subedar-major

Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan appeared wholly unaffected by the 100° variation in temperature, but then he had a few odd stone of comfortable fat and was bred to such climatic trifles. He, moreover, knew not fever, and, unlike me, had not experienced dysentery, malaria, enteric and pneumonia fairly recently.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

"Nay, Mir Saheb," I replied, "nor would I till your tale be done and I have seen the return of another reconnoitring-patrol. We might then take turns.... Nay, I will not sleep at all. 'Tis too near dawn when things are wont to happen in time of war." Little did the worthy Subedar-Major guess how, or why, his tale enthralled me.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

But to return to the Subedar-Major. "Peace, fool! Art blind as Ibrahim Mahmud the Weeper," growled that burly Native Officer as the zealous and over-anxious young sentry cried out and pointed to where, in the moonlight, the returning reconnoitring-patrol was to be seen as it emerged from the lye-bushes of the dry river-bed. A recumbent comrade of the outpost sentry group sniggered.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

Yea and in his last fight, ere he was hanged, he killed more men with his long Khyber knife, single-handed against a mob, than ever did lone man before with cold steel in fair fight." Native cigarette. Then it was so. And the Subedar-Major was John Robin Ross-Ellison's brother!

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

Nor had I the very faintest notion that the Subedar-Major had ever heard of such a person, much less that he was actually his own brother, or, to be exact, his half-brother. You see I had known Ross-Ellison intimately as one only can know the man with whom one has worked, soldiered, suffered, and faced death. Not only had I known, admired and respected him I had loved him.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

They cannot believe it, though to me Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry of the Army of the King Emperor of India, they pretend that they do, when I tell of that great deed.... Then my brother loosed Moussa Isa with his own hand, saying that even as he had served Ibrahim Mahmud so would he serve any man who injured a hair of the head of his body-servant.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

My own sympathies were decidedly with the sentry, for I had fever, and "fever is another man". In any case, hours of peering, watching, imagining and waiting, for the attack that will surely come and never comes try even experienced nerves. "And who was Ibrahim the Weeper, Subedar-Major Saheb?" I inquired of the redoubtable warrior as he joined me.

Percival Christopher Wren - Driftwood Spars: The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who: Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life