Rung Ho! A Novel, Talbot Mundy [free ebook reader for ipad .txt] 📗

“Have courage, now, bahadur! I ride away to visit my estates (he spoke of them always in the plural, as though he owned a county or two). You have under you the best eyes and the keenest blades along the border for I attended to it! Be ruthless! Use them, work them—sweat them to death! Keep away from messes and parades; seek no praise, for you will get none in any case! Work! Work for what is coming!”

“You speak as though the fate of a continent were hanging in the balance,” laughed Cunningham, shaking hands with him.

“I speak truth!” said Mahommed Gunga, riding off and leaving the youngster wondering.

Now, there was nothing much the matter with the men on either side, taken in the main, who hated one another on that far-pushed frontier. Even the insufferable incompetents who held the rotting reins of control were such because circumstance had blinded them. There was not a man among the highly placed ones even who would have deliberately placed his own importance or his own opinion in the scale against India's welfare. There was not a border thief but was ready to respect what he could recognize as strong-armed justice.

The root of the trouble lay in centralization of authority, and rigid adherence to the rule of seniority. Combined, these two processes had served to bring about a state of things that is nearly unbelievable when viewed in the light of modern love for efficiency. Young men, with the fire of ambition burning in them and a proper scorn for mere superficial ceremony, had to sweat their tempers and bow down beneath the yoke of senile pompousness.

Strong, savage, powder-weaned Hill-tribesmen—inheritors of egoistic independence and a love of loot—laughed loud and long and openly at System that prevented officers from taking arms against them until authority could come by delegate from somebody who slept. By that time they would be across the border, quarrelling among themselves about division of the plunder!

They had respect in plenty for the youth and virile middle age that dealt with them on the rare occasions when a timely blow was loosed. Then they had proof that from that strange, mad country overseas there came men who could lead men—men who could strike, and who knew enough to hold their hands when the sudden blow had told—just men, who could keep their plighted word. No border thief pretended that the British could not rule him; to a man, they laughed because the possible was not imposed. And to the last bold, ruffianly iconoclast they stole when, where, and what they dared.

Things altered strangely soon after Ralph Cunningham, with the diffidence of youth but the blood of a line of soldiers leaping in him, took charge of his tiny force of nondescripts. They were neither soldiers nor police. Nominally, he was everybody's dog, and so were they; actually he found himself at the head of a tiny department of his own, because it was nobody's affair to give him orders. They had deliberately turned him loose “to hang himself,” and their hope that he might get his head into a noose of trouble as soon as possible—the very liberty they gave him, on purpose for his quick damnation—was the means of making reputation for him.

Nobody advised him; so with singularly British phlegm and not more than ordinary common sense he devised a method of his own for scotching night-prowlers. He stationed his men at well-considered vantage-points, and trusted them. With a party of ten, he patrolled the city ceaselessly himself and whipped every “watchman” he caught sleeping. One by one, the blackmailing brigade began to see the discomfort of a job that called for real wakefulness, and deserted over the Hills to urge the resumption of raids in force. One by one, the night-prowling fraternity were shot as they sneaked past sentries. One by one, the tale of robberies diminished. It was merely a question of one man, and he awake, having power to act without first submitting a request to somebody in triplicate on blue-form B.

The time came, after a month or two, when even natives dared to leave their houses after dark. The time came very soon, indeed, when the nearest tribes began to hold war councils and inveigh against the falling off of the supply of plunder. Cunningham was complimented openly. He was even praised by one of “Them.” So it was perfectly natural, and quite in keeping with tradition, that he should shortly be relieved, and that a senior to him should be placed in charge of his little force, with orders to “organize” it.

The organization process lasted about twelve hours; at the end of that time every single man had deserted, horse and arms! Two nights later, the prowling and plundering was once more in full swing, and Cunningham was blamed for it; it was obvious to any man of curry-and-port-wine proclivities that his method, or lack of it, had completely undermined his men's loyalty!

A whole committee of gray-headed gentlemen took trouble to point out to him his utter failure; but a brigadier, who was not a member of that committee, and who was considered something of an upstart, asked that he might be appointed to a troop of irregular cavalry that had recently been raised. With glee—with a sigh of relief so heartfelt and unanimous that it could be heard across the street—the committee leaped at the suggestion. The proper person was induced without difficulty to put his signature to the required paper, and Cunningham found himself transferred to irregular oblivion. Incidentally he found himself commanding few less than a hundred men, so many of whose first names were Mahommed or Mohammed that the muster-roll looked like a list of Allah's prophets.

Cunningham was more than a little bit astonished, on the day he joined, in camp, a long way from Peshawur, to find his friend Mahommed Gunga, seated in a bell tent with the Brigadier. He caught sight of the long black military boot and silver spur, and half-recognized the up-and-down movement of the crossed leg long before he reached the tent. It was like father and son meeting, almost, as the Rajput rose to greet him and waited respectfully until he had paid his compliments to his new commander. Cunningham felt throat-bound, and could scarcely more than stammer his introduction of himself.

“I know who you are and all about you,” said the Brigadier. “Used to know your father well. I applied to have you in my command partly for your father's sake, but principally because Risaldar Mahommed Gunga spake so highly of you. He tells me he has had an eye on you from the start, and that you shape well. Remember, this is irregular cavalry, and in many respects quite unlike regulars. You'll need tact and a firm hand combined, and you mustn't ever forget that the men whom you will lead are gentlemen.”

Cunningham reported to his Colonel, only to discover that he, too, knew all about him. The Colonel was less inclined to be restricted as to topic, and less mindful of discretion than the Brigadier.

“I hear they couldn't stand you in Peshawur. That's hopeful! If you'd come with a recommendation from that quarter, I'd have packed you off back again. I never in my life would have believed that a dozen men could all shut their eyes so tightly to the signs—never!”

“The signs, sir?”

“Yes, the signs! Come and look your troop over.”

Cunningham