Hussein - Patrick O’Brian

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of bût-parasti like the Hindus, completed his religious training: after that his education was confined to the elephant lore accumulated by countless generations of mahouts, and passed down by word of mouth.

      Both Wali Dad and Ahmed told him all that they had been taught about elephants, and all that they had found out; they also taught him the hathi-tongue, in which the mahouts speak to their elephants. It is a strange language, quite unlike any other; only the mahouts know it, and they keep the knowledge carefully among themselves. The elephants understand it, and there is a tale that when the moon is eclipsed they speak it to one another.

      Hussein absorbed the knowledge easily, for he was a born mahout; his ancestors had been mahouts as far as history went back and beyond: it was in his blood.

      He grew up to be a strong boy, tall and slim. Muhammed Akbar was very fond of the boy, and taught him, in his own way, more about elephants than he could ever have learnt from men.

      Now in the year when the great pestilence went up and down India, killing by thousands, and by hundreds of thousands, they were at the great city of Agra, which was crowded at the time for a certain festival. The monsoon had delayed in its breaking, so that the people were crying out for rain to all their gods. But it did not come. The weather grew hotter and still hotter, so that everything withered, and men died from the heat alone.

      Then the cholera came. People died in the streets, and in the temples: there was a famine all through the land, so that men were distraught, and died like flies from cholera, starvation, and fear of both.

      The mahouts in the Government elephant lines did not fare so badly, for they were fed and made to keep clean.

      All through the hot days and stifling nights the Hindus prayed in the temples of their bloody-handed goddess, Kali, but she would not hear them, although the conches screamed and blared without ceasing.

      The dead were thrown into great pits, for there were so many. The Government did all that it could, and trains came from the south with food and doctors. It is said that men of the IMS died from overwork and exhaustion and nothing else.

      One day Ahmed was sent out with Muhammed Akbar to take an official through some rough country for a day’s journey. Ahmed did not want his son to be out of his sight at a time like this, so he asked if Hussein might go with him. The official, a kindly Englishman, agreed, and they set out at daybreak. It was a depressing journey, for men lay dead in the roads, with none to bury them. They passed through villages that had been busy with people a month ago, and that were now quite empty, the people having died, or run away to find a place where the cholera was not. All that should have been green was brown or grey: the air was heavy and still, and the heat seemed to beat up from the iron-hard ground as well as from out of the sky.

      When they got back, Wali Dad was dead. He had sickened and died before nightfall, and he was already buried. Mahmud Khan, an old friend of his, had stayed with him to the last, in spite of the danger. He had given Wali Dad enough opium to ensure that his passing should be clean and painless, which was a very good thing; Mahmud had also given him an honourable burial. In that great heat a man had to be buried almost as soon as the breath was out of his body.

      Ahmed tore his clothes, and cast off his turban, pouring ash and dust upon his head. Hussein did the same, and they mourned for a long time. For days Ahmed took no food, and only a little water; but Hussein fed more heartily, although his grief was sincere. Six more mahouts died in the next week, and new ones were sent from other parts to replace them. Among them came Mustapha, the husband of Ahmed’s sister. Ahmed went to him and said, ‘Peace upon your house!’

      ‘And upon yours,’ replied Mustapha; ‘may you never grow tired.’ For some time they talked about indifferent subjects before Ahmed came to the question that had brought him.

      ‘If anything were to happen to either of us,’ he said, ‘what would become of your wife and children, and of my Hussein?’

      ‘Allah is merciful,’ said Mustapha, who was a mild, dreamy man, and something of a scholar.

      ‘Without doubt,’ replied Ahmed, ‘but perhaps it would be as well if, in the event of certain things coming upon either of us — (he would not mention cholera, for it was so near, and naming calls) — we were to agree that the other should take care of those who would be left.’

      ‘This is an excellent suggestion, and on my honour, and by the Beard of the Prophet, if such a thing should come about — which Allah forbid — I and my wife will look after Hussein.’

      ‘And for my part, by my father’s head, I will do the same for your wife, my sister, and for your children.’

      And so it was agreed; after that the talk drifted to unimportant things. The same night Mahmud Khan was struck by the cholera; Ahmed stayed with him all night, doing all that could be done, which was not much. Towards the end Mahmud asked for opium; Ahmed gave it to him, and he died a little before daybreak.

      Ahmed was worn out with grief and with nursing his friend. As he was very weak from taking almost no food since his father died, he stood no chance when the cholera struck him at noon; he was buried before sunset. Hussein, when they told him, was dazed: he had never thought it possible that his father should die — he had seemed so strong, and so essentially permanent. Even when he was buried, Hussein could not believe that he was gone for ever. It all seemed like a bad dream, from which he would presently awake to find everything as it used to be. Within an hour of his father’s burial, Hussein was unconscious in the high fever of black cholera. Mustapha kept his word to Ahmed, and carried him to his own house, where his aunt nursed the boy. He lay on a string bed, his body distorted with the furious pain; it wracked him so that he could scarcely breathe the heavy air that seemed to weigh down on him like a stifling blanket.

      Zeinab, Mustapha’s wife, sat by Hussein all night, sponging him now and then with lukewarm water. He was still living at dawn, but as the day wore on he lapsed into a coma.

      ‘It is all over now,’ said Zeinab.

      ‘El mektub, mektub,’ replied Mustapha with a sigh, ‘what is written, is written — his fate was on his forehead, and there is no escaping it.’

      At dawn, however, a little breeze had sprung up, and by noon it had risen to a strong wind, and the people on the housetops could see the great banks of cloud driving down from the north. All day thunder roared, and a little after noon the monsoon broke at last. The rain fell out of the sky in great solid sheets, and the scorched earth drank it with a hissing sound. The mud splashed up waist-high, and the rivers swelled as one watched them. Ceaselessly the rain roared down, making a great noise like the thunder of traffic in a great city magnified tenfold. The air freshened within a few minutes of the coming of the rain, and Hussein stirred from his coma. The clean air revived him a little, and before nightfall Zeinab was able to feed a little soup to him from a spoon. By the time a week had passed the cholera had left the city — it was washed away.

      Hussein lived, and after some time he was on his feet again. At first he kept forgetting that Wali Dad and Ahmed were both dead, and each time that it came suddenly to him, his grief broke out afresh. At such times he would go to Muhammed Akbar, and lie between his fore-feet, with his head in the dust; but while Hussein tended to become used to it, the elephant did not. Indeed, Muhammed Akbar grieved so bitterly and so deeply that since Ahmed died he would hardly eat anything at all. Only Hussein could persuade him to take a few plantains now and then. The great beast wasted away, and his skin hung in folds on his flanks.

      All the mahouts understood, and they did not trouble him. In a little while Muhammed Akbar became so weak that he could hardly support his own weight. One day Hussein found him leaning against the pipal tree in the compound. The boy was carrying some plantains for the elephant: he sat between the great round forefeet, and began talking gently. Suddenly he stopped, for the elephant was not making those little throaty gurgles of response by which he always used to show that he was attending. Hussein slapped the hanging trunk to wake the elephant, but there was no response; he started to his feet, and looked up; then he understood, for Muhammed Akbar was dead.