is provided against in the Contrack,’ said Carnehan. ‘Neither Women nor Liqu-or, Daniel.’

  ‘And that’s all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find—“D’you want to vanquish your foes?” and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dynasty.’

  ‘You’ll be cut to pieces before you’re fifty miles across the Border,’ I said. ‘You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country. It’s one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has been through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached them you couldn’t do anything.’

  ‘That’s more like,’ said Carnehan. ‘If you could think us a little more mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to tell us that we are fools and to show us your books.’ He turned to the bookcases.

  ‘Are you at all in earnest?’ I said.

  ‘A little,’ said Dravot, sweetly. ‘As big a map as you have got, even if it’s all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you’ve got. We can read, though we aren’t very educated.’

  I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch-map of India, and two smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INFKAN of the Encyclopœdia Britannica, and the men consulted them.

  ‘See here!’ said Dravot, his thumb on the map. ‘Up to Jagdallak, Peachey and me know the road. We was there with Roberts’s Army. We’ll have to turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we get among the hills—fourteen thousand feet—fifteen thousand—it will be cold work there, but it don’t look very far on the map.’

  I handed him Wood on the Sources of the Oxus. Carnehan was deep in the Encyclopœdia.

  ‘They’re a mixed lot,’ said Dravot, reflectively; ‘and it won’t help us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they’ll fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H’mm!’

  ‘But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate as can be,’ I protested. ‘No one knows anything about it really. Here’s the file of the United Services’ Institute. Read what Bellew says.’

  ‘Blow Bellew!’ said Carnehan. ‘Dan they’re an all-fired lot of heathens, but this book here says they think they’re related to us English.’

  I smoked while the men pored over Raverty, Wood, the maps and the Encyclopœdia.

  ‘There is no use your waiting,’ said Dravot, politely. ‘It’s about four o’clock now. We’ll go before six o’clock if you want to sleep, and we won’t steal any of the papers. Don’t you sit up. We’re two harmless lunatics, and if you come, to-morrow evening, down to the Serai we’ll say good-bye to you.’

  ‘You are two fools,’ I answered. ‘You’ll be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance of work next week.’

  ‘Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you,’ said Dravot. ‘It isn’t so easy being a King as it looks. When we’ve got our Kingdom in going order we’ll let you know, and you can come up and help us to govern it.’

  ‘Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?’ said Carnehan, with subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of note-paper on which was written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity:

  This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of God—Amen and so forth.

  (One) That me and you will settle this matter together:

  i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan.

  (Two) That you and me will not, while this matter is being settled, look at any Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white or brown, so as to get mixed up with one or the other harmful.

  (Three) That we conduct ourselves with dignity and discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him.

  Signed by you and me this day.

  Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.

  Daniel Dravot.

  Both Gentlemen at Large.

  ‘There was no need for the last article,’ said Carnehan, blushing modestly; ‘But it looks regular. Now you k
now the sort of men that loafers are—we are loafers, Dan, until we get out of India—and do you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth having.’

  ‘You won’t enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this idiotic adventure. Don’t set the office on fire,’ I said, ‘and go away before nine o’clock.’

  I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the ‘Contrack.’ ‘Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow,’ were their parting words.

  The Kumharsen Serai is the great four-square sink of humanity where the strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay and try to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down there to see whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying about drunk.

  A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child’s paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks of laughter.

  ‘The priest is mad,’ said a horse-dealer to me. ‘He is going up to Kabul to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly ever since.’

  ‘The witless are under the protection of God,’ stammered a flat-cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi. ‘They foretell future events.’

  ‘Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!’ grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been feloniously diverted into the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the bazaar. ‘Ohé, priest, whence come you and whither do you go?’

  ‘From Roum have I come,’ shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; ‘from Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel? The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours!’ He spread out the skirts of his gaberdine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses.

  ‘There starts a caravan from Peshawur to Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,’ said the Eusufzai trader. ‘My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and bring us good-luck.’

  ‘I will go even now!’ shouted the priest. ‘I will depart upon my winged camels, and be at Peshawur in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan,’ he yelled to his servant, ‘drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own.’

  He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to me, cried:—‘Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road and I will sell thee a charm—an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan.’

  Then the light broke upon me and I followed the two camels out of the Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.

  ‘What d’ you think o’ that?’ said he in English. ‘Carnehan can’t talk their patter, so I’ve made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant. ‘Tisn’t for nothing that I’ve been knocking about the country for fourteen years. Didn’t I do that talk neat? We’ll hitch on to a caravan at Peshawur till we get to Jagdallak, and then we’ll see if we can get donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the Amir, O Lor! Put your hand under the camel-bags and tell me what you feel.’

  I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another.

  ‘Twenty of ‘em,’ said Dravot, placidly. ‘Twenty of ‘em, and ammunition to correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls.’

  ‘Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!’ I said. ‘A Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans.’

  ‘Fifteen hundred rupees of capital—every rupee we could beg, borrow, or steal—are invested on these two camels,’ said Dravot. ‘We won’t get caught. We’re going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who’d touch a poor mad priest?’

  ‘Have you got everything you want?’ I asked, overcome with astonishment.

  ‘Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a memento of your kindness, Brother. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is.’ I slipped a small charm compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest.

  ‘Good-bye,’ said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. ‘It’s the last time we’ll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with him, Carnehan,’ he cried, as the second camel passed me.

  Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no failure in the disguises. The scene in Serai attested that they were complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without detection. But, beyond, they would find death, certain and awful death.

  Ten days later a native friend of mine, giving me the news of the day from Peshawur, wound up his letter with:—‘There has been much laughter here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as great charms to H.H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawur and associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine that such mad fellows bring good-fortune.’

  The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, but, that night, a real King died in Europe and demanded an obituary notice.

  * * *

  The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again. Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there fell a hot night, a night-issue, and a strained waiting for something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference.

  I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three o’clock I cried, ‘Print off,’ and turned to go, when there crept to my chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled—this rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back, ‘Can you give me a drink?’ he whimpered. ‘For the Lord’s sake, give me a drink!’

  I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I turned up the lamp.

  ‘Don’t you know me?’ he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of grey hair, to the light.

  I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not tell where.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ I said, handing him the whisky. ‘What can I do for you?’

  He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the suffocating heat.

  ‘I’ve come back,’ he repeated; ‘and I was the King of Kafiristan—me and Dravot—crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it—you
setting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey—Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan, and you’ve been setting here ever since—O Lord!’

  I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings accordingly. ‘It’s true,’ said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which were wrapped in rags. ‘True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon our heads—me and Dravot—poor Dan—oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never take advice, not though I begged of him!’

  ‘Take the whisky,’ I said, ‘and take your own time. Tell me all you can recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the border on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do you remember that?’

  ‘I ain’t mad—yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I remember. Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep looking at me in my eyes and don’t say anything.’

  I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red, diamond-shaped scar.

  ‘No, don’t look there. Look at me,’ said Carnehan.

  ‘That comes afterward, but for the Lord’s sake don’t distrack me. We left with that caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people were cooking their dinners—cooking their dinners, and . . . what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot’s beard, and we all laughed—fit to die. Little red fires they was, going into Dravot’s big red beard—so funny.’ His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly.