He very much preferred the camp life, and hated those broad, flat roads,
with the daily grubbing for grass in the forage reserve, and the long
hours when there was nothing to do except to watch Kala Nag fidgeting in
his pickets.
What Little Toomai liked was to scramble up bridle paths that only an
elephant could take; the dip into the valley below; the glimpses of the
wild elephants browsing miles away; the rush of the frightened pig and
peacock under Kala Nag s feet; the blinding warm rains, when all the
hills and valleys smoked; the beautiful misty mornings when nobody knew
where they would camp that night; the steady, cautious drive of the wild
elephants, and the mad rush and blaze and hullabaloo of the last night s
drive, when the elephants poured into the stockade like boulders in a
landslide, found that they could not get out, and flung themselves at
the heavy posts only to be driven back by yells and flaring torches and
volleys of blank cartridge.
Even a little boy could be of use there, and Toomai was as useful as
three boys. He would get his torch and wave it, and yell with the
best. But the really good time came when the driving out began, and the
Keddah--that is, the stockade--looked like a picture of the end of the
world, and men had to make signs to one another, because they could not
hear themselves speak. Then Little Toomai would climb up to the top of
one of the quivering stockade posts, his sun-bleached brown hair flying
loose all over his shoulders, and he looking like a goblin in the
torch-light. And as soon as there was a lull you could hear his
high-pitched yells of encouragement to Kala Nag, above the trumpeting
and crashing, and snapping of ropes, and groans of the tethered
elephants. Mael, mael, Kala Nag! (Go on, go on, Black Snake!) Dant do!
(Give him the tusk!) Somalo! Somalo! (Careful, careful!) Maro! Mar! (Hit
him, hit him!) Mind the post! Arre! Arre! Hai! Yai! Kya-a-ah! he would
shout, and the big fight between Kala Nag and the wild elephant would
sway to and fro across the Keddah, and the old elephant catchers would
wipe the sweat out of their eyes, and find time to nod to Little Toomai
wriggling with joy on the top of the posts.
He did more than wriggle. One night he slid down from the post and
slipped in between the elephants and threw up the loose end of a rope,
which had dropped, to a driver who was trying to get a purchase on
the leg of a kicking young calf (calves always give more trouble than
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