"Oh, nothing. His colonel trusted him to take twenty Tommies out to wash, or groom camels, or something at the back of Suakin, and Stalky got embroiled with Fuzzies five miles in the interior. He conducted a masterly retreat and wiped up eight of 'em. He knew jolly well he'd no right to go out so far, so he took the initiative and pitched in a letter to his colonel, who was frothing at the mouth, complaining of the 'paucity of support accorded to him in his operations.' Gad, it might have been one fat brigadier slangin' another! Then he went into the Staff Corps.""That--is--entirely--Stalky," said Abanazar from his arm-chair.
"You've come across him, too?" I said.
"Oh, yes," he replied in his softest tones. "I was at the tail of that--that epic.
Don't you chaps know?"
We did not--Infant, McTurk, and I; and we called for information very politely.
"'Twasn't anything," said Tertius. "We got into a mess up in the Khye-Kheen Hills a couple o' years ago, and Stalky pulled us through. That's all."McTurk gazed at Tertius with all an Irishman's contempt for the tongue-tied Saxon.
"Heavens!" he said. "And it's you and your likes govern Ireland. Tertius, aren't you ashamed?""Well, I can't tell a yarn. I can chip in when the other fellow starts _bukhing_.
Ask him." He pointed to **** Four, whose nose gleamed scornfully over the rug.
"I knew you wouldn't," said **** Four. "Give me a whiskey and soda. I've been drinking lemon-squash and ammoniated quinine while you chaps were bathin' in champagne, and my head's singin' like a top."He wiped his ragged mustache above the drink; and, his teeth chattering in his head, began: "You know the Khye-Kheen-Malo't expedition, when we scared the souls out of 'em with a field force they daren't fight against? Well, both tribes --there was a coalition against us--came in without firing a shot; and a lot of hairy villains, who had no more power over their men than I had, promised and vowed all sorts of things. On that very slender evidence, Pussy dear--""I was at Simla," said Abanazar, hastily.
"Never mind, you're tarred with the same brush. On the strength of those tuppenny-ha'penny treaties, your asses of Politicals reported the country as pacified, and the Government, being a fool, as usual, began road-makin'--dependin'
on local supply for labor. 'Member _that_, Pussy? 'Rest of our chaps who'd had no look-in during the campaign didn't think there'd be any more of it, and were anxious to get back to India. But I'd been in two of these little rows before, and I had my suspicions. I engineered myself, _summa_ingenio_, into command of a road-patrol--no shovellin', only marching up and down genteelly with a guard. They'd withdrawn all the troops they could, but I nucleused about forty Pathans, recruits chiefly, of my regiment, and sat tight at the base-camp while the road-parties went to work, as per Political survey.""Had some rippin' sing-songs in camp, too," said Tertius.
"My pup"--thus did **** Four refer to his subaltern--"was a pious little beast. He didn't like the sing-songs, and so he went down with pneumonia. I rootled round the camp, and found Tertius gassing about as a D.A.Q.M.G., which, God knows, he isn't cut out for. There were six or eight of the old Coll. at base-camp (we're always in force for a frontier row), but I'd heard of Tertius as a steady old hack, and I told him he had to shake off his D.A.Q.M.G. breeches and help _me_. Tertius volunteered like a shot, and we settled it with the authorities, and out we went--forty Pathans, Tertius, and me, looking up the road-parties. Macnamara's--'member old Mac, the Sapper, who played the fiddle so damnably at Umballa?--Mac's party was the last but one. The last was Stalky's. He was at the head of the road with some of his pet Sikhs. Mac said he believed he was all right.""Stalky _is_ a Sikh," said Tertius. "He takes his men to pray at the Durbar Sahib at Amritzar, regularly as clockwork, when he can.""Don't interrupt, Tertius. It was about forty miles beyond Mac's before I found him;and my men pointed out gently, but firmly, that the country was risin'. What kind o'
country, Beetle? Well, _I_'m no word-painter, thank goodness, but _you_ might call it a hellish country! When we weren't up to our necks in snow, we were rolling down the khud. The well-disposed inhabitants, who were to supply labor for the road-****** (don't forget that, Pussy dear), sat behind rocks and took pot-shots at us. 'Old, old story! We all legged it in search of Stalky. I had a feeling that he'd be in good cover, and about dusk we found him and his road-party, as snug as a bug in a rug, in an old Malo't stone fort, with a watch-tower at one corner. It overhung the road they had blasted out of the cliff fifty feet below; and under the road things went down pretty sheer, for five or six hundred feet, into a gorge about half a mile wide and two or three miles long. There were chaps on the other side of the gorge scientifically gettin' our range. So I hammered on the gate and nipped in, and tripped over Stalky in a greasy, bloody old poshteen, squatting on the ground, eating with his men. I'd only seen him for half a minute about three months before, but I might have met him yesterday. He waved his hand all sereno.
"'Hullo, Aladdin! Hullo, Emperor!' he said. 'You're just in time for the performance.'""I saw his Sikhs looked a bit battered. 'Where's your command? Where's your subaltern?' I said.
"'Here--all there is of it,' said Stalky. 'If you want young Everett, he's dead, and his body's in the watch-tower. They rushed our road-party last week, and got him and seven men. We've been besieged for five days. I suppose they let you through to make sure of you. The whole country's up. 'Strikes me you've walked into a first-class trap.' He grinned, but neither Tertius nor I could see where the deuce the fun was.
