“Ow near? ‘Ow far, you mean! We can go as far as that tree down the road.’
‘Then I will go there.’
‘All right. I ain’t goin’. It’s too ‘ot. I can watch you from ’ere. It’s no good runnin’ away. If you did, they’d spot you by your clothes. That’s regimental stuff you’re wearing. There ain’t a picket in Umballa wouldn’t ‘ead you back quicker than you started out.’
This did not impress Kim as much as the knowledge that his raiment would tire him out if he tried to run. He slouched to the tree at the corner of a bare road leading towards the bazar, and eyed the natives passing. Most of them were barrack servants of the lowest caste. Kim hailed a sweeper,165 who promptly retorted with a piece of unnecessary insolence, in the natural belief that the European boy could not follow it. The low, quick answer undeceived him. Kim put his fettered soul into it, thankful for the late chance to abuse somebody in the tongue he knew best. ‘And now, go to the nearest letter-writer in the bazar and tell him to come here. I would write a letter.’
‘But—but what manner of white man’s son art thou to need a bazar letter-writer? Is there not a schoolmaster in the barracks?’
‘Ay; and Hell is full of the same sort. Do my order, you—you Od!166 Thy mother was married under a basket! Servant of Lal Beg’ (Kim knew the God of the sweepers), ‘run on my business or we will talk again.
The sweeper shuffled off in haste. ‘There is a white boy by the barracks waiting under a tree who is not a white boy,’ he stammered to the first bazar letter-writer he came across. ‘He needs thee.’
‘Will he pay?’ said that spruce scribe, gathering up his desk and pens and sealing-wax all in order.
‘I do not know. He is not like other boys. Go and see. It is well worth.’
Kim danced with impatience when the slim young Kayeth167 hove in sight. As soon as his voice could carry he cursed him volubly.
‘First I will take my pay,’ the letter-writer said. ‘Bad words have made the price higher. But who art thou, dressed in that fashion, to speak in this fashion?’
‘Aha! That is in the letter which thou shalt write. Never was such a tale. But I am in no haste. Another writer will serve me. Umballa city is full of them as is Lahore.’
‘Four annas,’ said the writer, sitting down and spreading his cloth in the shade of a deserted barrack-wing.
Mechanically Kim squatted beside him,—squatted as only the natives can,—in spite of the abominable clinging trousers.
The writer regarded him sideways.
‘That is the price to ask of Sahibs,’ said Kim. ‘Now fix me a true one.’
‘An anna and a half. How do I know, having written the letter, that thou wilt not run away?’
‘I must not go beyond this tree, and there is also the stamp to be considered.’
‘I get no commission on the price of the stamp. Once more, what manner of white boy art thou?’
‘That shall be said in the letter, which is to Mahbub Ali, the horse-dealer in the Kashmir Serai, at Lahore. He is my friend.’
‘Wonder on wonder!’ murmured the letter-writer, dipping a reed in the inkstand. ‘To be written in Hindi?’
‘Assuredly. To Mahbub Ali then. Begin! I have come down with the old man as far as Umballa in the train. At Umballa I carried the news of the bay mare’s pedigree. ’After what he had seen in the garden, he was not going to write of white stallions.
‘Slower a little. What has a bay mare to do.... Is it Mahbub Ali, the great dealer?’
‘Who else? I have been in his service. Take more ink. Again. As the order was, so I did it. We then went on foot towards Benares, but on the third day we found a certain regiment. Is that down?’
‘Ay, pulton,’168 murmured the writer all ears.
‘I went into their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm about my neck, which thou knowest, it was established that I was the son of some man in the regiment: according to the prophecy of the Red Bull, which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar. ’ Kim waited for this shaft to sink into the letter-writer’s heart, cleared his throat, and continued: ‘A priest clothed me and gave me a new name.... One priest, however, was a fool. The clothes are very heavy, but I am a Sahib and my heart is heavy too. They send me to a school and beat me. I do not like the air and water here. Come then and help me, Mahbub Ali, or send me some money, for I have not sufficient to pay the writer who writes this. ’
‘ “Who writes this.” It is my own fault that I was tricked. Thou art as clever as Husain Bux that forged the Treasury stamps at Nucklao. But what a tale! What a tale! Is it true by any chance?’
‘It does not profit to tell lies to Mahbub Ali. It is better to help his friends by lending them a stamp. When the money comes I will repay.’
The writer grunted doubtfully, but took a stamp out of his desk, sealed the letter, handed it over to Kim, and departed. Mahbub Ali’s was a name of power in Umballa.
‘That is the way to win a good account with the Gods,’ Kim shouted after him.
‘Pay me twice over when the money comes,’ the man cried over his shoulder.
‘What was you bukkin’169 to that nigger about?’ said the drummer-boy when Kim returned to the veranda. ‘I was watchin’ you.’
‘I was only talkin’ to him.’
‘You talk the same as a nigger, don’t you?’
‘No-ah! No-ah! I onlee speak a little. What shall we do now?’
‘The bugles ’ll go for dinner in arf a minute. My Gawd! I wish I’d gone up to the Front with the Regiment. It’s awful doin’ nothin’ but school down ’ere. Don’t you ‘ate it?’
‘Oah yess!’
‘I’d run away if I knew where to go to, but, as the men say, in this bloomin’ Injia you’re only a prisoner at large. You can’t desert without bein’ took back at once. I’m fair sick of it.’
‘You have been in Be170—England?’
‘W’y, I only come out last troopin’ season with my mother. I should think I’ ave been in England. What a ignorant little beggar you are! You was brought up in the gutter, wasn’t you?’
‘Oah yess. Tell me something about England. My father he came from there.’
Though he would not say so, Kim of course disbelieved every word the drummer-boy spoke about the Liverpool suburb which was his England. It passed the heavy time till dinner—a most unappetising meal served to the boys and a few invalids in a corner of a barrack-room. But that he had written to Mahbub Ali, Kim would have been almost depressed. The indifference of native crowds he was used to; but this strong loneliness among white men preyed on him. He was grateful when, in the course of the afternoon, a big soldier took him over to Father Victor, who lived in another wing across another dusty parade-ground. The priest was reading an English letter written in purple ink. He looked at Kim more curiously than ever.
‘An’ how do you like it, my son, as far as you’ve gone? Not much, eh? It must be hard—very hard on a wild animal. Listen now. I’ve an amazin’ epistle from your friend.’
‘Where is he? Is he well? Oah! If he knows to write me letters, it is all right.’
‘You’re fond of him, then?’
‘Of course I am fond of him. He was fond of me.’
‘It seems so by the look of this. He can’t write English, can he?’
‘Oah no. Not that I know, but of course he found a letter-writer who can write English veree well, and so he wrote. I do hope you understand.’
‘That accounts for it. D’you know anything about his money affairs?’ Kim’s face showed that he did not.
‘How can I tell?’
‘That’s what I’m askin’. Now listen if you can make head or tail o’ this. We’ll skip the first part.... It’s written from Jagadhir Road.... “Sitting on wayside in grave meditation, trusting to be favoured with your Honour’s applause of present step, which recommend your Honour to execute for Almighty God’s sake. Education is greatest blessing if of best sorts. Otherwise no earthly use. ”Fa
ith, the old man’s hit the bull‘s-eye that time! “If your Honour condescending giving my boy best educations Xavier” (I suppose that’s St. Xavier’s in Partibus) “in terms of our conversation dated in your tent 15th instant” (a business-like touch there!) “then Almighty God blessing your Honour’s succeedings to third an’ fourth generation and”—now listen!—“confide in your Honour’s humble servant for adequat remuneration per hoondi171 per annum three hundred rupees a year to one expensive education St. Xavier, Lucknow, and allow small time to forward same per hoondi sent to any part of India as your Honour shall address yourself. This servant of your Honour has presently no place to lay crown of his head, but going to Benares by train on account of persecution of old woman talking so much and unanxious residing Saharunpore in any domestic capacity. ”Now what in the world does that mean?’
‘She has asked him to be her puro—her clergyman—at Saharunpore, I think. He would not do that on account of his River. She did talk.
‘It’s clear to you, is it? It beats me altogether. “So going to Benares, where will find address and forward rupees for boy who is apple of eye, and for Almighty God’s sake execute this education, and your petitioner as in duty bound shall ever awfully pray. Written by Sobrao Satai, Failed Entrance172 Allahabad University, for Venerable Teshoo Lama the priest of Such-zen looking for a River, address care of Tirthankars’ Temple, Benares. P.M.—Please note boy is apple of eye, and rupees shall be sent per hoondi three hundred per annum. For God Almighty’s sake. ”Now, is that ravin’ lunacy or a business proposition? I ask you, because I’m fairly at my wit’s end.’
‘He says he will give me three hundred rupees a year? So he will give me them.’
‘Oh, that’s the way you look at it, is it?’
‘Of course. If he says so!’
The priest whistled; then he addressed Kim as an equal.
‘I don’t believe it; but we’ll see. You were goin’ off to-day to the Military Orphanage at Sanawar, where the Regiment would keep you till you were old enough to enlist. Ye’d be brought up to the Church of England. Bennett arranged for that. On the other hand, if ye go to St. Xavier’s ye’ll get a better education an’—an’ can have the religion. D‘ye see my dilemma?’
Kim saw nothing save a vision of the lama going south in a train with none to beg for him.
‘Like most people, I’m going to temporise. If your friend sends the money from Benares—Powers of Darkness below, where’s a street-beggar to raise three hundred rupees?—ye’ll go down to Lucknow and I’ll pay your fare, because I can’t touch the subscription-money if I intend, as I do, to make ye a Catholic. If he doesn‘t, ye’ll go to the Military Orphanage at the Regiment’s expense. I’ll allow him three days’ grace, though I don’t believe it at all. Even then, if he fails in his payments later on ... but it’s beyond me. We can only walk one step at a time in this world, praise God! An’ they sent Bennett to the Front an’ left me behind. Bennett can’t expect everything.’
‘Oah yess,’ said Kim vaguely.
The priest leaned forward. ‘I’d give a month’s pay to find what’s goin’ on inside that little round head of yours.’
‘There is nothing,’ said Kim, and scratched it. He was wondering whether Mahbub Ali would send him as much as a whole rupee. Then he could pay the letter-writer and write letters to the lama at Benares. Perhaps Mahbub Ali would visit him next time he came south with horses. Surely he must know that Kim’s delivery of the letter to the officer at Umballa had caused the great war which the men and boys had discussed so loudly over the barrack dinner-tables. But if Mahbub Ali did not know this, it would be very unsafe to tell him so. Mahbub Ali was hard upon boys who knew, or thought they knew, too much.
‘Well, till I get further news.’—Father Victor’s voice interrupted the reverie. ‘Ye can run along now and play with the other boys. They’ll teach ye something—but I don’t think ye’ll like it.’
The day dragged to its weary end. When he wished to sleep he was instructed how to fold up his clothes and set out his boots; the other boys deriding. Bugles waked him in the dawn; the schoolmaster caught him after breakfast, thrust a page of meaningless characters under his nose, gave them senseless names, and whacked him without reason. Kim meditated poisoning him with opium borrowed from a barrack-sweeper, but reflected that, as they all ate at one table in public (this was particularly revolting to Kim, who preferred to turn his back on the world at meals), the stroke might be dangerous. Then he attempted running off to the village where the priest had tried to drug the lama—the village where the old soldier lived. But far-seeing sentries at every exit headed back the little scarlet figure. Trousers and jacket crippled body and mind alike, so he abandoned the project and fell back, Oriental-fashion, on time and chance. Three days of torment passed in the big, echoing white rooms. He walked out of afternoons under escort of the drummer-boy, and all he heard from his companion were the few useless words which seemed to make two-thirds of the white man’s abuse. Kim knew and despised them all long ago. The boy resented his silence and lack of interest by beating him, as was only natural. He did not care for any of the bazars which were in bounds. He styled all natives ‘niggers’; yet servants and sweepers called him abominable names to his face, and, misled by their deferential attitude, he never understood. This somewhat consoled Kim for the beatings.
On the morning of the fourth day a judgment overtook that drummer. They had gone out together towards Umballa racecourse. He returned alone, weeping, with news that young O‘Hara, to whom he had been doing nothing in particular, had hailed a scarlet-bearded nigger on horseback; that the nigger had then and there laid into him with a peculiarly adhesive quirt,173 picked up young O’Hara, and borne him off at full gallop. These tidings came to Father Victor and he drew down his long upper lip. He was already sufficiently startled by a letter from the Temple of the Tirthankars at Benares, enclosing a native banker’s note of hand for three hundred rupees, and an amazing prayer to ‘Almighty God.’ The lama would have been more annoyed than the priest had he known how the bazar letter-writer had translated his phrase ‘to acquire merit.’
‘Powers of Darkness below!’ Father Victor fumbled with the note. ‘An’ now he’s off with another of his peep-o’-day174 friends. I don’t know whether it will be a greater relief to me to get him back or to have him lost. He’s beyond my comprehension. How the Divil—yes, he’s the man I mean—can a street-beggar raise money to educate white boys?’
Three miles off, on Umballa racecourse, Mahbub Ali, reining a grey Kabuli stallion with Kim in front of him, was saying:
‘But, Little Friend of all the World, there is my honour and reputation to be considered. All the officer-Sahibs in all the regiments, and all Umballa, know Mahbub Ali. Men saw me pick thee up and chastise that boy. We are seen now from far across this plain. How can I take thee away, or account for thy disappearing if I set thee down and let thee run off into the crops? They would put me in jail. Be patient. Once a Sahib, always a Sahib. When thou art a man—who knows?—thou wilt be grateful to Mahbub Ali.’
‘Take me beyond their sentries where I can change this red. Give me money and I will go to Benares and be with my lama again. I do not want to be a Sahib, and remember I did deliver that message.’
The stallion bounded wildly. Mahbub Ali had incautiously driven home the sharp-edged stirrup. (He was not the new sort of fluent horse-dealer who wears English boots and spurs.) Kim drew his own conclusions from that betrayal.
‘That was a small matter. It lay on the straight road to Benares. I and the Sahib have by this time forgotten it. I send so many letters and messages to men who ask questions about horses, I cannot well remember one from the other. Was it some matter of a bay mare that Peters Sahib wished the pedigree of?’
Kim saw the trap at once. If he had said ‘bay mare’ Mahbub would have known by his very readiness to fall in with the amendment that the boy suspected something. Kim replied therefore:
‘Bay mare
. No. I do not forget my messages thus. It was a white stallion.’
‘Ay, so it was. A white Arab stallion. But thou didst write “bay mare” to me.’
‘Who cares to tell truth to a letter-writer?’ Kim answered, feeling Mahbub’s palm on his heart.
‘Hi! Mahbub, you old villain, pull up!’ cried a voice, and an Englishman raced alongside on a little polo-pony. ‘I’ve been chasing you half over the country. That Kabuli of yours can go. For sale, I suppose?’
‘I have some young stuff coming on made by Heaven for the delicate and difficult polo-game. He has no equal. He—’
‘Plays polo and waits at table. Yes. We know all that. What the deuce have you got there?’
‘A boy,’ said Mahbub gravely. ‘He was being beaten by another boy. His father was once a white soldier in the big war.175 The boy was a child in Lahore city. He played with my horses when he was a babe. Now I think they will make him a soldier. He has been newly caught by his father’s Regiment that went up to the war last week. But I do not think he wants to be a soldier. I take him for a ride. Tell me where thy barracks are and I will set thee there.’
‘Let me go. I can find the barracks alone.’
‘And if thou runnest away who will say it is not my fault?’
‘He’ll run back to his dinner. Where has he to run to?’ the Englishman asked.
‘He was born in the land. He has friends. He goes where he chooses. He is a chabuk sawai [a sharp chap] . It needs only to change his clothing, and in a twinkling he would be a low-caste Hindu boy.’
‘The deuce he would!’ The Englishman looked critically at the boy as Mahbub headed towards the barracks. Kim ground his teeth. Mahbub was mocking him, as faithless Afghans will; for he went on:
‘They will send him to a school and put heavy boots on his feet and swaddle him in these clothes. Then he will forget all he knows. Now, which of the barracks is thine?’
Kim pointed—he could not speak—to Father Victor’s wing, all staring white near by.
‘Perhaps he will make a good soldier,’ said Mahbub reflectively. ‘He will make a good orderly at least. I sent him to deliver a message once from Lahore. A message concerning the pedigree of a white stallion.’