Jungle Tales

When the Royal British Skirmishers were quartered in Bombay, their second in command was Major Bowen, a spare, grizzled, self-contained little soldier, who lived alone in one of those thatched bungalows that resemble so many monstrous mushrooms, bordering the racecourse. “The Major,” as he was called par excellence, was best described by negatives. He was not married. He was not a ladies’ man. Nor was he a sportsman; nor handsome, young, rich, nor even clever—in short, he was not remarkable for anything except, perhaps, his dog. No one could dispute the fact that Major Bowen was the owner of an uncommon animal. He and this dog had exchanged into “the Skirmishers” from another regiment six years previously, and though the pair were at first but coldly received, they adapted themselves so admirably to their new surroundings that ere long they had gained the esteem and goodwill of both rank and file; and, as time wore on, there actually arose an ill-concealed jealousy of their old corps, and a disposition to ignore the fact that they had not always been part and parcel of the gallant Skirmishers. Although poor, and having but little besides his pay, the Major was liberal—both just and generous; and if he was mean or close-fisted with any one, that person’s name was Reginald Bowen. He had an extremely lofty standard of honour and of the value of his lightest word. He gave a good tone to the mess, and though he was strict with the youngsters, they all liked him. Inflexible as he could look on parade or in the orderly-room, elsewhere he received half the confidences of the regiment; and many a subaltern had been extricated from a scrape, thanks to the little Major’s assistance—monetary and otherwise. He was a smart officer and a capital horseman, and here was another source of his popularity. He lent his horses and ponies, with ungrudging good faith, to those impecunious youths who boasted but the one hard-worked barrack “tat;” and many a happy hour with hounds, or on the polo-ground, was spent on the back of the Major’s cattle. Major Bowen did not race or hunt, and rarely played polo; in fact, he was not much interested in anything—although upwards of forty, he was supremely indifferent to his dinner!—the one thing he really cared about was his dog: a sharp, well-bred fox-terrier, with bright eyes and lemon-coloured ears,—who, in spite of the fact that her original name was “Minnie,” had been known as “the Missus” for the last five years. This name was given to her in joke, and in acknowledgment of her accomplishments; the agreeable manner in which she did the honours of her master’s bungalow, and the extraordinary care she took of him, and all his property. It was truly absurd to see this little creature—of at most sixteen pounds’ weight—gravely lying, with crossed paws, in front of the Major’s sixteen hands “waler,” whilst he was going round barracks, or occupied in the orderly-room. Her pose of self-importance distinctly said, “The horse and syce are in my charge!”

She went about the compound early every morning, and rigorously turned out vagrants, suspicious-looking visitors to the servants’ quarters, and all dogs and goats! She accompanied her master to mess, and fetched him home, no matter how late the hour—and through the rains (and they are no joke in Bombay) it was just the same; there was the chokedar, with his mackintosh and lantern; and there was also, invariably, the shivering, sleepy little Missus. It was of no avail to tie her up at home; not only were her heartrending howls audible for a quarter of a mile, but on one occasion she actually arrived under the dinner-table, chain and all, to the discomfort of the Colonel’s legs, the great scandal of the mess-sergeant, and her own everlasting disgrace! So she was eventually suffered—like wilful woman—to have her way. Her master’s friends were her friends, and took the Missus quite seriously—but she drew the line at dogs. It must be admitted that her manners to her own species were—not nice. She had an unladylike habit of suddenly sitting down when she descried one afar off, and sniffing the, so to speak, tainted air, that was nothing more nor less than a deliberate insult to any animal with the commonest self-respect; many a battle was fought, many a bite was given and received. The Missus was undeniably accomplished; she fetched papers and slippers, gave the paw, and in the new style—on a level with her head, walked briskly on her hind legs, could strum on the piano, and sing, accompanying herself to a clear, somewhat shrill, soprano. There was a little old pianette in the Major’s sitting-room, on which she performed amid great applause. It was not true that the instrument had been purchased solely for her use, or that she practised industriously for two hours a day. No—the pianette had been handed over to her master by a young man (who had subsequently gone to the dogs) as the only available payment of a sum the Major had advanced for him. Battered old tin kettle as it was, that despised piano had cost one hundred pounds! But no one dreamt of this when they laughed at its shortcomings. The Missus was passionately fond of music, and escorted her owner to the band; but she escorted him almost everywhere—to the club, round the barracks, the racecourse, to church—here she was ignominiously secured in the syce’s “cupra,” as she had a way of stealthily peeping in at the various open doors, and endeavouring to focus her idol, which manœuvre—joined with her occasional assistance in the chanting—proved a little trying to the gravity of the congregation. Of course she went to the hills—where she had an immense acquaintance; she had also been on active service on the Black Mountain, and when one night a prowling Afridi crept on his hands and knees into the Major’s tent, he found himself unexpectedly pinned by a set of sharp teeth,—he carried the mark of that bite to his grave.

Major Bowen was not the least ashamed of his affection for his dog. She was his weak point—even the very Company’s dhobies approached him through her favour. He was president of the mess, and in an excellent manner had officiated for years in that difficult and thankless office; a good man of business—prompt, clear-headed, methodical, and conscientious. No scamping of accounts, no peculations overlooked, a martinet to the servants, and possibly less loved than feared. But this is a digression from the Missus. Her master was foolishly proud of her good looks—very sensitive respecting her little foibles (which he clumsily endeavoured to conceal), and actually touchy about her age!

When the Missus had her first, and only, family, it was quite a great local event. The Major’s establishment was turned completely upside down; there was racing and chasing to procure two milch goats for the use of the infants and their mother, and a most elegant wadded basket was provided as a cradle. But, alas! the Missus proved a most indifferent parent. She deserted her little encumbrances at the end of one day, and followed her master to the Gymkana ground. He was heartily ashamed of her, and positively used to remain indoors for the sake of keeping up appearances. He could not go to the club, and have the Missus waiting conspicuously outside with the pony, when all the world knew that she had no business to be there, but had four young and helpless belongings squealing for her at home! She accorded them but little of her company, and appeared to think that her nursery cares were entirely the affair of the two milch goats! One of her neglected children pined, and dwindled, and eventually died, was placed in a cigar-box, and buried in a neat little grave under a rose-bush in the compound, whilst its unnatural mamma looked on from afar off, a totally uninterested spectator! The three survivors were handsome puppies, and the Major exhibited them with pride to numerous callers, and finally bestowed them among his friends (entirely to please their mother, whom they bored to death). They were gratefully accepted, not merely on their own merits, but also as being a public testimonial of their donor’s high opinion and esteem.

It was towards the end of the monsoon, when the compound was almost afloat, and querulous frogs croaked in every corner of the verandahs, that Major Bowen became seriously ill with low malarious fever. He had been out ten years—“five years too long,” the doctor declared; “he must go home at once, and never return to India.” This was bad news for the regiment, and still worse for the invalid, who helped a widowed sister with all he could spare from his colonial allowances. There would not be much margin on English pay!

He was dangerously ill in that lofty, bare, whitewashed bedroom in Infantry Lines. He would not be the first to die there. No,—not by many. His friends were devoted and anxious. The Missus was devoted and distracted. She lay all day long at the foot of his cot, watching and listening, and following his slightest movement with a pair of agonized eyes.

At length there was a change—and for the better. The patient was promoted into a cane lounge in the sitting-room, to solids, and to society—as represented by half the regiment. He looked round his meagrely furnished little room with interested eyes. There was not a speck of dust to be seen, everything was in its place, to the letter-weight on the writing-table, and the old faded photos in their shabby leather frames. Missus’s basket was pushed into a far corner. She had not used it for weeks. He and Missus were going home, and would soon say good-bye for ever to the steep-roofed thatched bungalow, the creaking cane chairs, the red saloo purdahs, to the verandahs, embowered in pale lilac “railway” creeper, to the neat little garden—to the regiment—to Bombay. Their passages were taken. They were off in the Arcadia in three days.

That afternoon, the Major had all his kit and personal property paraded in his sitting-room, in order that the packing of his belongings (he was a very tidy man) should take place under his own eyes. The bearer was in attendance, and with him his slave and scapegoat—the chokra.

The bearer was a stolid, impassive-looking Mahomedan, with a square black beard, and a somewhat sullen eye.

“Abdul,” said his master, as his gaze travelled languidly from one neatly folded pile of clothes to another—from guns in cases to guns not in cases, to clocks, revolvers, watches, candlesticks—the collection of ten years, parting gifts, bargains, and legacies—“you have been my servant for six years, and have served me well. I have twice raised your wages, and you have made a very good thing out of me, I believe, and can, no doubt, retire and set up a ticca gharry, or a shop. I am going away, and never coming back, and I want to give you something of mine as a remembrance—something to remember me by, you understand?”

The bearer deliberately unfolded his arms, and salaamed in silence.

“You may choose anything you like out of this room,” continued the Major, with unexampled recklessness.

Abdul’s eyes glittered curiously—it was as if a torch had suddenly illumined two inky-black pools.

“Sahib never making joke—sahib making really earnest?”—casting on him a glance of almost desperate eagerness. The glance was lost on his master, whose attention was fixed on a discarded gold-laced tunic and mess-jacket.

“Of course,” he said to himself, “Abdul will choose them,” for gold lace is ever dear to a native heart, it sells so well in the bazaar, and melts down to such advantage.

“Making earnest!” repeated the invalid, irritably. “Do I ever do otherwise? Look sharp, and take your choice.”

“Salaam, sahib,” he answered, and turned quickly to where the Missus was coiled up in a chair. “I take my choice of anything in this room. Then I take—the—dog.”

“The—dog!” repeated her owner, with a half-stupefied air.

“Verily, I am fond of Missy. Missy fond of master. The dog and I will remember the sahib together, when he is far away.”

The sahib felt as if some one had suddenly plunged a knife in his heart. In Abdul’s bold gaze, in Abdul’s petition, he, too late, recalled the solemn (but despised) warning of a brother-officer:

“That bearer of yours is a vindictive brute; you got his son turned out of the mess, and serve him right, for a drunken, thieving hound! But sleek as he looks, Abdul will have it in for you yet;” and this was accomplished, when he said, “The dog and I, sahib, will remember you together.”

Major Bowen was still desperately weak, and he had just been dealt a crushing blow; but the spirit that holds India was present in that puny, wasted frame, and, with a superhuman effort, he boldly confronted the two natives—the open-mouthed, gaping chokra, the respectfully exultant bearer—and said, “Atcha” (that is to say, “good”), “it is well;” and then he feebly waved to the pair to depart from him, for he was tired.

Truly it was anything but “good.” It seemed the worst calamity that could have befallen him. He was alone, and face to face with a terrible situation. He must either forfeit his word, or his dog,—which was it to be?

In all his life, to the best of his knowledge, he had never broken his faith, and now to do it to a native!—that was absolutely out of the question. But his dog—his friend—his companion—with whom he never meant to part, as long as she lived (for she had given her to him). He sat erect, and looked over at the Missus, where she lay curled up; her expressive eyes met his eagerly.

Little, O Missus, do you guess the fatal promise that has just been made, nor how largely it concerns you. Her master lay back with a groan, and turned his face away from the light, a truly miserable man! His faithful Missus!—to have to part with her to one of the regiment would have been grief enough; but to a Mahomedan, with their unconcealed scorn of dogs! He must have been mad when he made that rash offer; but then, in justification, his common sense urged, “How was he to suppose that Abdul would choose anything but a silver watch, a gun, or the worth of fifty rupees?” Major Bowen was far from being an imaginative man, but as he lay awake all night long, and listened to the wild roof-cats stealing down the thatch, and heard them pattering back at dawn, one mental picture stood out as distinctly as if he was looking at it with his bodily sight, and it was actually before him.

A low, squalid mud hut in a bazaar; a native string bed, and tied to it by a cord—the Missus. “The Missus,” with thin ribs, a staring coat, and misery depicted on her little face, the sport of the children and the flies—starved, forlorn, heartbroken—dumbly wondering what had happened to her master, and why he had so cruelly deserted her! Oh, when was he coming to fetch her? Not knowing, she was at least spared this—that he would never come.

What an insane promise! As he recalled it, he clenched his hands in intolerable agony. Why did he not offer his watch—his rifle? he would give Abdul a thousand rupees, gladly, to redeem the dog, but his inner consciousness assured him that Abdul, thanks to him, was already well-to-do, and that his revenge was worth more to him than money. This would not be the case with most natives, but he knew, to his cost, that Abdul’s was a stern, tenacious, relentless nature. At one moment, he had decided to poison the Missus with his own hands—prussic acid was speedy; at another, he had resolved to remain in India, doctors or no doctors.

“And sacrifice your life?” again breathed common sense. “Die for a dog!” True, but the dog was not a dog to him. She was his comrade, his sympathizer, his friend. Meanwhile, the object of all these mental wrestlings and agonies slept the sleep of the just, innocent, and ignorant; but in any case, it is a question if a dog’s anxieties ever keep it awake. Her master never closed his eyes; he saw the dawn glimmer through the bamboo chicks; he saw Abdul, the avenger, appear with his early tea, and Abdul found him in high fever; perhaps Abdul was not greatly surprised!

Friends and brother-officers flocked in that day, and sat with the Major, and they noted with concern that he looked worse than he had done at any period of his illness. His naturally pinched face was worn and haggard to a startling degree. Moreover, in spite of the news of the high prices his horses had fetched, he was terribly “down,” and why? A man going home, after ten years of India, is generally intolerably cheerful. They did their best to enliven him, these good-hearted comrades, and—unfailing topic of interest—they discoursed volubly and incessantly of the Missus.

“She is looking uncommonly fit,” said young Stradbrooke, the owner of one of her neglected children. “She knows she is going to England. She was quite grand with me just now! She hates boating like the devil! I wonder how she will stand fourteen days at sea?”

There was a perceptible silence after this question, and then the Major said in a queer voice—

“She is—not—going.”

“Not going?” An incredulous pause, and then some one exclaimed: “Come, Major, you know you would just as soon leave your head behind.”

“All the same—I am leaving her——”

“And which of us is to have her?” cried the Adjutant. “Take notice, all, that I speak first. You won’t pass over me, sir. Missus and I were always very chummy, and I want her to look after my chargers and servants, fetch my slippers, bring me home from mess—and to take care of me and keep me straight.”

“I have already given her away to——” the rest of the sentence seemed to stick in the Major’s throat, and his face worked painfully.

“Away to whom?” repeated young Stradbrooke. “Say it’s to me, sir. I’ve one of the family already—and Missus likes me. I know her pet biscuits, and there are heaps of rats in my stables—such whoppers!”

“Given her—to the bearer—Abdul,” he answered, stoutly enough, though there was still a little nervous quivering of the lower lip.

If the ceiling had parted asunder and straightway tumbled down on their heads, the Major’s audience would not have been half so much dumfoundered. For a whole minute they sat agape, and then one burst out—

“I say, Major, it’s a joke—you would not give her out of the regiment; she is on the strength.”

“She is promised,” replied the Major, in a sort of husky whisper.

Every one knew that the Major’s promises were a serious matter, and after this answer there ensued a long dismayed silence. The visitors eventually turned the topic, and tried to talk of other matters—the last gazette, the new regimental ribbon, of anything but of what every mind was full, to wit, “the Missus.”

The news respecting her bestowal created quite a sensation that evening at the mess—far more than that occasioned by a newly announced engagement, for there was an element of mystery about this topic. Why had the Missus been given away?

“Bowen must be off his chump,” was the general verdict, “poor old chap, to give the dog to that rascal Abdul, of all people!” (One curious feature in Anglo-Indian life, is the low opinion people generally entertain of their friends’ servants.) “The proper thing was, of course, to buy the dog, and keep her in the regiment; and when the Major came to his right senses, how glad he would be, dear old man!”

The Adjutant waylaid Abdul in the road, and said, curtly—

“Is this true, about the dog?—that your sahib has given her to you?”

Abdul salaamed. How convenient and non-committal is that gesture!

“What will you take for her?”

“I never selling master’s present,” rejoined the bearer, with superb dignity.

“What does a nigger want with a dog?” demanded the officer, scornfully. “Well, then, swop her—that won’t hurt your delicate sense of honour. I’ll get you an old pariah out of the bazaar, and give you fifty rupees to buy him a collar!”

“I have refused to-day one thousand rupees for the Missy,” said Abdul, with increased hauteur.

“You lie, Abdul,” said the officer, sternly; “or else you have been dealing with a stark, staring madman.”

“I telling true, Captain Sahib. I swear by the beard of the Prophet.”

“Who made the offer?”

“Major Bone”—the natives always called him “Major Bone.”

“Great Scott! Poor dear old chap” (to himself): “I had no idea he was so badly touched. It is well he is going home, or it would be a case of four orderlies and a padded room. So much for this beastly country!” Then to Abdul, “Look here; don’t say a word about that offer, and come over to my quarters, and I’ll give you some dibs—the sun has been too much for your sahib—and mind you be kind to the Missus; if not, I’ll come and shoot her, and thrash you within an inch of your life.”

“Gentlemen Sahib never beating servants. Sahib touch me, I summon in police-court, and I bring report to regimental commanding officer. Also, I going my own country, Bareilly, and I never, never selling kind master’s present.”

“I know lots of Sahibs in a pultoon (i.e. regiment) at Bareilly, and I shall get them to look out for you and the dog, Mr. Abdul. You treat ‘kind master’s present’ well, and it will be well with you,—if not, by Jove, you will find that I have got a long arm. I am a man of my word, so keep your mouth shut about the Major. To-night my bearer will give you ten rupees.” And he walked on.

“Bowen must be in a real bad way, when he gives his beloved dog to a native, and next day wants to buy it back for a thousand rupees,” said Captain Young to himself. “I thought he looked queer yesterday, but I never guessed that he was as mad as twenty hatters.”

The hour of the Major’s departure arrived; he had entreated, as a special favour, that no one would come to see him off. This request was looked upon as more of his eccentricity, and not worthy of serious consideration; he would get all right as soon as he was at sea, and the officers who were not on duty hurried down to see the last of their popular comrade. He drove up late, looking like death, his face so withered, drawn, and grey, and got out of a gharry, promptly followed by Abdul, carrying the Missus. The steam-launch lay puffing and snorting at the steps—the other passengers were aboard—there was not a moment to lose. The Major bade each and all a hurried farewell; he took leave of the Missus last. She was still in Abdul’s arms, and believed in her simple dog mind that her master was merely bound for one of those detestable sails up the harbour. As she offered him an eager paw, little did she guess that it was good-bye for ever, or that she was gazing after him for the last time, as he feebly descended the steps and took his place in the tender that was to convey him to the P. and O. steamer.

He watched the crowd of friends wildly waving handkerchiefs; but he watched, above all, with a long, long gaze of inarticulate grief, a dark turbaned figure, that stood conspicuously apart, with a small white object in his arms: watched almost breathlessly, till it faded away into one general blur. The Bengal civilian who sat next to Major Bowen in the tender, stared at him in contemptuous astonishment. He had been twenty-five years in the country (mitigating his exile with as much furlough—sick, privilege, and otherwise—as he could possibly obtain), and this was the first time he had seen a man quit the shores of India—with tears in his eyes!