A TERRITORIAL IN INDIA.
XIII.
My dear Mr. Punch,—Since landing in India about 200 years ago we have had many novel and remarkable experiences, but I think in my case none has been more strange and disconcerting than my transformation into a civilian or a dufter wallah (as we who sit at desks are contemptuously termed by the fighting men).
Table manners are a great trial to me in my new employ. In barracks, if you want bread, you merely shout in the queer jargon of the British soldier in India, "Hao up the roti there!" You then duck quickly, brush the crumbs out of your hair and get on with the meal. As a civilian I have to count ten, take myself firmly in hand, prepare a courteous little speech and deliver it with care and precision, trying hard to avoid glancing over my shoulder to see if a lump is likely to catch me under the ear.
And every night, though it is now over two months since I left the regiment, I carefully feel the legs of my bedstead before retiring to rest. For in barrack life, when you lie down unsuspectingly on a bed which has been "set," it instantly collapses into a shapeless mass of wreckage and shoots you out violently on the floor.
In the office itself my new life is full of difficulties. Soon after my arrival I thoughtlessly celebrated the completion of a rather troublesome task by bursting into song, as we always did in barracks. Shortly afterwards I received a frigidly polite message from my superior officer, saying, if I had any complaint to make, would I be so good as to put it into writing and to refrain from any vocal advertisement of my grievances.
But even office life has its compensations. There are moments of pure delight, such as that in which I discovered "Cemeteries" classified under the general heading of "Accommodation for Troops."
And the Babu is always with us to make our days joyful. Babu English is perhaps rather vieux jeu at this time of day; nevertheless it is a privilege to read on the spot a supplication for permission to "prostitute myself daily to your holy feet this time without fail whereby to beseech to Heaven to send to your Honour many posthumous olive branches"; or a request that "your Highness will not cause to nip in the Bud my unworthy yet fragrant hopes by the December cold snap of your august displeasure."
In conversation, excellent fellow as he usually is, the Babu is easily misunderstood. It was only yesterday that one of them was giving me an account of an old Sikh monk he had come upon during a walk in the woods. I had not known before that there were monks among the Sikhs, but then there are quite a number of facts about India that I have yet to learn.
I had no difficulty in picturing the aged hermit sitting at the foot of a tree in a religious trance. But it seemed strange that when the Babu approached he should have shown his teeth and gibbered. This, however, might be due to the eccentricity of a recluse or to some caste difficulty. I could not share the Babu's surprise that he refused the acorns proffered to him, but it did seem odd that when the Babu callously shook his stick at the old man and said "Huh!" he swarmed with great agility up the tree and made faces.
It was only when the limpness of his tail was mentioned that I suddenly realised we were talking about a sick monkey.
Letters from the Battalion, 7000 feet below, drift up to me occasionally, but they contain little beyond the old sentiment, expressed hundreds of times daily by Territorials from the Himalayas to the Nilghiris. India is a marvellous and unique country; to have lived in it is an education and a joy; to have guarded it a proud Imperial privilege. But most of us would give something to get out of it and into Europe. Yours ever,
One of the Punch Brigade.