Chapter 8

An Elephant Interlude

Watch your step where the elephants sway

Each at a chain at the end of a day,

Hurrumdi-didddlidi-um-di-ay!

Nothing to do but rock and swing,

Clanking an iron picket ring,

Plucking the dust to flirt and fling;

Keep et ceteras out of range,

Anything out of the way or strange

Suits us elephant folk for change -

Various odds and ends appeal

To liven the round of work and meal.

Curious trunks can reach and steal!

Fool with Two-tails if you dare;

Help yourself. But fool, beware!

Whatever results is your affair!

We are the easiest beasts that be,

Gentle and good and affectionate we,

You are the monarchs; we bow the knee,

Big and obese and obedient—um!

Just as long as it suits us—um!

Hurrumti-tiddli-di-um-ti-um!

 

(Unfortunately at this point Akbar’s attention was diverted to another
matter, so the rest of his picket-song goes unrecorded.)

"They’re elephants and I’m a soldier. The trouble with you is nerves,
my boy!"

There was brandy in the place that Tom Tripe knew of—brandy and
tobacco and a smell of elephants. Dick Blaine, who scarcely ever
touched strong liquor, having had intimate acquaintance with abuse
of it in Western mining camps, had to sit and endure the spectacle
of Tom’s chief weakness, glass after glass of the fiery stuff descending
into a stomach long since rendered insatiable by soldiering on peppery
food in a climate that is no man’s friend. He protested a dozen times.

"We may need our wits tonight, Tom. Suppose we both keep sober."

"Man alive, I’ve been doing this for years. Brandy and brains are the
same in my case. Keep me without it, and by bedtime I’m an invalid.
Give me all I want of it, and I’m a crafty soldier-man."

Dick Blaine refilled his pipe and watched for an opportunity. He had
heard that kind of argument before, and had conquered flood and fire
with the aid of the very men who used it, that being the gift (or whatever
you like to call it) that had made him independent while the others drew
monthly pay in envelopes.

It was a low oblong shed they sat in, with a wide door opening on a side
street within four hundred yards of Yasmini’s palace gate. It was
furnished with a table, two chairs and a cot for Tom Tripe’s special
use whenever the maharajah’s business should happen to keep him
on night duty, his own proper quarters being nearly a mile away.
Alongside the shed was a very rough stable that would accommodate
a horse or two, and the back wall was a mere partition of mud brick,
behind which, under a thatched roof, were tethered some of the maharajah’s
elephants. There were two windows in the wall, through which one
could see dimly the great brutes’ rumps as they swayed at their pickets
restlessly. The smell came through a broken pane, and every once in
a while the Blaines’ horse, standing ready in the shafts outside with a
blanket over him, squealed at it indignantly.

Tom’s horse dozed in the rough shed, being used to elephants.

Dick got up once or twice to peer through the window at the brutes.

"Are they tethered fore and aft?" he wondered.

"No," Tom answered. "One hind foot only."

"What’s to stop them from turning round and breaking down this rotten wall?"

"Nothing—except that they’re elephants. They could break their picket
chains if they were minded to, same as I could break Gungadhura’s
head and lose my job. But I won’t do it, and nor will they. They’re
elephants, and I’m a soldier. The trouble with you is nerves, my boy.
Have some brandy. You’re worried about your wife, but I tell you she’s
right as a trivet. I’d trust my last chance with that little princess. I’ve
done it often. Brandy’s the stuff to keep your hair on. Have some."

The bottle had only been three parts full. Tom poured out the last of
it and set a stone jorum of rum in readiness on the table over against the wall.

"Wish we had hot water handy," he grumbled.

"Which of the elephants are tethered here?" asked Dick. "That big
one that killed a tiger in the arena the other day?"

"Yes. Did you see that? Akbar was scarcely scratched. Quickest
thing ever I saw—squealed with rage the minute they turned ’stripes’
loose—chased him to the wall—downed him with a forefoot and crushed
him into tiger jelly before you could say British Constitution!"

"I guess that tiger had been kept in a cage too long," said Dick.

"Don’t you believe it. He was fighting fit. But they’d given old Akbar
a skinfull of rum, and that turns him into a holy terror. He’s quite quiet
other times."

Dick looked at his watch. Tess had been in the palace about three hours,
and he was confident she would come away as soon as possible, if
for no other reason than to put an end to his anxiety. She was likely
to appear at the gate at any minute. At any minute Tom Tripe was likely
to attack the jorum, and if present symptoms went for anything, it would
not take much of it to make him worse than useless. At present he
was growing reminiscent.

"Once old Akbar had a belly-ache and they gave him arrak. They didn’t
catch him for two days! He pulled up his picket-stake and lit out for
the horizon, chasing dogs and hens and monkeys and anything else
be could find that annoyed him. Screamed like a locomotive. Horrid sight!"

"Where does this road outside lead to?" asked Dick.

"Don’t lead anywhere. Blind alley. Why?"

"Oh, nothing."

Dick was examining the wall between the shed they sat in and the
stable-place next door. It was much stronger than the mud affair between
them and the elephants. Tom Tripe had nearly finished his tumbler-full,
and there was madness in the air that night that made a man take awfully
long chances.

"Do you suppose a man could lose his way in the dark between here
and the palace gate?"

"Not even if he was as drunk as Noah. All he’d have to do ’ud be hold
on to the wall and walk forward. The road turns a corner, but the walls
are all blind and there’s no other way but past the palace. You sit here,
though, my boy. No need to try that. Your wife’s all right."

"Well, maybe I’d better stay here."

"Sure."

"Do you suppose I could back the dog-cart into the shed where your
horse is? I hardly like to leave my horse standing any longer in the open,
yet he’s better in the shafts in case we want him in a hurry."

"Yes, the door’s wide enough."

"Then I’ll do it."

"Suit yourself. But take some of that rum before you go outside. The
night air’s bad for your lungs. Help yourself and pass the bottle, as
the Queen said to the Archbishop of Canterbury."

"All right, I will."

Dick poured a little on his handkerchief, thrust the handkerchief through
the broken pane and waved it violently to spread the smell. It was
cheap, immodest stuff, blatant with its own advertisement. Then he
set the jorum down on the end of the table farthest from the wall, to
the best of his judgment out of reach from the window.

"Come along, Tom," he said then. "Help me with the horse."

"What’s your hurry? Take a drink first."

"No, let’s take one together afterward."

He took Tom by the shoulder and pushed him to his feet.

"The horse might break away. Come on, man, hurry!"

Over his shoulder Dick could see a long trunk nosing its way gingerly
through the broken pane and searching out the source of the alluring
smell. He pushed Tripe along in front of him, and together they backed
the dog-cart into the stable-place, making a very clumsy business of
it for three reasons: Tom Tripe was none too sober: the horse was
nearly crazy with fear of the uncanny brutes just beyond the wall; and
Dick was in too much hurry for reasons of his own. However, they got
horse and cart in backward, and the door shut before the crash came.

The crash was of a falling mud-brick wall, pushed outward by the shoulders
of a pachyderm that wanted alcohol. The beast had had it out of all
sorts of containers and knew the trick of emptying the last drop. The
jorum was about his usual dose.

About two minutes later, while Dick and Tom Tripe between them held
a horse in intolerable durance between the shafts, and Tom’s horse
out of sympathy kicked out at random into every shadow he could reach,
the door and part of the wall of Tom’s shed fell outward into the pitch
dark street as Akbar, eleven feet four inches at the shoulder, strode
forward conjecturing what worlds were yet to conquer. The other elephants
stood motionless at their pickets. A terrified mahout emerged through
the debris like a devil from bell’s bunkers, calling to his elephant all the
endearing epithets he knew, and cursing him alternately. The horses
grew calmer and submitted to caresses, like children and all creatures
that have intimate contact with strong men; and presently the night grew still.

"D’you suppose that brute swiped my liquor?" wondered Tom Tripe.

"You mind the horses while I look."

 

But suddenly there was a savage noise of trumpeting up-street, followed
by a bark and a yelp of canine terror.

"God!" swore Tom. "That’s Trotters coming to fetch us! Akbar’s chasing
him back this way! Hang on to the horse like ten men! I’ll go see!"

He was outside before Dick could remonstrate. Between them they
had lashed the dog-cart wheels during the first panic, but even so Dick
had his hands full, as the trumpeting drew nearer and the horse went
into agonies of senseless fear. It was a fight, nothing less, between
thinking man and mere instinctive beast, and eventually Dick threw him
with a trick of the reins about his legs, and knelt on his head to keep
him down. By the grace of the powers of unexpectedness neither shafts
nor harness broke.

Outside in the darkness Tom Tripe peered through brandied eyes at
a great shadow that hunted to and fro a hundred yards away, chasing
something that was quite invisible, and making enough noise about it
to awake the dead.

"Trotters!" he yelled. "Trotters!"

A moment later a smaller shadow came into view at top speed, panting,
chased hotly by the bigger one.

"Trotters! Get back where you came from! Back, d’ye hear me! Back!"

Within ten yards of his master the dog stopped to do his thinking, and
the elephant screamed with a sort of hunter’s ecstasy as he closed
on him with a rush. But thought is swift, and obedience good judgment.
The dog doubled of a sudden between Akbar’s legs and the elephant
slid on his rump in the futile effort to turn after him—then crashed into
the wall opposite Tripe’s dismantled shed—cannoned off it with a grunt
of sheer disgust—and set off up-street, once more in hot pursuit.

"That brute got my good rum, damn him!" said Tom, opening
the stable door. "Hello! Horse down? Any harm done? Right-oh!
We’ll soon have him up again. Better hurry now—Trotters came for us."