Benefit of Doubt/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
“Yours truly, John Linkinyear.”
Ommony returned to first principles—to his forest—cherished it. As a military man he was nothing. As a forester he had work, and knew that he could do it better than any one else, or otherwise he would have gone long ago to learn from the better man. War, and especially rebellion, means fire; fire in the forest means a generation's increase gone and possibly baked earth in which no tree will root again. He went to work.
Many of the Hindus in the scattered villages had been murdered. Others had run away toward the coast, where in due course a war-ship put in appearance and produced an impression of safety where there was none. But it is impressions that count. Even a pitched battle is for no other purpose than to convince the enemy.
Ommony convinced his friends, which is always equally important. The one lone cruiser that dropped anchor off Calicut accomplished no more in its way than Ommony in his. He was a refuge in a stricken land—one white man unafraid. You could go to him and have your panic laughed at—then listen to strong sympathy and reassuring wisdom.
It was Ommony, leisurely regarding life from a wicker chair on his veranda, who pointed out that, whereas a village could be burned and its women carried off, the junglis who had no villages were safe.
“You can rebuild your villages,” he said, “but can you come to life again? Moreover, will the Moplahs burn an empty village?”
Thereafter, whoever had overheard him might have understood why the Christian missionaries have no kind word for Ommony; for he talked to those pagans in the terms of their own understanding, so that they knew him for an elder brother, not a representative of unintelligible wrath.
“The gods of the woods are afraid for their trees,” he announced. “I, who have served their forest, am protected. You have seen how the Moplahs spare me and my house, although they murder the white men in the trains. The gods are grateful. But how about you? Is it better to serve the gods with little cakes and withered flowers, or to go and look after the trees that the gods love? How do I know that the gods love the trees? People of no discernment! If the gods did not love the trees, why should they live among them?”
The logic of that was so much easier to grasp than the Moslem theory of one revengeful, flattery-loving Allah; and moreover it was so much more like.what they were used to than the ordinary admonitions of the white man preaching allegiance to an incomprehensible Government, that they felt comforted and listened on, instead of shrugging their shoulders at the great gulf fixed between them and whatever gods there be.
“If you care for the trees, the trees will hide you,” said Ommony. “That is the way of the gods, who reward for service rendered. If you let the trees burn the gods will forget you. Pray, and the gods will laugh like the money lender. Keep the fire-lanes clear; find the Moplahs' deserted watch-fires and slake the ashes; search for the heat where smoke is—and the gods will protect you, even as they do me. Moreover the Dee-part-tament, whose servant I am, will pay wages by the month.”
So they left their miserable villages, cached their scant belongings, drove their cattle and goats into forest clearings under Ommony's direction, and submitted to be formed into gangs. The junglis, who are so wise that they have no homes and will not work unless the work amuses them, were set to guarding the cattle, driving them from clearing to clearing out of the way of the raiding Moplahs and not losing more than a fair percentage to the lords of the jungle. Leopards must eat, and the terrified buck were much harder to kill since the fighting started.
Other junglis, scouting to discover which way the Moplahs might come next—in order to give notice to the herdsmen—were told to keep a bright eye lifted for Mahommed Babar, and to discover what had been done with the body of Sirdar Mahommed Akbar Khan—for none of the junglis understood that King was an Englishman. Some of them had seen him in English clothes when he first came, and with a rifle when he helped to execute Shere Ali, but that only led to the logical inference that he was an Indian who could play a white man's part.
And meanwhile, the British authorities were not idle, although every precedent had been upset. Precedents are British gods, and it is distressing to see all your little deities broken on the earth, faces downward. Nevertheless, you can distress the British without immobilizing them, and they have this characteristic: That when the old gods are quite worn out and in disrepute they adopt nice new ones promptly.
The railways were out of commission, along with nearly all the bridges and a good proportion of the rolling stock. The roads, too, were blocked with felled trees and great rocks loosened from the hills, for brother Moplah who had seen the white man practising his creed in France had learned at last how to do a job thoroughly. Wherever a barricade of rocks and trees could be arranged to check the advance of troops, there it was. There, too, were trenches very skilfully designed and placed.
The torn-up railway track was about the only practicable line of advance; and as there were hardly any troops available, and such as there were were mostly needed to garrison fixed posts and protect defenseless small towns, the only possible course was to send junior officers in charge of small parties of men to patrol the line and keep the Moplahs worried.
Left to himself without a nurse in red tabs and brass hat a British subaltern can lead men. Whether wisely or not is not the question. He can be depended on to go three times as far as suggested and to have much less trouble with his men than if there were a canteen and a court martial within reach.
So Lieutenant John Linkinyear, marching jauntily at the head of eleven men—having lost three en route and buried them—arrived at Ommony's one early morning just as Ommony was coming down the steps with a gun under his arm.
“Bacon and eggs!” demanded Linkinyear, whose last meal was a supper of dry biscuit. “For twelve of us! Section—halt! Stand easy! Let your mouths run!”
Ommony shouted to his cook to continue bringing hot food until further notice, and demanded news.
“I'm three days out, thank God, and out of touch,” said Linkinyear. “The last I heard was that Sutherland of the Rutlandshires and twenty men got theirs—and a rumor about old Kadi Wilmshurst and his missus. It's true about Charley and his Ruts. We found their bones in the ashes of a first class railway carriage. Gave 'em full military honors—loaded salute. They'd earned it. Charley was a first class man. He'd actually thrown up earthworks with the railway carriage on one wing and the station building on the other—telegraph wire entanglement—iron off the station roof to keep the gravel and sand heaped up—no end good! Must have moppled 'em too—made 'em so sore they left the wire and stuff behind 'em—probably hadn't enough men left to drag it away.”
“What was the rumor about Wilmshurst and his wife?” asked Ommony.
“They were in a train that didn't get through. I'm supposed to be sniffing for kubber[1] of them. Morning I left there was a note supposed to be from him saying he was a prisoner, missus along with him, and both safe. But nobody could swear to his signature and it was suspected to be a forgery.”
“What good would the forgery do the Moplahs?” demanded Ommony.
“Dunno. Everybody's mad—Moplahs maddest of all, except of course the D. A. A. G. acting everything. Hes no longer human. Theory was that Moplahs might be tempting us into a trap. Letter was dated from Podanaram or some such place. Never heard of it. Know where it is?”
Ommony nodded and led him in to breakfast, leaving the men to wolf food on the veranda.
“How did you come to be here?” Linkinyear demanded between mouthfuls. “Why aren't you killed or circumcised? Are you a Moplah chief—wizard—mad mullah—what's the secret? You'll come away with me, of course.”
Ommony laughed and waved the suggestion aside.
“I've news of Wilmshurst and his wife. One of my junglis brought word last night of two white prisoners locked up in the temple at Podanaram.”
“Man and wife?”
“Male and female made he them,” said Ommony.
“Any description?” asked Linkinyear, pulling out his memorandum book. “Let's see—warts—age fifty-two”
“No description, but who else could it be?”
“All right,” said Linkinyear, “that's my next objective then. Which would you rather do, stay here or come with us? I'll have to borrow some sort of guide from you. Perhaps you know the way? You might be safer on the march with us.”
For his own amusement Ommony mentioned the denseness of the jungle, describing it as pretty much one huge ambush. Then he described Podanaram and guessed at the number of troops that would be needed to assault the place. It all went by Linkinyear like so much weather.
“So you know the way. The luck holds! If Charley Sutherland had had my luck he'd have snaffled promotion out of this instead of making room. You know, these high court Kadis have influence—Kadis' missuses even more so—what? You get me? Rescue a Kadi and his beldame out of durance vile and the tide in the affairs of—what's your name again?—Ommony and Linkinyear starts rising forthwith. Princesses in enchanted castles are possibly all right, but for practise give John Linkinyear, yours truly, one fat Kadi and his wife in one tight fix. Return tickets, please, for Podanaram— But perhaps you can't march?”
Ommony thought he could march, but sensed a predicament unseen by the proponent of direct action.
“Some of the Moplah chiefs are my friends,” he said. “Suppose I try to get word to them.”
“Get word? Why? They'll know our game then. No. Let's steal a march on 'em. Nothing like unexpectedness—wins every time! We won't hurt your friends as long as they behave.”
Ommony laughed again.
“They won't hurt me as long as I behave,” he answered. “There's a truce that covers me, my house, property and servants. Any one may come or go unmolested from here to the station. I can go unarmed anywhere, but they would consider I had broken the truce if led a raid on Podanaram.”
“I thought you were some kind of wizard when you turned on eggs and bacon. All right, you stay here and I'll take another guide. If Podanaram contains Wilmshurst and his wife I'm off there to acquire merit. I see an extra star for this on the shoulder of John Linkinyear.”
“I see you and your men face upward looking at the crows!” answered Ommony. “You've no chance, Linkinyear. I'll send word to the Moplah chiefs.
“Perhaps they'll come here to talk things over. Your wise course is to march back along the railway line and report. By the time you come this way again I'll have more news for you.”
“Rats!” answered Linkinyear rudely. “Your eggs are good, Mr. Ommony. Your advice is rotten!”
Ommony produced cigars and summoned his reserves of patience, which exceeded those of his visitor by the amount of twenty years' accretion at compound interest. His trump card was that Linkinyear would never be able to find Podanaram without a guide, and none could possibly be obtained unless he, Cottswold Ommony, consented. With that for final argument, and a fund of experienced geniality for the front line, he wore the younger man down, while eleven of the rank and file smoked pipes and listened through the open window.
The dispute lasted nearly all morning, with interruptions when Ommony went out to render off-hand justice between quarreling village folk, or to give orders for the guidance of the gangs. Whenever a native sent in word to Ommony, Linkinyear would follow out to the veranda and demand to know in his best attempt at the vernacular if he knew the way to Podanaram. He had no success. They all looked equally stupid. And he never once caught Ommony making signals with hand or eye, although he was smart enough to be suspicious and to watch for them. Ommony was not smart—merely wise.
Linkinyear would not return to G. H. Q. as long as it was humanly possible to remain away. His orders were to give the Moplahs something to think about, and if possible to make them believe that an attack in force was already under way against them. He would not sit down and be quiet in Ommony's bungalow while Ommony went to Podanaram to make inquiries, even if that should be permitted by Ommony's Moplah friends. Nor would he let Ommony go alone on any terms.
In fact, he vowed and declared that if Ommony's refusal to reproduce a guide should oblige him to return to G. H. Q. it would be his duty to take Ommony along with him. Whether or not it was his duty, he would do it. He convinced Ommony of that.
But the older man's moderation and good humor were having more effect that the youngster realized. Linkinyear yielded nothing of his demands, but gained nothing. He did not want to return along the line with Ommony in tow; yet Ommony, by everlasting obstinacy and exasperating good temper, obliged him to threaten that again and again as the only alternative to Podanaram. He threatened it almost pleadingly, reducing himself to a mental condition in which he would have cheerfully offered Ommony a year's pay to yield, if only that would not have made himself ridiculous.
At last, being full of youth and overrunning energy, he reached the stage where the judge and his wife in Podanaram seemed to be the only goal worth striving for, and Ommony, biding that time, recognized it.
“There's only one way we can agree,” he said at last.
“Name it!” snapped the youngster. “No toss of a coin! I won't gamble on it! I go to Podanaram, or you come with me to G. H. Q!”
“An armed party leaving here for Podanaram would be attacked and butchered for a certainty,” said Ommony. “But I might obtain permission for an unarmed party to go and speak with the prisoners.”
“Fine!” agreed Linkinyear. “D'you think they'd swap the judge and his missus against the lot of us? That 'ud be good odds from their standpoint. Equally good from ours. If anything should happen to Mr. and Mrs. High Court Kadi our side would have to be enormously vindictive, whereas we wouldn't matter. Nobody would care if we got scoughed. The game is to get the judge and his wife away to safety.”
“The Moplahs are not such fools,” Ommony answered, looking Linkinyear candidly in the eye. “They know the value of a judge and an English lady. They'd set no more value on you and your men than G. H. Q. would! No. But you may be able to talk to the prisoners and come away.”
“All right, I'll go you!”
“You would have to leave your weapons here.”
Linkinyear demurred.
“It's against all the rules of war and the British service! I wouldn't mind promising not to use them. We could agree to bury our cartridges somewhere, perhaps, but”
“No butts or bayonets!”
“Man! We'd take their word not to attack us. They must take ours not to use our weapons.”
“If I go,” Ommony answered, “I go without even a hunting knife. If you go, you do the same. I know the Moplahs. You don't. I propose to return alive, which we never would if we carried rifles.”
“Unloaded rifles? Just for appearance?”
“The appearance is what would start trouble inevitably. No. White flag party. Same way that a Moplah might be allowed to penetrate our lines.”
“I'll find out if the men are game,” said Linkinyear, and walked out on the veranda, arriving just too late to surprize them grouped with their ears to the open window.
Ommony went to the back door and whistled the same jungli who had attended Shere Ali's obsequies. They exchanged guttural coughs and grunts for about a minute, and the jungli departed at a dog-trot.
“The men are perfectly splendid. Game to go anywhere on any terms!” said Linkinyear. “Now for your Moplah chiefs! Mind—you must make this a regular white flag party—honors of war—good faith on both sides—all that kind of thing!”
“Yes, all that kind of thing,” said Ommony. “I've sent for the chiefs.”
But it was dark—nine o'clock—before the same three chiefs came who had made terms with Ommony in the first instance.
“What is it, Ommon-ee? Who are these soldiers? We promised. You need no guards in this place.”
“Be seated. My servants shall bring food. You have prisoners at Podanaram—a judge and his wife.”
“Not we, but the Khalifate Committee. What of that, Ommon-ee? Do the British not take prisoners?”
Ommony chose a cigar and drew on his air of deliberate leisureliness.
“Have you ever defeated the English?” he asked after a moment.
“Not seriously. No. However, this time”
“If they should defeat you, would it not be best if there were certain claims on their generosity that might be brought forward on the day of settlement?”
“We have treated you well, Ommon-ee.”
“But I am only a forester. The prisoners at Podanaram are very important ones. If they should be ill-treated”
“As Allah hears us, they shall not be!”
“If I should send word into the British lines that of my own knowledge those two prisoners are well and are being treated kindly, there would be satisfaction,” said Ommony. “Satisfaction begets good-will. And out of good-will no harm was ever born, even between enemies.”
“That is true. We trust you, Omon-ee. We will take you to see those prisoners, but you must not spy on us; you must promise that.”
“I shall return to this place,” he answered, “and these soldiers will carry my report.”
“Good. They may wait here. Only we will take their weapons as guarantee. When you return we will give them back their weapons. That is fair.”
“But not wise!” Ommony answered. “It is better to leave their weapons here, subject to your promise not to interfere with them, and to take the officer and his men, unarmed, with me. In that way there will be no excuse for hostilities.”
The headmen objected strenuously, but Ommony refused equally strenuously to leave any of the party in his bungalow, saying that if anything under heaven were certain it was that news of soldiers being quartered there would leak abroad and Moplahs from a distance, who knew nothing of the truce, would pay the place a business visit.
“These soldiers are too many,” said the chief who had red in his beard. “Send all but two of them back to the British lines. Later when those two return with your message we will give them a safe conduct.”
That was good common sense, but Linkinyear would not listen to it, for he himself would have had to return to G. H. Q. It would have been out of the question to send ten men back without as much as a noncommissioned man in charge. His adventurous heart was set on penetrating the jungle and the way to Podanaram and reporting the accomplished fact to his superiors. His men were no whit behind him in enthusiasm.
So Ommony held his ground, half-admiring Linkinyear's persistence, and wholly minded on his own account to look into the condition of the prisoners. There followed an interminable argument as to disposition of rifles and ammunition, which it was finally agreed should be locked up in Ommony's store room.
Then the servants had to be sent for and carefully persuaded that the Moplah guard about to be set over them would guarantee their safety, and would not molest them, in Ommony's temporary absence.
Last, but not least, there were the white flag terms to be discussed, and the exact conditions of the safe conduct, which it was agreed in any event were contingent on the soldiers' good behavior.
One way and another, it was dawn before the white flag party left Ommony's bungalow and plunged into the gloom along a jungle fire-lane.
- ↑ News.