[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

ever-augmenting swarm of bullets, but all that zig-zagging business lost me
time. One of the aeroplanes had come within striking distance of even so
small a mark as I made, and began to pour loads of fire from above and
behind. There was nothing to do but go forward, so I dashed on. Oh! how
hard I flew--fast as the fastest storm. Then-- ftatattafut-I was hit! My leg was
broken right near the groin, and it, with its message, dangled under me 'like
a sparrow in a single talon of a hawk. Oh! the pain, but I had no time to
think of that, for that aeroplane was still after me, and I flew harder than
before.
"At last our own line came into view. I fled lower. The machine dived
down too. I tried to tumble, but failed. My leg prevented me from trying any
of my tricks. Then pa-pa-pat-pattut-my tail was hit, and a shower of feathers
fell below, obscuring for a moment the view of the men in the German
trenches. So I shot down in a slanting flight towards our line and--passed it,
making a circle. Then I beheld a strange sight--the aeroplane had been hit by
our line. It swayed, lurched, and fell. But it had done its worst ere it went
down in flames--it had hit my right wing and broken it. It gave me
satisfaction to see it catch fire in the air and fall, yet my own pain had
increased so that I felt as if twenty buzzards were tearing me to pieces, but,
thanks to the Gods of my race, I lost consciousness of either pain or
pleasure, and felt as if a mountainous weight were pulling me down ....
"They kept me at the pigeon hospital for a month. Though my wing was
repaired and my leg sewn up where it belonged, they could not make me fly
again. Every time I hopped up in the air, my ears, I know not how, were
filled with terrible noises of guns, and my eyes saw nothing but flaming
bullets. I was so frightened that I would dash immediately to the ground.
You may say that I was hearing imaginary guns and seeing imaginary walls
of bullets: may be, but their effect on me was the same as that of real ones.
My wings were paralysed, my entrails frozen with terror.
"Besides, I would not fly without Ghond. Why should I spring from the
hands of a man whose complexion was not brown and whose eyes were
blue? I had, not known such people before. We pigeons don't take to any and
every outsider. At last they brought me in a cage to the hospital where
Ghond was, and left me beside him. When I saw him I hardly recognised
him, for his eyes-Ghond's eyes--wore a look of real fear! Yes, he too had
been frightened out of his wits for once. I know, as all birds and beasts do,
what fear looks like, and I felt sorry for Ghond.
"But on seeing me, that film of terror left his eyes, and they burned with a
light of joy. He sat up in bed, took me in his hands and kissed my foot that
had held the message that he had sent. Then he patted my right wing, and
said: 'Even in great distress, O thou constellation of divine feathers, thou
hast borne thy owner with his message among friends and won glory for all
pigeons and the whole Indian Army. Again he kissed my foot. His humility
touched me and by example humbled me. I felt no more pride when I
remembered how I fell in the trenches of an Indian brigade after that
aeroplane had partly smashed my wing, for had I fallen in a German trench,
then ... they would have seized the message on my leg; they would have
surrounded the forest where Ghond lay hid with that wild dog--I shuddered
to think of what they would have done! Alas! the dog, our true friend and
saviour, where was he now?"
Healing of hate and Fear
"That dog," Ghond took up the story, "must have lost his French master
early in the war. Probably the Germans had shot the man, and after that,
when he saw his master's home looted and the barn set on fire, he went wild
with terror and ran away into the woods, where he lived hidden from the
sight of men under the thick thorn bush, as spacious as a hut and as dark as
the interior of a tomb. Probably he ventured out only at night in quest of
food, and being a hunting-dog by heredity, all his savage qualities returned
as he spent day after day and night after night in the woods like an outlaw.
"When he came across me, he was surprised because I was not afraid. I
gave out no odour of fear. I must have been the first man in months whose
fear did not frighten him to attack.
"Of course, he thought that, like himself, I too was hungry and was
looking for food. So he led me to the German food depot, and through an
underground passage he crawled into a vast provision chamber-a very gold-
mine of food--and fetched some meat for me. I drew the conclusion that
there were a series of underground chambers in which the Germans kept not
only food but also oil and explosives, and I acted accordingly. Thank the
Gods it turned out to be correct. Let us change the subject.
"To tell you the truth I hate to talk about the war. Look, the sunset is
lighting the peaks of the Himalayas. The Everest burns like a crucible of
gold. Let us pray:
"Lead me from the unreal to the Real,
From darkness into Light,
From sound into Silence."
After mediation was over, Ghond silently walked out of our house to begin
a journey from Calcutta to the lamasery near Singalila. But before I recount
his adventure there, I must tell the reader how Ghond happened to be
transferred from the battlefields of France to our home.
The last part of February 1915 it became quite clear to the Bengal
Regiment that Gay-Neck would fly no more. Ghond, who had brought him,
was no soldier. With the exception of a tiger or a leopard, he had never
killed anything in his life, and now that he too was sick, they were both
invalids back to India together. They reached Calcutta in March. I could not
believe my eyes when I saw them. Ghond looked as frightened as Gay-Neck,
and both of them appeared very sick.
Ghond, after he had delivered my pigeon to me, explained a few matters,
before he departed to the Himalayas. "I need to be healed of fear and hate. I
saw too much killing of man by man. I was invalid home for I am sick with
a fell disease--sickness of fear, and I must go alone to nature to be cured of
my fear.
So he went up to Singalila, to the lamasery, there to be healed by prayer
and meditation. In the meantime I tried my utmost to cure Gay-Neck. His
wife and full-grown children failed to help him. His children saw in him but,
stranger, for he showed no care for them, but his wife interested him
intensely, though even she could not make him fly. He refused steadily to do
anything but hop a little, and nothing would induce him to go up in the air. I
had his wings and legs examined by good pigeon-doctors, who said that
there was nothing wrong with him. His bones and both his wings were
sound, yet he would not fly. He refused even to open his right wing; and
whenever he was not running or hopping he developed the habit of standing
on one foot.
I would not have minded that, if he and his wife had not set about nesting
just then. Towards the middle of April, when vacation for the hot weather
began, I received Ghond's letter. "Your Gay-Neck," he informed me, "should
not nest yet. If there are eggs, destroy them. Do not let them hatch under any
circumstances. A sick father like Gay-Neck--diseased with fright--cannot but
give the world poor and sick baby pigeons. Bring him here. Before I close, I
must say that I am better. Bring Gay-Neck soon; the holy lama wishes to see
you and him. Besides, all the five swifts have arrived this week from the
south; they will surely divert your pet bird." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]