Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own PeopleKipling, Rudyard
History
Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People
Kipling, Rudyard
India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Fiction; India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
Ho! don’t you ‘eed what a girl says,
An’ don’t you go for the beer;
But I was an ass when I was at grass,
An’ that is why I’m ‘ere.
‘Ay, listen to our little man now, singin’ an’ shoutin’ as tho’
trouble had niver touched him. D’you remember when he went mad with the
home-sickness?’ said Mulvaney, recalling a never-to-be-forgotten season
when Ortheris waded through the deep waters of affliction and behaved
abominably. ‘But he’s talkin’ bitter truth, though. Eyah!
‘My very worst frind from beginnin’ to ind
By the blood av a mouse was mesilf!’
When I woke I saw Mulvaney, the night-dew gemming his moustache, leaning
on his rifle at picket, lonely as Prometheus on his rock, with I know
not what vultures tearing his liver.
ON GREENHOW HILL
To Love’s low voice she lent a careless ear;
Her hand within his rosy fingers lay,
A chilling weight. She would not turn or hear;
But with averted face went on her way.
But when pale Death, all featureless and grim,
Lifted his bony hand, and beckoning
Held out his cypress-wreath, she followed him,
And Love was left forlorn and wondering,
That she who for his bidding would not stay,
At Death’s first whisper rose and went away.
RIVALS.
‘Ohe, Ahmed Din! Shafiz Ullah ahoo! Bahadur Khan, where are you? Come
out of the tents, as I have done, and fight against the English. Don’t
kill your own kin! Come out to me!’
The deserter from a native corps was crawling round the outskirts of the
camp, firing at intervals, and shouting invitations to his old comrades.
Misled by the rain and the darkness, he came to the English wing of the
camp, and with his yelping and rifle-practice disturbed the men. They
had been making roads all day, and were tired.
Ortheris was sleeping at Learoyd’s feet. ‘Wot’s all that?’ he said
thickly. Learoyd snored, and a Snider bullet ripped its way through
the tent wall. The men swore. ‘It’s that bloomin’ deserter from the
Aurangabadis,’ said Ortheris. ‘Git up, some one, an’ tell ‘im ‘e’s come
to the wrong shop.’
‘Go to sleep, little man,’ said Mulvaney, who was steaming nearest the
door. ‘I can’t arise an’ expaytiate with him. ‘Tis rainin’ entrenchin’
tools outside.’
‘’Tain’t because you bloomin’ can’t. It’s ‘cause you bloomin’ won’t, ye
long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar, you. ‘Ark to’im ‘owlin’!’
‘Wot’s the good of argifying? Put a bullet into the swine! ‘E’s keepin’
us awake!’ said another voice.
A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry whined from the
darkness--
‘’Tain’t no good, sir. I can’t see ‘im. ‘E’s ‘idin’ somewhere down
‘ill.’
Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. ‘Shall I try to get ‘im, sir?’ said
he.
‘No,’ was the answer. ‘Lie down. I won’t have the whole camp shooting
all round the clock. Tell him to go and pot his friends.’
Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his head under the
tent wall, he called, as a ‘bus conductor calls in a block, ‘’Igher up,
there! ‘Igher up!’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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