Part 9 (1/2)

Next day we visited the court-house to watch our little friend dispensing justice from the bench. We were amused to see how quickly he disposed of long-winded native lawyers who, in a case involving a matter of a few s.h.i.+llings, were prepared to deliver a speech in high-flown English lasting five hours. He cut them very short with his favourite phrase: ”It is all a bos.h.!.+”

The pay having been disbursed that afternoon, our men asked me for leave to engage a troop of dancers and enjoy a _nautch_, that entertainment dear to the heart of the Indian but wearisome beyond measure to the European spectator. It was held at night on the open ground behind the _dak_ bungalow. As is customary in native regiments we were invited to witness it and, much against our will, went to it after dinner. The sepoys squatting in a wide circle round the performers rose to their feet; and the Indian officers welcomed us with the usual formalities.

After we had shaken hands with them they hung garlands of flowers round our necks, thrust small bouquets on us and liberally besprinkled us with scent. When we sat down small plates were offered us on which, wrapped up in leaves, were various pungent and aromatic spices to chew. Then we were given cigars, cigarettes, and whiskies-and-sodas--these a concession to European tastes. The performance, interrupted by our arrival, continued. Two fat women with well-oiled hair, jewelled ornaments in their noses, gold bangles on their wrists and ankles, their toes adorned with rings, swayed their fleshy bodies and shuffled a few inches forward and back on their heels, singing the while in high falsetto voices. Wrapped from throat to ankle in voluminous coloured draperies as they were, the propriety of their costume was a reproach to the scantily clad dancers of so-called Indian dances in the English music-halls. The musicians squatted on the gra.s.s behind them, two men producing weird and monotonous sounds from strangely shaped instruments, while a third beat with his hands on a tom-tom, the native drum. And this is the famous _nautch_ at which the Indian will gaze with rapture all night. The flaring oil-lamps shone on the ring of eager dark faces and eyes glistening with enjoyment, as the sepoys watched intently every movement of the ungainly dancers. Fortunately we were not obliged to remain long and soon took our leave of the native officers. Although we were to march at seven o'clock in the morning I heard the monotonous drumming and the shrill voices throughout the night; for the entertainment did not end before five o'clock. And it was a hollow-eyed detachment that tramped behind us on the dusty road that day. Our route lay at an angle to our former course which had been due south; for now we headed north-east towards the jungle and the hills again.

On the left hand lay the ragged fringe of the forest stretching east and west beyond the limit of vision; and high above it towered the long rampart of the mountains. Far away as we were we could see the white specks of the Picquet Towers at Buxa. And back among the jagged peaks rose up the snow-clad summit of a mountain in Bhutan, its gleaming crest seeming to float like a cloud in air above the darker hills. Over the level plain we spread out in fighting formation, one company forming an advanced guard and driving back the skirmis.h.i.+ng line of the other which acted as the rear guard of a retreating enemy. And here and there the peasants working in the fields, knowing nothing of the harmlessness of blank cartridges, fled in terror at the sound of the firing.

We halted for our bivouac near a village in a mission settlement of Santals, a wild tribe recently civilised by hard-working missionaries and taught the dignity of labour and the joys of agriculture. We met the clergyman and his wife who were in charge of the settlement and invited them to dinner with us. They showed us a large iron church in the village, the materials of which had been purchased by money willingly subscribed by the Santals, who had erected the building with their own hands. Our guests told us that their half-tamed flock, when they saw us marching in, had deserted the village and fled into the jungle. They explained to their wondering pastor that we were soldiers, and soldiers were folk whose one object in life was to kill people--and who easier to slay than the poor Santals? It took him hours to induce them to return to their homes. But before night they had lost all fear and flocked inquisitively round our bivouac.

Next day we marched through outlying patches of jungle, the advanced guards of the great forest; and we hailed the trees as old friends.

After an attack by one company on the other in position on a low hill, we found our way barred by an unfordable river. Along the banks lay logs and trunks of trees swept down from the forest; so we turned to to make rafts, binding the timber together with the men's putties and _puggris_--for their head-gear is made of strips of cloth nine yards long. On these rafts the few non-swimmers, the rifles, clothing and accoutrements were placed; and the swimmers towed and pushed them across the stream. With the same rude materials we made an excellent flying bridge which, moved by the swift current, floated backwards and forwards across the river on ropes made from the _puggris_ and putties.

The men revelled in the work. Stripped to their loin-cloths they sported like dolphins in the clear, cold water flowing down from the melting snows of the Himalayas.

Then we marched on again until I halted the column on the outskirts of a tea garden and sent Creagh galloping to ask the manager's permission to encamp on it and draw water for my men from the wells. While awaiting his return, I stretched myself along a squared log of timber and, despite my hard couch, fell asleep, awaking with a start to find Khartoum standing over me staring at me with curiosity out of her little eyes, as she flapped her big ears and brushed away the flies from her sides with a branch. For a second I fancied I was in the forest under the feet of a wild elephant; and I sprang up hastily. Then Creagh returned with a cheery, hospitable Englishman, who invited me to consider the tea garden my own. In a few minutes the fires were going, the _bhistis_ fetching water from the wells, and the cooks rolling up the b.a.l.l.s of dough, deftly patting them out into thin cakes and spreading them on the convex iron griddle over the flames. Sentries posted and guards mounted, the rest of the men piled arms, took off their accoutrements; and, while some hungrily watched the cooks, others lay down on the ground and slept contentedly until food was ready. The coolies gathered to see the novel sight of soldiers; and the inevitable pariah dogs hung about the cooking places and quarrelled over the sc.r.a.ps thrown to them. At every bivouac some of these four-footed recruits joined us; and when we reached Buxa again I found that at least a dozen nondescript curs had adopted the detachment and marched into the fort with the air of veterans.

That night we invited the planter to dine with us. Our meal was laid in my small 80-lb. tent; and, as this measured seven feet by seven feet with a sloping roof, there was not much room for four of us and the servants. Our guest told us of a daring daylight attack by a tiger that morning. While some villagers were driving their cattle on a road which pa.s.sed along the edge of the tea garden, the animal had sprung out from the jungle skirting it and tried to carry off a cow. The men, being fairly numerous, rushed shouting at him and scared him away. When I heard this I determined to beat up that tiger's quarters in the morning and told the other officers of the detachment, who were delighted with the idea. While discussing it after dinner we were startled by fiendish growls and howls from the darkness outside; for a minute we were puzzled by the awful noises and then recognised them as the sounds of two bears fighting close by. Creagh, Smith and I seized our rifles; and, followed by servants carrying lanterns as the night was very dark, we sallied forth to find the disturbers of the peace. The noise came from a spot about two hundred yards away. We reached a high bank below which was thick scrub and long tiger gra.s.s. We climbed down it and formed line with the servants close up behind us holding the lanterns over our heads to throw the light in front. As we pushed our way with difficulty through the scrub a bear gave a sudden growl five yards to our left. We swung round and made for the spot; but the animal did not await our approach. After searching for half an hour without result we gave up the chase and returned to the camp. Next morning daylight showed us that we had been down in a _nullah_, the ground on either side of it being quite open. Had we known this at the time we could have divided our forces, gone along both banks and probably got the bears as they scrambled up out of the _nullah_.

At daybreak we started out with the elephants to look for the tiger. As we possessed only one howdah, it was strapped on Khartoum's back and we all three crowded into it; for the tall gra.s.s rose higher than the head of a man sitting on an elephant's pad. Having thoroughly beaten the wide strip of long gra.s.s we pushed on and came out on a very broad, empty river-bed. This was the River Raidak, which formerly brought down an immense volume of water from the hills only a few miles away. But a few years before it had grown tired of its old road and suddenly changed its course, flowing into the bed of a smaller stream parallel to it, which became greatly enlarged and was now itself generally known as the Raidak. This was the river we had crossed on rafts.

As our elephants pa.s.sed over the wide strip of sand, a curious animal broke out of the jungle a couple of hundred yards from us and bounded away up the _nullah_. It was apparently a hornless deer with black back and white belly and looked like a ”black buck”; but as these inhabit open plains and do not shed their horns we were puzzled as to its ident.i.ty. It halted and looked back at us, and then went off again in a series of high leaps and bounds strangely like a black buck's motion.

Some months afterwards the Maharajah of Cooch Behar told me that several years before he had turned loose a number of black buck and does into the forest near the Raidak as an experiment, being curious to know what effect life in dense jungle would have on these dwellers of the open plains. Apparently the animal we had seen was descended from these and for some reason of acclimatisation Nature had deprived their progeny of horns. This should interest naturalists.

Our search for the tiger ended in a scare and a disappointment. First, when pa.s.sing through another patch of tall gra.s.s on our way back to camp, one of the two pad elephants, Dundora, trumpeted shrilly and charged some animal in the cover. Her alarm communicated itself to the others, who squealed and tried to bolt. We thought that it was the tiger and, with rifles at the ready, attempted to stand up in the swaying howdah, which was no easy task as Khartoum was plunging violently. When at last we got her near Dundora, the latter's _mahout_, viciously belabouring her thick skull with the _ankus_, told us that the cause of her fright was only a small pariah dog. We pa.s.sed on into more open jungle and to our joy saw a herd of wild buffaloes. As we were not in Government forest these were fair game for the hunter; and we urged the _mahout_ forward. The animals were grazing and did not see us.

Cautiously approaching up wind we got within range and were raising our rifles, when an old cow lifted her head and we saw a bell hung round her neck. We swore loudly. They were tame animals; but, as these are like the wild species and we were deep in the jungle, our error was pardonable. Half a mile further on we came on the huts of their owners.

Our course next day lay north-west; and I intended to recross the new Raidak at a point near the hills at a ferry, close to which was a club-house where the planters of the neighbourhood gathered once a week.

This was the day of their meeting; so I resolved to make our bivouac there. The march lay through very dense jungle; but at last our advanced guard came out on the bank of a wide river, a swift-racing torrent of clear water that eddied and swirled over the pebbly bottom. On the opposite side was the ferryman's hut, his boat drawn up near it. Behind, in a clearing, stood a long wooden building which was evidently the club-house. Our shouts brought Charon out of his abode; and he ferried us over in driblets. As elephants are excellent swimmers ours made their own way across.

In the jungle, not far from the club, I marked out the spot for our bivouac around which I ordered a zareba to be constructed. As everything was to be done under war conditions, scouts were thrown out on every side. The rest of the detachment piled arms, drew their _kukris_ and proceeded to clear the jungle. The small trees and undergrowth cut down were dragged to form a belt, ten yards deep, of entanglement breast-high around the camp. The stems of the trees and bushes were fastened to pickets by creepers to prevent their being pulled away. Th.o.r.n.y branches and a shrub which causes an intense irritation when touched were thrown in among them; and the zareba thus constructed formed a formidable obstacle. Then parties were told off to erect shelters of leafy boughs; others made the cooking-places or dug latrines; and the _bhistis_ were taken down under escort to the river to fill the goat-skin bags, or _mussacks_, in which they carry water. Then guards and inlying pickets were mounted and the scouts withdrawn. Bathing-parties went down with their rifles, only half of the men in them being allowed into the river at a time, while the others kept guard against sudden attack.

By this time the planters were beginning to a.s.semble at the rough wooden building which they proudly called their club. And certainly I believe it saw more jollity and good-fellows.h.i.+p within its timber walls than one would find in any of the palatial club-houses of Pall Mall. From gardens lost in the forest for miles round they gathered. Some dashed up to the opposite river-bank on their smart little ponies and kept the ferryman busy. The host that day was our friend Tyson of Hathipota, which now lay between us and Buxa Duar. He cordially invited us to eat our share of the sumptuous cold lunch he had provided, and introduced us to the other planters of the district, who welcomed us warmly.

During lunch one of our new friends told me that the ferryman, whom we could see busy at his boat on the beach, had lost his wife under tragic circ.u.mstances. The woman had gone across the river to a village a couple of miles away to buy provisions. On her return she hailed him from the opposite bank. As he was shoving his boat into the water he saw to his horror a huge bear emerge from the jungle and steal silently up behind the woman. At her husband's warning cry she turned; but before she could move the animal rose on its hind legs and felled her with a blow from its great paw. When the terrified man reached the bank, the bear had disappeared and the woman lay dead with a fractured skull.

After lunch, the planters, most of whom were keen Volunteers, asked me to let them inspect our fortified camp. They were much impressed by the rapidity with which it had been placed in a state of defence and with the ingenuity of our sepoys, who had already made comfortable little huts. Then the senior among the planters told me that he was commissioned by the others to express the grat.i.tude of them all for marching the detachment through their district. He emphasised the fact that the sight of our armed men sweeping through the countryside would have a good effect, not only on the thousands of unruly coolies on the tea gardens around, but also on the lawless dwellers over the border on the hills above us. He said that he and his friends had subscribed on the spot a sum of six or seven pounds and asked my permission to offer the money as prizes for sports to be held by our men that day. I thanked them all heartily and drew up a programme.

The sepoys were delighted and flocked down to the open beach where the sports took place. Of the two events which interested the planters most, the first was called ”The Alarm Race.” Teams from each section lay undressed and apparently sleeping on the ground beside their uniforms and accoutrements. On a bugle sounding they sprang up, dressed, put on their belts and bandoliers, rolled and strapped up their bedding, and fell in ready to march off. We inspected them; and the team first ready and properly dressed won the prize. The other event was very popular among the spectators. Teams of men in full marching order were ferried across the river and landed on the opposite bank. At a signal they started to collect driftwood and build it into rafts, tying the logs together with their _puggris_ and putties. Then some with long bamboo poles took their places on each raft, while others of the team undressed, placed their rifles, belts and clothing on the raft and, springing into the water, swam alongside and helped to bring it across to our bank. The current ran swiftly and the excited men made their rafts swing round like teetotums. The first party to reach the spot where I stood on the beach and form up properly dressed were the winners.

After the sports some of us played tennis on the courts made in the clearing. As the sun set, after a parting drink and hearty invitations to visit their estates, our friends bade us good-bye and rode off.

On our next day's march our faces were set homewards. We pa.s.sed several tea gardens until we reached Hathipota, where the hospitable Tyson welcomed us, and placed the resources of his estate at our men's disposal and entertained the British officers in his bungalow. Parties of our non-commissioned officers and men were taken over the factories and withering sheds, and were as deeply interested as we were in the ponderous machinery and clever contrivances. We left Hathipota next day.

Later on, we were to see it again under more tragic auspices, when we were conveying a murderer to his doom.

Thence to the end of the ten days' march we worked through the forest back towards home. We pa.s.sed almost dryshod over a wide river at Jainti, which during the Rains can only be crossed by a cradle running on an iron cable from bank to bank. At Jainti ends the little railway by which we had arrived. The next station to it was Buxa Road.

From Santrabari we climbed our hills again, sorry to have finished our pleasant and instructive march. The men had learned much of jungle conditions; and I had acquired a knowledge of the district which was to stand me in good stead in days to come.

CHAPTER X

THROUGH FIRE AND WATER