second troop told me; did he not see them ground at the sahibs' factory at Cawnpore?'
'Wind from a monkey's backside,' says I. 'What would it profit the sahibs to pollute your food — since when do they hate their soldiers?'
To my astonishment about half a dozen of them scoffed aloud at this —'Listen to the Black Mountain munshi!'*(*Teacher.) 'The sahibs love their soldiers — and so the gora-cavalry broke Lal's string for him tonight!' 'Have you never heard of the Dum-Dum sweeper, Makarram Khan?' and so on. Ram Mangal, who was the noisiest croaker of them all, spat out:
'It is of a piece with the padre sahib's talk, and the new regulation that will send men across the kala pani — they will break our caste to make us Christians! Do they not know this even where you come from, hillman? Why, it is the talk of the army!'
I growled that I didn't put any faith in latrine-gossip — especially if the latrine was a Hindoo one, and at this one of the older men, Sardul something-or-other, shook his head and says gravely:
'It was no latrine-rumour, Makarram Khan, that came out of Dum-Dum arsenal.' And for the first time I heard the astonishing tale that was, I discovered, accepted as gospel by every sepoy in the Bengal army — of the sweeper at Dum-Dum who'd asked a caste sepoy for a drink from his dish, and on being refused, had told the sepoy that he needn't be so dam' particular because the sahibs were going to do away with caste by defiling every soldier in the army by greasing their cartridges with cow and pig fat.
'This thing is known,' says old Sardul, positively, and he was the kind of old soldier that men listen to, thirty years' service, Aliwal medal, and clean conduct sheet, damn your eyes. 'Is not the new Enfield musket in the armoury? Are not the new greased cartridges being prepared? How can any man keep his religion?'
'They say that at Benares the jawans have been permitted to grease their own loads,' says Pir Ali,16 But they hooted him down.
'They say!' cries Ram Mangal. 'It is like the tale they put about that all the grease was mutton-fat — if that were so, where is the need for anyone to make his own grease? It is a lie — just as the Enlistment Act is a lie, when they said it was a provision only, and no one would be asked to do foreign service. Ask the 19th at Behrampore — where their officers told them they must serve in Burma if they refused the cartridge when it was issued! Aye, but they will refuse — then we'll see!' He waved his hands in passion. 'The polluted atta is another link in the chain — like the preaching of that owl Reynolds sahib with his Jesus-talk, which Carmik-al-Ismeet permits to our offence. He wants to put us to shame!'
'It is true enough,' says old Sardul, sadly. 'Yet I would not believe it if such a sahib as my old Colonel MacGregor — did he not take a bullet meant for me at Kandahar? — were to look in my eye and say it was false. The pity is that Carmik-al-Ismeet is not such a sahib — there are none such nowadays,' says he with morbid satisfaction, 'and the Army is but a poor ruin of what it was. You do not know today what officers were — if you had seen Sale sahib or Larrinsh*(*'Lawrence' — any one of the famous Lawrence brothers who served on the frontier, and later in the Mutiny.) sahib or Cotton sahib, you would have seen men!' (Since he'd served in Afghanistan I'd hoped he would mention Flass-man sahib, but he didn't, the croaking old bastard.) 'They would have died before they would have put dishonour on their sepoys; their children, they used to call us, and we would have followed them to hell! But now,' he wagged his head again, 'these are cutch-sahibs, not pakka-sahibs — and the English common soldiers are no better. Why, in my young day, an English trooper would call me brother, give me his hand, offer me his water-bottle (not realising that I could not take it, you understand). And now — these common men spit on us, call us monkeys and hubshis — and break Lal's string!'
Most of their talk was just patent rubbish, of course, and I'd no doubt it was the work of agitators, spreading disaffection with their nonsense about greased cartridges and polluted food. I almost said so, but decided it would be unwise to draw attention to myself — and anyway it wasn't such a burning topic of conversation most of the time that one could take it seriously. I knew they put tremendous store by their religion — the Hindoos especially — and I supposed that whenever an incident like Lal's string stirred them up, all the old grievances came out, and were soon forgotten. But I'll confess that what Sardul had said about the British officers and troops reminded me of John Nicholson's misgivings. I had hardly seen a British officer on parade since my enlistment; they seemed content to leave their troops to the jemadars and n.c.o.s — Addiscombe tripe17 , of course — and there was no question the British rankers in the Meerut garrison were a poorer type than, say, the 44th whom I'd known in the old Afghan days, or Campbell's Highlanders.
I got first-hand evidence of this a day or two later, when I accidentally jostled a Dragoon in the bazaar, and the brute turned straight round and lashed out with his boot.
'Aht the way, yer black bastard!' says he. 'Think yer can shove a sahib arahnd — banchut!' And he would have taken a swipe at me with his fist, too, but I just put my hand on my knife-hilt and glared at him — it wouldn't have been prudent to do more. 'Christ!' says he, and took to his heels until he got to the end of the street, where he snatched up a stone and flung it at me — it smashed a plate on a booth nearby — and then made off. I'll remember you, my lad, thinks I, and the day'll come when I'll have you triced up and flogged to ribbons. (And I did, as good luck had it.) I've never been so wild — that the scum of a Whitechapel gutter should take his boot to me! I'll be honest and say that if I'd seen him do it to a native two months earlier I wouldn't have minded a bit — and still wouldn't, much: it's a nigger's lot to be kicked. But it ain't mine, and I can't tell you how I felt afterwards — filthy, in a way, because I hadn't been able to pay the swine back. That's by the way; the point is that old Sardul was right. There wasn't the respect for jawans among the British that there had been in my young day; we probably lashed and kicked niggers just as much (I know I did), but there was a higher regard for the sepoys at least, on the whole.
I doubt if any commander in the old days would have done what Carmichael-Smith did in the way of preaching-parades, either. I hadn't believed it in the barrack gossip, but sure enough, the next Sunday this coffin- faced Anglican fakir, the Rev. Reynolds, had a muster on the maidan, and we had to listen to him expounding the Parable of the Prodigal Son, if you please. He did it through a brazen-lunged rissaldar who interpreted for him, and you never heard the like. Reynolds lined it out in English, from the Bible, and the rissaldar stood there with his staff under his arm, at attention, with his whiskers bristling, bawling his own translation:
'There was a zamindar,* with two sons. He was a mad zamindar, for while he yet lived he gave to the younger his portion of the inheritance. Doubtless he raised it from a moneylender. And the younger spent it all whoring in the bazaar, and drinking sherab.* And when his money was gone he returned home, and his father ran to meet him, for he was pleased — God alone knows why. And in his foolishness, the father slew his only cow — he was evidently not a Hindoo — and they feasted on it. And the older son, who had been dutiful and stayed at home, was jealous, I cannot tell for what reason, unless the cow was to have been part of his inheritance. But his father, who did not like him, rebuked the older son. This story was told by Jesus the Jew, and if you believe it you will not go to Paradise, but instead will sit on the right-hand side of the English Lord God Sahib who lives in Calcutta. And there you will play musical instruments, by order of the Sirkar. Parade — dismiss!'
I don't know when I've been more embarrassed on behalf of my church and country. I'm as religious as the next man — which is to say I'll keep in with the local parson for form's sake and read the lessons on feast-days because my tenants expect it, but I've never been fool enough to confuse religion with belief in God. That's where so many clergymen, like the unspeakable Reynolds, go wrong — and it makes 'em arrogant, and totally blind to the harm they may be doing. This idiot was so drunk with testaments that he couldn't conceive how ill-mannered and offensive he was making himself look; I suppose he thought of high-caste Hindoos as being like wilful children or drunken costermongers — perverse and misguided, but ripe for salvation if he just pointed 'em the way. He stood there, with his unctuous fat face and piggy eyes, blessing us soapily, while the Muslims, being worldly in their worship, tried not to laugh, and the Hindoos fairly seethed. I'd have found it amusing enough, I dare say, if I hadn't been irritated by the thought that these irresponsible Christian zealots were only making things harder for the Army and Company, who had important work to do. It was all so foolish and unnecessary — the heathen creeds, for all their nonsensical mumbo jumbo, were as good as any for keeping the rabble in order, and what else is religion for?
In any event, this misguided attempt to cure Hindoo souls took place, not just at Meerut but elsewhere, according to the religious intoxication of the local commanders, and in my opinion was the most important cause of the mischief that followed.18 I didn't appreciate this at the time — and couldn't have done anything if I had. Besides, I had more important matters to engage my attention.
A few days after that parade, there was a gymkhana on the maidan, and I rode for the skirmishers in the nezabazi.*(*Tent-pegging with a lance.) Apart from languages and fornication, horsemanship is my only
