Bertram coloured, and felt quite certain that he did not like Macteith at all.
Reversing the glasses, that gentleman then examined him through the larger end.
“Oh, my God!” he ejaculated at last, and then feigned unconquerable nausea.
He had heard the news, and felt personally injured and insulted that this miserable half-baked rabbit should be going on Active Service while Lieutenant and Quartermaster Macteith was not.
An orderly entered, saluted, and spoke to him in Hindustani.
“Colonel wants you,” he said, turning to Bertram, as the orderly again saluted, wheeled about, and departed. “He wants to strain you to his breast, to clasp your red right hand, to giveyou his photograph and beg for yours—or else to wring your neck!” And as Bertram rose to go, he added: “Here—take this pen with you.”
“What for?” asked Bertram.
“To write something in his autograph-album and birthday-book—he’s sure to ask you to,” was the reply.
Bertram turned and departed, depressed in spirit. He hated anyone to hate him, and he had done Macteith no harm. But in spite of his depression, he was aware of a wild little devil of elation who capered madly at the back of his brain. This exuberant little devil appeared to be screaming joyous war-whoops and yelling: “Active Service! . . .You are going to see service and to fight! . . .You will have a war-medal and clasps! . . .You are going to be a real war-hardened and experienced soldier! . . .You are going to be a devil of a fellow! . . .Whoop and dance,you Ass! . . .Wave your arms about,and caper! . . .Let out a loud yell,and do a fandango! . . .” But in the Presence of the Colonel, Bertram declined to entertain the little devil’s suggestions, and he neither whooped nor capered. He wondered, nevertheless, what this cold monument of imperturbability would do if he suddenly did commence to whoop, to caper and to dance before him. Probably say “H’m!”—since that was generally reported to be the only thing he ever said. . . .
Marching into the room in which the Colonel sat at his desk, Bertram halted abruptly, stood at attention stiffly, and saluted smartly. Then he blushed from head to foot as he realised that he had committed the ghastlyfaux pas, the horrible military crime, of saluting bare-headed. He could have wept with vexation. To enter so smartly, hearing himself like a trained soldier—and then to make such a Scarlet Ass of himself! . . . The Colonel gazed at him as at some very repulsive and indescribable, but very novel insect.
“. . . And I’ll make a list of the cooking-pots and other kit that they’ll have to take for use on board, sir, and give it to Greene with a letter to Colonel Rock asking him to have them returned here,” the Adjutant was saying, as he laid papers before the Colonel for signature.
“H’m!” said the Colonel.
“I have ordered the draft to parade at seven to-morrow, sir,” he continued, “and told the Bandmaster they will be playeddown to the Docks. . . . Greene can take them over from me at seven and march them off. I have arranged for the kits to go down in bullock-carts beforehand. . . .”
“H’m!” said the Colonel.
“I’ll put Greene in the way of things as much as possible to-day,” went on the Adjutant. “I’ll go with him and get hold of the cooking-pots he’ll take for the draft to use on board—and then I’d better run down and see the Staff Embarkation Officer with him, about his cabin and the men’s quarters on theElymas, and. . .”
“H’m!” said the Colonel, and taking up his cane and helmet, departed thence without further remark.
“. . . And—I hope you’ll profit by every word you’ve heard from the Colonel, my lad,” the Adjutant concluded, turning ferociously upon Bertram. “Don’t stand there giggling, flippant and indifferent—a perfect picture of the Idle Apprentice, I say,” and he burst into a peal of laughter at the solemn, anxious, tragic mask which was Bertram’s face.
“No,” he added, as they left the room. “Let the Colonel’s wise and pregnant observations sink into your mind and bring forth fruit. . . . Such blossoming, blooming flowers of rhetoricoughterbring forth fruit in due season, anyhow. . . . Come along o’ me.”
Leaving the big Mess bungalow, the two crossed themaidan, wherein numerous small squads of white-clad recruits were receiving musketry-instruction beneath the shady spread of gigantic banyans. The quickly signalled approach of the dread Adjutant-Sahib galvanised the Havildar and Naik instructors to a fearful activity and zeal, which waned not until he had passed from sight. In one large patch of shade the Bandmaster—an ancient Pathan, whose huge iron-rimmed spectacles accorded but incongruously with his fierce hawk face, ferocious curling white moustache and beard, and bemedalled uniform—was conducting the band’s tentative rendering of “My Bonnie is over the Ocean,” to Bertram’s wide-eyed surprise and interest. Through the Lines the two officers made a kind of Triumphal Progress, men on all sides stiffening to “attention” and saluting as they passed, to where, behind a cook-house, lay nine large smoke-blackened cooking-pots under a strong guard.
“There they are, my lad,” quoth the hitherto silent Adjutant.“Regard them closely, and consider them well. Familiarise yourself with them, and ponder.”
“Why?” asked Bertram.
“For in that it is likely that they, or their astral forms, will haunt your thoughts by day, your dreams by night. Your every path through life will lead to them,” answered the Adjutant.
“What have I got to do with them?” enquired Bertram, with uncomfortable visions of adding the nine big black cauldrons to his kit.
“Write about them,” was the succinct reply.
“To whom?” was the next query.
“Child,” said the Adjutant solemnly, “you are young and ignorant, though earnest. To you, in your simplicity and innocence—
‘A black cooking-pot by a cook-house doorA black cooking-pot is, and nothing more,’
‘A black cooking-pot by a cook-house doorA black cooking-pot is, and nothing more,’
as dear William Wordsworth so truly says in hisOde on the Imitations of Immorality, is it—or is it in ‘Hark how the Shylock at Heaven’s gate sings’? I forget. . . . But these aremuchmore. Oh, very much.”
“How?” asked the puzzled but earnest one.
“How? . . . Why they are the subject-matter, from this moment, of a Correspondence which will be still going on when your children’s grandchildren are doddering grey-beards, and you and I are long since swept into the gulf of well-deserved oblivion.Babusyet unborn will batten on that Correspondence and provide posts for their relatives unnumbered as the sands of the seashore, that it may be carried on unfailing and unflagging. As the pen drops from their senile palsied hands they will see the Correspondence take new lease of life, and they will turn their faces to the wall, smile, and die happy.”
“I am afraid I don’t really understand,” admitted Bertram.
“Doyou think Colonel Rock will return these pots? Believe me, he will not. He will say, ‘A pot in the hand is worth two in the bush-country,’ or else ‘What I have I hold,’ or ‘Ils suis,ils reste’—being a bit of a scholar like—or perhaps he’ll just swear he bought ’em off a man he went to see about a dog, just round the corner, at the pub. I don’t know aboutthat—but return them he will not. . . .”
“But if I say they belong to Colonel Frost and that he wants them back—and that I promised to make it clear to him that Colonel Frost desires their immediate return,” protested Bertram, who visualised himself between the anvil of Colonel Rock and the hammer of Colonel Frost.
“Why then he’ll probably say they now ‘belong to Colonel Rock and that hedoesn’twant them to go back, and that you must promise to make it clear to Colonel Frost that he desireshisimmediate return’—to the devil,” replied the Adjutant.
“Yes—every time,” he continued. “He will pretend that fighting Germans is a more urgent and important matter than returning pots. He will lay aside no plans of battle and schemes of strategy to attend to the pots. He will detail no force of trusty soldiers to convoy them to the coast. . . . He will refuse to keep them prominently before his vision. . . . In short, he will hang on to the damn things. . . . And when the war is o’er and he returns, he’ll swear he never had a single cooking-pot in Africa, and in any case they are his own private property, and always were. . . .”
“I shall have to keep on reminding him about them,” observed Bertram, endeavouring to separate the grain of truth from the literal “chaff” of the Adjutant—who seemed to be talking rapidly and with bitter humour, to keep himself from thinking of his cruel and crushing disappointment, or to hide his real feelings.
“If you go nightly to his tent, and, throwing yourself prostrate at his feet, clasp him around the knees, and say: ‘Oh,sir,think of poor pot-less Colonel Frost,’ he will reply: ‘To hell with Colonel Frost! . . .’ Yes—every time. . . . Until, getting impatient of your reproachful presence, he will say: ‘You mention pots again and I’ll fill you with despondency and alarm. . .’ He’ll do it, too—he’s quite good at it.”
“Rather an awkward position for me,” ventured Bertram.
“Oh, quite, quite,” agreed Murray. “Colonel Frost will wire that unless you return his pots, he’ll break you—and Colonel Rock will state that if you so much as hint at pots,he’llbreak you. . . . But that’s neither here nor there—the Correspondence is the thing. It will begin when you are broke by one of the two—and it will be but waxing in volume to its grand climacteric when the war is forgotten, and the pots are but the dust of rust. . . . A great thought. . . Yes. . .”
Bertram stared at the Adjutant. Had he gone mad? Fever? A touch of the sun? It was none of these things, but a rather terrible blow, a blighting and a shattering of his almost-realised hopes—and he must either talk or throw things about, if he were not to sit down and blaspheme while he drank himself into oblivion. . . .
For a time they regarded the pots in awed contemplative silence and felt themselves but ephemeral in their presence, as they thought of the Great Correspondence, but yet with just a tinge of that comforting and sustainingquorum pais magna fuifeeling, to which Man, the Mighty Atom, the little devil of restless interference with the Great Forces, is ever prone.
In chastened silence they returned to the Adjutant’s office, and Bertram sat by his desk and watched and wondered, while that official got through the rest of his morning’s work and dealt faithfully with many—chiefly sinners.
He then asked the Native Adjutant, who had been assisting him, to send for Jemadar Hassan Ali, who was to accompany Bertram and the draft on the morrow, and on that officer’s arrival he presented him to the young gentleman.
As he bowed and shook hands with the tall, handsome Native Officer, Bertram repressed a tendency to enquire after Mrs. Ali and all the little Allies, remembering in time that to allude directly to a native gentleman’s wife is the grossest discourtesy and gravest immorality. All he could find to say was: “Salaam,Jemadar Sahib!Sub achcha hai?”[38a]which at any rate appeared to serve, as the Native Officer gave every demonstration of cordiality and pleasure. What he said in reply, Bertram did not in the least understand, so he endeavoured to put on a look combining pleasure, comprehension, friendliness and agreement—which he found a slight strain—and remarked: “Béshak!Béshak!”[38b]as he nodded his head. . . .
The Jemadar later reported to his colleagues that the new Sahib, albeit thrust in over the heads of tried and experienced Native Officers, appeared tobea Sahib, a gentleman of birth, breeding, and good manners; and evidently possessed of far more than such slight perception and understanding as was necessary for proper appreciation of the worth and virtues of Jemadar Hassan Ali. Also that he was but a hairless-faced babe—butdoubtless the Sircar knew what it was about, and was quite right in considering that a young boy of the Indian Army Reserve was fitter to be a Second-Lieutenant in thepultan, than was a Jemadar of fifteen years’ approved service and three medals. One of his hearers laughed sarcastically, and another grunted approval, but the Subedar-Major remarked that certain opinions, however tenable, were, perhaps, better left unvoiced by those who had accepted service under the Sircar on perfectly clear and definite terms and conditions.
When the Jemadar had saluted and left the office, Murray turned upon Bertram suddenly, and, with a concentrated glare of cold ferocity, delivered himself.
“Young Greene,” quoth he, “yesterday I said you were a Good Egg and a desirable. I called you Brother, and fell upon your neck, and I welcomed you to my hearth. I overlooked your being the son of a beknighted General. I looked upon you and found you fair and good—as a ‘relief.’ You were a stranger, and I took you in. . . . Now you have takenmein—and I say you are a cuckoo in the nest, a viper in the back-parlour, a worm in the bud, a microbe in the milk, and an elephant in the ointment. . . . You are a—a—”.
“I’mawfullysorry, Murray,” interrupted the unhappy Bertram. “I’d doanything—”
“Yes—and anybody,” continued the Adjutant. “I say you are a pillar of the pot-houses of Gomorrah, a fly-blown turnip and a great mistake. Though of apparently most harmless exterior and of engaging manners, you are an orange filled with ink, an addled egg of old, and an Utter Improbability. I took you up and you have done me down. I took you out and you have done me in. I took you in and you have done me out—of my chance in life. . . . Your name is now as a revolting noise in my ears, and your face a repulsive sight, a thing to break plates on . . . and they ‘call youCupid’!”
“I can’t tell you how distressed I am about it, Murray,” broke in the suffering youth. “If only there were anything I could do so that you could go, and not I—”
“You can do nothing,” was the cold reply. “You can not even, in mere decency, die this night like a gentleman. . . . And if you did, they’d only send some other pale Pimple to take the bread out of a fellow’s mouth. . . . This is a civilians’ war, markyou; they don’t want professional soldiers for a little job like this. . . .”
“It wasn’tmyfault, Murray,” protested Bertram, reduced almost to tears by his sense of wicked unworthiness and the injustice to his kind mentor of yesterday.
“Perhaps not,” was the answer, “but why were you everborn, Cupid Greene, that’s what I ask? You say it isn’t your fault—but if you’d never been born . . . Still, though I can never forget, I forgive you, and would share my last pot of rat-poison with you cheerfully. . . . Here—get out your note-book,” and he proceeded to give the boy every “tip” and piece of useful advice and information that he could think of as likely to be beneficial to him, to the men, to the regiment, and to the Cause.
That night Bertram could not sleep. The excitement of that wonderful day had been too much for his nerves, and he lay alternating between the depths of utter black despair, fear, self-distrust and anxiety on the one hand, and the heights of exultation, hope, pride, and joy on the other.
At one moment he saw himself the butt of his colleagues, the contempt of his men, thebête noirof his Colonel, the shame of his Service, and the disgrace of his family.
At another, he saw himself winning the approval of his brother officers by his modesty and sporting spirit, the affection and admiration of his men by his kindness and firmness, the good-will of his Colonel by his obvious desire to learn and his keen enthusiasm in his duty, the respect of his Service for winning a decoration, and the loving regard of the whole clan of Greene for his general success as a soldier.
But these latter moments were, alas, far less realistic and convincing than the others. In them he merely hoped and imagined—while in the black ones he felt andknew. He could not do otherwise than realise that he was utterly inexperienced, ignorant, untried and incompetent, for it was the simple fact. Ifhecould be of much use, then what is the good of training men for yearsin colleges, in regiments, and in the field, to prepare them to take their part in war?
He knew nothing of either the art or the science of that great and terrible business. He had neither the officer’s trained brain nor the private soldier’s trained body; neither the theory of the one nor the practice of the other. Even if, instead of going to the Front to-morrow as an officer, he had been going in a British regiment as a private, he would have been equally useless. He had never been drilled, and he had never used a weapon of any kind. All he had got was a burning desire to be of use, a fair amount of intelligence, and, he hoped, the average endowment of courage. Even as to this last, he could not be really certain, as he had never yet been tried—but he was very strongly of opinion that the dread of showing himself a coward would always be far stronger than the dread of anything that the enemy could do to his vile body. His real fear was that he should prove incompetent, be unequal to emergency, and fail those who relied upon him or trusted in him. When he thought of that, he knew Fear, the cold terror that causes a fluttering of the heart, a dryness of the mouth, a weakness of the knees, and a sinking of the stomach.
That was the real dread, that and the fear of illness which would further decrease capacity and usefulness. What were mere bullets and bayonets, wounds and death, beside revealed incompetence and failure in duty?
Oh, that he might have luck in his job, and also keep in sufficient health to be capable of his best—such as it was.
When Hope was in the ascendant, he assured himself that the greatest work and highest duty of a British officer in a Native regiment was to encourage and enhearten his men; to set them a splendid example of courage and coolness; to hearten them up when getting depressed; to win their confidence, affection and respect, so that they would cheerfully follow him anywhere and “stick it” as long as he did, no matter what the hardship, danger, or misery. These things were obviously a thousand times more important than parade-ground knowledge and such details as correct alignment, keeping step, polishing buttons, and so forth—important as these might be in their proper place and season. And one did not learn those greater things from books, nor on parade, nor at colleges. A man as ignorant as even he of drill, internal economy, tactics and strategy, might yet be worth hisrations in the trenches, on the march, yes, or in the wild, fierce bayonet-charge itself, if he had the attributes that enable him to encourage, uplift, enhearten and give confidence.
And then his soaring spirit would swiftly stoop again, as he asked himself: “And haveIthose qualities and attributes?” and sadly replied: “Probably not—but what is, at any rate, certain, is the fact that I have no knowledge, no experience, no understanding of the very alphabet of military lore, no slightest grasp of the routine details of regimental life, discipline, drill, regulations, internal economy, customs, and so forth—the things that are the elementary essentials of success to a body of armed men proceeding to fight.” . . . And in black misery and blank despair he would groan aloud: “I cannot go.I cannot do it.” . . . He was very young, very much a product of modern civilisation, and a highly specialised victim of a system and a generation that had taken too little account of naked fact and elemental basic tendency—a system and a generation that pretended to believe that human nature had changed with human conditions. As he realised, he had, like a few million others, been educated not for Life and the World-As-It-Is, but for examinations and the world as it is not, and never will be. . . .
He tossed and turned through the long hot night on the little hard camp-bed, listening to Murray’s regular breathing and the scampering of the rats as they disported themselves on the other side of the canvas ceiling cloth and went about their unlawful occasions. . . .
He reviewed the events of that epoch-making day from the arrival of the telegram to his getting into bed. . . . A memorable morning, a busy afternoon and evening, a rotten night—with a beastly climax—or anti-climax. . . . Would he never get to sleep on this hard, narrow bed? . . . What would he be fit for on the dreadful morrow if he slept not at all? . . . What a day it had been! Rather amusing about those cooking-pots. It wouldn’t be very amusing forhimif the situation developed as Murray had prophesied. . . . Rather a good bit of work that he had put in between lunch and dinner with the drill-book and a box of matches. Matches made good sections, companies, and battalions for practising drill-manœuvres on a desk—but it would he a different thing to give the orders correctly and audibly to hundreds of men who watched one with inscrutable eyes. . . .How he wished he had declined the invitation of Bludyer to accompany him and Macteith to the theatre. . . . They had proceeded in a car to the Club and there picked up some other fellows. The play wasThe Girl in the Taxi, and Bertram sat ashamed, humiliated and angry, as a third-rate company of English actors and actresses performed their sorry parts in a travesty of European life and manners, before the avid eyes of hundreds of natives. There they sat, with faces contemptuous, sensual, blank, eager, gleeful or disgusted, according to their respective conditions and temperaments—the while they gathered from the play that English life is a medley of infidelity, dissipation, intrigue and vulgarity.
And, after the play, Macteith had said: “Let’s go to the Home-from-Home for a ‘drink-and-a-little-music—what—what’?”
Bertram had thought it a somewhat strange proceeding to go to a Home, at eleven o’clock at night, for music, and he would greatly have preferred to go to bed. However, he could not very well say that they must take him back to bed first, nor announce his intention of leaving the party and walking home. . . .
. . . Macteith having given instructions to the Eurasian chauffeur, the taxi sped away and, skirting the sea-shore, turned off into a quiet avenue of giant palms, in which stood detached bungalows of retiring and unobtrusive mien. Into the compound of one of these the taxi turned, and a bell rang loudly, apparently of its own volition. As they got out of the car, a lady came out to the brilliantly lighted verandah from the drawing-room which opened on to it. Bertram did not like the look of this lady at all. Her face reminded him of that of a predatory animal or bird, with its fierce eyes, thin, hard lips and aquiline nose. Nor, in his estimation, did the obvious paint and powder, the extreme-fashioned satin gown, and the profusion of jewellery which she wore, do anything to mitigate the unfavourable impression received at first sight of her face. . . . Really the last person one would have expected to find in charge of a Home. . . . Nor was Macteith’s greeting of “Hullo, Fifi, my dear! Brought some of the Boys along,” calculated to allay a growing suspicion that this was not really a Home at all.
Entering the drawing-room with the rest, Bertram beheld a bevy of ladies sitting in an almost perfect circle, each with a vacant chair beside her. Some of them were young, and some of thempresumably had been. All were in evening dress and in the exaggerated extreme of fashion. All seemed to be painted and powdered, and all looked tired and haggard. Another attribute common to the whole party was that they all seemed to be foreigners—judging by their accents as they welcomed Macteith and some of the others as old acquaintances.
Bertram liked the look of these ladies as little as he did that of the person addressed as “Fifi,” and he hoped that the party would not remain at the house long. He was tired, and he felt thoroughly uncomfortable, as noisy horse-play and badinage began, and waxed in volume and pungency. A servant, unbidden, entered with a tray on which stood three bottles of champagne and a number of glasses. He noticed that the bottles had been opened, that the corks and gold-foil looked weary and experienced, and that the wine, when poured out, was singularly devoid of bubbles and froth. He wished he had not come. . . . He did not want to drink alleged champagne at midnight. . . . There was no music, and the people were of more than doubtful breeding, taste and manners. . . . Macteith had actually got his arm round the waist of one woman, and she was patting his cheek as she gazed into his eyes. Another pair exchanged a kiss before his astonished gaze. He decided to walk out of the house, and was about to do so when the girl nearest to him seized his hand and said: “You seet daown ’ere an’ spik to me, sare,” as she pulled him towards the chair that stood vacant beside her. In an agony of embarrassment born of a great desire to refuse to stay another minute, and a somewhat unnecessary horror of hurting the young lady’s feelings by a refusal, he seated himself with the remark: “Merci, mam’selle—mais il se fait tard. Il est sur les une heure . . .” as she appeared to be a French woman.
“Laissez donc!” was the reply. “Il est l’heure du berger,” a remark the point of which he missed entirely. Finding that he knew French, she rattled on gaily in that tongue, until Bertram asked her from what part of France she came. On learning that she was from Alais in Provence, he talked of Arles, Nismes, Beaucaire, Tarascon, Avignon and the neighbourhood, thinking to please her, until, to his utter amazement and horror, she turned upon him with a vile, spitting oath, bade him be silent, and then burst into tears. Feeling more shocked, unhappy and miserable than he had ever felt before, he begged the girl to accept hisregrets and apologies—as well as his farewell—and to tell him if he could in any way compensate her for the unintentional hurt he had somehow inflicted.
On her sullen reply of “Argent comptant porte médecine,” Bertram dropped a fifty rupee note into her lap and literally fled from the house. . . .
. . . Yes—a rotten night with a beastly anti-climax to the wonderful day on which he had received . . .he, of all people in the world! . . . had received orders to proceed to the Front. . . . Bertram Greene on Active Service! How could he have the impudence—and it all began again and was revolved once more in his weary mind. . . .
Dawn brought something of hope and a little peace to the perturbed soul of the over-anxious boy.
As he arrayed himself in all his war-paint, after his sleepless and unhappy night, Bertram felt feverish, and afraid. His head throbbed violently, and he had that distressing sensation of being remorselessly urged on, fatedly fury-driven and compelled to do all things with terrible haste and hurry.
Excitement, anxiety, sleeplessness and the conflicting emotions of hope and fear, were taking their toll of the nervous energy and vitality of the over-civilised youth.
He felt alarmed at his own alarm, and anxious about his own anxiety—and feared that, at this rate, he would be worn out before he began, a physical and mental wreck, fitter for a hospital-ship than a troop-ship, before ever he started.
“The lad’s over-engined for his beam,” observed Murray to himself, as he lay on his camp cot, drinking hischoti hazritea, and watching Bertram, who, with white face and trembling fingers, stood making more haste than speed, as he fumbled with straps and buckles. “Take it easy, my son,” he said kindly. “There’s tons of time, and then some. I’ll see you’re not late. . . .”
“Thanks, Murray,” replied Bertram, “but—”
“Here—take those belts off at once,” interrupted the Adjutant. “Take the lot off and lie down again—and smoke this cigarette. . . .At once, d’ye hear?” and the tone was such that Bertram complied without comment. He sank on to the camp-bed, swung up his long legs, with their heavy boots, shorts, and puttees and puffed luxuriously. He had intended to be a non-smoker as well as a teetotaller, now that he was “mobilised,” but it would be as well to obey Murray now and begin his abstinence from tobacco when he got on board. He lay and smoked obediently, and soon felt, if not better, at least calmer, cooler and quieter.
“Blooming old tub won’t start till to-night—you see’f she does,” said Murray. “Sort of thing we always do in the Army. . . .Always. . . . Harry and hurry everybody on parade at seven, to catch a boat that doesn’t profess to sail till two, and probably won’t actually do it till midnight.”
“I should die of shame if I were late for my first parade,” said Bertram anxiously.
“You’d die of the Colonel, if you didn’t of shame,” was the reply. . . . “I’ll see you’re not late. You take things a bit easier, my son. Your King and Country want you in East Africa, not in a lunatic asylum—”
“Pappa!What part did you take in the Great War?” squeaked a falsetto voice from the door, and looking up, Bertram beheld Lieutenant Bludyer, always merry and bright, arrayed in crimson, scarlet-frogged pyjama coat, and pink pyjama trousers. On his feet were vermilion velvet slippers.
“I’ll take a leading part in your dirty death,” said the Adjutant, turning to the speaker, or squeaker.
“Thought this might be useful, Greene,” continued Bludyer in his natural voice, as he handed Bertram a slab of thin khaki linen and a conical cap of a kind of gilded corduroy. “Make yourself a regimentalpuggriin the day of battle. Put the cap on your nut and wind the turban over it. . . . Bloke with a helmet and a white face hasn’t an earthly, advancing with a line of Sepoys inpuggris. The enemy give him their united attention until he is outed. . . .”
“Oh, thanks, awfully, Bludyer,” began Bertram.
“So go dirty till your face is like Murray’s, grow a hoary, hairy beard, an’ wear a turban on your fat head,” continuedBludyer. “Your orderly could do it on for you, so that it wouldn’t all come down when you waggled. . . .”
“Thanks, most awfully. It’s exceedingly kind of you, Bludyer,” acknowledged Bertram, and proceeded to stuff the things into his haversack.
“Wow! Wow!” ejaculated Bludyer. “Nice-mannered lad and well brought up, ain’t he, Randolph Murray?” and seating himself on that officer’s bed, he proceeded to use the tea-cosy as a foot-warmer, the morning being chilly.
The Adjutant arose and proceeded to dress.
“Devil admire me!” he suddenly shouted, pointing at Bertram. “Look at that infernal lazy swine! Did you ever see anything like it, Bludyer? Lying hogging there, lolling and loafing in bed, as if he had all day to finish nothing in! . . . Here, get up, you idle hound, and earn your living. Dress for parade, if you can do nothing else.”
And Bertram gathered that he might now get on with his preparations.
“Yes,” added Bludyer, “you really ought to get on with the war, Greene.Isn’the a devil-may-care fellow, Murray? He don’t give a damn if it snows,” and adding that it was his flute-night at the Mission, and he now must go, the young gentleman remained seated where he was.
“You aren’t hurrying a bit, Greene,” he remarked, after eyeing Bertram critically for a few minutes. “He won’t prosper and grow rich like that, will he, Randolph Murray? That is not how the Virtuous Apprentice got on so nicely, and married his master’s aunt. . . . No. . . . And Samuel Smiles was never late for parade—of that I’m quite certain. No. ‘Self-help’ washismotto, and the devil take the other fellow. . . . Let me fasten that for you. This strap goes under not over. . . .” And, with his experienced assistance, Bertram was soon ready, and feeling like a trussed fowl and a Christmas-tree combined, by the time he had festooned about him his sword, revolver, full ammunition-pouches, field-glasses, water-bottle, belt-haversack, large haversack, map-case, compass-pouch, whistle-lanyard, revolver-lanyard, rolled cape, and the various belts, straps and braces connected with these articles.
By the time the last buckle was fastened, he longed to take the whole lot off again for a few minutes, and have a reallycomfortable breathe. (But hedidwish Miranda Walsingham could see him.)
* * * * *
In a corner of the parade-ground stood the Hundred, the selected draft which was to proceed to Africa to fill the gaps that war had torn in the ranks of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth. On their flank the regimental band was drawn up in readiness to play them to the docks. The men wore khaki turbans, tunics, shorts, puttees and hob-nailed boots, and carried only haversacks, water-bottles, bandoliers, rifles and bayonets. The rest of their kit, each man’s done up in a neat bundle inside his waterproof ground-sheet and striped cotton sleeping-dhurrie, had gone on in bullock-carts to await them at the wharf.
Around the Hundred stood or squatted the remainder of the battalion, in every kind and degree of dress and undress. Occasionally one of these would arise and go unto his pal in the ranks, fall upon his neck, embrace him once again, shake both his hands alternately, and then return to the eligible site whence, squatting on his heels, he could feast his eyes upon hisbhai, his brother, his friend, so soon to be torn from him. . . . As the officers approached, these spectators fell back. Bertram’s heart beat so violently that he feared the others would hear it. Was he going to have “palpitations” and faint, or throw a fit or something? He was very white, and felt very ill. Was his ignorance and incompetence to be exposed and manifested now? . . .
“Look fierce and take over charge, my son,” said the Adjutant, as the small party of officers came in front of the draft.
“Company!” shouted Bertram, “Shun!”
That was all right. He had hit the note nicely, and his voice had fairly boomed. He had heard that men judge a new officer by his voice, more than anything.
The Hundred sprang to attention, and Bertram, accompanied by the Adjutant and Macteith, walked slowly down the front rank and up the rear, doing his best to look as though he were critically and carefully noting certain points, and assuring himself that certain essentials were in order. He was glad that he had not suddenly to answer such a question as “Whatexactly are you peering at and looking for?” He wished he had sufficient Hindustani to ask a stern but not unkindly question here and there, or to make an occasional comment in the manner of onefrom whom no military thing is hid. He suddenly remembered that he knew the Hindustani for “How old are you?” so he asked this question of a man whose orange-coloured beard would obviously have been white but for henna dye. Not in the least understanding the man’s reply, he remarked “H’m!” in excellent imitation of the Colonel, and passed on.
“Not the absolute pick of the regiment, I should think, are they?” he remarked to Murray, as they returned to the front of the company.
“They are not,” he said.
“Pretty old, some of them,” added Bertram, who was privately hoping that he did not look such a fraudulent Ass as he felt.
Major Fordinghame strolled up and returned the salutes of the group of officers.
“This experienced officer thinks the draft is not the pure cream of the regiment, Major,” said Murray, indicating Bertram.
“Fancy that, now,” replied Major Fordinghame, and Bertram blushed hotly.
“I thought some of them seemed rather old, sir,” he said, “but—er—perhaps old soldiers are better than young ones?”
“It’s a matter of taste—as the monkey said when he chewed his father’s ear,” murmured Bludyer.
Silence fell upon the little group.
“And both have their draw-backs—as the monkey said when she pulled her twins’ tails,” he added pensively.
Bertram wondered what he had better do next.
The Native Officer of the draft came hurrying up, and saluted. Another Hindustani sentence floated into Bertram’s mind. “You are late, Jemadar Sahib,” said he, severely.
Jemadar Hassan Ali poured forth a torrent of excuse or explanation which Bertram could not follow.
“What do you do if a Havildar or Naik or Sepoy is late for parade?” he asked, or attempted to ask, in slow and barbarous Hindustani.
Another torrent of verbiage, scarcely a word of which was intelligible to him.
He put on a hard, cold and haughty look, or attempted to do so, and kept, perforce, an eloquent but chilling silence. Murray and the Major exchanged glances.
“Greene Sahib isveryparticular andverystrict, JemadarSahib,” said the Major. “You had better bear it in mind, and tell the men too. He’ll stand no sort of nonsense from anybody. You’ll find him very kind so long as he is satisfied, but if he isn’t—well!” and the Major shrugged his shoulders expressively.
Bertram looked gratefully at the Major (for he understood “Englishman’s Hindustani”), and as sternly as he could at the Jemadar, who saluted again and retired.
The Colonel rode up, and the officers sprang to attention.
“Everything ready, sir,” said the Adjutant. “They can march off when you like.”
“H’m!” said the Colonel, and stared at Bertram as though he honestly and unaffectedly did wonder why God made such things. He then wheeled his horse towards the waiting Hundred. “Men of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth,” said he in faultless Hindustani, “you are now going across the Black Water to fight the enemies of the King Emperor, and of yourselves. They would like to conquer your country and oppress you. You go to fight for your own homes and children, as well as for your Emperor. Bring honour to your regiment and yourselves. Show theGermanisand theirHubshis[50]what Indian Sepoys can do—both in time of battle and in time of hunger, thirst, and hardship. Before God I say I would give anything to come with you, but I have to do my duty here—for the present. We may meet again in Africa. Good-bye. Good luck. . . . Good-bye. . . .” The Jemadar called for three cheers for the Colonel, and the Hundred lustily cried: “’Eep,’Eep,’Oorayee.” The remainder of the regiment joined in, and then cheered the Hundred. Meanwhile, the Colonel turned to Bertram.
“Good-by, young Greene. Good luck,” he said, and leaning from his horse, wrung Bertram’s hand as though it had been that of his only son.
Similarly did the others, with minor differences.
“Well—it’s useless to weep these unavailing tears,” sobbed Bludyer. “There’s an end to everything, as the monkey said when he seized the tip of his mother’s nose. . . .”
“Farewell, my blue-nosed, golden-eyed, curly-eared Mother’s Darling,” said Macteith.
“Good luck, sonny. Write and let me know how you get on,”said Murray. “You’ll do. You’ve got the guts all right, and you’ll very soon get the hang of things. . . .”
“March ’em off, now,” he added. “Chuck a chest, and don’t give a damn for anybody,” and Bertram carefully collected his voice, swallowed a kind of lump in his throat, bade his wildly beating heart be still, gave thought to the drill-book, and roared:
“Company! . . .’Shun! . . . SlopeArms! . . . Formfours! . . .Right! . . . Quickmarch!”—the band struck up—and they were off.
Yes, he, Bertram Greene, pale clerkly person, poet and æsthete, was marching proudly, in full military attire, at the head of a hundred fighting-men—marching to the inspiring strains of the regimental band, to where the trooper waited on the tide! If his father could only see him! He was happy as he had never been before in his life, and he was proud as he never had been before. . . . If Miranda could only see him! He, Bertram Greene, was actually marching to war, with sword on thigh, and head held high, in sole command of a hundred trained fighting-men!
His heart beat very fast, but without pain now, and he was, for the moment, free of his crushing sense of inadequacy, inexperience and unworthiness. He was only conscious of a great pride, a great hope, and a great determination to be worthy, so far as in him lay the power, of his high fate. . . .
No man forgets his first march at the head of his own force, if he forgets his first march in uniform. For Bertram this was both. It was his first march in uniform, and he was in whole and sole control of this party—like a Centurion of old tramping the Roman Road at the head of his hundred Legionaries—and Bertram felt he would not forget it if he lived till his years equalled the number of his men.
It was not a very long march, and it was certainly not a very picturesque one—along the cobbled Dock Road, with its almost innumerable cotton-laden bullock-carts—but Bertram trod on air through a golden dream city and was exalted, brother to the Knights of Arthur who quested for the Grail and went about to right the wrong and to succour the oppressed. . . .
Arrived at the dock-gates, he was met and guided aright, by a brassarded myrmidon of the Embarkation Staff Officer, to whereHis Majesty’s TransportElymaslay in her basin beside a vast shed-covered wharf.
Beneath this shed, Bertram halted his men, turned them into line, and bade them pile arms, fall out, and sit them down in close proximity to their rifles.
Leaving the Jemadar in charge, he then went up the gangway of theElymasin search of the said Embarkation Staff Officer, who, he had been told, would allot him and his men their quarters on the ship. As he gazed around the deserted forward well-deck, he saw an officer, who wore a lettered red band round his arm, hurrying towards him along the promenade deck, his hands full of papers, a pencil in his mouth, and a careworn, worried look upon his face.
“You Greene, by any chance?” he called, as he ran sideway down the narrow ladder from the upper deck.
“Yes, sir,” replied Bertram, saluting as he perceived that the officer was a captain. “Just arrived with a draft of a hundred men from the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth,” he added proudly.
“Good dog,” was the reply, “keep the perishers out of it for a bit till I’m ready. . . . Better come with me now though, and I’ll show you,one, where they’re to put their rifles;two, where they’re to put themselves;three, where they will do their beastly cooking; andfour, where you will doss down yourself. . . . Don’t let there be any mistakes, because there are simply millions more coming,” and he led the way to a companion hatch in the after well-deck, and clattered down a ladder into the bowels of the ship, Bertram following him in his twists and turns with a growing sense of bewilderment.
He was very glad to hear that he and his merry men were not to have the ship to themselves, for there were a thousand and one points that he would be very glad to be able to refer to the decision of Authority, or the advice of Experience.
The Embarkation Officer, dripping and soaked and sodden with perspiration, as was Bertram himself, wound his devious way, along narrow passages, ladders and tunnels, to a kind of cage-like cloak-room fitted with racks.
“Your men’ll come here in single file, by the way we have come,” said he, “enter this armoury one by one, leave their rifles on these racks, and go up that ladder to the deck above, and round to the ladder leading out on the forward well-deck. You’ll haveto explain it carefully, and shepherd ’m along too, or there’ll be a jam and loss of life and—worse—loss of time. . . . In the early days we managed badly on one occasion and got a crowd of Sikhs pushing against a crowd of Pathans. . . .” He then led the disintegrating Bertram by devious paths to a dark oven-like and smelly place (which Bertram mentally labelled “the horizontal section of the fo’c’sle, three storeys down”) in which the Hundred were to live, or to die—poor devils! There would hardly be standing room—and thence to the scene of their culinary labours. Lastly, when the bewildered youth was again feeling very ill, the Embarkation Officer retraced his steps, showed him certain water-taps for the use of his men, and led the way up and out to the blessed light of day, fresh air, and the comparative coolness of the deck. “Your cabin’s along here,” said he, entering a long corridor that debouched on to the well-deck. “Let’s see, Number 43, I think. Yes. A two-berth cabin to yourself—and last trip we had three generals in a one-berth cabin, four colonels in a bath at once, and five common officers on top of one another in each chair at table. . . . Fact—I assure you. . . . Go in and chuck away all that upholstery—you can run about in your shirt-sleeves now, or naked if you like, so long as you wear a helmet to show you are in uniform. . . . Bye-bye—be a good boy,” and he bustled away.
Bertram thankfully took the Embarkation Officer’s advice, and cast off all impedimenta until he was clad only in khaki shirt, shorts, puttees and boots. He thought he could enter into the feelings of a butterfly as it emerges from the constricting folds of its cocoon.
He sat down for a minute on the white bed prepared for his occupation. The other was cumbered with his valise, sack, and strapped bundle, which had come down on the first of the bullock-carts and been brought on board at once. He looked round the well-appointed, spotless cabin, with its white paint and mahogany fittings, electric fans and lights. That one just beside his pillow would be jolly for reading in bed. Anyhow, he’d have a comfortable and restful voyage. What a blessing that he had a cabin to himself, and what a pity that the voyage took only about ten days. . . . Would life on a troop-ship be a thing of disciplined strenuousness, or would it be just a perfectly slack time for everybody? . . . It should be easy for him to hide his ignorance whileon board—there couldn’t be very much in the way of drill. . . . How his head throbbed, and how seedy and tired he felt! . . . He lay back on his bed and then sprang up in alarm and horror at what he had done. A pretty way to commence his Active Service!—and, putting on his heavy and uncomfortable helmet, he hurried to the wharf.
Going down the gangway, he again encountered the Embarkation Officer.
“Better let your men file on board with their rifles first, and then off again for their kits and bedding, and then back again to the quarters I showed you. Having pegged out their claims there, and each man hung his traps on the peg above his sleeping-mat, they can go up on the after well-deck and absolutely nowhere else. See? And no man to leave the ship again, on any pretence whatever. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Bertram, and privately wondered if he would even find his way again to that cage-like cloak-room in the hold, and that “horizontal section of the fo’c’sle three storeys down.”
But hemustdo this, his very first job, absolutely correctly, and without any bungling and footling. He must imagine that he was going in for an examination again—an examination this time in quite a new subject, “The art of getting men on board a ship, bedding them down, each with his own bundle of kit, in one place, and storing their rifles in another, without confusion or loss of time.”Quitea new subject, and one in which previous studies, Classics, Literature, Philosophy, Art, were not going to be of any great value.
Perhaps it would be as well to take the Jemadar, Havildars and Naiks on a personally conducted tour to the armoury, quarters, cooking-places and taps, and explain themodus operandito them as well as he could. One can do a good deal to eke out a scanty knowledge of the vernacular by means of signs and wonders—though sometimes one makes the signs and the other person wonders. . . .
Returning to the oven-like shed, resonant with the piercing howls ofbyle-ghari-wallas,[54]coolies, Lascars and overseers; the racking rattle and clang and clatter of chains, cranes, derricks and donkey-engines; the crashing of iron-bound wheels overcobble-stones, and the general pandemonium of a busy wharf, he beckoned the Jemadar to him and made him understand that he wanted a couple of Havildars and four Naiks to accompany him on board.
Suddenly he had a bright idea. (Good old drill-book and retentive memory of things read, heard, or seen!) . . . “Why have you set no sentry over the arms, Jemadar Sahib? It should not be necessary for me to have to give the order,” he said as well as he could in his halting Hindustani.
The Jemadar looked annoyed—and distinctly felt as he looked. Half the men had heard the reproof. He, an old soldier of fifteen years’ service, to be set right by a child like this! And the annoying part of it was that the amateur was right! Of course he should have put a sentry over the arms. It was probably the first time he had omitted to do so, when necessary, since he had first held authority . . . and he raged inwardly. There are few things that annoy an Indian more than to be “told off” before subordinates, particularly when he is obviously in the wrong. Was this youthful Greene Sahib a person of more knowledge and experience than had been reported by the Adjutant’s Officebabu? Thebabuhad certainly described him as one whom the other officers laughed at for his ignorance and inexperience. Had not the worthy Chatterji Chuckerbutti related in detail how Macteith Sahib had called upon his gods and feigned great sickness after offensively examining Greene Sahib through his field-glasses? Strange and unfathomable are the ways of Sahibs, and perhaps the true inwardness of the incident had been quite otherwise? It might have been an honorific ceremony, in fact, and Macteith Sahib might have feigned sickness at his own unworthiness, according to etiquette? . . . After all, the military salute itself is only a motion simulating the shading of one’s eyes from the effulgent glory of the person one salutes; and the Oriental bowing and touching the forehead is only a motion simulating taking up dust and putting it on one’s head. . . . Yes—thebabumay have been wrong, and Macteith Sahib may really have been acclaiming Greene Sahib his superior, and declaring his own miserable unworthiness. . . . One never knew with Sahibs. Their minds are unreadable, and one can never get at what they are thinking, or grasp their point of view. One could only rest assured that there is always method in their madness—that theyare clever as devils, brave as lions, and—averse from giving commissions as lieutenants, captains, majors, and colonels to Indian Native Officers. . .
“Get a move on, Jemadar Sahib,” said the voice of Greene Sahib curtly, in English, and the Jemadar bustled off to set the sentry and call the Havildars and Naiks—rage in his heart. . . .
More easily than he had expected, Bertram found his way, at the head of the party, to the required places, and showed the Jemadar and Non-commissioned Officers how the men should come and depart, in such manner as to avoid hindering each other and to obviate the possibility of a jam.
The Jemadar began to ask questions, and Bertram began to dislike the Jemadar. He was a talker, and appeared to be what schoolboys call “tricky.” He knew that Bertram had very little Hindustani, and seemed anxious to increase the obviousness of the fact.
Bertram felt unhappy and uncomfortable. He wished to be perfectly courteous to him as a Native Officer, but it would not do to let the man mistake politeness for weakness, and inexperience for inefficiency. . . . Was there a faint gleam of a grin on the fellow’s face as he said: “I do not understand,” at the end of Bertram’s attempt at explanation?
“Doyouunderstand?” the latter said, suddenly, turning to the senior Havildar, the man who had turned out the Guard for him on his first approach to the Lines on that recent day that seemed so long ago.
“Han,[56a]Sahib,” replied the man instantly and readily. “Béshak!”[56b]
“Then you’d better explain to the Jemadar Sahib, who does not,” said Bertram with a click of his jaw, as he turned to depart.
The Jemadar hastened to explain that hefullyunderstood, as Bertram strode off. Apparently complete apprehension had come as soon as he realised that his dullness was to be enlightened by the explanation of the quicker-witted Havildar. He gave that innocent and unfortunate man a look of bitter hatred, and, as he followed Bertram, he ground his teeth. Havildar Afzul Khan Ishak should live to learn the extreme unwisdom of understanding things that Jemadar Hassan Ali professed not to understand. As for Second-Lieutenant Greene—perhaps he should live tolearn the unwisdom of quarrelling with an experienced Native Officer who was the sole channel of communication between that stranger and the Draft at whose head he had been placed by a misguided Sircar. . . .
Returning to the wharf, and conscious that he had a splitting head, a sticky mouth, shaking limbs, sore throat and husky voice, Bertram roared orders to the squatting Sepoys, who sprang up, fell in, unpiled arms, and marched in file up the gangway and down into the bowels of the ship, shepherded and directed by the Non-commissioned Officers whom he had posted at various strategic points. All went well, and, an hour later, his first job was successfully accomplished. His men were on board and “shaking down” in their new quarters. He was free to retire to his cabin, bathe his throbbing head, and lie down for an hour or so.
* * * * *
At about midday he arose refreshed, and went on deck, with the delightful feeling that, his own labours of the moment accomplished, he could look on at the accomplishment of those of others. Excellent! . . . And for many days to come he would be free from responsibility and anxiety, he would have a time of rest, recuperation, and fruitful thought and study. . . . Throughout the morning detachments of Sepoys of the Indian Army and Imperial Service Troops continued to arrive at the wharf and to embark. Bertram was much interested in a double-company of Gurkhas under a Gurkha Subedar, their yellowish Mongolian faces eloquent of determination, grit, and hardiness.
They contrasted strongly with a company of tall, hairy Sikhs, almost twice their size, man for man, but with evidences of more enthusiasm than discipline in their bearing. Another interesting unit was a band of warriors of very mixed nationality, under a huge Jemadar who looked a picture of fat contentment, his face knowing no other expression than an all-embracing smile. It was whispered later that this unit saw breech-loading rifles for the first time, on board theElymas, having been more familiar, hitherto, with jezails, jingals, match-locks, flintlocks, and blunderbusses. Probably a gross exaggeration, or an invention of Lieutenant Stanner, of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, who gave them the name of “The Mixed Pickles.”
All three of these detachments were Imperial Service Troops—that is to say, were in the service of various Indian Rajahs—but were of very different value, both the Gurkhas and the Sikhs being as good material as could be found among native troops anywhere in the world.
To Bertram, the picture of the little Gurkha Subedar, the tall Sikh Subedar, and the burly Jemadar of the Mixed Pickles, was a very interesting one, as the three stood together on the wharf, eyeing each other like three strange dogs of totally different breeds—say, a fighting terrier, a wolf-hound and a mastiff.
With a snap and a slick, and a smart “One two,” a company of British Infantry arrived and embarked. Beside the Mixed Pickles they were as a Navy motor-launch beside a native bunderboat. At them they smiled amusedly, at the Sikhs they stared, and at the Gurkhas they grinned appreciatively.
The news having spread that theElymaswould not start until the morrow, various visitors came on board, in search of friends whom they knew to be sailing by her. Captain Stott, R.A.M.C., came over from theMadrashospital ship, in search of Colonel Haldon. Murray and Macteith came down to see Stanner, of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, and one Terence Brannigan, of the Baluchis. . . .
“Who’s the chap on your right, Colonel?” asked Captain Stott, of gentle and kindly old Colonel Haldon at dinner that evening. “Rather an unusual face to be ‘in’ khaki—or one would have said so before the war,” and he indicated Bertram.
“Dunno,” was the reply. “Stranger to me. Nice-lookin’ boy. . . . Looks a wee-trifle more like a chaplain than a butcher, as you say,” though Captain Stott had not said that at all.
Seeing Bertram talking to Murray and Macteith after dinner, Captain Stott asked the latter who he was, for physiognomy and character-study were a hobby of his.
Macteith told him what he knew, and added: “And they’re sendingthathalf-baked milksop to British East” (and implied: “WhileI, Lieutenant and Quartermaster Reginald Macteith, remain to kick my heels at the depot.”)
Next day theElymasbegan her voyage, a period of delightfuldolce far nientethat passed like a dream, until one wonderful evening, the palm-clad shores of Africa “arose from out of the azure sea,” and, with a great thrill of excitement, hope, anxietyand fear Bertram gazed upon the beautiful scene, as theElymasthreaded the lovely Kilindini Creek which divides the Island of Mombasa from the mainland.
And on those same palm-clad shores that arose from out the azure sea, an unhappy woman had been expiating, by long years of bitter suffering, in tears and shame and humiliation, the madness of a moment. . . .
Mrs. Stayne-Brooker’s life in German East Africa was, if possible less happy than her life in the British colony. The men she met in Nairobi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Witu or Lamu, though by no means all gentlemen, all treated her as a gentlewoman; while the men she met in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanga, Tabora, Lindi or Bukoba, whether “gentlemen” or otherwise, did not. In British East Africa her husband was treated by planters, Government officials, sportsmen, and Army men, as the popular and cheery old Charlie Stayne-Brooker—a good man in the club-bar, card-room and billiard-room, on the racecourse, at the tent club, and on shooting trips. With several Assistant District Commissioners and officers of the King’s African Rifles he was very intimate. In German East Africa he was treated differently—in a way difficult to define. It was as though he were a person of importance, butdéclasséand contemptible, and this impression she gained in spite of her knowing no German (a condition of ignorance upon which her husband insisted). The average German official and officer, whether of the exiled Junker class, or of plebeian origin, she loathed—partly because they seemed to consider her “fair game,” and made love to her, in more or less broken English, without shame or cessation. Nor did it make life easier for the poor lady that her husband appeared to take delight in the fact. She wondered whether this was due to pride in seeing a possession of his coveted by his “high-well-born,” and other, compatriots, or to a desire to keep ever before her eyes a realisation of what her fate would be if he cast her off, or she ran away from him.
Worst of all was life in the isolated lonely house on his coffeeand rubber plantation, where for months on end she would never see a white face but his, and for weeks on end, when he was away on his mysterious affairs, no white face at all. . . . And at the bottom of his compound werebandas, grass huts, in an enclosure, wherein dwelt native women. . . .
One night, in the year 1914, she sat alone in the silent lonely house, thinking of her daughter Eva at Cheltenham, of her happy, if hapless, girlhood in her father’s house, of her brief married life with an honourable English gentleman (oh, the contrast!), and wondering how much longer she could bear her punishment. . . Suddenly and noiselessly appeared in the verandah her husband’s chief factotum, head house-boy, and familiar, one Murad, an Arab-Swahili, whom she feared and detested.
“Bwanacoming,” said he shortly, and as noiselessly disappeared.
Going out on to the verandah, she saw her husband and a few “boys” (gun-bearers, porters, and servants) coming through the garden. It was seven weeks since she had seen or heard anything of him.
“Pack,” was his greeting, “at once. You start onsafarito the railway as soon as possible, or sooner. You are going to Mombasa. I have cabled to Eva to come out by the next boat. . . . P. and O. to Aden, and thence to Mombasa. . . . She should be here in three weeks or so . . .” and he went off to bath and change. At dinner he informed her that she was to settle at Mombasa with Eva, make as many new friends as possible, entertain, and generally be the most English of English matrons with the most English of English daughters—the latter fresh from boarding-school in England. . . . Dear old Charlie Stayne-Brooker, it was to be known, had gone to Bukoba, to the wonderful sleeping-sickness hospital, for diagnosis of an illness. Nothing serious, really, of course—but one couldn’t be too careful when one had trouble with the glands of the neck, and certain other symptoms, after spending some time in that beastly tsetse-fly country. . . . She was to give the impression that he had made light of it, and quite “taken her in”—wouldn’t dream of allowing his wife and daughter to go up there. People were to form the opinion that poor old Charlie might be in a worse way than his wife imagined.
Andif such a thing as war broke out;ifsuch a thing came to pass, mark you; her house in Mombasa was to be a perfectHome-from-Home for the officers of the British Expeditionary Force which would undoubtedly be dispatched from India. It would almost certainly be the Nth Division from Bombay—so she need not anticipate the pleasure of receiving her late husband and his friends. . . . Further instructions she would receive in the event of war, but meanwhile, and all the time, her business was to demonstrate the utter Englishness of the Stayne-Brooker family, and to keep her eyes and ears open. What General or Staff-Officer will not “talk” to a beautiful woman—of the right sort? Eh? Ha-Ha! That was her business in Mombasa now—and ten times more so if war broke out—to be a beautiful woman—of the right sort, tremendously popular with the people who know things and do things. Moreover, Eva, her daughter, was to be trained right sedulously to be a beautiful woman—of the right sort. . . . Staff-officers in her pocket. Eh? Ha-Ha! . . . And, sick at heart, loving her daughter, loathing her husband, and loathing the unspeakable rôle he would force upon her, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker travelled to Mombasa, met her daughter with mingled joy and terror, happiness and apprehensive misery, and endeavoured to serve two masters—her conscience and her husband.