The Jungle Book 13

 Shiv and the Grasshopper

(The song that Toomai's mother sang to the baby)

Shiv, who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow,

Sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago,

Gave to each his portion, food and toil and fate,

From the King upon the guddee to the Beggar at the gate.

All things made he—Shiva the Preserver.

Mahadeo!  Mahadeo!  He made all,—

Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine,

And mother's heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine!

Wheat he gave to rich folk, millet to the poor,

Broken scraps for holy men that beg from door to door;

Battle to the tiger, carrion to the kite,

And rags and bones to wicked wolves without the wall at night.

Naught he found too lofty, none he saw too low—

Parbati beside him watched them come and go;

Thought to cheat her husband, turning Shiv to jest—

Stole the little grasshopper and hid it in her breast.

So she tricked him, Shiva the Preserver.

Mahadeo!  Mahadeo!  Turn and see.

Tall are the camels, heavy are the kine,

But this was Least of Little Things, O little son of mine!

When the dole was ended, laughingly she said,

"Master, of a million mouths, is not one unfed?"

Laughing, Shiv made answer, "All have had their part, Even he, the little one, hidden 'neath thy heart."

From her breast she plucked it, Parbati the thief,

Saw the Least of Little Things gnawed a new-grown leaf!

Saw and feared and wondered, making prayer to Shiv,

Who hath surely given meat  to all that live.

All things made he—Shiva the Preserver.

Mahadeo!  Mahadeo!  He made all,—

Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine,

And mother's heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine!

Her Majesty's Servants

You can work it out by Fractions or by simple Rule of Three, But the way of Tweedle-dum is not the way of Tweedle-dee. You can twist it, you can turn it, you can plait it till you drop, But the way of Pilly Winky's not the way of Winkie Pop!

It had been raining heavily for one whole month—raining on a camp of thirty thousand men and thousands of camels, elephants, horses, bullocks, and mules all gathered together at a place called Rawal Pindi, to be reviewed by the Viceroy of India.  He was receiving a visit from the Amir of Afghanistan—a wild king of a very wild country. The Amir had brought with him for a bodyguard eight hundred men and horses who had never seen a camp or a locomotive before in their lives—savage men and

savage horses from somewhere at the back of Central Asia. Every  night a mob of these horses would be sure to break their heel  ropes and stampede up and down the camp through the mud in  the dark, or the camels would break loose and run about and fall  over the ropes of the tents, and you can imagine how pleasant  that was for men trying to go to sleep. My tent lay far away  from the camel lines, and I thought it was safe. But one night a  man popped his head in and shouted, "Get out, quick! They're  coming! My tent's gone!"

I knew who "they" were, so I put on my boots and waterproof and scuttled out into the slush. Little Vixen, my fox terrier, went out through the other side; and then there was a roaring and a grunting and bubbling, and I saw the tent cave in, as the pole snapped, and begin to dance about like a mad ghost. A camel had blundered into it, and wet and angry as I was, I could not help laughing. Then I ran on, because I did not know how many camels might have got loose, and before long I was out of sight of the camp, plowing my way through the mud.

At last I fell over the tail-end of a gun, and by that knew I was somewhere near the artillery lines where the cannon were stacked at night. As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and the dark, I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found, and lay along the tail of another gun, wondering where Vixen had got to, and where I might be.

Just as I was getting ready to go to sleep I heard a jingle of harness and a grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears.  He belonged to a screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings and chains and things on his saddle pad.  The  screw-guns are tiny little cannon made in two pieces, that are screwed together when the time comes to use them. They are taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find a road, and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country.

Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet squelching and slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing to and fro like a strayed hen's. Luckily, I knew enough of beast

language—not wild-beast language, but camp-beast language, of

course—from the natives to know what he was saying.

He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he called to the mule, "What shall I do? Where shall I go? I have fought with a white thing that waved, and it took a stick and hit me on the neck." (That was my broken tent pole, and I was very glad to know it.) "Shall we run on?"

"Oh, it was you," said the mule, "you and your friends, that  have been disturbing the camp? All right. You'll be beaten for  this in the morning. But I may as well give you something on  account now."

I  heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. "Another time," he said, "you'll know better than to run through a mule battery at night, shouting `Thieves and fire!' Sit down, and keep your silly neck quiet."

The camel doubled up camel-fashion, like a two-foot rule, and sat down whimpering. There was a regular beat of hoofs in the darkness, and a big troop-horse cantered up as steadily as though he were on parade, jumped a gun tail, and landed  close to the mule.

"It's disgraceful," he said, blowing out his nostrils. "Those  camels have racketed through our lines again—the third time  this week. How's a horse to keep his condition if he isn't allowed  to sleep. Who's here?"

"I'm the breech-piece mule of number two gun of the First  Screw Battery," said the mule, "and the other's one of your  friends. He's waked me up too. Who are you?"

"Number Fifteen, E troop, Ninth Lancers—Dick Cunliffe's

horse. Stand over a little, there."

"Oh, beg your pardon," said the mule. "It's too dark to see  much. Aren't these camels too sickening for anything? I walked  out of my lines to get a little peace and quiet here."

"My lords," said the camel humbly, "we dreamed bad dreams  in the night, and we were very much afraid. I am only a baggage  camel of the 39th Native Infantry, and I am not as brave as you  are, my lords."

"Then why didn't you stay and carry baggage for the 39th  Native Infantry, instead of running all round the camp?" said the  mule.

"They were such very bad dreams," said the camel. "I am

sorry. Listen! What is that? Shall we run on again?"

"Sit down," said the mule, "or you'll snap your long stick-legs  between the guns." He cocked one ear and listened. "Bullocks!"  he said. "Gun bullocks. On my word, you and your friends have  waked the camp very thoroughly. It takes a good deal of  prodding to put up a gun-bullock."

I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great sulky white bullocks that drag the heavy siege guns when the elephants won't go any nearer to the firing, came shouldering along together. And almost stepping on the chain was another battery mule, calling wildly for "Billy."

"That's one of our recruits," said the old mule to the troop  horse. "He's calling for me. Here, youngster, stop squealing. The  dark never hurt anybody yet."

The gun-bullocks lay down together and began chewing the

cud, but the young mule huddled close to Billy.

"Things!" he said. "Fearful and horrible, Billy! They came into

our lines while we were asleep. D 'you think they'll kill us?"

"I've a very great mind to give you a number-one kicking," said  Billy. "The idea of a fourteen-hand mule with your training  disgracing the battery before this gentleman!"

"Gently, gently!" said the troop-horse. "Remember they are  always like this to begin with. The first time I ever saw a man (it  was in Australia when I was a three-year-old) I ran for half a  day, and if I'd seen a camel, I should have been running still."

Nearly all our horses for the English cavalry are brought to  India from Australia, and are broken in by the troopers themselves.

"True enough," said Billy. "Stop shaking, youngster. The first  time they put the full harness with all its chains on my back I  stood on my forelegs and kicked every bit of it off.  I hadn't  learned the real science of kicking then, but the battery said they  had never seen anything like it."

"But this wasn't harness or anything that jingled," said the  young mule. "You know I don't mind that now, Billy. It was  Things like trees, and  they fell up and down the lines and  bubbled; and my head-rope broke, and I couldn't find my driver,  and I couldn't find you, Billy, so I ran off with—with these  gentlemen."

"H'm!" said Billy. "As soon as I heard the camels were loose I came away on my own account. When a battery—a screw-gun  mule calls gun-bullocks gentlemen, he must be very badly  shaken up. Who are you fellows on the ground there?"

The gun bullocks rolled their cuds, and answered both together: "The seventh yoke of the first gun of the Big Gun  Battery. We were asleep when the camels came, but when we were trampled on we got up and walked away. It is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good bedding. We told your friend here that there was nothing to be afraid of, but he knew so much that he thought otherwise. Wah!"

They went on chewing.

"That comes of being afraid," said Billy. "You get laughed at by

gun-bullocks. I hope you like it, young un."

The young mule's teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world.

But the bullocks only clicked their horns together and went on chewing.

"Now, don't be angry after you've been afraid. That's the worst  kind of cowardice," said the troop-horse. "Anybody can be  forgiven for  being scared in the night, I think, if they see things  they don't understand. We've broken out of our pickets, again  and again, four hundred and fifty of us, just because a new  recruit got to telling tales of whip snakes at home in Australia  till we were scared to death of the loose ends of our head-ropes."

"That's all very well in camp," said Billy. "I'm not above  stampeding myself, for the fun of the thing, when I haven't been  out for a day or two. But what do you do on active service?"

"Oh, that's quite another set of new shoes," said the troop  horse. "Dick Cunliffe's on my back then, and drives his knees  into me, and all I have to do is to watch where I am put ting my  feet, and to keep my hind legs well under me, and be bridlewise."

"What's bridle-wise?" said the young mule.

"By the Blue Gums of the Back Blocks," snorted the troophorse, "do you mean to say that you aren't taught to be bridlewise in your business? How can you do anything, unless you can  spin round at once when the rein is pressed on  your neck? It  means life or death to your man, and of course that's life and  death to you. Get round with your hind legs under you the  instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you haven't room to  swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind  legs.  That's being bridle-wise."

"We aren't taught that way," said Billy the mule stiffly. "We're  taught to obey the man at our head: step off when he says so,  and step in when he says so. I suppose it comes to the same  thing. Now, with all this fine fancy business and rearing, which  must be very bad for your hocks, what do you do?"

"That depends," said the troop-horse. "Generally I have to go  in among a lot of yelling, hairy men with knives—long shiny  knives, worse than the farrier's knives—and I have to take care  that Dick's boot is just touching the next man's boot without

crushing it. I can see Dick's lance to the right of my right eye,  and I know I'm safe. I shouldn't care to be the man or horse that

stood up to Dick and me when we're in a hurry."

"Don't the knives hurt?" said the young mule.

"Well, I got one cut across the chest once, but that wasn't

Dick's fault—"

"A lot I should have cared whose fault it was, if it hurt!" said

the young mule.

"You must," said the troop horse. "If you don't trust your man,  you may as well run away at once. That's what some of our  horses do, and I don't blame them. As I was saying, it wasn't  Dick's fault. The man was lying on the ground, and I stretched  myself not to tread on him, and he slashed up at me. Next time I  have to go over a man lying down I shall step on him—hard."

"H'm!" said Billy. "It sounds very foolish. Knives are dirty  things at any time. The proper thing to do is to climb up a  mountain with a well-balanced saddle, hang on by all four feet

and your ears too, and creep and crawl and wriggle along, till  you come out hundreds of feet above anyone else on a ledge  where there's just room enough for your hoofs. Then you stand  still and keep quiet—never ask a man to hold your head, young

un—keep quiet while the guns are being put together, and then  you watch the little poppy shells drop down into the tree-tops  ever so far below."

"Don't you ever trip?" said the troop-horse.

"They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen's ear,"  said Billy. "Now and  again perhaps a badly packed saddle will  upset a mule, but it's very seldom. I wish I could show you our  business. It's beautiful. Why, it took me three years to find out  what the men were driving at. The science of the thing is never  to show up against the sky line, because, if you do, you may get  fired at. Remember that, young un. Always keep hidden as much  as possible, even if you have to go a mile out of your way. I lead  the battery when it comes to that sort of climbing."

"Fired at without the chance  of running into the people who

are firing!" said the troop-horse, thinking hard. "I couldn't stand

that. I should want to charge—with Dick."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't. You know that as soon as the guns are  in position they'll do all the charging. That's scientific and neat.  But knives—pah!"

The baggage-camel had been bobbing his head to and fro for some time past, anxious to get a word in edgewise. Then I heard him say, as he cleared his throat, nervously:

"I—I—I have fought a little, but not in that climbing way or

that running way."

"No. Now you mention it," said Billy, "you don't look as  though you were made for climbing or running—much. Well,  how was it, old Hay-bales?"

"The proper way," said the camel. "We all sat down " —

"Oh, my crupper and breastplate!" said the troop-horse under

his breath. "Sat down!"

"We sat down—a hundred of us," the camel went on, "in a big  square, and the men piled our packs and saddles, outside the  square, and they fired over our backs, the men did, on all sides  of the square."

"What sort of men? Any men that came along?" said the troophorse. "They teach us in riding school to lie down and let our  masters fire across us, but Dick Cunliffe is the only man I'd trust  to do that. It tickles my girths, and, besides, I can't see with my  head on the ground."

"What does it matter who fires across you?" said the camel.  "There are plenty of men and plenty of other camels close by,  and a great many clouds of smoke. I am not frightened then. I  sit still and wait."

"And yet," said Billy, "you dream bad dreams and upset the

camp at night. Well, well! Before I'd lie down, not to speak of sitting down, and let a man fire across me, my heels and his  head would have something to say to each other. Did you ever  hear anything so awful as that?"

There was a long silence, and then one of the gun bullocks lifted up his big head and said, "This is very foolish indeed.  There is only one way of fighting."

"Oh, go on," said Billy. "Please don't mind me. I suppose you

fellows fight standing on your tails?"

"Only one way," said the two together. (They must have been  twins.) "This is that way. To put all twenty yoke of us to the big  gun as soon as Two Tails trumpets." ("Two Tails" is camp slang  for the elephant.)

"What does Two Tails trumpet for?" said the young mule.

"To show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the  other side. Two Tails is a great coward. Then we tug the big gun  all together—Heya—Hullah! Heeyah! Hullah! We do not climb  like cats nor run like calves. We go across the level plain, twenty  yoke of us, till we are unyoked again, and we graze while the big  guns talk across the plain to some town with mud walls, and  pieces of the wall fall out, and the dust goes up as though many  cattle were coming home."

"Oh! And you choose that time for grazing?" said the young

mule.

"That time or any other. Eating is always good. We eat till we  are yoked up again and tug the gun back to where Two Tails is  waiting for it. Sometimes there are big guns in the city that  speak  back, and some of us are killed, and then there is all the  more grazing for those that are left. This is Fate. None the less,  Two Tails is a great coward. That is the proper way to fight. We  are brothers from Hapur. Our father was a sacred bull of Shiva.  We have spoken."

"Well, I've certainly learned something tonight," said the troophorse. "Do you gentlemen of the screw-gun battery feel inclined

to eat when you are being fired at with big guns, and Two Tails

is behind you?"

"About as much as we feel inclined to sit down and let men

sprawl all over us, or run into people with knives. I never heard  such stuff. A mountain ledge, a well-balanced load, a driver you  can trust to let you pick your own way, and I'm your mule.  But—the other things—no!" said Billy, with a stamp of his foot.

"Of course," said the troop horse, "everyone is not made in the  same way, and I can quite see that your family, on your father's  side, would fail to understand a great many things."

"Never you mind my family on my father's side," said Billy  angrily, for every mule hates to be reminded that his father was  a donkey. "My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could  pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came  across. Remember that, you big brown Brumby!"

Brumby means wild horse without any breeding. Imagine the feelings of Sunol if a car-horse called her a "skate," and you can imagine how the Australian horse felt. I saw the white of his eye glitter in the dark.

"See here, you son of an imported Malaga jackass," he  said  between his teeth, "I'd have you know that I'm related on my  mother's side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and  where I come from we aren't accustomed to being ridden over  roughshod by any parrot-mouthed, pig-headed mule in a pop-gun  pea-shooter battery. Are you ready?"

"On your hind legs!" squealed Billy. They both reared up  facing each other, and I was expecting a furious fight, when a  gurgly, rumbly voice, called out of the darkness to the right— "Children, what are you fighting about there? Be quiet."

Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust, for neither

horse nor mule can bear to listen to an elephant's voice.

"It's Two Tails!" said the troop-horse. "I can't stand him. A tail

at each end isn't fair!"

"My feelings exactly," said Billy, crowding into the troop-horse

for company. "We're very alike in some things."

"I suppose we've inherited them from our mothers," said the  troop horse. "It's not worth quarreling about. Hi! Two Tails, are  you tied up?"

"Yes," said Two Tails, with a  laugh all up his trunk. "I'm  picketed for the night. I've heard what you fellows have been  saying. But don't be afraid. I'm not coming over."

The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud, "Afraid of Two  Tails—what nonsense!" And the bullocks went on, "We are sorry that you heard, but it is true. Two Tails, why are you afraid of the guns when they fire?"

"Well," said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the other,  exactly like a little boy saying a poem, "I don't quite know  whether you'd understand."

"We don't, but we have to pull the guns," said the bullocks.

"I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than you  think you are. But it's different with me. My battery captain  called me a Pachydermatous Anachronism the other day."

"That's another way of fighting, I suppose?" said Billy, who

was recovering his spirits.

"You don't know what that means, of course, but I do. It  means betwixt and between, and that is just where I am. I can  see inside my head what will happen when a shell bursts, and  you bullocks can't."

"I can," said the troop-horse. "At least a little bit. I try not to

think about it."

"I can see more than you, and I do think about it. I know  there's a great deal of me to take care of, and I know that  nobody knows how to cure me when I'm sick. All they can do is  to stop my driver's pay till I get well, and I can't trust my  driver."

"Ah!" said the troop horse. "That explains it. I can trust Dick."

"You could put a whole regiment of Dicks on my back without  making me  feel any better. I know just enough to be  uncomfortable, and not enough to go on in spite of it."

"We do not understand," said the bullocks.

"I know you don't. I'm not talking to you. You don't know

what blood is."

"We do," said the bullocks. "It is red stuff that soaks into the

ground and smells."

The troop-horse gave a kick and a bound and a snort.

"Don't talk of it," he said. "I can smell it now, just thinking of

it. It makes me want to run—when I haven't Dick on my back."

"But it is not here," said the camel and the bullocks. "Why are

you so stupid?"

"It's vile stuff," said Billy. "I don't want to run, but I don't want

to talk about it."

"There you are!" said Two Tails, waving his tail to explain.

"Surely. Yes, we have been here all night," said the bullocks.

Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled. "Oh,

I'm not talking to you. You can't see inside your heads."

"No. We see out of our four eyes," said the bullocks. "We see

straight in front of us."

"If I could do that and nothing else, you wouldn't be needed to  pull the big guns at all. If I was like my captain—he can see  things inside his head before the firing begins, and he shakes all  over, but he knows too much to run away—if I was like him I  could pull the guns. But if I were as wise as all that I should  never be here. I should be a king in the forest, as I used to be,  sleeping half the day and bathing when I liked. I haven't had a  good bath for a month."

"That's all very fine," said Billy. "But giving a thing a long

name doesn't make it any better."

"H'sh!" said the troop horse. "I think I understand what Two

Tails means."

"You'll understand better in a minute," said Two Tails angrily.

"Now you just explain to me why you don't like this!"

He began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trumpet.

"Stop that!" said Billy and the troop horse together, and I  could hear them stamp and shiver. An elephant's trumpeting is  always nasty, especially on a dark night.

"I shan't stop," said Two Tails. "Won't you explain that, please?  Hhrrmph! Rrrt! Rrrmph! Rrrhha!" Then he stopped suddenly,  and I heard a little whimper in the dark, and knew that Vixen  had found me at last. She knew as well as I did that if there is

one thing in the world the elephant is more afraid of than  another  it is a little barking dog. So she stopped to bully Two  Tails in his pickets, and yapped round his big feet. Two Tails  shuffled and squeaked. "Go away, little dog!" he said. "Don't  snuff at my ankles, or I'll kick at you. Good little dog—nice little  doggie, then! Go home, you yelping little beast! Oh, why doesn't  someone take her away? She'll bite me in a minute."

"Seems to me," said Billy to the troop horse, "that our friend  Two Tails is afraid of most things. Now, if I had a full meal for  every dog I've  kicked across the parade-ground I should be as fat  as Two Tails nearly."

I whistled, and Vixen ran up to me, muddy all over, and licked my nose, and told me a long tale about hunting for me all through the camp. I never let her know that I understood beast talk, or she would have taken all sorts of liberties. So I buttoned her into the breast of my overcoat, and Two Tails shuffled and stamped and growled to himself.

"Extraordinary! Most extraordinary!" he said. "It runs in our

family. Now, where has that  nasty little beast gone to?"

I heard him feeling about with his trunk.

"We all seem to be affected in various ways," he went on,  blowing his nose. "Now, you gentlemen were alarmed, I believe,  when I trumpeted."

"Not alarmed, exactly," said the troop-horse, "but it made me  feel as though I had hornets where my saddle ought to be. Don't  begin again."

"I'm frightened of a little dog, and the camel here is frightened

by bad dreams in the night."

"It is very lucky for us that we haven't all got to fight in  the same way," said the troop-horse.

"What I want to know," said the young mule, who had been  quiet for a long time—"what I want to know is, why we have to  fight at all."

"Because we're told to," said the troop-horse, with a snort of

contempt.

"Orders," said Billy the mule, and his teeth snapped.