Hussein. Patrick O’Brian
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but no man cared to be the first to move, although if several had attacked together they would have been certain of victory; yet no one wanted to be the first to get shot. Also, they were cowed by the ease with which Jehangir had crushed their wall, and some even made remarks about people who employed djinn to fight for them.
Now Gill, having discovered the dacoits’ village by accident, did not wish to remain in a part of the country that might be swarming with their friends, nor did he want them to have time to recover from their despondency, so he asked Hussein if it were possible for Jehangir to make the journey back again at once.
‘Yes,’ replied Hussein, ‘when I have got this thorn out, and provided he is given a great jar of arrack; I saw some where the rope was.’
‘Go and get it, then,’ replied Gill.
Hussein went, and returned with the jar: his dhoti seemed curiously swelled, and he clanked gently as he walked.
Jehangir lifted up his foot, and Hussein soon got the thorn out. Then the elephant sniffed at the jar, picked it up with his trunk, and emptied it down his throat. He flapped his ears, and seemed brighter in a few minutes, for the immensely powerful spirit gave him heart. Leaving Hussein to guard the bound prisoners, Gill searched the huts, finding nobody until he came to the last and biggest. He opened the door of this one with some effort, for it was being held closed from within. He poked his head in; there were piercing screams. He slammed the door. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said, ‘women.’
There was a passable horse in the village; he commandeered it, so as to relieve Jehangir, and rode out with his prisoners over the ruins of the shattered wall. They were tied in a string, and as he had forbidden them to speak, they were quite easy to manage. As they were crossing the Jhelunga they made a faint-hearted effort to escape when Gill’s horse became skittish and nearly threw him in, but a shot over their heads quietened them at once.
By keeping them at a sharp trot, Gill managed to reach the road-head before nightfall, which was fortunate, as they would have had more chance to escape in the dark. It was a very good thing to have got them all at once, as this band had spoiled the countryside for years, and in spite of the most determined efforts of the police, their hiding-place had never been found.
The villagers were really grateful, and they showed it by sending messengers for miles to Gill to report remarkable heads of deer, or good-sized leopards.
When he got in, Gill sent his policemen back for the women, and got his arm bound up. Then, after food, he went round to the elephant lines to see Hussein and Jehangir.
The elephant was surrounded by a crowd of mahouts, all dealing with his hundreds of small wounds with their strange remedies.
Mustapha was attending to Jehangir’s tail, and Gill asked where Hussein was. Mustapha guided him to their hut, where Hussein was squatting before a great pot of steaming saffron stew, made from the tails of sheep, and between mouthfuls he was telling the tale to a gaping circle.
Gill paused outside the door, in the shadows. ‘And so,’ said Hussein, ‘I plucked a branch from a tree, and cleared my way through these dholes, thus rescuing Jehangir and the Sahib, who were beset on all sides. Then I guided them to this village, and — with a little help, it is true — I overset the walls of it. After a long fight — I killed some four of them, I believe — we subdued them, and having tied them cunningly, one after the other, I brought them back, the Sahib being unconscious from a blow on the head. He only recovered just before we arrived, and he pressed gold on me: I would have refused, but he said that it might seem to imply that his life which I had saved (or so he was good enough to say) was of no value.’
‘Inshallah! But surely the youth deceives us?’ said a young man, enviously.
‘Yes, where is the proof?’ asked another youth, still more desirous of confounding Hussein.
‘Here is the gold,’ said Hussein, simply. He poured it in a shining heap from the bags in his dhoti. From all around there were admiring cries. ‘Bismillah! He is another Rustum,’ said someone.
Gill crept away unheard, for he would not spoil a good tale, and besides, Hussein had really saved his life at least twice that day.
The road pushed its way slowly on and on. They cut through the jungle, and filled in swamps: they bridged two rivers, and blasted through solid hills of rock. All through the year Gill spent all the leave he could get in hunting: he knew that he would probably never have such opportunities again, and he made the most of the time: as often as he could he took Hussein and Jehangir.
On one occasion, when they were after a leopard, Jehangir brushed against a tree in which there was a wild bees’ nest. They came out in a furious black cloud, and Hussein had to run for it — Gill was some distance away.
He got as far as a stagnant pool, and he stayed there, only bobbing his head up to breathe, until dark, when the bees left him.
At another time, when Gill was going into one of the Ghond villages far away in the jungle, they camped in the forest about half a day’s journey away from their destination.
Hussein put a long piece of grass around Jehangir’s leg to show him that he was not to go far away in the night.
The moon came down through the trees, making singularly delicate patterns on the ground: a few langurs howled and a leopard coughed far away. The men slept. Their fire glowed a dull red.
Jehangir stood motionless, half of him silver in the moonlight: he was not asleep. Far away there was a noise to which he had been listening for some time: it was not the hunting leopard, nor the dismal howling of the apes, but a distant crashing sound. His trunk moved to and fro as he sought for a hint of a scent on the still air.
A high pealing sound, very faint, came through the trees, and Jehangir spread his great ears. He looked at Hussein, who lay with his head on his arm by the fire, fast asleep; then he moved slowly away into the trees. Never a twig stirred as he faded into the shadows: he moved his great bulk as though it were no more substantial than a shadow itself.
After a little he moved more quickly, but still silently. Elephants have a way of suddenly being there, without one having had a suspicion of their approach — rhinoceroses are the same. Again he heard the noise — the distant trumpeting of a wild elephant. He raised his trunk and trumpeted back. In the camp Hussein stirred, but he did not awake.
Deep in Jehangir’s mind was the memory of the free days when he had followed the elephant herd with his mother — a half-grown young calf elephant. In the days of his freedom he had fought with other young elephants in the light of the full moon.
He had heard the great bulls trumpeting to one another, and the crash as they joined in fight; and now the moon and the distant trumpeting combined with the forest to awaken his buried memories of the life he had led long ago — so long ago that three generations of men had passed since he was captured.
An hour’s swift travelling brought him to a great open clearing in the trees. In the silver light two huge bull elephants were fighting: in the shadows the rest of the herd watched them.
With their trunks intertwined, and their tusks locked, the elephants strove together with their foreheads together. They pushed, grunting, and their feet slid on the torn-up ground.
For two full minutes they stood quite still, their forefeet clear of the ground. The strain must have been tremendous. Then there was an incredibly quick twisting of their trunks, and all at once the one nearer Jehangir crashed over on to his side. Instantly the other knelt on him, and thrust forward twice: he got up, and his tusks dripped red. The fallen elephant scrambled to his feet, and shuffled into the shadows.
The other stood alone in the clearing: he raised his trunk, and sent out his challenge. Jehangir moved out from the shadows: there was a wild tingling in his blood; he trumpeted back.
The elephant in the middle of the clearing spread his great ears,