ABSTRACT
IN CAMP W hen the idea of women missionaries going to villages was first proposed our Committee met it with unfeigned opposition.“ It is too rough for you.”“ In the district one cannot avoid getting into holes. And when a woman gets into a hole she sits down and cries.” “ Do you want to do a man’s work?”“No, a woman’s,” I replied, with the inherited meekness of a sex that through long ages has had to gain its points as best it could. (In my case, I admit, the said meekness breaks forth only at intervals.) “Aren’t there women in the villages ?” That point, cunningly insisted on, could not be contradicted; and-in any case, they were really very reasonable and sympathetic. Though something of the feeling remained, “Well, if you come to grief don’t blame us!”Oh, their prophetic souls! Recently I had cause to think of their kindly warnings.My tent had been pitched under the great banyan-tree near a little country railway station. Camp was to be struck and moved into the Hinterland farther from civilization by faithful Erana, while I rushed to Andapur by the morning train for stores and letters, returning at midday.I was idly gazing out of the window of my little third-class compartment on the return journey, at the stopping place midway. There were another ten miles to go before I need stir. I heard the guard blow his whistle.What was that apparition my startled eyes perceived trying to climb the spiked and barred station gate, waving
arms and tearing a loin-cloth on a spike in the effort to get over quickly? Erana, by all that is untoward! W hat is he doing here? Why, I knew he was eighteen miles away in the new camping-place, my eyes must be lying. . . . But they were not lying; he was here, they insisted-so he could not be there-my bewildered brain moved at last. “Guard!” I shouted, hanging out of the window.The train had already begun to move. But the guard on the platform caught my eye and my cry as the carriage slid past him and saw the frantic appeal; his red flag shot up as his whistle went again; the train stopped. Hastily I scrambled out with my belongings. The train went on.“What has happened? Where is the tent?” I cried.“The army! the British army! they have taken everything!” wailed poor Erana.By degrees I elicited the facts. A British regiment from the North was marching to Bangalore. The road passes not far from my late camping-ground. Erana had packed everything and gone off to the village for the cart, leaving a coolie in charge.At that very time the regiment marched past. Someone spied the bundles under the banyan-tree and, thinking they might be army stuff, went to inquire. The village coolie knew better than to risk an encounter with the British soldier, who is known to get angry very quickly when he is not understood. The lengthiest explanations would be of no avail. They always ended in an enraged Tommy shouting, “ If you give me any more of your bold1 I ’ll put that in your dekko2!” The coolie fled.So what looked like an officer’s camp outfit, tent, table, chairs, suitcase, etc., was left unguarded under a tree. Word was passed along the line to the Colonel himself.Some scamp of a cart-driver has thrown down his load
and bolted, thought the officer. “Load it all up and bring it along,” he ordered helpfully.When Erana returned the place was empty. The affrighted coolie returned and told his tale. The dust of the regiment was disappearing along the white road. Erana did the most sensible thing he could and ran after them, all the ten miles to this station, where he arrived in time to extract me from the train. That was fortunate, anyhow.“They are camped here, near this very station,” he reported further. So in that respect also things might have been much worse. But the time to feel grateful was not yet. I was still too busy execrating the army and all its works.“ I must find the Colonel,” I said, and thought of all the things one might say to him.The station master and other station staff who had been listening with deep interest to the recital of a fellow creature’s woes (which, as Emerson truly remarks, are by no means sources of unhappiness to others), now came forward helpfully.“Officers are encamped in the travellers’ bungalow near the station.”Their heads and mine being full of army, “officers” suggested only regimental authorities to us. I marched to meet them.The midday heat lay oppressively on the land. Dripping, dusty, I arrived. Deep silence reigned. The bungalow appeared to be in profound slumber; the doors were closed.A peon's repose was interrupted and he went in search of his master. I waited in the veranda, plying my fan. Time passed. No one appeared. It was too bad to disturb people’s siesta, I thought, but after all, I had been left without any refuge anywhere, my tent having been reft from me, I could now hear the murmur of voices inside, some sort of discussion seemed to be going on.
