Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “But if that ass Ommony supposes I’ll forgive and forget—” he said to himself, half-closing his little protruding eyes as he adjusted his tunic before the mirror.

  He whistled and walked out, followed by his servant with a lantern. Entering the mess tent, he discovered Tregurtha and Ommony sitting vis- à-vis across a table, discussing belated supper.

  He nodded to Ommony, but laid his hand on the other’s shoulder.

  “‘Gratulations, Trig!” he exclaimed, holding his hand out. “So you took my tip and pulled it off, eh? That’s once when the Intelligence didn’t fail you!”

  “It was much farther to Peria Vur than you intimated,” said Tregurtha.

  “Intimated, eh? You didn’t understand me. I was suffering — couldn’t talk. Stands to reason I knew how far it was. Didn’t I walk it, by Gad! Tell me now — would you have gone, but for me?”

  “I can’t say,” said Tregurtha frankly. “If I had known really how far it was — no, I can’t answer. It was what you said, or, rather, what your gestures implied, that finally decided me; that and what your servant told me. Your accounts agreed, and you were both mistaken!”

  He was puzzled. After the manner of his kind, which passes the understanding of all sneaks — although Prothero knew perfectly what he would not do, even if not why he would not do it — he had deliberately avoided references to the circumstances of the meeting of Ommony and Prothero in Peria Vur. Lal Rai had said something about an encounter between them; but the statements of a brute like Lal Rai were no basis for impertinent questions, at least in his judgment. He never had liked Prothero. He did not like him now. He did not trust him. Nevertheless, he was not going to refuse him his due.

  He, Tregurtha, had gone to get Mahommed Babar; had found Mahommed Babar; had brought Mahommed Babar in. That, as far as he, Tregurtha, was concerned was all about it. Except that he was glad to notice that Ommony and Prothero were not at daggers drawn.

  “Sit down and drink with us,” he suggested.

  “Haven’t time,” said Prothero. “Just dropped in to congratulate you. My report on this should get you your brigade, old man. Macaulay, by the way, has done for himself. He has written a long complaint lambasting you, charging you with insubordination among other things. He claims to have sent you a letter in time to forbid your entering the jungle, but I happen to know that it never reached you.”

  “That’s not quite true,” said Tregurtha. “I received the letter on my return to the railway line. The engineer brought it.”

  “Better and better! More and more witnesses!” laughed Prothero. “But he’s done worse! He has acted in the name of the Commission without first getting the Commission’s vote! I knew he would. He counted on my support to give him a sure majority, and relied on having his action approved after the event.”

  “If you knew what he intended you should have made your objection clear to him,” Tregurtha said sternly.

  “You can’t make some folk understand,” sneered Prothero. “His plan was to take your prisoner away from you—”

  “He has done that,” said Tregurtha.

  “I know. Did he suggest you should apply for leave?”

  “Yes.”

  Prothero chuckled and nodded.

  “Do you get the idea? The notion is to claim a civil service victory over the military, shelve you into obscurity, hang Mohommed Babar to oblige the Hindus, and blame the army for hanging him so as to pacify the Moslems. However, he’s counting without my vote. His action will not be approved tomorrow when the Commission sits. He’s done for himself! Now I’ll go and formally identify the prisoner. Suppose you come with me,” he suggested, looking hard at Ommony. “You and I both saw him at Peria Vur. And oh, by the way — Macaulay has reported you for making maps without permission.”

  “Damn!” snapped Tregurtha. “I shall insist on the Commission taking official cognizance of that map! Macaulay’s reported you for it, has he? By the—”

  “Come along!” said Prothero.

  Tregurtha was glad enough to have him go. It savored to him almost of naked indecency that Ommony should have overheard such unclean official confidences.

  So Ommony chained up his dogs and limped with the aid of a stick beside the least forgiving enemy in India. Prothero knew every inch of the way in the dark and ordered the man with the lantern to keep behind them because the unsteady bright rays bothered his inflamed eyes. Ommony could see in the dark almost as well as one of his own jungli-folk; but they had to go extremely slow because of his injured ankle.

  So it was possibly fifteen minutes before the shadow of the police- station loomed in front of them with its one oil-lamp flickering over the sleepy man on guard in front of the door and another chink of light escaping between the shutters.

  “Isn’t it the limit?” asked Prothero. “To put a prisoner in here in charge of a dozen lying ‘constabeels’ when we’ve a stone cell, a searchlight, and regular troops! Nothing here but corrugated iron. Police asleep as usual, I’ll bet you!”

  They were not all asleep, for the man under the lamp challenged. Prothero answered, and the policeman lapsed again into a sort of camel-coma, chewing something, one hip protruding nearly out of joint.

  They stamped into the police-station, where the officer of the night came out of a snooze with elbows on the desk to greet them sulkily.

  “No,” he said, answering Prothero’s question. “There are orders he should not be seen.”

  “All right. Are you disposed to arrest me?” Prothero retorted.

  “I shall report you. Your name, please!”

  “Suit yourself. You know my name perfectly, you black rascal! Where are your keys? Open that door!”

  “You must first sign a requisition,” the policeman stipulated. Prothero agreed to that — was glad to; it would constitute more proof of Macaulay’s unauthorized high-handedness. He scribbled a chit on the desk, and the officer opened the door leading to a stifling corridor that divided two rows of cells smelling strongly of disinfectant.

  “The cell at the end on the right,” he said stiffly, closing the door behind them and remaining outside — washing his hands, as it were, of complicity in the unauthorized proceeding. Afterward, Ommony remembered that the man was simply huffy, not apparently afraid.

  “Can you beat that?” asked Prothero. “Not even a man on guard between the cells!”

  There were no other prisoners that night. Two rows of empty cells flickered shadowy in the rays of oil-lamps that illuminated the passage fairly well but left the rear of the cells almost pitch dark. Prothero led the way, muttering to himself. Ommony stumped along after him, wondering about a number of things; but chiefly whether Mahommed Babar would be offended by his coming to identify him. Considering the emphatic request in that letter, he decided to keep in the background, and if possible to see the prisoner without himself being seen. He proposed to himself to enter the next cell, whose door was ajar, and to look for a hole in the corrugated iron partition. His hand was on the swinging grille when a yell from Prothero prevented him.

  “Can you beat that? Quick! By God!”

  He pulled his Webley out and fired.

  “Where the hell are your dogs? You should have brought them!” he shouted excitedly. “Damn it, he’s dead; that ends him! Head and shoulders through that hole! Ten more seconds and we’d have been too late! I suspect Macaulay of collusion with the police in this!”

  That, of course, was ridiculous. But men say ridiculous things in the heat of a moment. The astonishing circumstance was that the prisoner was not dead, not even badly wounded. Prothero’s bullet had grazed him and gone through the cell wall, knocking him down on the cement floor; plowing in transit a shallow course above his shoulder-blade that hardly drew blood.

  The police officer came bursting in, lantern in hand, and temper out of hand, which made an awkward team of him and Prothero.

  “Open the cell, you ass!” Prothero yelled at him.

  “It is not your bus
iness to order me!” he retorted.

  “Damn it! Are you blind? There’s a hole in the wall you can see the stars through! He’s got a cold chisel in there! How did he get it? Someone gave it to him! If it wasn’t you, who did? Open that cell or I’ll call a guard and—”

  He had to go back for his keys, and that took time, for he was sulky and disposed to give himself time to think of some alternative. But he opened the door at last. Between them the policeman and Prothero dragged out the prisoner and put him in the next cell, Ommony keeping out of the way. It was Ommony who picked up the cold chisel with which the prisoner had forced apart the sheets of corrugated iron; it had the Government broad arrow and a number stamped on its upper end.

  The policeman saw him with it in his hand, but did not see him give it to Prothero, who put it in his tunic pocket.

  Then Macaulay came in. He said he had heard the disturbance a quarter of a mile away, and there was a fine row, everybody blaming everybody else. It took Macaulay’s keen sense of obliquity to bring on temporary truce by concentrating blame on the policeman.

  “Don’t presume to contradict me!” he snorted. “Your motive is obvious. You knew there was a reward for this prisoner dead or alive, and you proposed to let him escape so as to shoot him in the open! If not, why did you post a policeman with a rifle outside this corner of the building? Don’t deny it! I stumbled into him in the dark as I came along!”

  “He was there to prevent an escape!” the policeman retorted indignantly; and he was going to say more, but was stopped by Prothero, who whispered. Something had given Prothero what he regarded as a bright idea.

  “I suppose, as a matter of fact, if he should get away we’d never hear of him again,” he said aloud, almost as if speaking to himself, directing the remark really at Macaulay — who bit instantly — but puzzling Ommony, who at last had swallowed his compunction and was leaning, looking through the cell bars. He knew there was a key to the puzzle within reach, but could not lay his finger on it. The prisoner turned his back, unwilling to be recognized.

  “Get away?” Macaulay snapped angrily. “He must be hanged as soon, and as secretly as possible. This whole business should be hushed up!”

  “When do you propose to have him tried?” asked Prothero.

  “At once. There’s plenty of evidence.”

  “But no need of it!” Prothero answered. “Mahommed Babar was proclaimed a traitor and outlaw. If you’re bent on hanging him, it may take weeks. But if you want him shot you can have it done at dawn tomorrow by simply signing your name. If what you want is secrecy, all you need is a couple of witnesses and a firing squad. The men won’t know who it is they’re shooting.”

  That may have occurred to Macaulay before, but perhaps he had needed a co- conspirator to give him that kind of daring. He did not act or speak as if the idea was totally new to him.

  “He’ll only be trying to escape again, or else commit suicide, if we leave him in here,” he said darkly.

  “Beastly business, suicide, and difficult to hush up!” was Prothero’s comment.

  Macaulay nodded.

  “To prevent the police from playing further tricks of this sort — yes,” he said; “yes, yes — yes; yes decidedly. You’ll receive an official communication from me before morning, Prothero.”

  Macaulay walked out. The policeman held the door open. Prothero went next; Ommony last, and the policeman touched him on the shoulder. He knew Ommony by reputation for a man who had a heart inside his ribs.

  “You could save me much trouble, sahib, by letting me keep that cold chisel,” he whispered. “They will use it otherwise to try to prove that we were helping Mahommed Babar to escape, so as to shoot him and claim the reward. Whereas that is not true. It could not be. It—”

  “I gave the cold chisel to Colonel Prothero. I’m sorry I did, but it can’t be helped now,” Ommony answered.

  The policeman noticed the tone of voice, observed the absence of the note of enmity — took heart of grace.

  “Could you not get it back for me, sahib?”

  Ommony shook his head. It was obviously out of the question and the refusal was emphatic. The policeman began to plead. “Let me tell you, sahib! Give me just one minute to explain! Mahommed Babar—”

  “Will be shot at dawn,” said Ommony. “I can’t help you. If you want the cold chisel, you must ask the man who has it.”

  He saw him go to Prothero. The two stepped aside into the shadow outside on the porch. Ommony, limping out, passed the policeman coming in, without the cold chisel, but smiling like a man who drew four cards, and filled.

  CHAPTER 15. “My country is the forest!”

  There is a discontent that is divine. That night, in the tent provided by Tregurtha, it took such hold of Cotswold Ommony that his dogs moaned. Less complex than a man, they were better able to apply those elemental principles they understood. They loved Ommony and that was all about it. When he groaned inwardly they cried aloud, and were objurgated suitably.

  They tell us that all problems are as simple as twice two, which may be honest information; but few look simple, and least of all Ommony’s that night. He saw chicanery and double-dealing all around him, and the impulse was to expose it; yet he knew that if he tried to do that he would do more harm than good, and only in the end expose himself to the enmity of bureaucracy, which is specious, cruel, and vindictive the wide world over.

  Besides, there is an irony that is divine, and it is sometimes well to let the mills of God grind on. Whoever made the mountains can make big ones into little ones with equal ease.

  By the dim tent candle-light he studied again that extraordinary letter Mahommed Babar had written him; recalling incident by incident the circumstances that led up to it and the clever means arranged for its delivery. Almost too clever. Almost too like making a mere stalking-horse, convenience, of himself; a thing he should resent.

  “My business is the forest!” he asserted testily in answer to that argument, bringing himself back with a jerk to first principles. “I don’t have to resent unless I choose.”

  He understood perfectly that officialdom, if ever called on to review the facts, would deny he had any other duty than to lay bare all he knew. Bureaucracy would punish him for having an opinion of his own; would humiliate him for daring to be independent. Patrioteers would call his friendship for Mahommed Babar treason. They would say he set a personal regard above loyalty to country.

  “My country is the forest, where my job is,” he assured himself.

  He had done his duty by the forest. Even he, least lenient of critics of himself, knew that.

  If they knew all the facts they would say he had favored his country’s enemies by helping a considerable horde of rebels to escape. But which were his country’s enemies? They who used authority to further their own ambition in the name of taxpayers six thousand miles away, or he who stretched a point to do his utmost for an honorable man? He conceded he had stretched a point or two in favor of Mahommed Babar. But the doctrine of “my country right or wrong” did not appeal to him.

  He wished he were back in the forest, where problems arose and things happened that he understood exactly how to deal with. Bureaucracy, supported by and supporting patrioteers, would hold him up to obloquy if it should ever find it out; citing against him instances from all the school-books to show that a man must sacrifice an honorable friend in favor of dishonest government. Should forgo his own first principles in favor of sacrosanct privilege and anything majorities might say are good.

  Yet there were famous men he could think of who had stood by their friends in the face of that kind of criticism. Men whom he felt able to admire. Not wholly despicable characters. Practically all the men who ever rallied to a standard of rebellion would have to be included, along with all those who blazed new trails as traitors, if that were treason. He himself had striven to bring what element of flux he might into healing the breach between the East and West. If that was treason, then so be it! He co
uld and would plead guilty with a high chin!

  He had never been paid to do anything else than serve the forest. He had earned his pay. He decided, not for the first time nor the last, that he was a free man otherwise — free to live, move, have his being and befriend such branded traitors as he of his unfettered judgment should deem worthy of it!

  That decision, naturally, carried action in its wake. Ommony unleashed his three dogs, left the candle burning, and returned to the police-station, meaning to share his own conclusions with the prisoner, through the bars if need were, but alone in the cell with him for choice. Although he did not realize it at the time, he saved himself whole from the avenger in that hour.

  It seemed to him decent and compatible with love of country that a man about to face a firing-squad should know in his last moments that someone understood the circumstances and appreciated what he did.

  “There’s not a great deal a fellow can say to him. The less the better probably. Short — to the point — and friendly.”

  He followed the dogs along the winding path, turning over in his mind the things a fellow might say in the circumstances. He decided not to mention the fighting, or the distinctly questionable incident on the Rump when he fought like a devil instead of surrendering.

  “What he did do, isn’t the point. What he’s doing now is the whole issue. Must be careful, too, not to start any discussion. Have to say a few words simply, that’s all.”

  He had plenty of time to think, for the distance was more than a quarter of a mile and the state of his ankle obliged him to walk extremely slowly. Finally, in full view of the flickering police lamp, he decided on the words — his words, but the world’s forgiveness and farewell according to his view of it.

  “You’re doing well. You’ve chosen the right course. They’d have taken you sooner or later and hanged you. Now you may die like a man and do good by it.”