Leaves from a Field Note-Book

It had gone eight bells on the s.s. G--. The decks had been washed down with the hosepipe and the men paraded for the morning's inspection. The O.C. had scanned them with a roving eye, till catching sight of an orderly two files from the left he had begged him, almost as a personal favour, to get his hair cut. To an untutored mind the orderly's hair was about one-eighth of an inch in length, but the O.C. was inflexible.

He was a colonel in that smartest of all medical services, the I.M.S., whose members combine the extensive knowledge of the general practitioner with the peculiar secrets of the Army surgeon, and he was fastidious. Then he said "Dismiss," and they went their appointed ways. The Indian cooks were boiling dhal and rice in the galley; the bakers were squatting on their haunches on the lower deck, making chupattis-they were screened against the inclemency of the weather by a tarpaulin-and they patted the leathery cakes with persuasive slaps as a dairymaid pats butter. Low-caste sweepers glided like shadows to and fro. Suddenly some one crossed the gangway and the sentry stiffened and presented arms. The O.C. looked down from the upper deck and saw a lithe, sinewy little figure with white moustaches and "imperial"; the eyes were of a piercing steel-blue. The figure was clad in a general's field-service uniform, and on his shoulder-straps were the insignia of a field-marshal. The colonel stared for a moment, then ran hastily down the ladder and saluted.

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Together they passed down the companion-ladder. At the foot of it they encountered a Bengali orderly, who made a profound obeisance.

"Shiva Lal," said the O.C., "I ordered the portholes to be kept unfastened and the doors in the bulkheads left open. This morning I found them shut. Why was this?"

"Sahib, at eight o'clock I found them open."

"It was at eight o'clock," said the colonel sternly, "that I found them shut."

The Bengali spread out his hands in deprecation. "If the sahib says so it must be so," he pleaded, adding with truly Oriental irrelevancy, "I am a poor man and have many children." It is as useless to argue with an Indian orderly as it is to try conclusions with a woman.

"Let it not occur again," said the colonel shortly, and with an apology to his guest they passed on.

They paused in front of a cabin. Over the door was the legend "Pathans, No. 1." The door was shut fast. The colonel was annoyed. He opened the door, and four tall figures, with strongly Semitic features and bearded like the pard, stood up and saluted. The colonel made a mental note of the closed door; he looked at the porthole-it was also closed. The Pathan loves a good "fug," especially in a European winter, and the colonel had had trouble with his patients about ventilation. A kind of guerilla warfare, conducted with much plausibility and perfect politeness, had been going on for some days between him and the Pathans. The Pathans complained of the cold, the colonel of the atmosphere. At last he had met them halfway, or, to be precise, he had met them with a concession of three inches. He had ordered the ship's carpenter to fix a three-inch hook to the jamb and a staple to the door, the terms of the truce being that the door should be kept three inches ajar. And now it was shut. "Why is this?" he expostulated. For answer they pointed to the hook. "Sahib, the hook will not fasten!"

The colonel examined it; it was upside down. The contumacious Pathans had quietly reversed the work of the ship's carpenter, and the hook was now useless without being ornamental. With bland ingenuous faces they stared sadly at the hook, as if deprecating such unintelligent craftsmanship. The Field-Marshal smiled-he knew the Pathan of old; the colonel mentally registered a black mark against the delinquents.

"Whence come you?" said the Field-Marshal.

"From Tirah, Sahib."

"Ah! we have had some little trouble with your folk at Tirah. But all that is now past. Serve the Emperor faithfully and it shall be well with you."

"Ah! Sahib, but I am sorely troubled in my mind."

"And wherefore?"

"My aged father writes that a pig of a thief hath taken our cattle and abducted our women-folk. I would 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.

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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 vouch for the truth of this narrative. He owes his knowledge of what passed to the hospitality on board of his friend the O.C. the Indian hospital ship in question.

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