“Gul Ali’s without a doubt. One of the papers in the writing—of his Munshi—Chanda Ram—know his fist as well—as I do my own.” A snore.
“Oh!” said Eveleen again.
CHAPTER X.
A CONTEST OF WITS.
Public opinion at Sahar was divided on the subject of Sir Henry Lennox. To the elegant he was a disreputable old figure of fun, certain to bring irreparable disgrace upon British arms if he was so foolish as to provoke a conflict with the Khans. Kinder-hearted people referred hopefully to his Peninsular record, while admitting mournfully that the Peninsula was a very long time back. Civilians declared him a bloodthirsty soldier, out for loot; soldiers lamented audibly that a fellow who had not the faintest notion of military discipline or etiquette should have been shoved into a position where the absence of these might, and almost certainly would, do untold harm. The sepoys regarded him with distant respect, not unmixed with dread, since the tempests of wrath they heard clattering on the heads of their superiors might at any moment fall on their own. The British private developed an unaccountable taste for turning out when the General went by—because he had never seen a General looking like a scarecrow before, said his officers bitterly—and greeting him with broad smiles which impaired distressingly the martial woodenness of the regulation salute. And the General pandered to this unmilitary behaviour, stopping to talk to individual privates in a human—not to say friendly—fashion, and actually invading the barrack-rooms when these were not prepared for inspection. He might say that in this way he found out that things were not as they should be: of course he did, the officers retorted indignantly; what did he expect? He would have found nothing wrong if he would only come at proper times.
But little by little an uneasy feeling was gripping the hearts of the placid oligarchy which had ruled the Sahar Cantonments hitherto. The old joker meant business; it was not all fuss and bluster when he called together the officers of a regiment and addressed them in language that lacked nothing in strength, if much in polish. Responsibility was his text; he was mad on responsibility: responsibility towards the men—that, at any rate, was universally admitted in theory; towards other branches of the Service—even, if it could be believed, towards the native regiments; and most incredible of all, responsibility towards the “black” population. And it was not possible to listen politely to his views and ignore them as an amiable eccentricity, for he went so far as to promulgate them in General Orders, and enforce them by penalty. Moreover, the orders were drawn up so clearly that any one could understand them, and in such improperly sarcastic language that it was plain the grinning privates who heard and read them regarded them as an entertainment freely provided for their delectation. The Army was certainly going to the dogs, and that part of it which was quartered at Sahar would arrive first, thanks to the Governor-General for sending this doddering old lunatic to vex it. It was not Sir Harry’s age that was the chief count against him—for in those days the nearer a man was to seventy, the greater seemed his chances of high command—but his eccentricity. He had somehow managed to pass through the Army mould without taking its impression, and as a result, he spoke a language strange to Army men.
It was some consolation to the few Politicals left at Sahar that the General was evidently as great a puzzle to the native rulers as to his own subordinates. All his movements were watched and reported by a horde of spies, and his utterances, which were numerous, often lengthy, and frequently quite inconsistent with one another, noted down with care and pains by hearers who only understood half of what they heard, and by them translated into Persian for transmission to the Khans. Of more value, perhaps, was the ocular demonstration of the condition of his troops, whom he was training hard. The “trotting about over the hills,” which he had promised himself to give the Khans’ messengers in company with two or three thousand men of his force, impressed them deeply, though the impression wore off a little when it came out that the General had remarked artlessly that this and the many similar field-days that followed it were intended to train himself as much as his men.
These field-days were a continual delight to Eveleen. The Great Duke had set the example of allowing ladies to ride with the staff on such occasions, and take station at the saluting-point—judiciously to the rear, of course—and Sir Harry would have regarded it as blasphemy to seek to improve upon his master’s methods. He was careful to detail an aide-de-camp to keep Mrs Ambrose from getting into danger or obstructing the manœuvres, but those two conditions satisfied, she might gallop where she liked. Sometimes, of course, she would arrive at an awkward moment, when Sir Harry was on the point of telling a unit candidly what he really thought of it, and then he would turn upon her an awful glare. “Madam, be good enough to retire!” was the formula barked at her from lips so clearly struggling to restrain a pent-up flood of vitriolic language that even Eveleen never dared to defy the mandate. From a safe distance she would hear the General’s voice rising and falling in alternate denunciation and irony—the words being happily undistinguishable—and discern through the sand-clouds the wilting of the officers beneath the storm; and then Sir Harry would ride after her refreshed and genial, the gayest-mannered martinet that ever killed a regiment with his mouth. He had a great fancy for her little horse Bajazet, but having learnt his history, insisted on renaming him the Street Arab—the expression was just coming into use,—since Bajazet was no name for an Arab, he said, but mere romantic female foolishness.
Richard did not take part in these field-days. They afforded him a much-needed opportunity for getting on with the work of the office, unhindered by the incursions of his chief. The Khemistan Political Establishment might have been excessive hitherto, but there was no denying that its sudden reduction imposed an enormous quantity of work on the few men who remained. Sir Harry himself was tireless, and seemed to find no difficulty in working all night after riding all day; but his inexperience added not a little to the labours of his subordinates. He had a rooted distaste for the elaborate forms of courtesy without which no Persian communication would be complete, and lest he should be set down as a barbarian absolutely destitute of breeding, Richard and the Munshi found it necessary to prepare two copies of every letter and order that was to be sent out in his name. One was in the plain blunt terms he himself favoured—he was very proud of these, and often copied the English rendering into his diary, presumably as a model of official correspondence for future generations,—the other embellished with the polite circumlocutions without which the recipient would have regarded it as a calculated insult. In like manner all the letters he received had to be most carefully scanned before being submitted to him, for in his impatience of the involved compliments set forth at extreme length, he would brush aside the whole document as of no importance, and thus fail to reach the weighty meaning concealed amid the flowery verbiage. And when, to accent these little peculiarities, Sir Harry was in the state of mind known to all his subordinates as “kicking up a dust”—as happened not infrequently,—the office heaved bitter sighs of longing for the days of Colonel Bayard, now gone by for ever.
Eveleen rode round one evening when office hours were over to pick up her husband, that they might take their ride by daylight. Here, with the desert and its wild tribes so close at hand, it was not safe to ride in the dark, so that during the sunset hour the roads in and about the Cantonments were a scene of tumultuous activity, which ceased, in Cinderella-fashion, the instant after gunfire. Eveleen expected Richard to meet her, but his horse was still waiting in charge of its syce, who said he had not seen his master, and she rode on up to the verandah steps. Then he came out, looking worried, his hands full of papers.
“Sorry, my dear, but I’m afraid you must excuse me this evening. It has been impossible to get anything done, and these letters must be put into shape before I leave. Your brother will escort you if he can get away, and if”—with some bitterness—“you can induce the General to go too, pray do. I shall be thankful not to hear his voice.”