“You know how Colonel Hammond felt when something sprung a leak in his brain,” Routledge suggested.
“You’ve hit it, boy.... There was the old town, starving at best, with three hundred British soldiers devouring its substance! It made me think of a fallen camel—with a red-necked vulture for every bone in the carcass. And that’s Ireland and that’s India!”
The whiskey was bright in the old man’s eyes. “Look out, Routledge, when you hear a snap in your brain! You said something to that effect.... I went back to India, as you know, up from Calcutta to Sarjilid, where I met the Russo-Parsee. I thought of Noreen and her mother, and Tyrone, and the service of England, which I know as well as you. I thought of India.
“What did I find in Sarjilid? There was a famine there, too, and a garrison of red-necked vultures; sand blowing down from the windy hills; stench from the huts; voices from the doorways; a salt-tax that augmented the famine because the people needed but could not buy their own product; naked brown children, fleshless as empty snake-skins—but I won’t go on! I must go to the war-office presently.... It was at Sarjilid that I met the Russian.... It may be that I am another Colonel Hammond, but I gave the documents away. He was an enchanting chap—that Russian!”
Cardinegh here whispered the details of his treachery. The politics of the world would not be cleaned by the dialogue, but the big fact remains that the documents concerning Colonel Hammond’s dynamite went into Russian hands—a fire-brand for her to ignite Afghanistan, the Indian Border, and British mutinies.
“Then I went back into the field to watch. Weeks passed,” he continued hastily. “We met in Bhurpal, and you told me what you had discovered. I knew. Each day was a brimming beaker of joy to me then. I saw British India shudder at the broken vessel of her secrets.
“Routledge, it was as if you struck a viper in the spine. British India curled up. I had struck her in the spine. She writhed and curled up!”
Cardinegh laughed again. “Ireland will be rid of British garrisons. They will travel oversea to fight the Afghans and the Russians now. The red-necks at Sarjilid won’t have to travel so far! There’ll be a fifty-mile battle-front, as you said—you ‘amateur prophet’! You and the other boys will campaign—but old Jerry won’t be there. I’ve had my day—and this is another one. I’m off to lift your load, my son.”
The veteran campaigner arose and donned his coat. Routledge was pacing up and down the room. Cardinegh reached the door, and, holding to the knob, spoke again:
“I know what you think, my son. You think that my plan miscarried. You think that England spoiled my work—that her treaty with Japan was my answer. You think that England will rub away the rest of the insulation between Russia and Japan, and that the Bear will fuse into the Rising-Sun—that all this will pull Russia up from the border of British India. Ah! ... and you think well. I can’t see it all as clear as I did once. I can’t feel the thought of failure as I did once. England has time to strengthen her borders and cover her nakedness if Russia and Japan fight—but the story of Shubar Khan is told and my work done! It’s the initial lesion, Routledge, and the veins of British India are running with the toxin of a disease—sometimes amenable to heroic treatment—like the Anglo-Japanese Alliance—but always incurable!”