King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure, Talbot Mundy [ebook smartphone TXT] 📗

Chapter I Suckled were we in a school unkind On suddenly snatched deduction And ever ahead of you (never behind!) Over the border our tracks you'll find, Wherever some idiot feels inclined To scatter the seeds of ruction. For eyes we be, of Empire, we! Skinned and Puckered and quick to see And nobody guesses how wise we be. Unwilling to advertise we be. But, hot on the trail of ties, we be The pullers of roots of ruction! --Son of the Indian Secret Service

The men who govern India--more power to them and her!--are few. Those who stand in their way and pretend to help them with a flood of words are a host. And from the host goes up an endless cry that India is the home of thugs, and of three hundred million hungry ones.

The men who know--and Athelstan King might claim to know a little--answer that she is the original home of chivalry and the modern mistress of as many decent, gallant, native gentlemen as ever graced a page of history.

The charge has seen the light in print that India--well-spring of plague and sudden death and money-lenders--has sold her soul to twenty succeeding conquerors in turn.

Athelstan King and a hundred like him whom India has picked from British stock and taught, can answer truly that she has won it back again from each by very purity of purpose.

So when the world war broke the world was destined to be surprised on India's account. The Red Sea, full of racing transports crowded with dark-skinned gentlemen, whose one prayer was that the war might not be over before they should have struck a blow for Britain, was the Indian army's answer to the press.

The rest of India paid its taxes and contributed and muzzled itself and set to work to make supplies. For they understand in India, almost as nowhere else, the meaning of such old-fashioned words as gratitude and honor; and of such platitudes as, “Give and it shall be given unto you.”

More than one nation was deeply shocked by India's answer to “practises” that had extended over years. But there were men in India who learned to love India long ago with that love that casts out fear, who knew exactly what was going to happen and could therefore afford to wait for orders instead of running round in rings.

Athelstan King, for instance, nothing yet but a captain unattached, sat in meagerly furnished quarters with his heels on a table. He is not a doctor, yet he read a book on surgery, and when he went over to the club he carried the book under his arm and continued to read it there. He is considered a rotten conversationalist, and he did nothing at the club to improve his reputation.

“Man alive--get a move on!” gasped a wondering senior, accepting a cigar. Nobody knows where he gets those long, strong, black cheroots, and nobody ever refuses one.

“Thanks--got a book to read,” said King.

“You ass! Wake up and grab the best thing in sight, as a stepping stone to something better! Wake up and worry!”

King grinned. You have to when you don't agree with a senior officer, for the army is like a school in many more ways than one.

“Help yourself, sir! I'll take the job that's left when the scramble's over. Something good's sure to be overlooked.”

“White feather? Laziness? Dark Horse?” the major wondered. Then he hurried away to write telegrams, because a belief thrives in the early days of any war that influence can make or break a man's chances. In the other room where the telegraph blanks were littered in confusion all about the floor, he ran into a crony whose chief sore point was Athelstan King, loathing him as some men loathe pickles or sardines, for no real reason whatever, except that they are what they are.

“Saw you talking to King,” he said.

“Yes. Can't make him out. Rum fellow!”

“Rum? Huh! Trouble is he's seventh of his family in succession to serve in India. She has seeped into him and pickled his heritage. He's a believer in Kismet crossed on to Opportunity. Not sure he doesn't pray to Allah on the sly! Hopeless case.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite!”

So they all sent telegrams and forgot King who sat and smoked and read about surgery; and before he had nearly finished one box of cheroots a general at Peshawur wiped a bald red skull and sent him an urgent telegram.

“Come at once!” it said simply.

King was at Lahore, but miles don't matter when the dogs of war are loosed. The right man goes to the right