Jim collapsed where he sat; Faiz Ullah and the two policemen grinned; and Scott’s orders to the cartmen flew like hail.
“That is the custom of the Sahibs when truth is told in their presence,” said Faiz Ullah. “The time comes that I must seek new service. Young wives, especially such as speak our language and have knowledge of the ways of the Police, make great trouble for honest butlers in the matter of weekly accounts.”
What William thought of it all she did not say, but when her brother, ten days later, came to camp for orders, and heard of Scott’s performances, he said, laughing: “Well, that settles it. He’ll be Bakri Scott to the end of his days.” (Bakri in the Northern vernacular, means a goat.) “What a lark! I’d have given a month’s pay to have seen him nursing famine babies. I fed some with conjee [rice-water], but that was all right.”
“It’s perfectly disgusting,” said his sister, with blazing eyes. “A man does something like—like that—and all you other men think of is to give him an absurd nickname, and then you laugh and think it’s funny.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Jim, sympathetically.
“Well, you can’t talk, William. You christened little Miss Demby the Button-quail, last cold weather; you know you did. India’s the land of nicknames.”
“That’s different,” William replied. “She was only a girl, and she hadn’t done anything except walk like a quail, and she does. But it isn’t fair to make fun of a man.”
“Scott won’t care,” said Martyn. “You can’t get a rise out of old Scotty. I’ve been trying for eight years, and you’ve only known him for three. How does he look?”
“He looks very well,” said William, and went away with a flushed cheek. “Bakri Scott, indeed!” Then she laughed to herself, for she knew her country. “But it will be Bakri all the same”; and she repeated it under her breath several times slowly, whispering it into favour.
When he returned to his duties on the railway, Martyn spread the name far and wide among his associates, so that Scott met it as he led his paddy-carts to war. The natives believed it to be some English title of honour, and the cart-drivers used it in all simplicity till Faiz Ullah, who did not approve of foreign japes, broke their heads. There was very little time for milking now, except at the big camps, where Jim had extended Scott’s idea and was feeding large flocks on the useless northern grains. Sufficient paddy had come now into the Eight Districts to hold the people safe, if it were only distributed quickly, and for that purpose no one was better than the big Canal officer, who never lost his temper, never gave an unnecessary order, and never questioned an order given. Scott pressed on, saving his cattle, washing their galled necks daily, so that no time should be lost on the road; reported himself with his rice at the minor famine-sheds, unloaded, and went back light by forced night-march to the next distributing centre, to find Hawkins’s unvarying telegram: “Do it again.” And he did it again and again, and yet again, while Jim Hawkins, fifty miles away, marked off on a big map the tracks of his wheels gridironing the stricken lands. Others did well—Hawkins reported at the end they all did well—but Scott was the most excellent, for he kept good coined rupees by him, settled for his own cart-repairs on the spot, and ran to meet all sorts of unconsidered extras, trusting to be recouped later on. Theoretically, the Government should have paid for every shoe and linchpin, for every hand employed in the loading; but Government vouchers cash themselves slowly, and intelligent and efficient clerks write at great length, contesting unauthorised expenditures of eight annas. The man who wants to make his work a success must draw on his own bank-account of money or other things as he goes.