On the Irrawaddy: A Story of the First Burmese War

"Thank you very much. I shall devote the best portion of this afternoon to trying to get rid of as much of this stain as I can, at least off my face and hands. The rest does not matter, one way or the other, and will wear off gradually; but I should like to get my face decent."

"Well, you are rather an object, Stanley," he said. "It would not matter so much about the colour, but all those tattoo marks are, to say the least of it, singular. Of course they don't look so rum, now, in that native undress; but when you get your uniform on, the effect will be startling.

"We will have a chat with the doctor. He may have something in his medicine chest that will at least soften them down a bit. Of course, if they were real tattoo marks there would be nothing for it; but as they are only dye, or paint of some sort, they must wear themselves out before very long."

"I will try anything that he will give me. I don't care if it takes the skin off."

On returning to the quarters of Captain Cooke, Stanley was introduced to the other officers of the regiment; among them the doctor, to whom he at once applied for some means of taking off the dye.

"Have you asked the man you brought down with you?" the surgeon said. "You say that he put it on, and he may know of something that will take it off again."

"No; I have asked him, and he knows of nothing. He used some of the dye stuffs of the country, but he said he never heard of anyone wanting to take the dye out of things that had been coloured."

"If it were only cotton or cloth," the doctor said, "I have no doubt a very strong solution of soda would take out the greater portion of the dye; but the human skin won't stand boiling water. However, I should say that if you have water as hot as you can bear it, with plenty of soda and soap, it will do something for you. No doubt, if you were to take a handful or two of very fine sand, it would help a great deal; but if you use that, I should not put any soda with the water, or you will practically take all the skin off, and leave your face like a raw beef steak; which will be worse than the stain and, indeed, in so hot a sun as we have, might be dangerous, and bring on erysipelas. So you must be very careful; and it will be far better for you to put up with being somewhat singular in your appearance, for a bit, than to lay yourself up by taking any strong measures to get rid of it."

After an hour spent in vigorous washing, and aided by several rubs with very fine sand, Stanley succeeded, to his great satisfaction, in almost getting rid of the tattoo marks on his face. The general dye had faded a little, though not much; but that with which the marks had been made was evidently of a less stable character, and yielded to soap and friction.

Before he had concluded the work two trunks arrived and, finding that his face was now beginning to smart a good deal, he abstained for the time from further efforts; and turned to inspect his purchases, with a good deal of interest. The uniforms consisted of two undress suits; one with trousers, the other with breeches and high boots, for riding. There was also a suit of mess jacket, waistcoat, and trousers; three suits of white drill; half a dozen white shirts for mess, and as many of thin flannel; and a good stock of general underclothes, a pair of thick boots, and a light pair for mess. There was also the sword, belt, and other equipments; in fact, all the necessaries he would require for a campaign.

Before beginning to dress, he began to free his hair from the wax with which it had been plastered up. He had obtained from the doctor some spirits of turpentine and, with the aid of this, he found the task a less difficult one than he had expected and, the regimental barber being sent for by Captain Cooke, his hair was soon shortened to the ordinary length.

"You will do very well, now," the major said, as he went down into the general room. "You have certainly succeeded a great deal better than I thought you would. Of course you look very brown, but there are a good many others nearly as dark as you are; for between the rain showers the sun has tremendous power, and some of the men's faces are almost skinned, while others have browned wonderfully. I am sure that many of them are quite as dark as yours. So you will pass muster very well."

Before beginning to wash and change, Stanley had given Meinik the clothes he had carried down with him; and when he went out to take a short look round before tiffin–for which the servants were already laying the cloth–he found the man, now looking like a respectable Burman, standing near the door. He walked slowly past him, but the man did not move–not recognizing him, in the slightest degree, in his present attire.

Then Stanley turned and faced him.

"So you don't know me, Meinik."

The Burman gave a start of surprise.

"Certainly I did not know you, my lord," he said. "Who could have known you? Before you were a poor Burmese peasant, now you are an English lord."

"Not a lord at all, Meinik. I am simply an English officer, and dressed very much the same as I was when your people knocked me on the head, at Ramoo."

"I know your voice," Meinik said; "but even now that I know it is you, I hardly recognize your face. Of course, the tattoo marks made a great difference, but that is not all."

"I think it is the hair that has made most difference, Meinik. You see, it was all pulled off the brow and neck, before; and it will be some time before it will grow naturally again. I had great trouble to get it to lie down, even when it was wet; and it will certainly have a tendency to stick up, for a long time.

"The dress has made a good deal of alteration in you, too."

"They are very good clothes," Meinik said. "I have never had such good ones on before. I have had money enough to buy them; but people would have asked where I got it from, and it never does to make a show of being better off than one's neighbour. A man is sure to be fleeced, if he does.

"What can I do for my lord?"

"Nothing, at present, Meinik. I am going to lunch with the officers here, and to dine with the general, and sleep here. Tomorrow I daresay I shall move into quarters of my own.

"You had better buy what you want, for today, in the market. I don't know whether it is well supplied but, as we saw some of your people about, there must be food to be obtained."

"They gave me plenty to eat when I came in," he said, "but I will buy something for supper.

"No, I do not want money, I have plenty of lead left."

"You had better take a couple of rupees, anyhow. There are sure to be some traders from India who have opened shops here, and they won't care to take lead in payment. You must get some fresh muslin for your turban; and you had better close it up at the top, this time. It will go better with your clothes."

Meinik grinned.

"I shall look quite like a person of importance. I shall be taken for, at least, the headman of a large village."

He took the two rupees and walked off towards the town, while Stanley went in to luncheon. There were a good many remarks as to his altered appearance.

"Do you know, Brooke," one of the young lieutenants said, "I did not feel at all sure that Cooke was not humbugging us, when he introduced you to us, and that you were not really a Burman who had travelled, and had somehow learned to speak English extraordinarily well."

"Clothes and soap and water make a wonderful difference," Stanley laughed, "but I shall be a good many shades lighter, when the rest of the dye wears off. At any rate, I can go about, now, without anyone staring at me."

After tiffin, Stanley had to tell his story again, at a very much greater length than before.

"You certainly have gone through some queer adventures," the major said, when he had finished his relation; "and there is no doubt that you have had wonderful luck. In the first place, if that bullet had gone half an inch lower, you would not have been one of the four white survivors of that ugly business at Ramoo; then you were lucky that they did not chop off your head, either when they first took you, or when they got you to Ava. Then again, it was lucky that Bandoola sent a special message that he wanted you kept as an interpreter for himself, and that the official in charge of you turned out a decent fellow, and aided you to make your escape.

"As to your obtaining the services of the man you brought down with you, I do not regard that as a question of luck. You saved the man's life, by an act of the greatest bravery–one that not one man in ten would perform, or try to perform, for the life of a total stranger. I hope that I should have made the effort, had I been in your place; but I say frankly that I am by no means sure that I should have done so.

"The betting was a good twenty to one against its being done successfully. If the brute had heard your footstep, it would have been certain death and, even when you reached him, the chances were strongly against your being able to strike a blow at the animal that would, for a moment, disable him; and so give you time to snatch up one of the guns–which might not, after all, have been loaded.

"It was a wonderfully gallant action, lad. You did not tell us very much about it yourself but, while you were getting the dye off, I got hold of one of the traders here, who happened to be passing, and who understood their language; and with his assistance I questioned your fellow, and got all the particulars from him. I say again, it was as plucky a thing as I have ever heard of."

A few minutes later an orderly came in with a note from the general, asking the major and Captain Cooke also to dine with him that evening. Stanley was very pleased that the two officers were going with him, as it took away the feeling of shyness he felt, at the thought of presenting himself in staff uniform at the general's.

Sir Archibald Campbell put him at ease, at once, by the kindness with which he received him. Stanley began to apologize for his dress, but the general stopped him, at once.

"I intended, of course, that you should wear it, Mr. Brooke. I am sure that you would not find a dress suit in the camp. However, we will make matters all right, tomorrow. Judging from what you said that, as you cannot join your uncle at present, you would be willing to remain here, your name will appear in orders, tomorrow morning, as being granted a commission in the 89th, pending the arrival of confirmation from home; which of course, in such a case, is a mere form. You will also appear in the orders as being appointed my aide-de-camp, in place of Mr. Hitchcock, with extra pay as interpreter.

"No, do not thank me. Having served as a volunteer, taken part in a severe action, and having been wounded and imprisoned, you had almost a right to a commission. After dinner, I hope that you will give us all a full account of your adventures; it was but a very slight sketch that I heard from you, this morning."

The general then introduced Stanley to the other members of his staff.

"If you had seen him as I saw him, this morning," he said, with a smile, "you certainly would not recognize him now. He was naked to the waist, and had nothing on but the usual peasant attire of a piece of black cloth, reaching to his knees. I knew, of course, that the question of costume would soon be got over; but I own that I did not think that I should be able to employ him, for some little time. Not only was his stain a great deal darker than it is now, but he was thickly tattooed up to the eyes, and one could hardly be sending messages by an aide-de-camp so singular in appearance; but I see that, somehow, he has entirely got rid of the tattoo marks; and his skin is now very little, if at all, darker than that of many of us, so that I shall be able to put him in harness at once."

After dinner was over and cigars lighted, Stanley told his story as before, passing over lightly the manner in which he had gained the friendship of the Burman. When he had finished, however, Major Pemberton said:

"With your permission, general, I will supplement the story a little. Mr. Brooke has told me somewhat more than he has told you, but I gained the whole facts from his guide's own lips."

"No, major, please," Stanley said colouring, even under his dye. "The matter is not worth telling."

"You must permit us to be a judge of that, Mr. Brooke," the general said, with a smile at the young fellow's interruption of his superior officer.

"I beg your pardon, Major Pemberton," Stanley stammered in some confusion. "Only–"

"Only you would rather that I did not tell about your struggle with the leopard. I think it ought to be told, and I am pretty sure Sir Archibald Campbell will agree with me," and Major Pemberton then gave a full account of the adventure in the forest.