“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 troop-horse.“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.”