Kim (13 page)

‘Why, it’s a boy!’ he said, as he drew his prize under the light of the tent-pole lantern, then shaking him severely cried: ‘What were you doing? You’re a thief.
Choor? Mallum?
’ His Hindustani was very limited, and the ruffled and disgusted Kim intended to keep to the character laid down for him. As he recovered his breath he was inventing a beautifully plausible tale of his relations to some scullion, and at the same time keeping a keen eye on and a little under the Chaplain’s left arm-pit. The chance came; he ducked for the doorway, but a long arm shot out and clutched at his neck, snapping the amulet-string and closing on the amulet.

‘Give it me. O, give it me. Is it lost? Give me the papers.’

The words were in English—the tinny, saw-cut English of the native-bred, and the Chaplain jumped.

‘A scapular,’ said he, opening his hand. ‘No, some sort of heathen charm. Why—why, do you speak English? Little boys who steal are beaten. You know that?’

‘I do not—I did not steal.’ Kim danced in agony like a terrier at a lifted stick. ‘Oh, give it me. It is my charm. Do not thieve it from me.’

The Chaplain took no heed, but, going to the tent door, called aloud. A fattish, clean-shaven man appeared.

‘I want your advice, Father Victor,’ said Bennett. ‘I found this boy in the dark outside the Mess-tent. Ordinarily, I should have chastised him and let him go, because I believe him to be a thief. But it seems he talks English, and he attaches some sort of value to a charm round his neck. I thought perhaps you might help me.’

Between himself and the Roman Catholic Chaplain of the Irish contingent lay, as Bennett believed, an unbridgeable gulf, but it was noticeable that whenever the Church of England dealt with a human problem she was very likely to call in the Church of Rome. Bennett’s official abhorrence of the Scarlet Woman and all her ways was only equalled by his private respect for Father Victor.

‘A thief talking English, is it? Let’s look at his charm. No, it’s not a scapular, Bennett.’ He held out his hand.

‘But have we any right to open it? A sound whipping——’

‘I did
not
thieve,’ protested Kim. ‘You have hit me kicks all over my body. Now give me my charm and I will go away.’

‘Not quite so fast. We’ll look first,’ said Father Victor, leisurely rolling out poor Kimball O’Hara’s ‘
ne varietur
’ parchment, his clearance-certificate, and Kim’s baptismal certificate. On this last O’Hara—with some confused idea that he was doing wonders for his son—had scrawled scores of times: ‘
Look after the boy. Please look after the boy
’—signing his name and regimental number in full.

‘Powers of Darkness below!’ said Father Victor, passing all over to Mr Bennett. ‘Do you know what these things are?’

‘Yes,’ said Kim. ‘They are mine, and I want to go away.’

‘I do not quite understand,’ said Mr Bennett. ‘He probably brought them on purpose. It may be a begging trick of some kind.’

‘I never saw a beggar less anxious to stay with his company, then. There’s the makings of a gay mystery here. Ye believe in Providence, Bennett?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Well, I believe in miracles, so it comes to the same thing. Powers of Darkness! Kimball O’Hara! And his son! But then he’s a native, and I saw Kimball married myself to Annie Shott. How long have you had these things, boy?’

‘Ever since I was a little baby.’

Father Victor stepped forward quickly and opened the front of Kim’s upper garment. ‘You see, Bennett, he’s not very black. What’s your name?’

‘Kim.’

‘Or Kimball?’

‘Perhaps. Will you let me go away?’

‘What else?’

‘They call me Kim Rishti ke. That is Kim of the Rishti.’

‘What is that—“Rishti”?’

‘
Eye
-rishti—that was the Regiment—my father’s.’

‘Irish—oh, I see.’

‘Yess. That was how my father told me. My father, he has lived.’

‘Has lived where?’

‘Has lived. Of
course
he is dead—gone-out.’

‘Oh! That’s your abrupt way of putting it, is it?’

Bennett interrupted. ‘It is possible I have done the boy an injustice. He is certainly white, though evidently neglected. I am sure I must have bruised him. I do not think spirits——’

‘Get him a glass of sherry, then, and let him squat on the cot. Now, Kim,’ continued Father Victor, ‘no one is going to hurt you. Drink that down and tell us about yourself. The truth, if you’ve no objection.’

Kim coughed a little as he put down the empty glass, and considered. This seemed a time for caution and fancy. Small boys who prowl about camps are generally turned out after a whipping. But he had received no stripes; the amulet was evidently working in his favour, and it looked as though the Umballa horoscope and the few words that he could remember of his father’s maunderings fitted in most miraculously. Else why did the fat padre seem so impressed, and why the glass of hot yellow drink from the lean one?

‘My father, he is dead in Lahore city since I was very little. The woman, she kept
kabarri
shop near where the hire-carriages are.’ Kim began with a plunge, not quite sure how far the truth would serve him.

‘Your mother?’

‘
No!
’—with a gesture of disgust. ‘She went out when I was born. My father, he got these papers from the Jadoo-Gher—what do you call that?’ (Bennett nodded) ‘because he was in—good-standing. What do you call that?’ (again Bennett nodded). ‘My father told me that. He said, too, and also the Brahmin who made the drawing in the dust at Umballa two days ago,
he
said, that I shall find a Red Bull on a green field and that the Bull shall help me.’

‘A phenomenal little liar,’ muttered Bennett.

‘Powers of Darkness below, what a country!’ murmured Father Victor. ‘Go on, Kim.’

‘I did
not
thieve. Besides, I am just now disciple of a very holy man. He is sitting outside. We saw two men come with flags, making the place ready. That is
always
so in a dream, or on account of a—a—prophecy. So I knew it was come true. I saw the Red Bull on the green field, and my father he said: “Nine hundred
pukka
devils and the Colonel riding on a horse will look after you when you find the Red Bull!” I did not know what to do when I saw the Bull, but I went away and I came again when it was dark. I wanted to see the Bull again, and I saw the Bull again with the—the Sahibs praying to it. I think the Bull shall help me. The holy man said so too. He is sitting outside. Will you hurt him, if I call him a shout now? He is very holy. He can witness to all the things I say, and he knows I am not a thief.’

‘ “Sahibs praying to a bull!” What in the world do you make of that?’ said Bennett. ‘ “Disciple of a holy man!” Is the boy mad?’

‘It’s O’Hara’s boy, sure enough. O’Hara’s boy leagued with all the Powers of Darkness. It’s very much what his father would have done—if he was drunk. We’d better invite the holy man. He may know something.’

‘He does not know anything,’ said Kim. ‘I will show you him if you come. He is my master. Then afterwards we can go.’

‘Powers of Darkness!’ was all that Father Victor could say, as Bennett marched off, with a firm hand on Kim’s shoulder.

They found the lama where he had dropped.

‘The Search is at an end for me,’ shouted Kim in the vernacular. ‘I have found the Bull, but God knows what comes next. They will not hurt you. Come to the fat priest’s tent with this thin man and see the end. It is all new, and they cannot talk Hindi. They are only uncurried donkeys.’

‘Then it is not well to make a jest of their ignorance,’ the lama returned. ‘I am glad if thou art rejoiced,
chela
.’

Dignified and unsuspicious, he strode into the little tent, saluted the Churches as a Churchman, and sat down by the open charcoal brazier. The yellow lining of the tent reflected in the lamplight made his face red-gold.

Bennett looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of ‘heathen’.

‘And what was the end of the Search? What gift has the Red Bull brought?’ The lama addressed himself to Kim.

‘He says, “What are you going to do?” ’ Bennett was staring uneasily at Father Victor, and Kim, for his own ends, took upon himself the office of interpreter.

‘I do not see what concern this
fakir
has with the boy, who is probably his dupe or his confederate,’ Bennett began. ‘We cannot allow an English boy—Assuming that he is the son of a Mason, the sooner he goes to the Masonic Orphanage the better.’

‘Ah! That’s your opinion as Secretary to the Regimental Lodge,’ said Father Victor; ‘but we might as well tell the old man what we are going to do. He doesn’t look like a villain.’

‘My experience is that one can never fathom the Oriental mind. Now, Kimball, I wish you to tell this man what I say—word for word.’

Kim gathered the import of the next few sentences and began thus:

‘Holy One, the thin fool who looks like a camel says that I am the son of a Sahib.’

‘But how?’

‘Oh, it is true. I knew it since my birth, but
he
could only find it out by rending the amulet from my neck and reading all the papers. He thinks that once a Sahib is always a Sahib, and between the two of them they purpose to keep me in this Regiment or to send me to a
madrissah
(a school). It has happened before. I have always avoided it. The fat fool is of one mind and the camel-like one of another. But that is no odds. I may spend one night here and perhaps the next. It has happened before. Then I will run away and return to thee.’

‘But tell them that thou art my
chela
. Tell them how thou didst come to me when I was faint and bewildered. Tell them of our Search, and they will surely let thee go now.’

‘I have already told them. They laugh, and they talk of the police.’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Mr Bennett.

‘Oah. He only says that if you do not let me go it will stop him in his business—his ur-gent private af-fairs.’ This last was a reminiscence of some talk with a Eurasian clerk in the Canal Department, but it only drew a smile, which nettled him. ‘And if you
did
know what his business was you would not be in such a beastly hurry to interfere.’

‘What is it then?’ said Father Victor, not without feeling, as he watched the lama’s face.

‘There is a River in this country which he wishes to find so verree much. It was put out by an Arrow which——’ Kim tapped his foot impatiently as he translated in his own mind from the vernacular to his clumsy English. ‘Oah, it was made by our Lord God Buddha, you know, and if you wash there you are washed away from all your sins and made as white as cotton-wool.’ (Kim had heard mission-talk in his time.) ‘I am his disciple, and we
must
find that River. It is so verree valuable to us.’

‘Say that again,’ said Bennett. Kim obeyed, with amplifications.

‘But this is gross blasphemy!’ cried the Church of England.

‘Tck! Tck!’ said Father Victor sympathetically. ‘I’d give a good deal to be able to talk the vernacular. A river that washes away sin! And how long have you two been looking for it?’

‘Oh, many days. Now we wish to go away and look for it again. It is not here, you see.’

‘I see,’ said Father Victor gravely. ‘But he can’t go on in that old man’s company. It would be different, Kim, if you were not a soldier’s son. Tell him that the Regiment will take care of you and make you as good a man as your—as good a man as can be. Tell him that if he believes in miracles he must believe that——’

‘There is no need to play on his credulity,’ Bennett interrupted.

‘I’m doing no such thing. He must believe that the boy’s coming here—to his own Regiment—in search of his Red Bull is in the nature of a miracle. Consider the chances against it, Bennett. This one boy in all India, and our Regiment of all others on the line o’ march for him to meet with! It’s predestined on the face of it. Yes, tell him it’s
Kismet
.
Kismet, mallum?
(Do you understand?)’

He turned towards the lama, to whom he might as well have talked of Mesopotamia.

‘They say,’—the old man’s eye lighted at Kim’s speech—‘they say that the meaning of my horoscope is now accomplished, and that being led back—though as thou knowest I went out of curiosity—to these people and their Red Bull I must needs go to a
madrissah
and be turned into a Sahib. Now I make pretence of agreement, for at the worst it will be but a few meals eaten away from thee. Then I will slip away and follow down the road to Saharunpore. Therefore, Holy One, keep with that Kulu woman—on no account stray far from her cart till I come again. Past question, my sign is of War and of armed men. See how they have given me wine to drink and set me upon a bed of honour! My father must have been some great person. So if they raise me to honour among them, good. If not, good again. However it goes, I will run back to thee when I am tired. But stay with the Rajputni, or I shall miss thy feet. . . . Oah yess,’ said the boy, ‘I have told him everything you tell me to say.’

‘And I cannot see any need why he should wait,’ said Bennett, feeling in his trouser-pocket. ‘We can investigate the details later—and I will give him a ru——’

‘Give him time. Maybe he’s fond of the lad,’ said Father Victor, half arresting the clergyman’s motion.

The lama dragged forth his rosary and pulled his huge hat-brim over his eyes.

‘What can he want now?’

‘He says’—Kim put up one hand. ‘He says: “Be quiett.” He wants to speak to me by himself. You see, you do not know one little word of what he says, and I think if you talk he will perhaps give you very bad curses. When he takes those beads like that, you see, he always wants to be quiett.’

The two Englishmen sat overwhelmed, but there was a look in Bennett’s eye that promised ill for Kim when he should be relaxed to the religious arm.

‘A Sahib and the son of a Sahib——’ The lama’s voice was harsh with pain. ‘But no white man knows the land and the customs of the land as thou knowest. How comes it this is true?’