EPISODE: 27

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.

"Hukm hai!" (It is an order!), said the camel with a gurgle, and

Two Tails and the bullocks repeated, "Hukm hai!"

"Yes, but who gives the orders?" said the recruit-mule.

"The man who walks at your head—Or sits on your back—Or

holds the nose rope—Or twists your tail," said Billy and the

troop-horse and the camel and the bullocks one after the other.

"But who gives them the orders?"

"Now you want to know too much, young un," said Billy, "and

that is one way of getting kicked. All you have to do is to obey

the man at your head and ask no questions."

"He's quite right," said Two Tails. "I can't always obey, because

I'm betwixt and between. But Billy's right. Obey the man next to you who gives the order, or you'll stop all the battery, besides

getting a thrashing."

The gun-bullocks got up to go. "Morning is coming," they said.

"We will go back to our lines. It is true that we only see out of

our eyes, and we are not very clever. But still, we are the only

people to-night who have not been afraid. Good-night, you brave

people."

Nobody answered, and the troop-horse said, to change the

conversation, "Where's that little dog? A dog means a man

somewhere about."

"Here I am," yapped Vixen, "under the gun tail with my man.

You big, blundering beast of a camel you, you upset our tent.

My man's very angry."

"Phew!" said the bullocks. "He must be white!"

"Of course he is," said Vixen. "Do you suppose I'm looked after

by a black bullock-driver?"

"Huah! Ouach! Ugh!" said the bullocks. "Let us get away

quickly."

They plunged forward in the mud, and managed somehow to

run their yoke on the pole of an ammunition wagon, where it

jammed.

"Now you have done it," said Billy calmly. "Don't struggle.

You're hung up till daylight. What on earth's the matter?"

The bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that Indian

cattle give, and pushed and crowded and slued and stamped and

slipped and nearly fell down in the mud, grunting savagely.

"You'll break your necks in a minute," said the troop-horse.

"What's the matter with white men? I live with 'em."

"They—eat—us! Pull!" said the near bullock. The yoke snapped

with a twang, and they lumbered off together.....