Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “That beats hell,” he said wondering.

  Mahommed had got to his feet and, glancing at the tiger once to make sure, had faced about. Presumably he was waiting for Ommony and King, but the old look of unfinished argument was on his face, with irresolution added. He glanced almost furtively from one man to the other, moved a pace or two — seemed to hesitate — and then started running. He made a circuit and disappeared at top speed down the lane they had come by.

  “There’s something I can’t explain,” said Ommony, as King caught up with him. “No smoking in the forest. Care to chew a cigar? You see that beast? He had no excuse for killing man. He wasn’t hurt. He hadn’t been driven far enough to make him nervous. I think he came by a yellow streak when we raised him by hand. But where and how did Mahommed Babar come by his? In a month Shere Ali would have been killing children at the water-holes. But who’d have thought Mahommed Babar would cut and run? Can you explain it?”

  King shook his head.

  “Somehow I don’t believe it yet,” he answered. “He and I were brats at Dera Ismail Khan. He had guts as a youngster. We gave that tiger benefit of doubt until he actually sprang. I vote the same for the rissaldar’s son.”

  “Why did he leave the army?” countered Ommony.

  “Resigned. Suspected of politics. Nothing was proved. I sent him to you to get him as far away as possible from Peshawar. There might have been trouble up there if anyone had thrown the resignation in his teeth. He was champion of the native army with the saber — ambidextrous — capable of fighting three at once. I’ve seen him use two swords at once for practice. Marvelous footwork. Shifts his ground so that one opponent is always stymied, and sometimes two. Hot man in a tight place.”

  Ommony checked the count of claws and whiskers and sent the jungli for a gang to skin the tiger and bring in the hide. He and King kept guard until the gang came, talking intermittently, swiping at flies with their handkerchiefs.

  “Mahommed Babar had a claim on me,” said King. “I wish I had a notion of what the real matter with him is.”

  “What is a man that thou art mindful of him?” quoted Ommony. “I know a little. He has been pestered out of his senses by the Moplah malcontents, who lack nothing but military training to make them almost invincible among these wooded hills. Mahommed Babar’s a bit of a fanatic, and they’ve fed him the Koran until his blood boils. On top of that some of these gentry have been to Peshawar, and one of them heard a story of some insult offered to Mahommed’s father by an Englishman. Not sure the Englishman isn’t supposed to have killed his father. Anyhow, he spread the yarn here-abouts, of course, and they’ve been rubbing that into Mahommed Babar along with the Koran. I told ’em in Calcutta a year ago that the Moplahs would cut loose at the first opportunity. Maybe Mahommed Babar is opportunity. Was he a good soldier?”

  “First-rate,” King answered. “Two campaigns. Promoted for gallantry. Nothing wrong with him except a cursed bent for politics. He never could understand that a soldier mustn’t touch that stuff.”

  “Soldier or any other wise man!” Ommony answered.

  “Specially in India. Well, I’m afraid Mahommed Babar’s lien on your friendship won’t help him much. Did you see his eyes just now, before he took to his heels? We’d pulled a thorn out of him a minute or two before. He walked out like a man and a brother to meet Shere Ali. Then he and the tiger both had a yellow fit. Mahommed Babar knew we saw him flinch. Thought we’d be scornful.”

  Ommony got off the rock he was sitting on, saw the jungli gang coming in the distance, and turned to meet King’s eyes.

  “I’m afraid we’ve found him out,” he said. “He’s an enemy, or if not the next Moplah he meets will convert him.”

  He gave instructions about the skinning, and he and King walked back, not saying much, nor exactly aware of the forest in the way they had been. The gold had gone out of the morning. Something drab had entered in — nothing a man could explain, even to himself. Very soon another tiger would find his way into that part of the forest and Ommony would have the delight of discovering his lair, and of knowing where he hunted day by day. North, south, east, and west there were loads of men as fit to make friends of as Mahommed Babar, and for that matter King had friends everywhere. Nevertheless, the day was changed. News did not improve it.

  They were met about a half-mile from the house by two of Ommony’s servants, who came running to report that Mahommed Babar had packed his bedding-roll and ridden away at a gallop on his own gray pony. Furthermore, that certain chiefs of the Moplahs had come for a conference and were awaiting Ommony on his front veranda.

  “Any men with them?” he asked.

  “Nay, sahib. Three chiefs without followers. But they act boldly, as if their followers were not far off. Moreover, since when did a Moplah chief go unattended? Therefore, being afraid, we sent the hamal and two gardeners to discover where their followers are hiding. They have not come back, and we are more afraid.”

  “Fear and the heart of a fool are one,” said Ommony, quickening his pace.

  As they neared the house the third gardener met them with a message from the butler.

  “The three men from Malapuram entered the house to help themselves to guns and ammunition, sahib. The butler forbade, but they threatened him. They were prevented by the dogs.”

  The dogs were still on duty when King and Ommony came in view of the veranda, the terrier standing gamely between the legs of the other two and making most of the noise. The Moplah chiefs, with the fanatical Moslem’s loathing for dogs, showed their teeth almost as prominently as the beasts did, and were standing herded together at one end of the veranda with hands on the hilts of most un-Indian looking swords. Their sword-belts, rather like Sam Browns, were surely never made in India.

  Ommony called the dogs off, rewarded them with curt approval, and sat down on a sort of garden seat between the sitting-room window and the front door. King took a seat beside him, crossed his long legs, lighted a cigar and proceeded to look indifferent. The Moplahs approached, slowly recovering their poise.

  They looked nearly as un-Indian as the swords they wore. They had the long, Semitic Arab nose and the ineradicable Arab stealthiness added to truculence, inherited from Aram ancestors. One of them had red dye in his beard, which increased the Semitic suggestion.

  Nobody knows what Moplah really means, or exactly whence the turbulent fanatics came; but they invaded India three centuries after the prophet Mahommed’s flight from Mecca and ever since have been Moslems in the middle of a Hindu land. Moreover, in that impenetrable mountain jungle they have increased to a million strong — a million thorns in the side of Brahma and the Indian Government — rebels to a man in every generation.

  Their approach to Ommony was after the manner of their kind — not deferent. On the other hand, it was not insolent, although there are men in the East who call everything insolence that does not include obsequiousness. Theirs was rather the approach of peace-makers, who come to reason with a weaker adversary to save him from his own mistakes; and Ommony, who knows men as understandingly as he knows animals, chuckled as he signed to them to sit down.

  They squatted before him with their backs against the veranda rail — proud, fierce-looking fellows. Change their Arab-looking garments, give them a haircut, and you could imagine them driving cattle in Mullingar (forgetting, of course, the tell-tale noses). They waited for Ommony to speak, for manners is the breath of all the East.

  “Have you come to serve notice on me to quit?” he asked them in their own tongue.

  The man in the midst with the red beard took up the tale at once.

  “Father of Forests” — that was what the one word meant— “it is better that you go. Your house and your goods shall be spared. Go, and come back afterward. Only leave the guns. We came for the guns and cartridges.”

  They knew their man — not quite as well as he knew them, but broadly nevertheless. Otherwise they would have beaten about the bush for an hour fir
st. Ommony answered without a suggestion of superiority — which is the secret of real rule.

  “The dogs would not let you take the guns.”

  “True. But now you are here and have understanding.”

  “Am I less than a dog?” wondered Ommony.

  “Nay, sahib!”

  “Then I, also, will not let you have the guns.”

  That was final. All three men recognized it. If he had lorded it over them, or argued, or threatened, there would have been a false note, which would have led to dispute, hot words, and quite likely murder. But he stated facts simply, and they understood.

  “Father of Forests, you cannot fight against all of us. We are many. We rise in honor of the Khalifate, which is being sacrificed by the British for the sake of Hindus.”

  “As I’ve told you a score of times, you know nothing about international politics,” Ommony answered. “You’ve been lied to by professional agitators, whose salaries are paid by the same foreigners who sent you those swords and sword-belts. Whoever enters politics is a fool. I have told you that often.”

  “You will be a fool if you fight against us, sahib.”

  “I don’t intend to,” said Ommony. “I shall stay here in my forest, on duty.” He said “my forest” with the unconscious arrogance that came of having served the forest faithfully for twenty years. It was really the forest that owned him.

  “But — but if harm comes?”

  “Then my blood will be on your heads. I have been your friend. I never harmed any of you.”

  “That is true. Allah be witness, that is true. But if we take the guns and ammunition?”

  “Allah will witness that also. It will be over my dead body.”

  “Ommon-ee sahib, that must not be.”

  “Don’t try to take the guns then.”

  “But we need them.”

  “So do I.”

  “Oh, if you need them. Ah, that is straight talk.” The three heads whispered together for a minute, looking devilish sly as they nodded, arriving at decision. “You will not give the guns to the Hindus.”

  “No.”

  “Good. That is satisfactory. You have always been a friend to us, Ommon- ee. You know our Koran better than our own priests do. You have known many of our secrets and have not told.”

  “That isn’t true,” said Ommony. “I have told the Government in Calcutta, in Otticamund, and in Simla all I knew of your secrets. I have warned them of your intentions. They told me to come back here and mind my forest. I did.”

  The Moplahs laughed. That was the type of joke that tickled them, for they did not doubt for a single second the deliberate truth of every word that Ommony uttered. (You can make your word worth more than Government paper at the end of twenty years if you try hard enough.) A Government refusing to believe the reports of its own best forester — that was humor. They cackled. A forester knows everything, or should. If he doesn’t, the trees will make him so lonely that he will go mad, and from madness to the devil is only one step.

  “Will the Government send troops to protect your house?” they asked.

  “I hope not,” said Ommony.

  “Then, sahib, we must mount a guard to make sure the Hindus do not come and take the guns away.”

  “When do you begin?” asked Ommony.

  They whispered again. This time they were longer reaching a decision, but they did not lower their voices much, and Ommony could easily have overheard if he had cared to. Obvious cut-throats though they were, they were rather like children playing at secrets in front of their nurse.

  “Will you tell your Government?” the red-bearded one asked at last.

  “Certainly,” said Ommony.

  “Ah! Then we will not answer.”

  “All right. My servants will give you food,” said Ommony, by way of dismissing them. But they had not quite finished.

  “Will you report on this interview?”

  “Of course,” said Ommony.

  “We do not guarantee the messenger’s life!”

  “I will be the messenger. I myself will walk to the station and send a tar,”* answered Ommony. [* Telegram]

  Humor appealed to all three of them again simultaneously. They cackled.

  “The sahib will weary himself in vain. The wire is cut!” Ommony raised his eyebrows.

  “The babu will send my message by the next train,” he answered.

  “The babu, who was a Hindu and would not recant, is dead of a cut throat,” said Red-beard pleasantly. “Moreover, the train will not go because the rails are torn up.”

  “Oh, all right,” answered Ommony. “No need then to tell the Government. They probably know already. Food is waiting for you. You have my leave to go.”

  CHAPTER 5. “Loyalty to whom — to what?”

  Governments are like earthquakes. They sleep for protracted periods and then wake suddenly. Waking, they blunder expensively and — cui bono?

  The easiest way to wake a Government is to cut the railway and the telegraph. The Moplahs did not mean that, naturally. Being simple sons of stream and forest, their idea had been, as usual once in a generation, to convert a few hundred thousand Hindus by fear, to make a horrible example of as many conscientious objectors as could be caught, and to keep the detested British Government afar off by severing communications.

  Whereas, of course, if they had let trains and messages go through they would have gained ten days or so for unhindered violence. Nobody would have believed the alarmist reports until long after scores of Hindu villages had ceased to exist. So the Moplahs threw away their best trump card when they tore up the railway line.

  To the uninitiated in such matters a damaged track looks serious; especially when the rioters — as the Moplahs were described at first — have removed the spare rails to be made into bullets, swords and what not else. Actually it was less than nine hours before the first train got through and reached Ommony’s wayside station. He was sitting at dinner alone, when a hot, red-headed military man rode up from the station followed by two mounted orderlies. Hair had been rubbed off their horses’ rumps by contact with the inside of a cattle-truck, but otherwise — except for the redness of the officer’s face — there was nothing about them that suggested emergency.

  The officer shouted from the saddle. Ommony sent out the butler to invite him to dinner.

  “You’re a cool one I must say,” said the officer, striding in. “Or didn’t you know?”

  “Have a drink,” said Ommony.

  “The Moplahs are ‘out.”

  “Sit down. Eat and drink. There are no Moplahs under the table,” said Ommony.

  The cavalry man ignored the invitation, but rather bridled at the jest.

  “Haven’t you a man named King here — Athelstan King?”

  “No.”

  “He arrived by train with you this morning. Where is now?”

  “If I knew I wouldn’t tell you. Martial law yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Neither King nor I are military men. He resigned his commission, you know. Sorry,” said Ommony.

  “I’m Major Pierson.”

  “Sit down. Eat. Drink. You’re wasting my merry mood.”

  The cavalryman took a chair and helped himself to whisky.

  “Merry mood? Great Scott! Yes, thanks. I’ll eat. Are you simply a satyr, well-fed and isolated? I’m in command of an armored train patrolling the relaid track between here and Malapuram. I want information.”

  “So do I. We all do,” said Ommony. “King and I went to the station before noon and buried as much of the babu’s corpse as we could find. The Moplah chiefs were here this morning and gave me leave to live. They agreed not to steal my guns. King painted his face and tired his hair until no wild Moplah in all the Nilghiris could out-mopple him. He’s gone — vamoosed, vanished, napoo.”

  “What about Mahommed Babar? He’s on my list.”

  “Gone too.”

  “Where?”

  “Ask Allah! King set
out to find him. Now eat, drink, and tell me the news.”

  “There isn’t any. This affair won’t amount to much. Headquarters have wired for judge Wilmshurst to come and hold an investigation, but the old boy had already started. My orders are to bring in anyone I find along the line who feels frightened, with special reference to yourself, King, Mahommed Babar, and one or two others up the line.”

  Ommony looked straight into the major’s eyes and deliberately blew up, crashing his open hand down on the table until the plates and bottles jumped. “I shall stay here. I told those opinionative asses at headquarters — in Calcutta, Ooty, Poona — sent word to Simla. Now you. This is the biggest show the Moplahs ever staged. Not going to be. Is!”

  “Who’s running it?” asked the cavalryman, with frank incredulity. “Savages always fail for lack of leadership. Have they hired a new Napoleon from the Army and Navy Stores?”

  “That’s a question for headquarters,” Ommony answered.

  “Scores of Moplahs were in France — sapper and pioneer units. Learned trench-digging and lots else. I warned the Government they’ve got bombs, modern rifles, ammunition, and even uniforms.”

  “Got ’em where?”

  “Abroad. France, Italy, Japan, U.S.A.”

  “Who paid? Moplahs haven’t any money.”

  “Whoever is running India’s bid for independence paid. Best money’s worth on Asia! Brother Moplah’s going to keep a whole division busy. If he only had planes he’d raid Calicut. It’s his turn. Hasn’t staged a good show for thirty years. Do himself proud this time. Cares no more for brass hats and army corps than my terrier does for a steam-roller. He’s been told that if he’ll engage the British army for a month the whole of the North will rise at the British rear. They’ve promised brother Moplah half the loot and all the Hindu converts he can make. So he’s out, and the British army’s in for it!”

  “You’d better come away then,” said the cavalryman with the inevitable nurse-instinct that all soldiers feel toward civilians.

  “Bunkum! I’m your only possible liaison with the Moplahs. You can’t exterminate ’em. We’ve nobody to blame by ourselves.”