Part 39 (1/2)
”The plague!” echoed the magistrate (I am the magistrate). ”Nonsense, man! you're drunk--that's what's the matter with you. Inspector, remove that man: put him into the lock-up if he gives trouble.”
The inspector approached, but the loafer stood his ground, not without quiet dignity; the dignity that comes to some people in the first stage of intoxication. ”Excuse of me, sir,” he said, ”but I ain't going to make myself a noosance to n.o.body. That's w'y I came 'ere. That's w'y I spent my last bloomin' _hart hanner_ (eight annas) in takin' a _ticca ghari_ (hired carriage) to the 'orspitals, every one of 'em, so as there might be no infections. Bless your 'art, I don't want to do no 'arm to anyone. I wants to be seggergated, that's all, afore I does any.”
The magistrate smiled faintly: there was something likeable in the man's face.
”So you've been to the hospitals, have you? What did the doctors say!”
”Same as you, sir,” he replied cheerfully, ”as I was drunk; but if I am, Job Charnock--that's me, sir--never got real on afore with one gla.s.s o' _harrack_--an' beastly bad stuff it was, too--smelt like a dead dorg an' tasted like a tannery.”
Perhaps the name, Job Charnock, awoke memories of the founder of Calcutta, who, before his fortunes were made, must have been more or less of a friendless wanderer in an eastern land; perhaps it was because the magistrate was waiting for a file to be brought from the record office; but the spirit of cross-examination entered into him.
”One gla.s.s of arrak--is that all you've had?”
The loafer paused, an expression of the utmost candour came to his face. ”All I've 'ad to-day, sir, s'elp me, 'cos I 'adn't a pice more left ter buy a bit o' food with. Only the _hart hanner_ I spent Christian-like on a _ticca ghari_ ter try an' get seggergated afore it was too late. An' they said I was drunk!”
The mournful cadence of his voice was irresistible.
”Chapra.s.si, take that man to the serai, and tell the _darogah_ to give him some breakfast. I'll pay for it. Now you go quietly, my man, and sleep it off. You'll have got rid of the plague by morning.”
The file had come in from the record office, I was immersed in the endless, hopeless attempt to drag truth from the bottom of the well in a land suit; so I thought no more of Job Charnock until I met the civil surgeon at tennis in the evening.
”Yes,” he replied to my query, ”Segregation was on his rounds again this morning. You're new, but he is a regular inst.i.tution here. He gets the funks on board, generally about a month after a bout, and comes to every one of us in turn to be segregated. I think he is a bit looney on the plague--has a real _phoby_ about it. He'll get it, I expect, some day, from sheer fright--but there's none about at present.”
The something likeable in the man's face, however, returned to memory with the obvious fact that he had appeared chiefly concerned to ”do no 'arm to anyone.” So the next morning, having ten minutes to spare on my way from the city, I called in at the _serai_. It was like all other _serais_: a dreary cloistered square, deserted absolutely between five a.m. until eight p.m.; that is to say, the hours during which travellers are on the road. Now, close on nine o'clock, only the muck of last night's bivouac remained. A sweeper, with a broom and a basket, was busy removing some of the more salient rubbishes. Otherwise all was still as the grave. But, seated on a rush stool in one of the little octagonal turret rooms, which, built on either side of the gateway, are reserved for European wayfarers, I found Job Charnock. He had evidently paid a visit to the well, for he looked cleaner and was distinctly sober, but he was more voluble than ever.
”I give 'arf the breakfast you stood me away to the sweeper, sir,” he said, ”an' 'e brought me some _omum_ water as cured me in a jiffy.
That's all I was wantin', sir, an' none o' them doctors could spare me 'arf a pint. It seems strange, don't it, sir? And ter think the 'arm as I might do going about with the plague spot under my harm, as it's all writ truthful in that book by Mr. 'Arrison Hainsworth, Esquire. 'Ave you read it, sir?” he asked blandly.
I a.s.sured him I had, told him he was a fool, advised him to go north to the new railway to find work, gave him five rupees to find his way there. It was indiscreet and quite contrary to the rules of the Charity Organisation Society, but as I have said, something in the man's face appealed to me.
Thereafter he pa.s.sed from my memory under the usual pressure of work and worry which is the lot of an Indian official.
It was in the middle of the hot weather, when the civil surgeon rushed into me at my office with a telegram in his hand.
”Will you arrange with Spiller for my work,” he said excitedly, ”I must be off at once. Read that--you see, I gave the a.s.sistant surgeon at the Bimariwallah dispensary a few days' leave off my own bat, and there's only a dresser in charge; so there will be the devil of a row if anything goes wrong.”
The telegram read as follows: ”Outbreaks of much plague amongst European gentlemen here. Please arrange for supplies of sufficient brandy.”
”But there are no Europeans at Bimariwallah,” I began.
”I know that,” broke in the doctor, ”and, of course, brandy isn't the right treatment; but that's just where it is. The fool of a dresser doesn't know English, doesn't know anything, so I'm bound to go.”
”Well, if you'll curb your impatience for two hours, till I've finished this case, I'll motor you so far down the Trunk road, and _dak_ you on.
I have an Executive Munic.i.p.al Council to-morrow morning at Raipur, and it's all on the way.”
There had been a shower of rain--an advance scout of the coming monsoon to spy out the dryness of the land--so our spin of thirty miles down the road was pleasant enough, though the great wains of corn and straw that still defy the network of railways which has immeshed India, had possession of a large portion of the highway. But, to my mind, there is always something ”satisfactory” in finding that no amount of preliminary hooting changes the path of the slow-moving wheels, and that, in the end, even a Siddeley-Wolsey car must either hold up until comprehension comes to the carter who moves as slowly as the wheels, or else pa.s.s by on a side-walking. It seems to presage safety; to give a.s.surance that India will not, after all, run off the rails.
The buggy and horse were waiting at the cross roads, and it only needed a _detour_ of three miles to drop the doctor at the very door of the dispensary.
Feeling some curiosity as to what was really the matter, I withstood his prayer to be set down and allowed to make his way on foot. I was glad I did; for the first glimpse I had of the dispensary compound a.s.sured me that something very unusual was taking place. To begin with, a long low reed shed, such as is used in cholera epidemics, had been hastily run up on the opposite side of the road, and in it were to be seen patients lying in their beds or out of them. Posts, each carrying a yellow streamer, were set up every ten yards around the compound itself, and at each gate stood a village watchman complete with speared staff and bells.