Читать книгу The Iblis at Ludd - Talbot Mundy - Страница 4

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Outside the room Jim lit a cigarette and chuckled to himself. If there was one man on earth whom he despised and hated it was Brigadier-General Jenkins.

Nor was he alone in that particular. He more than suspected that the administrator shared his feelings; and he knew for a fact that half the British Army in Palestine loathed the man for his blatant self-advertising.

So to be told to go to work to whitewash Jenkins appealed to his sense of humor, the more so as he divined that underneath the administrator’s actual words there lay another meaning. Jim and Sir Henry Kettle understood each other pretty accurately as a rule. Discipline was to be upheld at all costs. Well and good; he would apologize. But since half-measures formed no part of Jim’s philosophy, he decided to carry out the administrator’s instructions to the letter and to find some way of giving Jenkins such an elegant coat of white as should embarrass even that praise-hungry brigadier.

Fair play and Sir Henry Kettle were synonymous terms. Therefore there was more in this than met the eye. Therefore—“Forward, march!”

He walked down the echoing corridor chuckling to himself, and almost ran into Colonel Goodenough, a commander of Sikhs who cherished a good soldier as he did a horse.

“Morning, Grim. Got a K.C. B. or something? What’s the good news? Share it!”

“I’m off to Ludd.”

“Good Ludd deliver us! Fleas—sand—centipedes—raw recruits—sick horses—thieves—and the man’s happy! Are there any more at home like you?”

“I need one of your men to go with me, sir.”

“So that’s the joke, is it? Well, it’s on you. You can’t have him. I’m short of men. There seem to be only two classes of people in universal demand in Jerusalem—Sikhs and jailbirds; jailbirds for the dirty work, and Sikhs to push perambulators. Every man in my regiment has two men’s work to do. I won’t spare one of them.”

“Lend me Narayan Singh, sir.”

“Why—it, he’s my best man!”

“Sure. That’s why I want him.”

“He’s priceless. If you want my private opinion he could run the regiment better than I can. Why, I use that man to teach my officers their business.”

“Reward him then,” Jim answered. “Give him a job after his own heart. Send him with me.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinite. I’m to smell out the thieves at Ludd.”

“Well—it’s true—that would be a picnic for Narayan Singh. He deserves a treat. But if you get him killed or seriously injured I’ll murder you. Why, I spent all one night in No Man’s Land at Gaza hunting for that man rather than lose him; I wouldn’t have done as much for my grandmother.”

“That how you got the V.C.?”

“—it, yes. And Narayan Singh got nothing, although I recommended him until I was sick of writing letters. He’d done ten time what I did. If you borrow him I want him back all in one piece marker ‘perishable.’

“Watch that he doesn’t get malaria down at Ludd. Don’t overwork him. See that he gets regular meals. I tell you, that man’s precious!”

“How soon can I have him?”

“I’m on my way to the lines now. Come in my car and get him.”