Leaves from a Field Note-Book | Page 3

fain have leave to go on furlough and lie in a nullah at Tirah with my rifle and wait for him. Then would I return to France."
"Patience! That can wait. How like you the War?"
"Burra Achha Tamasha,[1] Sahib. But we like not their big guns. We would fain come at them with the bayonet. Why are we kept back in the trenches, Sahib?"
"Peace! It shall come in good time."
They passed into another cabin reserved for native officers. A tall Sikh rose to a half-sitting posture and saluted.
"What is your name?"
"H---- Sing, Sahib."
"There was a H---- Sing with me in '78," said the Field-Marshal meditatively. "With the Kuram Field Force. He was my orderly. He served me afterwards in Burmah and was promoted to subadar."
The aquiline features of the Sikh relaxed, his eyes of lustrous jet gleamed. "Even so, Sahib, he was my father."
"Good! he was a man. Be worthy of him. And you too are a subadar?"
"Yea, Sahib, I have eaten the King's salt these twelve years."
"That is well. Have you children?"
"Yea, Sahib, God has been very good."
"And your lady mother, is she alive?"
"The Lord be praised, she liveth."
"And how is your 'family'?"
"She is well, Sahib."
"And how like you this War?"
"Greatly, Sahib. The Goora-log[2] and ourselves fight like brothers side by side. But we would fain see the fine weather. Then there will be some muzza[3] in it."
The Field-Marshal smiled and passed on.
They entered the great ward in the main hold of the ship. Here were avenues of swinging cots, in double tiers, the enamelled iron white as snow, and on the pillow of each cot lay a dark head, save where some were sitting up--the Sikhs binding their hair as they fingered the kangha and the chakar, the comb and the quoit-shaped hair-ring, which are of the five symbols of their freemasonry. The Field-Marshal stopped to talk to a big sowar. As he did so the men in their cots raised their heads and a sudden whisper ran round the ward. Dogras, Rajputs, Jats, Baluchis, Garhwalis clutched at the little pulleys over their cots, pulled themselves up with painful efforts, and saluted. In a distant corner a Mahratta from the aboriginal plains of the Deccan, his features dark almost to blackness, looked on uncomprehendingly; Ghurkhas stared in silence, their broad Mongolian faces betraying little of the agitation that held them in its spell. From the rest there arose such a conflict of tongues as has not been heard since the Day of Pentecost. From bed to bed passed the magic words, "It is he." Every man uttered a benediction. Many wept tears of joy. A single thought seemed to animate them, and they voiced it in many tongues.
"Ah, now we shall smite the German-log exceedingly. We shall fight even as tigers, for Jarj Panjam.[4] The great Sahib has come to lead us in the field. Praised be his exalted name."
The Field-Marshal's eyes shone.
"No, no," he said, "my time is finished. I am too old."
"Nay, Sahib," said the sowar as he hung on painfully to his pulley, "the body may be old but the brain is young."
The Field-Marshal strove to reply but could not. He suddenly turned on his heel and rushed up the companion-ladder. When halfway up he remembered the O.C. and retraced his steps. The tears were streaming down his face.
"Sir," he said, in a voice the deliberate sternness of which but ill concealed an overmastering emotion, "your hospital arrangements are excellent. I have seen none better. I congratulate you. Good-day." The next moment he was gone.
* * * * *
Five days later the colonel was standing on the upper deck; he gripped the handrail tightly and looked across the harbour basin. Overhead the Red Cross ensign was at half-mast, and at half-mast hung the Union Jack at the stern. And so it was with every ship in port. A great silence lay upon the harbour; even the hydraulic cranes were still, and the winches of the trawlers had ceased their screaming. Not a sound was to be heard save the shrill poignant cry of the gulls and the hissing of an exhaust pipe. As the colonel looked across the still waters of the harbour basin he saw a bier, covered with a Union Jack, being slowly carried across the gangway of the leave-boat; a little group of officers followed it. In a few moments the leave-boat, after a premonitory blast from the siren which woke the sleeping echoes among the cliffs, cast off her moorings and slowly gathered way. Soon she had cleared the harbour mouth and was out upon the open sea. The colonel watched her with straining eyes till she sank beneath the horizon. Then he turned and went below.[5]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A jolly fine show.
[2] The English soldiers.
[3] Spice.
[4] King George the Fifth.
[5] The writer can