Not far beyond, we turned in at the largest edifice in the town—the Rehang barracks. Among the half-hundred little brown soldiers lounging about the entrance were our intermittent comrades of the few days past. It was plain that they had told our story. The recruits gathered about us, laughing and plying pantomimic questions. How had we liked lizard currie? What had turned our dainty skins so blood red? What ignorant and helpless beings were white men, were they not?
Suddenly, amid the general chatter, I caught a hint that there was a European on the floor above. We sprang towards the stairway at the end of the veranda. The soldiers shrieked in dismay and snatched at our rags. We must not go up; it was contrary to stringent barrack rules. A guardsman on duty at the foot of the stairs held his musket out horizontally and shouted a tremulous command. James caught him by the shoulder and sent him spinning along the veranda. We dashed up the steps. Two doors stood ajar. James sprang to one while I pushed open the other.
“Hello!” I shouted, “Where’s the white—”
A triumphant roar from my companion sent me hurrying after him. He was dancing gleefully just inside the second door, and shaking a white man ferociously by the hand, an astonished white man in khaki uniform with officer’s stripes. I reminded the Australian of his costume and he subsided. The European invited us inside and sent a servant for tea, biscuits and cigars. Our host was commander of the Rehang garrison—a Dane, but with a fluent command of English. That we had been wandering through the jungle was all too evident; but that we had come overland from Burma was a tale he would not credit until the sergeant had been called in to confirm our assertions. Forgetting his military duties, the commander plied us with wondering questions until dusk fell, and then ordered three of the newly-arrived squad to arrange for our accommodation.
The sergeant, plainly overawed at finding us on such intimate terms with his dreaded chief, led the way through the barracks. The garrison grounds were extensive. Within the inclosure was a Buddhist monastery, resembling, if less pretentious than, the Tavoy of Rangoon. Here were the same irregular patches of untilled ground, where priests wandered and chattered in the twilight; the same disorderly array of gaudy temples, gay little pagodas with tinkling silver bells, and frail priestly dwellings.
On the veranda of one of the latter the soldiers spread a pair of army blankets. We were for turning in at once. Our seneschals would not hear of it. For a half-hour they trotted back and forth between our bungalow and that of the commander, bearing steaming dishes. The little table they had set up was groaning under its burden before the sergeant signed to us to begin. There was broiled fish, a mutton roast, a great steak, a spitted fowl, fruits and vegetables of astounding variety and quantity. The sergeant laughed aloud at our astonishment when he drew out a pair of knives and forks from his pocket. Then he tapped his head meditatively with a skinny finger and ran off again into the night. He came back with a box of cigars and a quart bottle of whiskey!
Neither of us being particularly addicted to the use of fire-water, we wet our whistles and fell upon the fish. When I looked up again, the sergeant was watching me with the fixed stare of a half-starved cat.
“Kin-kow?” I asked, pointing at the steak.
The trooper shook his head almost fiercely.
“Try him on the gasoline,” suggested James.