When we reached the parade-ground the scene was still merry and bright, for there Gurkha ladies were massed in their many-coloured saris, chattering for all the world like the parrakeets they resembled. Dogs barked; pet names were squealed; old men waved their staffs; children clung to the waggons and whooped, and when the cortège finally turned into the hospital compound and I cantered back to the lines I wondered what a London bobby would have made of the heterogeneous traffic that littered the Darrapore Road. I had to sit tight in office to get level with work that evening, and the mess bugle was dwelling maliciously on its top note when at last I put down my pen.
Then the door opened and with a confederate mysterious air the orderly announced Bahadur Rai. (Heavens!)
"And the Sahib?" the Bahadur was asking in swift Nepalese after a wealth of salutations was over. "Can but one arm do all this?" waving towards my bulging files.
"One does not want two hands to write with, you know, Bahadur."
"True. But the shooting?" he added sadly.
"We'll have that again too some day. Great things are done in Vilayat, where I go when peace comes. And you? You have done well, Bahadur."
"Well enough," he admitted with a trace of pride, Then, after a pause, "The 2nd Battalion starts on service to-morrow, Sahib?"
"Yes. A few men will be left at the depôt—not those of any use."
"And Naik Indrase, does he go?"
"No. The Colonel-Sahib put his name down long ago for station duty."