Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads Part 13

Then belching blunderbuss answered back The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack, And the blithe revolver began to sing To the blade that tw.a.n.ged on the locking-ring, And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist, And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes Watched the souls of the dead arise, And over the smoke of the fusillade The Peac.o.c.k Banner staggered and swayed.

Oh, gayest of scrimmages man may see Is a well-worked rush on the G.B.T.!

The Babu shook at the horrible sight, And girded his ponderous loins for flight, But Fate had ordained that the Boh should start On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart, And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe, The Babu fell--flat on the top of the Boh!

For years had Harendra served the State, To the growth of his purse and the girth of his _pet_.

There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows, On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.

And twenty stone from a height discharged Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.

Oh, short was the struggle--severe was the shock-- He dropped like a bullock--he lay like a block; And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear, Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.

And thus in a fas.h.i.+on undignified The princely pest of the Chindwin died.

Turn now to Simoorie where, lapped in his ease, The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees, Where the whit of the bullet, the wounded man's scream Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream-- Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shambles Where the hill-daisy blooms and the gray monkey gambols, From the sword-belt set free and released from the steel, The Peace of the Lord is with Captain O'Neil.

Up the hill to Simoorie--most patient of drudges-- The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges.

"For Captain O'Neil, Sahib. One hundred and ten Rupees to collect on delivery."

Then

(Their breakfast was stopped while the screw-jack and hammer Tore waxcloth, split teak-wood, and chipped out the dammer;)

Open-eyed, open-mouthed, on the napery's snow, With a crash and a thud, rolled--the Head of the Boh!

And gummed to the scalp was a letter which ran:-- "IN FIELDING FORCE SERVICE.

"Encampment, "--th Jan.

"Dear Sir,--I have honour to send, as you said, For final approval (see under) Boh's Head;

"Was took by myself in most b.l.o.o.d.y affair.

"By High Education brought pressure to bear.

"Now violate Liberty, time being bad, To mail V.P.P. (rupees hundred) Please add

"Whatever Your Honour can pa.s.s. Price of Blood Much cheap at one hundred, and children want food;

"So trusting Your Honour will somewhat retain True love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train,

"And show awful kindness to satisfy me, I am, Graceful Master, Your H. MUKERJI."

As the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake's power, As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour, As a horse reaches up to the manger above, As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love, From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow, The Captain bent down to the Head of the Boh.

And e'en as he looked on the Thing where It lay 'Twixt the winking new spoons and the napkins' array, The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days-- The hand-to-hand scuffle--the smoke and the blaze-- The forced march at night and the quick rush at dawn-- The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn-- The stench of the marshes--the raw, piercing smell When the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell-- The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stood Where the black crosses hung o'er the Kuttamow flood.

As a derelict s.h.i.+p drifts away with the tide The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,

Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year, When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.

As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water, In his eye lit the pa.s.sionless pa.s.sion of slaughter, And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife.

For she who had held him so long could not hold him-- Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him-- But watched the twin Terror--the head turned to head-- The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red-- The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew to Some grim hidden Past she had never a clue to.

But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing, And muttered aloud, "So you kept that jade earring!"

Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend, "Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end."

The visions departed, and Shame followed Pa.s.sion:-- "He took what I said in this horrible fas.h.i.+on,

"I'll write to Harendra!" With language unsainted The Captain came back to the Bride...who had fainted.

And this is a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri, A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin-- She's always about on the Mall of a mornin'--

And you'll see, if her right shoulder-strap is displaced, This: Gules upon argent, a Boh's Head, erased!

THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER CATTLE THIEF

O woe is me for the merry life I led beyond the Bar, And a treble woe for my winsome wife That weeps at Shalimar.

They have taken away my long jezail, My s.h.i.+eld and sabre fine, And heaved me into the Central jail For lifting of the kine.

The steer may low within the byre, The Jat may tend his grain, But there'll be neither loot nor fire Till I come back again.

And G.o.d have mercy on the Jat When once my fetters fall, And Heaven defend the farmer's hut When I am loosed from thrall.

It's woe to bend the stubborn back Above the grinching quern, It's woe to hear the leg-bar clack And jingle when I turn!

But for the sorrow and the shame, The brand on me and mine, I'll pay you back in leaping flame And loss of the butchered kine.

For every cow I spared before In charity set free, If I may reach my hold once more I'll reive an honest three.

For every time I raised the low That scared the dusty plain, By sword and cord, by torch and tow I'll light the land with twain!

Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai, Young Sahib with the yellow hair-- Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie, Fat herds below Bonair!

The one I'll shoot at twilight-tide, At dawn I'll drive the other; The black shall mourn for hoof and hide, The white man for his brother.