Angel by B.M. Croker

IT was the month of September in the Himalayas, when the rains are heaviest, landslips frequent, and whole hillsides crumble and slide into the valley with a sound of thunder, that Major Gascoigne was summoned up to Kumaon in order to cope with a series of disasters. Bridges had been destroyed by racing torrents, roads were washed away; such floods had not visited these regions for twenty years, so said the hill folk, and traffic between the stations of Shirani and Chotah-Bilat was practically at an end. It was not that the roads were impassable, but that there were no roads whatever. The common route by the river (to reach the so-called staircase) was now a boiling torrent, which had risen in its fury and torn away pieces of the great cart road, and dragged down and swallowed walls, buttress, bridges. Under these circumstances, when troops were waiting to march, and most people were moving towards the plains, transport and traffic were paralysed, and loud was the outcry.

Major Gascoigne had taken possession of the engineers' house, a little building far away from road and river, perched high among the rhododendrons over the valley, consisting merely of two rooms, verandah and cook-house, and furnished to meet the simple requirements of one man. Philip liked the isolated spot, where he heard nothing but the crow of the jungle cock and the roar of the water. It was one of his favourite halting-places when he came up on inspection duty. No cell could be more solitary, or absolutely out of the track of the world. Here he worked at his book on fortifications, here he kept a store of favourite authors, here he was happy; it was his asylum-his cave. The cave was beautifully situated, and, although it commanded a sweeping view of the neighbouring hills and distant snows, yet, to the cursory eye, the little brown house was almost buried amid rhododendrons, oak and tall tree ferns. The last week in September witnessed many landslips, several accidents, and much rain. Since daybreak the "Engineer Sahib" had been personally superintending the damming of a fissure and the construction of a temporary bridge. Towards three o'clock in the afternoon, tired, mud-stained, and extremely hungry, he set his pony's head towards home. After a long _détour_ they scrambled up the slippery, greasy path, crossed with great tree-roots, and at last reached their destination.