第35章 Chapter 6(1)

Now I remember comrades--

Old playmates on new seas--

Whenas we traded orpiment Among the savages.

Ten thousand leagues to southward,And thirty years removed--They knew not noble Valdez,But me they knew and loved.

Song of Diego Valdez.Very early in the morning the white tents came down and disappeared as the Mavericks took a side-road to Umballa.It did not skirt the resting-place,and Kim,trudging beside a baggage-cart under fire of comments from soldiers'

wives,was not so confident as overnight.He discovered that he was closely watched -Father Victor on the one side,and Mr Bennett on the other.

In the forenoon the column checked.A camel-orderly handed the Colonel a letter.He read it,and spoke to a Major.Half a mile in the rear,Kim heard a hoarse and joyful clamour rolling down on him through the thick dust.Then someone beat him on the back,crying:'Tell us how ye knew,ye little limb of Satan?Father dear,see if ye can make him tell.'

A pony ranged alongside,and he was hauled on to the priest's saddle-bow.

'Now,my son,your prophecy of last night has come true.Our orders are to entrain at Umballa for the Front tomorrow.'

'What is thatt?'said Kim,for front and entrain were newish words to him.

'We are going to 'thee War,'as you called it.'

'Of course you are going to thee War.I said last night.'

'Ye did;but,Powers o'Darkness,how did ye know?'

Kim's eyes sparkled.He shut his lips,nodded his head,and looked unspeakable things.The Chaplain moved on through the dust,and privates,sergeants,and subalterns called one another's attention to the boy.The Colonel,at the head of the column,stared at him curiously.'It was probably some bazar rumour,'he said;'but even then -'He referred to the paper in his hand.'Hang it all,the thing was only decided within the last forty-eight hours.'

'Are there many more like you in India?'said Father Victor,'or are you by way o'being a lusus naturae ?'

'Now I have told you,'said the boy,'will you let me go back to my old man?If he has not stayed with that woman from Kulu,I am afraid he will die.'

'By what I saw of him he's as well able to take care of himself as you.

No.Ye've brought us luck,an'we're goin'to make a man of you.I'll take ye back to your baggage-cart and ye'll come to me this evening.'

For the rest of the day Kim found himself an object of distinguished consideration among a few hundred white men.The story of his appearance in camp,the discovery of his parentage,and his prophecy,had lost nothing in the telling.A big,shapeless white woman on a pile of bedding asked him mysteriously whether he thought her husband would come back from the war.Kim reflected gravely,and said that he would,and the woman gave him food.In many respects,this big procession that played music at intervals -this crowd that talked and laughed so easily -resembled a festival in Lahore city.So far,there was no sign of hard work,and he resolved to lend the spectacle his patronage.At evening there came out to meet them bands of music,and played the Mavericks into camp near Umballa railway station.That was an interesting night.Men of other regiments came to visit the Mavericks.The Mavericks went visiting on their own account.

Their pickets hurried forth to bring them back,met pickets of strange regiments on the same duty;and,after a while,the bugles blew madly for more pickets with officers to control the tumult.The Mavericks had a reputation for liveliness to live up to.But they fell in on the platform next morning in perfect shape and condition;and Kim,left behind with the sick,women,and boys,found himself shouting farewells excitedly as the trains drew away.Life as a Sahib was amusing so far;but he touched it with a cautious hand.Then they marched him back in charge of a drummer-boy to empty,lime-washed barracks,whose floors were covered with rubbish and string and paper,and whose ceilings gave back his lonely footfall.Native-fashion,he curled himself up on a stripped cot and went to sleep.An angry man stumped down the veranda,woke him up,and said he was a schoolmaster.This was enough for Kim,and he retired into his shell.He could just puzzle out the various English Police notices in Lahore city,because they affected his comfort;and among the many guests of the woman who looked after him had been a queer German who painted scenery for the Parsee travelling theatre.He told Kim that he had been on the barricades in 'Forty-eight,and therefore -at least that was how it struck Kim -he would teach the boy to write in return for food.Kim had been kicked as far as single letters,but did not think well of them.

'I do not know anything.Go away!'said Kim,scenting evil.Hereupon the man caught him by the ear,dragged him to a room in a far-off wing where a dozen drummer-boys were sitting on forms,and told him to be still if he could do nothing else.This he managed very successfully.The man explained something or other with white lines on a black board for at least half an hour,and Kim continued his interrupted nap.He much disapproved of the present aspect of affairs,for this was the very school and discipline he had spent two-thirds of his young life in avoiding.Suddenly a beautiful idea occurred to him,and he wondered that he had not thought of it before.

The man dismissed them,and first to spring through the veranda into the open sunshine was Kim.

''Ere,you!'Alt!Stop!'said a high voice at his heels.'I've got to look after you.My orders are not to let you out of my sight.Where are you goin'?'

It was the drummer-boy who had been hanging round him all the forenoon -a fat and freckled person of about fourteen,and Kim loathed him from the soles of his boots to his cap-ribbons.

'To the bazar -to get sweets -for you,'said Kim,after thought.

'Well,the bazar's out o'bounds.If we go there we'll get a dressing-down.

You come back.'

'How near can we go?'Kim did not know what bounds meant,but he wished to be polite -for the present.