But then—how absurd!—atherage. Of course she would not read them again! Atherage! . . .
And proceeded to do so atherDangerous Age. . . .
Strange thathisname should be Green or Greene—he was the fifth person of that name whom she had met since she left Major Walsingham Greene, eighteen years ago. . . .
All too soon for two people concerned, Doctor Mowbray, the excellent Civil Surgeon of Mombasa, in whose hospital Bertram was, decided that that young gentleman might forthwith be let loose on ticket-of-leave between the hours of ten and ten for a week or two, preparatory to his discharge from hospital for a short spell of convalescence-leave before rejoining his regiment. . . .
“I’ll call for you and take you for a drive after lunch,” said Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, “and then you shall have tea with me, and we’ll go over to the Club and sit on the verandah. You mustn’t walk much, your first day out.”
“I’m going to run miles,” said Bertram, smiling up into her face and taking her hand as she stood beside his chair—a thing no other patient had dared to do or would have been permitted to do. (“He was such a dear boy—one would never dream of snubbing him or snatching away a hand he gratefully stroked—it would be like hitting a baby or a nice friendly dog. . . .”)
“Then you’ll be ill again at once,” rejoined Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, giving the hand that had crept into hers a little chiding shake.
“Exactly . . . and prolong my stay here. . .” said Bertram, and his eyes were very full of kindness and gratitude as they met eyes that were also very full.
(“What a sweet, kind, good woman she was! And what a cruel wrench it would be to go away and perhaps never see her again. . . .”)
He went for his drive with Mrs. Stayne-Brooker in a car put ather disposal, for the purpose, by the Civil Surgeon; and found he was still very weak and that it was nevertheless good to be alive.
At tea he met Miss Stayne-Brooker, and, for a moment, his breath was taken away by her beauty and her extraordinary likeness to her mother.
He thought of an opened rose and an opening rose-bud (exactly alike save for the “open” and “opening” difference), on the same stalk. . . . It was wonderful how alike they were, and how young Mrs. Stayne-Brooker looked—away from her daughter. . . . The drive-and-tea programme was repeated almost daily, with variations, such as a stroll round the golf-course, as the patient grew stronger. . . . And daily Bertram saw the very beautiful and fascinating Miss Stayne-Brooker and daily grew more and more grateful to Mrs. Stayne-Brooker. He was grateful to her for so many things—for her nursing, her hospitality, her generous giving of her time; her kindness in the matter of lending him books (the books she liked best, prose worksandothers); her kind interest in him and his career, ambitions, tastes, views, hopes and fears; for her being the woman she was and for brightening his life as she had, not to mention saving it; and, above all, he was grateful to her for having such a daughter. . . . He told her that he admired Miss Stayne-Brooker exceedingly, and she did not tell him that Miss Stayne-Brooker did not admire him to the same extent. . . . She was a little sorry that her daughter did not seem as enthusiastic about him as she herself was, for we love those whom we admire to be admired. But she realised that a chit of a girl, fresh from a Cheltenham school, was not to be expected to appreciate a man like this one, a scholar, an artist to his finger-tips, a poet, a musician, a man who had read everything and could talk interestingly of anything—a man whose mind was a sweet and pleasant storehouse—akindman, a gentleman, a man who, thank God,neededone, and yet to whom one’s ideas were of as much interest as one’s face and form. Of course, the average “Cheerioh” subaltern, whose talk was of dances and racing and sport, would, very naturally, be of more interest to a callow girl than this man whose mind (to Mrs. Stayne-Brooker) a kingdom was, and who had devoted to the study of music, art, literature, science, and the drama, the time that the other man had given to the pursuit ofvarious hard and soft balls, inoffensive quadrupeds, and less inoffensive bipeds.
Thus Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, addressing, in imagination, a foolishly unappreciative Eva Stayne-Brooker.
* * * * *
As she and her daughter sat at dinner on the verandah which looked down on to Vasco da Gama Street, one evening, a month later, her Swahili house-boy brought Mrs. Stayne-Brooker a message. . . . Ashenziwas without, and he had achitwhich he would give into no hands save those of Mrs. Stayne-Brooker herself.
It was the escaped Murad ibn Mustapha, in disguise.
On hearing his news, she did what she had believed people only did in books. She fell down in a faint and lay as one dead.
* * * * *
Miss Stayne-Brooker tried to feel as strongly as her mother evidently did, but signally failed, her father having been an almost complete stranger to her. She was a little surprised that the blow should have been so great as to strike her mother senseless, for there had certainly been nothing demonstrative about her attitude to her husband—to say the least of it. She supposed that married folk got like that . . . loved each other all right but never showed it at all. . . Nor had what she had seen of her father honestly impressed her with the feeling that he was averylovable person. Neither before dinner nor after it—when he was quite a different man. . . .
Still—here was her mother, knocked flat by the news of his death, and now lying on her bed in a condition which seemed to vary between coma and hysteria. . . .
Knocked flat—(and yet, from time to time, she murmured, “Thank God! Oh, thank God!”). Queer!
* * * * *
When Mr. Greene called next day, Miss Eva received him in the morning-sitting-drawing-room and told him the sad news. Her father had died. . . . He was genuinely shocked.
“Oh, your poor,poormother!” said he. “I am grieved for her”—and sat silent, his face looking quite sad. Obviously there was no need for sympathy with Miss Eva as she frankly confessed that she scarcely knew her father and felt for him only as onedoes for a most distant relation, whom one has scarcely ever seen.
With a request that she would convey his most heart-felt condolence and deepest sympathy to her mother, he withdrew and returned to the Mombasa Hotel, where he was now staying, an ex-convalescent awaiting orders. . . He had hoped for an evening with Eva. That evening theElymassteamed into Kilindini harbour and Bertram, strolling down to the pier, met Captain Murray, late Adjutant of the One Hundred and Ninety-Ninth, and Lieutenant Reginald Macteith, both of whom had just come ashore from her.
He wrung Murray’s hand, delighted to see him, and congratulated him on his escape from regimental duty, and shook hands with Macteith.
“By Jove, Cupid, you look ten years older than when I saw you last,” said Murray, laying his hand on Bertram’s shoulder and studying his face. “I should hardly have known you. . . .”
“Quite a little man now,” remarked Macteith, and proceeded to enquire as to where was the nearest and best Home-from-Home in Mombasa, where one could have A-Drink-and-a-Little-Music-what-what?
“I am staying at the Mombasa Hotel,” said Bertram coldly, to which Macteith replied that he hoped it appreciated its privilege.
Bertram felt that he hated Macteith, but also had a curious sense that that young gentleman had either lost in stature or that he, Bertram, had gained. . . . Anyhow he had seen War, and, so far, Macteith had not. He had no sort of fear of anything Macteith could say or do—and he’d welcome any opportunity of demonstrating the fact. . . . Dirty little worm! Chatting gaily with Murray, he took them to the Mombasa Club and there found a note from Mrs. Stayne-Brooker asking him to come to tea on the morrow.
* * * * *
“I won’t attempt to offer condolence nor express my absolute sympathy, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker,” said Bertram as he took her hand and led her to her favourite settee.
“Don’t,” said she.
“My heart aches for you, though,” he added.
“It need not,” replied Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, and, as Bertram looked his wonder at her enigmatic reply and manner, she continued:
“I will not pretend toyou. I will be honest. Your heart need not ache for me at all—because mine sings with relief and gratitude and joy. . . .”
Bertram’s jaw fell in amazement. He felt inexpressibly shocked.
Or was it that grief had unhinged the poor lady’s mind?
“I am going to say to you what I have never said to a living soul, and will never say again. . . . I have never even said it to myself. . . .I hated him most utterly and most bitterly. . . .”
Bertram was more shocked than he had ever been in his life. . . This was terrible! . . . He wanted to say, “Oh, hush!” and get up and go away.
“I could nottellyou how I hated him,” continued Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, “for he spoilt my whole life. . . . I am not going into details nor am I going to say one word against him beyond that. I repeat that hemademe loathe him—from my very wedding-day . . . and I leave you to judge. . . .”
Bertram judged.
He was very young—much younger than his years—and he judged as the young do, ignorantly, harshly, cruelly. . . .
What manner of woman, after all, was this, who spoke of her dead husband? Of her own husband—scarcely cold in his grave. Of herhusbandof all people in the world! . . . He could have wept with the shame and misery of it, the disillusionment, the shattering blow which she herself had dealt at the image and idol that he had set up in his heart and gratefully worshipped.
He looked up miserably as he heard the sound of a sob in the heavy silence of the room. She was weeping bitterly, shaken from head to foot with the violence of her—her—what could it be? not grief for her husband of course. Did she weep for the life that he had “spoilt” as she expressed it? Was it because of her wasted opportunities for happiness, the years that the locust had eaten, the never-to-return days of her youth, when joy and gaiety should have been hers?
What could he say to her?—save a banal “Don’t cry”? There was nothing to say. He did not know when he had felt so miserable and uncomfortable. . . .
“It is over,” she said suddenly, and dried her tears; but whether she alluded to the unhappiness of her life with her husband, or to her brief tempest of tears, he did not know.
What could he say to her? . . . It was horrible to see a womancry. And she had beensogood to him. She had revived his interest in life when through the miasma of fever he had seen it as a thing horrible and menacing, a thing to flee from. How could he comfort her? She had made no secret of the fact that she liked him exceedingly, and that to talk to him of the things that matter in Life, Art, Literature, Music, History, was a pleasure akin to that of a desert traveller who comes upon an inexhaustible well of pure water. Perhaps she liked him so well that he could offer, acceptably, that Silent Sympathy that is said to be so much finer and more efficacious than words. . . . Could he? . . Could he? . . .
Conquering his sense of repulsion at her attitude toward her newly dead husband, and remembering all he owed to her sweet kindness, he crossed to her settee, knelt on one knee beside her, took her hand, and put it to his lips without a word. She would understand—and he would go.
With a little sobbing cry, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker snatched her hand from him, and, throwing her arms about his neck, pressed her lips to his—her face was transfigured as with a great light—the light of the knowledge that the poets had told the great and wondrous truth when they sang of Love as the Greatest Thing—and sung but half the truth. All that she longed for, dreamed of, yearned over—and disbelieved—was true and had come to pass. . . .
She looked no older than her own daughter—and forgot that she was a woman of thirty-seven years, and that the man who knelt in homage (the moment that she was free to receive his homage!)mightbe but little over thirty.
She did not understand—but perhaps, in that moment, received full compensation for her years of misery, and her marred, thwarted, wasted womanhood.
Oh, thank God; thank God, that he loved her . . . she could not have borne it if . . .
* * * * *
Glad that he had succeeded in comforting her, slightly puzzled and vaguely stirred, he arose and went out, still without a word.
* * * * *
Returning to his hotel, he found a telegram ordering him to proceed “forthwith” to a place called Soko NassaiviaVoi and Taveta, and as “forthwith” means the next train, and the nexttrain to Voi on the Uganda Railway went in two hours, he yelled for Ali, collected his kit, paid his Club bill and got him to the railway station without having time or opportunity to make any visits of farewell. That he had to go without seeing Miss Eva again troubled him sorely, much more so than he would have thought possible.
In fact he thought of her all night as he lay on the long bed-seat of his carriage in a fog of fine red dust, instead of sleeping or thinking of what lay before him at Taveta, whence, if all or any of the Club gossip were true, he would be embarking upon a very hard campaign, and one of “open” fighting, too. This would be infinitely more interesting than the sit-in-the-mud trench warfare, but it was not of this that he found himself thinking so much as of the length and silkiness of Miss Eva’s eyelashes, the tendrils of hair at her neck, the perfection of her lips, and similar important matters. He was exceedingly glad that he was going to be attached to a Kashmiri regiment, because it was composed of Dogras and Gurkhas, and he liked Gurkhas exceedingly, but he was ten thousand times more glad that there was a Miss Eva Stayne-Brooker in the world, that she was in Mombasa, that he could think of her there, and, best of all, that he could return and see her there when the war was o’er—and he sang aloud:
“When the war is o’er,We’ll part no more.”
“When the war is o’er,We’ll part no more.”
No—damn it all—one couldn’t sing “at Ehren on the Rhine,” after the German had shown his country to be the home of the most ruffianly, degraded, treacherous and despicable brute the world has yet produced; and, turning over with an impatient jerk, he tipped a little mound of drifted red dust and sand into his mouth and his song turned to dust and ashes and angry spluttering.Absit omen.
At Taveta, a name on a map and a locality beneath wooded hills, Bertram found a detachment of his regiment, and was accepted by his brother-officers as a useful-looking and very welcome addition to their small Mess. He was delighted to renew acquaintance with Augustus and with the Gurkha Subedar—whom he had last seen at M’paga. Here he also found the 29th Punjabis, the 130th Baluchis, and the 2nd Rhodesians. In the intervals of thinking of Miss Eva, he thought what splendidtroops they looked, and what a grand and fortunate man he was to be one of their glorious Brigade.
When he smelt the horrible fever smell of the pestilential Lumi swamp, he hoped Miss Eva would not get fever in Mombasa.
When he feasted his delighted eyes on Kilimanjaro, on the rose-flushed snows and glaciers of Kibo and Mawenzi, their amazing beauty was as the beauty of her face, and he walked uplifted and entranced.
When the daily growing Brigade was complete, and marched west through alternating dense bush and open prairie of moving grass, across dry sandy nullahs or roughly bridged torrents, he marched with light heart and untiring body, neither knowing nor caring whether the march were long or short.
When Gussie Augustus Gus said it was dam’ hot and very thoughtless conduct of Jan Smuts to make innocent and harmless folk walk on their feet at midday, Bertram perceived that itwashot, though he hadn’t noticed it. His spirit had been in Mombasa, and his body had been unable to draw its attention to such minor and sordid details as dust, heat, thirst, weariness and weakness.
The ice-cold waters of the Himo River, which flows from the Kilimanjaro snows to the Pangani, reminded him of the coolness of her firm young hands.
As the Brigade camped on the ridge of a green and flower-decked hill looking across the Pangani Valley, to the Pare Hills, a scene of fertile beauty, English in its wooded rolling richness, he thought of her with him in England; and as the rancid smell of a fryingghee, mingled with the acrid smell of wood smoke, was wafted from where Gurkha, Punjabi, Pathan and Baluchi cooked theirchapattisofatta, he thought of her in India with him. . . .
Day after day the Brigade marched on, and whether it marched between impenetrable walls of living green that formed a tunnel in which the red dust floated always, thick, blinding and choking, or whether it marched across great deserts of dried black peat over which the black dust hung always, thicker, more blinding and more choking—it was the same to Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, as he marched beside the sturdy little warriors of his regiment. His spirit marched through the realms of Love’s wonderland rather than through deserts and jungles, and the things of the spirit are more real, and greater than those of the flesh.
For preference he marched alone, alone with his men that is, and not with a brother officer, that he might be spared the necessity of conversation and the annoyance of distraction of his thoughts. For miles he would trudge beside the Subedar in companionly silence. He grew very fond of the staunch little man to whom duty was a god. . . .
When the Brigade reached Soko Nassai it joined the Division which (co-operating with Van Deventer’s South African Division, then threatening Tabora and the Central Railway from Kondoa Irangi) in three months conquered German East Africa—an almost adequate force having been dispatched at last. It consisted of the 2nd Kashmir Rifles, 28th Punjabis, 130th Baluchis, the 2nd Rhodesians, a squadron of the 17th Cavalry, the 5th and 6th Batteries of the S.A. Field Artillery, a section of the 27th Mountain Battery, and a company of the 61st Pioneers, forming the First East African Brigade. There were also the 25th Royal Fusiliers, the M.I. and machine-guns of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, the East African Mounted Rifles, a Howitzer Battery of Cornwall Territorials, “Z” Signalling Company, a “wireless” section, and a fleet of armoured cars. In reserve were the 5th and 6th South Africans.
Few divisions have ever done more than this one did—under the greatest hardships in one of the worst districts in the world.
Its immediate task was to clear the Germans from their strong positions in the Pare and Usambara Mountains, and to seize the railway to Tanga on the coast, a task of all but superhuman difficulty, as it could only be accomplished by the help of a strong force making a flanking march through unexplored roadless virgin jungle, down the Pangani valley, the very home of fever, where everything would depend upon efficient transport—and any transport appeared impossible. How could motor transport go through densest trackless bush, or horse and bullock transport where horse-sickness and tsetse fly forbade?
The First Brigade made the Pangani march and turning movement, performing the impossible, and with it went Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, head in air and soul among the stars, his heart full of a mortal tenderness and caught up in a great divine uplifting,
As he marched on, day after day, his thoughts moving to the dogged tramp of feet, the groan of laden bullock-carts, the creak of mule packs, the faint rhythmic tap of tin cup on a bayonet hilt, the clank of a swinging chain end, through mimosa thorn and dwarf scrub, dense forest, mephitic swamp or smitten desert, ever following the river whose waters gave life and sudden death, the river to leave which was to die of thirst, and to stay by which was to die of fever, this march which would have been a nightmare of suffering, was merely a dream—a dream from which he would awake to arise and go to Mombasa. . . .
“I always thought you had guts, Greene,” said Augustus coarsely, one night, as they laid their weary bones beneath a tarpaulin stretched between two carts. “I always thought you had ’em beneath your gentle-seeming surface, so to speak—but dammy, you’reallguts. . . . You’re a blooming whale, to march. . . . Why the devil don’t you growl and grumble like a Christian gentleman, eh? . . . I hate you ‘strong silent men.’ . . . Dammitall—you march along with a smug smile on your silly face! . . . You’re a perfect tiger, you know. . . . Don’t like it. . . . Colonel will be saying your ‘conduct under trying circumstances is an example and inspiration to all ranks.’ . . . Will when you’re dead anyhow. . . . Horrid habit. . . . You go setting an example tome, and I’ll bite you in the stomach, my lad. . . .”
Bertram laughed and looked out at the great stars—blue diamonds sprinkled on black velvet—and was very happy.
Was he tired? Everybody else was, so he supposed he must be.
Was he hungry? Yes—for the sight of a face. . . . Oh, the joy of shutting his eyes and calling it to memory’s eye, and of living over again every moment spent in her presence!
He realised, with something like amazement, that Love grows and waxes without the food and sustenance of the loved one’s real presence. He loved her more than he had done at Mombasa. Had he reallylovedher at Mombasa at all? Certainly not as he did now—when he thought of nothing else, and performed all his duties and functions mechanically and was only here present in the mere dull and unfeeling flesh. . . .
As the column halted where, across an open glade, the menacing sinister jungle might at any moment burst into crackling life, as machine-gun and rifle-fire crashed out to mow men down, he felt but mild interest, little curiosity and no vestige of fear. He would do his duty to the utmost, of course, but—how sweet to get a wound that would send him back to where she was!
As the column crossed the baked mud of former floods, and his eye noted the foot-prints, preserved in it, of elephant, lion, large and small antelope, rhinoceros and leopard, these wonders moved him to but faint interest, for he had something a thousand times more interesting to think of. Things that would have thrilled him before this great event, this greatest event, of his life—such as the first complete assembling of the Brigade in the first sufficient open space it had yet encountered—by the great spare rock, Njumba-ya-Mawe, the House of Stone, on which General Jan Smuts himself climbed to see them pass; the sight of his own Kashmiris cutting a way straight through the bush with theirkukris; the glimpses of animals he had hitherto only seen in zoological gardens; the faint sound of far-distant explosions where the retiring Germans were blowing up their railway culverts and bridges; the sight of deserted German positions with their trenches littered with coco-nut shells, husks, and mealie-cobs, their cunning machine-gun positions, and their officers’bandaslittered with empty tins and bottles; the infernal hullabaloo when a lion got within the perimeter one night and stampeded the mules; the sudden meeting with a little band of ragged emaciated prisoners, some German patrol captured by the Pathansowarsof the 17th or the Mounted Infantry of the Lancashires; the passing, high in air, of a humming yellow aeroplane; the distant rattle of machine-guns, like the crackling of a forest fire, as the advance-guard came in sight of some retiring party of Kraut’s force; the hollow far-off boom of some big gun brought from theKonigsberg—dismantled and deserted in the Rufigi river—as it fired from Sams upon the frontal feint of the 2nd Brigade’s advance down the railway or at the column of King’s African Rifles from M’buyini—these things which would have so thrilled him once, now left him cold—mere trifles that impinged but lightly on his outer consciousness. . . .
“You’re a blasé old bloke, aren’t you, Greene?” said the puzzled Augustus. “Hardened old warrior like you can’t beexpected to take much interest in a dull game like war, unless they let you charge guns and squares with cavalry, what? Sport without danger’s no good to you, what? You wait till you find a dam’ great Yaoaskarilooking for your liver with a bayonet, my lad. . . . See you sit up and take notice then, what? Garn! You patient, grinning Griselda . . .” and so forth.
But, one evening, as the column approached the South Pare Mountains, near Mikocheni, Bertram “sat up and took notice,” very considerable notice, as with a rush and a roar and a terrific explosion, a column of black smoke and dust shot up to the sky when a shell burst a few score yards away—the first of a well-placed series of four-point-one high explosive shells.
The column halted and lay low in the bush. Further progress would be more wholesome in the dark.
“Naval guns: over seven miles away: dam’ good shootin’,” quoth Augustus coolly, and with the air of a connoisseur, adding, “and we’ve got nothing that could carry half-way to ’em. I’m goin’ ’ome. . . .”
Bertram, everything driven from his mind but the thought that he was under fire, was rejoiced to find himself as cool as Augustus, who suddenly remarked, “I’m not as ’appy as you look, and I don’t b’lieve you are either”—as the column hurriedly betook itself from the position-betraying dust of the open to the shelter of the scrub that lay between it and the river, the river so beautiful in the rose-glow and gold of evening, and so deadly to all who could not crawl beneath the sheltering mosquito curtains as the light faded from the sinister-lovely scene.
* * * * *
Next day the column found one of the enemy’s prepared positions in the dense bush, and it was not, as hitherto, a deserted one. The first intimation was, as usual in the blind, fumbling fighting of East Africa, a withering blast of Maxim fire, and terribly heavy casualties for a couple of minutes.
At one moment, nothing at all—just a weary, plodding line of hot, weary and dusty men, crossing adambo, all hypnotised from thought of danger by fatigue, familiarity and normal immunity; at the next moment, slaughter, groans, brief confusion, burst upon burst of withering fire, a line of still or writhing forms.
It is an inevitable concomitant of such warfare, wherein one feels for one’s enemy rather than looks for him, and a hundred-mile march is a hundred-mile ambush.
This particular nest of machine-guns and large force ofaskariswas utterly invisible at a few yards’ range, and, at a few yards’ range, it blasted the head and flank of the column.
Instinctively the war-hardened Sepoys who survived dropped to earth and opened fire at the section of bush whence came the hail of death—a few scattered rifles against massed machine-guns and a battalion of highly trainedaskaris, masters of jungle-craft. As, still firing, they crawled backward to the cover of the scrub on the side of the glade opposite to the German position, the companies who had been marching behind them deployed and painfully skirmished toward the concealed enemy, halting to fire volleys into the dense bush in the probable direction, striving to keep touch with their flanking companies, to keep something like a line, to keep direction, to keep moving forward, and to keep a sharp look-out for the enemy who, having effected their surprise and caught the leading company in the open, had vanished silently, machine-guns and all, from the position which had served their purpose. . . .
A few feet in advance of his men as they skirmished forward, extended to one pace interval, Bertram, followed by the Subedar, crossed the line of dead and wounded caught by the first blast of fire. He saw two men he knew, lieutenants of the 130th Baluchis, who had evidently been made a special target by the concealed riflemen and machine-gunners. He saw another with his leg bent in the middle at right-angles—and realised with horror that it was bentforward. Also that the wounded man was Terence Brannigan. . . .
He feared he was going to be sick, and shame himself before his Gurkhas as his eye took in the face of a Baluchi whose lower jaw had been removed as though by a surgeon’s knife. He noted subconsciously how raven-blue the long oiled hair of these Pathans and Baluchis shone in the sun, theirpuggrishaving fallen off or been shot away. The machine-guns must have over-sighted and then lowered, instead of the reverse, as everybody seemed to be hit in the head, neck or chest except Brannigan, whose knee was so shattered that his leg bent forward until his boot touched his belt—with an effect as of that of a sprawled rag doll. Probablyhe had been hit by one of the great soft-nosed slugs with which the swine armed theiraskaris. The hot, heavy air reeked with blood. Some of the wounded lay groaning; some sat and smiled patiently as they held up shattered arms or pressed thumbs on bleeding legs; some rose and staggered and fell, rose and staggered and fell, blindly going nowhere. One big, grey-eyed Pathan lustily sang his almost national song, “Zakhmi Dil”—“The Wounded Heart,” but whether in bravado, delirium, sheerberserkjoy of battle, or quiet content at getting a wound that would give him a rest, change and privileges, Bertram did not know.
“Stretcher-bearer log ainga bhai,”[221a]said Bertram, as he passed him sitting there singing in a pool of blood.
“Béshak Huzoor,” replied the man with a grin, “ham baitha hai,”[221b]and resumed his falsetto nasal dirge. Another, crouching on all fours with his face to the ground, suddenly raised that grey-green, dripping face, and crawled towards him. Bertram saw that he was trailing his entrails as he moved. To avoid halting and being sick at this shocking sight, he rushed forward to the edge of the scrub whence all this havoc had been wrought, his left hand pressed over his mouth, all his will-power concentrated upon conquering the revolt of his stomach.
Thinking he was charging an enemy, his men dashed forward after him, only to find the place deserted. Little piles of empty cartridge-cases marked the places where the machine-guns had stood behind natural and artificial screens. One tripod had been fixed on an ant-hill screened by bushes, and must have had a fine field of fire across the glade. How far back had they gone—and then, in which direction? How long would it be before the column would again expose a few hundred yards of its flank to the sudden blast of the machine-guns of this force and the withering short-range volleys of its rifles? Would they get away now and go on ahead of the column and wait for it again, or, that being the obvious thing, would they move down toward the tail of the column, and attack there? Or was it just a rear-guard holding the Brigade up while Kraut evacuated Mikocheni? . . . Near and distant rifle and machine-gun fire, rising to a fierce crescendo and dying away to a desultory popping, seemed to indicate thatthis ambush was one of many, or that the Brigade was fighting a regular battle. . . . Probably a delaying action by a strong rear-guard. . . . Anyhow, his business was to see that his men kept direction, kept touch, kept moving forward slowly, and kept a sharp look-out. . . . Firing came nearer on the right flank. That part of the line had seen something—or been fired on, evidently—and suddenly he came to the edge of the patch or belt of jungle and, looking across another glassy glade, he saw a white man striking, with a whip or stick, at someaskariswho were carrying off a machine-gun. Apparently he was hurrying their retirement. Quickly Bertram turned to the grim little Subedar and got a section of his men to fire volleys at the spot, but there was no sign of life where, a minute earlier, he had certainly seen a German machine-gun team. . . .
He felt very cool and very strong, but knew that this great strength might fail him at any moment and leave him shaking and trembling, weak and helpless. . . .
He must line this edge of the jungle and examine every bush and tree of the opposite edge, across the glade, before adventuring out into its naked openness.
Suppose a dozen machine-guns were concealed a few yards within that sinister sullen wall. He bade the Subedar halt the whole line and open rapid fire upon it with a couple of sections. If he watched through his glasses carefully, he might see some movement in those menacing depths and shadows, movement induced by well-directed fire—possibly he might provoke concealed machine-gunners oraskaristo open fire and betray their positions. If so, should he lead his men in one wild charge across the glade, in the hope that enough might survive to reach them? If only the Gurkhas could get there with theirkukris, the guns would change hands pretty speedily. . . . It would be rather a fine thing to be “the chap who led the charge that got the Maxims.” . . .
“Gya,Sahib,” said the Subedar as he stared across the glade. “Kuch nahin hai.”[222]
Should he move on? And if he led the line out into a deathtrap? . . . He could see nothing of the companies on the left and right flank, even though this was thin and penetrable bush. How would he feel if he gave the order to advance and, as soonas the line was clear of cover, it was mown down like grass?
Bidding the Subedar wait, he stepped out and, with beating heart, advanced across the open. . . . He couldn’t talk to the Gurkhas, but he could show them that a British officer considered their safety before his own. He entered the opposite scrub, his heart in his mouth, his revolver shaking wildly in his trembling hand, but an exhilarating excitement thrilling him with a kind of wild joy. . . . He rather hoped he would be fired at. He wished to God they would break the horrible stillness and open fire. . . . He felt that, if they did not soon do so, he would scream and blaspheme or run away. . . .
Nothing there. No trenches. No suspicious broken branches or withering bushes placeden camouflage. He wheeled about, re-entered the glade, and gave the signal for his men to advance. They crossed the glade. Again they felt their way, tore, pushed, writhed, forced their way, through a belt of thin jungle, and again came upon a narrow glade and, as the line of jungle-bred, jungle-trained Gurkhas halted at its edge, a horde ofaskarisin a rough double line dashed out from the opposite side and, as the Gurkhas instinctively opened independent magazine fire, charged yelling across, with the greatestélanand ferocity. Evidently they thought they were swooping down upon the scattered remnants of the company that had headed the column, or else were in great strength, and didn’t care what they “bumped into,” knowing that their enemy had no prepared positions and death-traps for them to be caught in. . . .
As he stood behind a tree, steadily firing his revolver at the charging, yellingaskarisnow some forty yards distant, Bertram was aware of another line, or extended mob, breaking like a second wave from the jungle, and saw a couple of machine-gun teams hastily fling down their boxes and set up their tripods. He knew that a highly trained German gunner would sit behind each one and fire single shots or solid streams of bullets, according to his targets and opportunities. Absolute artists, these German machine-gunners and, ruffianly brutal bullies or not, very cool, brave men.
So was he cool and brave, for the moment—but how soon he would collapse, he did not know. He had emptied his revolver, and he realised that he had sworn violently with every shot. . . . He reloaded with trembling fingers, and, looking up, saw that thefight was about to become a hand-to-hand struggle. Firing rapidly, as theaskarischarged, the Gurkhas had thinned their line, and the glade was dotted with dozens of their dead and wounded—but the survivors, far outnumbering the Gurkhas, were upon them—and, with shrill yells, the little men rose and rushed at their big enemieskukriin hand.
The Subedar dashed at a huge non-commissioned officer who raised his fixed bayonet to drive downward in a kind of two-handed spear-thrust at the little man. Bertram thought the Gurkha was killed but, as he raised his revolver, he saw the Subedar duck low and slash with incredible swiftness at the negro’s thigh and again at his stomach. In the very act of springing sideways he then struck at theaskari’swrist and again at his neck. The little man was using his national weapon (thekukri, the Gurkha’s terrible carved knife, heavy, broad and razor-edged, wherewith he can decapitate an ox) when it came to fighting—no sword nor revolver for him—and the negro fell, with four horrible wounds, within four seconds of raising his rifle to stab, his head and hand almost severed, his thigh cut to the bone and his abdomen laid open.
“Sha-bas!”[224a]yelled Bertram, seeing red, and going mad with battle lust, and shouting “Maro! Maro!”[224b]at the top of his voice, rushed into the hacking, hewing, stabbing throng that, with howls, grunts, and screams, swayed to and fro, but gradually approached the direction whence the Gurkhas had advanced. . . .
And the two artists behind the machine-guns, the two merry manipulators of Death’s brass band, sat cool and calm, playing delicate airs upon their staccato-voiced instruments—here a single note and there a single note, now an arpeggio and now a run as they got their opportunity at a single man or a group, a charging section or a firing-line. Where a whirling knot of clubbing, thrusting, slashing men was seen to be more foe than friend they treated it as foe and gave it a wholerondo—these heralds and trumpeters of Death.
And, as Bertram rushed out into the open, each said “Offizier!” and gave him their undivided attention.
“Shah-bas! Subedar Sahib,” he yelled; “Maro! Maro!” and the Gurkhas who saw and heard him grinned and grunted, slashing and hacking, and thoroughly enjoying life. . . . (This wasworth all the marching and sweating, starving and working. . . .Thiswas something like! Akukriin your hand and an enemy to go for!)
Firing his revolver into the face of anaskariwho swung up his clubbed rifle, and again into the chest of one who drove at him with his bayonet, he shouted and swore, wondering at himself as he did so.
And then he received a blow on his elbow and his revolver was jerked from his open, powerless hand. Glancing at his arm he saw it was covered with blood, and, at the same moment, a giganticaskariaimed a blow at his skull—a blow that he felt would crush it like an egg . . . and all he could do was to put his left arm across his face . . . and wait . . . for a fraction of a second. . . . He saw the man’s knees crumple. . . . Why had he fallen instead of delivering that awful blow?
The nearer machine-gunner cursed the fallen man and played a trill of five notes as he got a clear glimpse of the white man. . . .
Someone had kicked his legs from under Bertram—or had they thrown a stone—or what? He was on the ground. He felt as though a swift cricket-ball had hit his shin, and another his knee, and his right arm dropped and waggled aimlessly—and when it waggled there was a grating feeling (which was partly a grating sound) horrible to be heard. . . . And he couldn’t get up. . . .
He felt very faint and could see nothing, by reason of a blue light which burnt dully, but obscured his vision, destroying the sunlight. Darkness, and a loud booming and rushing sound in his ears. . . .
Then he felt better and, half raising himself on his left hand, saw another line emerge from the scrub and charge. . . . Baluchis and Gurkhas, friends . . . thank God!! And there was Augustus. He’d pass him as, just now, he had passed Terence Brannigan and the two other Baluchi subalterns. Would Augustus feel sick at the sight of him, ashehad done? . . .
With a wild yell, the big Baluchis and little Gurkhas charged, and the line was borne back toward the machine-gunners, who disappeared with wonderful dispatch, in search of a desirable and eligible pitch, preferably on a flank, for their next musical performance.
“Hullo, Priceless Old Thing, stopped one?” asked Augustus, pausing in his rush.
“Bit chipped,” Bertram managed to say.
“Oh, poignant! Search—” began Augustus . . . and fell across Bertram, causing him horrible agony, a bullet-hole the size of a marble in his forehead, the back of his head blown completely out.
Bertram fainted as his friend’s brains oozed and spread across his chest.
Having dodged and manœuvred to a flank position, one of the machine-gunners played a solo to the wounded while waiting a more favourable moment and target. His fellow sons ofkulturwanted no wounded Germanaskarison their hands, and of course the wounded Sepoys and British were better dead. Dead men don’t recover and fight again. . . . So he did a little neat spraying of twitching, writhing, crawling, wriggling or staggering individuals and groups. Incidentally he hit the two British officers again, riddling the body which was on top of the other, putting one bullet through the left arm of the underneath one. . . . Then he had to scurry off again, as the fighting-line was getting so far towards his left that he might be cut off. . . . Anyhow he’d had a very good morning and felt sure his “good old German God” must be feeling quite pleased about it.
When he recovered consciousness, Bertram found himself lying on a stretcher in a little natural clearing in the bush—a tiny square enclosed by acacia, sisal, and mimosa scrub. On a candelabra tree hung a bunch of water-bottles, a helmet, some haversacks, a tunic, and strips of white rag.
An officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps and ababuof the Indian Subordinate Medical Service were bending over a medical pannier. Stretcher-bearers brought in another burden as he turned his head to look round. It was a Native Officer. On top of his head was an oblong of bare-shaven skull—some caste-mark apparently. Following them with his eyes Bertram saw the stretcher-bearers place the unconscious (or dead) man at the endof a small row of similar still forms. . . . There was Brannigan. . . . There was a man with whom he had shared a tent for a night at Taveta. . . . What was his name? . . . There were the two Baluchi subalterns. . . . Was that the dead row—the mortuary, so to speak, of this little field ambulance? Was he to join it?
The place stunk of blood, iodine and horrors. He could move neither hand nor foot, and the world seemed to be a Mountain of Pain upon the peak of which he was impaled. . . .
The continued rattle of firing was coming nearer, surely? It was—much nearer. The stretcher-bearers brought in another casualty, the stretcher dripping blood. No “walking wounded” appeared to come to this particular dressing-station.
The firing was getting quite close, and the sound of the cracking of branches was audible. Leaves and twigs, cut from the trees by the bullets, occasionally fell upon the mangled and broken forms as though to hide them. . . .
“Sah—they are coming!” said thebabusuddenly. His face was a mask of fear, but he continued to perform his duties as dresser, as well as his shaking hands would permit.
Suddenly a ragged line of Gurkhas broke into the clearing, halting to fire, retreating and firing again, fighting from tree to tree and bush to bush. . . . The mixed, swaying and changing battle-line was going to cross the spot where the wounded lay. . . . Those of them who were conscious knew whatthatmeant. . .
So did the medical officer, and he shouted to the stretcher-bearers,babu, mule-drivers, porters, everybody, to carry the wounded farther into the bush—quick—quick. . . .
As his stretcher was snatched up, Bertram—so sick with pain, and the cruel extra agony of the jolts and jars, that he cared not what befell him—saw a group ofaskarisburst into the clearing, glare around, and rush forward with bayonets poised. He shut his eyes as they reached the other stretchers. . . .
On the terrible journey down the Tanga Railway to M’buyuni, between Taveta and Voi, Bertram kept himself alive with the thought that he would eventually reach Mombasa. . . .
He had forgotten Eva only while he was in the fight and onthe stretcher, but when he lay on the floor of the cattle-truck he seemed to wake from a night of bad dreams—to awake again into the brightness and peace of the day of Love.
Of course, the physical agony of being jolted and jerked for a hundred and fifty miles, throughout which every bump of every wheel over every railway joint gave a fresh stab of pain to each aching wound and his throbbing head, was a terrible experience—but he would rather have been lying on the floor of that cattle-truck bumping towards Mombasa, than have been marching in health and strength away from it.
Every bump that racked him afresh meant that he was about forty feet nearer to M’buyuni which was on the line to Voi which is on the line to Mombasa.
What is the pain of a shattered right elbow, a broken left arm, a bullet hole in the right thigh and another in the left calf, when one is on the road to where one’s heart is, and one is filled with the divine wonder of first love?
He could afford to pity the poor uninjured Bertram Greene of yesterday, marching farther and farther from where all hope, happiness, joy, peace and plenty lay, where love lay, and where alone in all the world could he know content. . . .
She would not think the less of him that he had temporarily lost the use of his hands and, for a time, was lame. . . . He had done his duty and was out of it! Blessed wounds! . . .
In the hospital at M’buyuni the clean bullet-holes in the flesh of his legs healed quickly. Lucky for him that they had been made by nickel Maxim-bullets and not by the horrible soft-nosed slugs of theaskaris’rifles. The bone-wounds in his arms were more serious, and he could walk long before he could use his hands.
His patient placidity was remarkable to those who came in contact with him—not knowing that he dwelt in a serene world apart and dreamed love’s young age-old dream therein.
Every day was a blessed day in that it brought him much nearer to the moment when he would see her face, hear her voice, touch her hand. What unthinkably exquisite joy was to be his—and was hisnowin the mere contemplation of it!
His left arm began to do well, but the condition of his right arm was less satisfactory.
“Greene, my son,” said the O.C. M’buyuni Stationary Hospital to him one day, “you’re for the Hospital ShipMadras, her next trip. Lucky young dog. Wish I was. . . . Give my love to Colonel Giffard and Major Symons when you get on board. . . . You’ll get a trip down to Zanzibar, I believe, on your way to Bombay. . . . You’ll be having tea on the lawn at the Yacht Club next month—think of it!”
Bertram thought of something else and radiated joy.
“Aha! That bucks you, does it? Wounded hero with his arm in a sling at the Friday-evening-band-night-tea-on-the-lawn binges, what?”
Bertram smiled.
“Could I stay on in Mombasa a bit, sir?” he asked.
The O.C. M’buyuni Stationary Hospital stared.
“Eh?” said he, doubting that he could have heard aright. Bertram repeated the question, and the O.C., M.S.H., felt his pulse. Was this delirium?
“No,” he said shortly in the voice of one who is grieved and disappointed. “You’ll go straight on board theMadras—and damned lucky too. . . . You don’t deserve to. . . . I’d give . . .”
“What is the procedure when I get to Bombay?” asked Bertram, as the doctor fell into a brown study.
“You’ll go before a Medical Board at Colaba Hospital. They may detain you there, give you a period of sick leave, or invalid you out of the Service. Depends on how your right arm shapes. . . . You’ll be all right, I think.”
“And if my arm goes on satisfactorily I shall be able to come back to East Africa in a month or two perhaps?” continued Bertram.
“Yes. Nice cheery place, what?” said the Medical Officer and departed. He never could suffer fools gladly and he personally had had enough, for the moment, of heat, dust, stench, monotony, privation, exile, and overwork. . . .Hurryback to East Africa! . . . Zeal for duty is zeal for duty—and lunacy’s lunacy. . . . But perhaps the lad was just showing off and talking through his hat, what?
The faithful Ali, devoted follower of his old master’s peregrinations, saw the muddy, blood-stained greasy bundles, which were that master’s kit, safe on board theMadrasfrom the launch which had brought the party of wounded officers from the Kilindini pier. Personally he conducted the bundles to the cabin reserved for Second-Lieutenant B. Greene, I.A.R., and then sought their owner where he reclined in achaise longueon deck, none the better for his long journey on the Uganda Railway.
“I’m coming back, Ali,” said he as his retainer, a monument of restrained grief, came to him.
“Please God,Bwana,” was the dignified reply.
“What will you do while I am away?” he asked, for the sake of something to say.
“Go and see my missus and childrens, my little damsels and damsons at Nairobi, sah,” was the sad answer. “WhenBwanasailing now?”
“Not till this evening,” answered Bertram, “and the last thing I want you to do for me is to take these twochitsto Stayne-Brooker Mem-Sahib and Stayne-Brooker Miss-Sahib as quickly as you can. You’ll catch them at tiffin if you take a trolley now from Kilindini. Theymusthave them quickly. . . . If they come to see me before the ship sails at six, there’ll be an extra present for one Ali Suleiman, what?”
“Oh, sah!Bwananot mentioning it by golly,” replied Ali and fled.
Mrs. Stayne-Brooker was crossing from the Hospital to Vasco da Gama Street for lunch when, having run quicker than any trolley ever did, he caught sight of her, salaamed and presented the twochits, written for Bertram by a hospital friend and companion of his journey, as soon as they got on board. She opened the one addressed to herself.
“My Dear Mrs. Stayne-Brooker,” it ran, “I have just reached the Madras,and sail at six this evening.I cannot tell you how much I should like to see you,if you could take your evening drive in this direction and come on board.How I wish I could stay and convalesce in Mombasa!Very much more thanever words could possibly express.It is just awful to pass through like this.“I do hope you can come.“Your ever grateful and devoted“Bertram Greene.”
“My Dear Mrs. Stayne-Brooker,” it ran, “I have just reached the Madras,and sail at six this evening.I cannot tell you how much I should like to see you,if you could take your evening drive in this direction and come on board.How I wish I could stay and convalesce in Mombasa!Very much more thanever words could possibly express.It is just awful to pass through like this.
“I do hope you can come.“Your ever grateful and devoted“Bertram Greene.”
The worthy Ali, panting and perspiring, thought the lady was going to fall.
“Bertram!” she whispered, and then her heart beat again, and she regained control of her trembling limbs.
“You are GreeneBwana’sboy!” she said, searching Ali’s bedewed but beaming countenance. “Is he—is he ill—hurt—wounded?” (She did not know that the man had been in her husband’s service.)
“Yes, Mem,” was the cheerful reply. “Shot in all arms and legs. Also quite well, thank you.”
“Go and tell him I will come,” she said. “Be quick. Here—baksheesh. . . . Now,hurry.”
“Oh, Mem! Mem-Sahib not mentioning it, thank you please,” murmured Ali as his huge paw engulfed the rupees. Turning, he started forthwith upon the four-mile return run.
Putting the note addressed to her daughter on the lunch-table, beside her plate, she hurried into her room, crying for joy, and, with trembling hands, made her toilette. She must look her best—look her youngest.
He was back! He was safe! He was alive! Oh, the long, long night of silence through the black darkness of which she had miserably groped! The weary, weary weeks of waiting and wondering, hoping and fearing, longing and doubting! But her prayers had been answered—and she was about toseehim. . . . And if he were shattered and broken? She could almost find it in her heart to hope he was—that she might spend her life in guarding, helping, comforting him. He wouldneedher, and oh, how she yearned to be needed, she who had never yet been really needed by man, woman, or child. . . .
“Mother!” said Miss Stayne-Brooker, as she went in to lunch. “Whata bright, gay girlie you look! . . . Here’s a note from that Mr. Greene of yours. He says:
‘Dear Miss Stayne-Brooker,‘I am passing through Mombasa,and am now on board theMadras.I can’t come and see you—do you think you’d let your mother bring you to see me’—he’s crossed that out and put‘see the Hospital Ship Madras’—‘it might interest you.I have written to ask if she’d care to come.Do—could you?‘Always your grateful servant,‘Bertram Greene.’
‘Dear Miss Stayne-Brooker,
‘I am passing through Mombasa,and am now on board theMadras.I can’t come and see you—do you think you’d let your mother bring you to see me’—he’s crossed that out and put‘see the Hospital Ship Madras’—‘it might interest you.I have written to ask if she’d care to come.Do—could you?
‘Always your grateful servant,‘Bertram Greene.’
But I am playing golf with Reggie and having tea with him at the Club, you know.”
“All right, dear. I’ll go and see the poor boy.”
“That’s right, darling. You won’t mind if I don’t, will you? . . . He’syourfriend, you know.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, “he’smyfriend,” and Miss Stayne-Brooker wondered at the tone of her mother’s voice. . . . (Poor old Mums; she made quite a silly of herself over this Mr. Greene!)
Having blessed and rewarded the worthy Ali, returned dove-like to theMadras, Bertram possessed his soul with what patience he could, and sought distraction from the gnawing tooth of anxiety by watching the unfamiliar life of a hospital-ship. . . .
Suppose Eva Stayne-Brooker could not come! Suppose the ship sailed unexpectedly early! . . .
He could not sit still in that chair and wait, and wait. . . .
A pair of very pretty nurses, with the sallow ivory complexion, black hair and large liquid eyes of the Eurasian, walked up and down.
Another, plain, fat, and superiorly English, walked apart from them.
Two very stout Indian gentlemen, in the uniform of Majors of the Indian Medical Service, promenaded, chattering and gesticulating. The Chief Engineer (a Scot, of course), leaning against the rail and smoking a black Burma cheroot, eyed them with a kind of wonder, and smiled tolerantly upon them. . . . Travel and much time for philosophical reflection had confairrmed in him the opeenion that it tak’s all sorrts to mak’ a Univairse. . . .
From time to time, a sick or wounded man was hoisted on board, lying on a platform that dangled from four ropes at theend of a chain and was worked by a crane. From the launch to the deck of the ship he was slung like so much merchandise or luggage, but without jar or jolt. Or a walking-wounded or convalescent sick man would slowly climb the companion that sloped diagonally at an easy angle along the ship’s side from the promenade-deck to the water.
On the fore and aft well-decks, crowds of sick or wounded Sepoys crouched huddled in grey blankets, or moved slowly about with every evidence of woe and pain. It takes an Indian Sepoy to do real justice to illness of any kind. He is a born actor and loves acting the dying man better than any part in life’s drama. This is not to say that he is a malingerer or a weakling—but that when he is sick heisgoing to get, at any rate, the satisfaction of letting everybody know it and of collecting such sympathy and admiration as he can.
“No, there is no one so sick as a sick Indian,” smiled Bertram to himself.
In contrast was the demeanour of a number of British soldiers sitting and lying about the deck allotted to them, adjoining but railed off from that of the officers.
Laughter and jest were the order of the day. One blew into a mouth-organ with more industry than skill; another endeavoured to teach one of the ship’s cats to waltz on its hind legs; some played “brag” with a pack of incredibly dirty little cards; and others sat and exchanged experiences, truthfully and otherwise.
Near to where Bertram stood, a couple sprawled on the deck and leaned against a hatch. The smaller of the two appeared to be enjoying the process of annoying the larger, as he tapped his protruding and outlying tracts with akiboko, listening intently after each blow in the manner of a doctor taking soundings as to the thoracic or abdominal condition of a patient.
An extra sharp tap caused the larger man to punch his assailant violently in the ribs, whereupon the latter threw his arms round the puncher’s neck, kissed him, and stated, with utter disregard for facts:
“’Erb! In our lives we was werry beautiful, an’ in our deafs we wos not diwided.” (Evidently a reminiscence of the Chaplain’s last sermon.)
But little mollified by the compliment, Herbert smote again, albeit less violently, as he remarked with a sneer:
“Ho, yus! You wouldn’t a bin divided all right if you’d stopped one o’ them liddle four-point-seven shells at Mikocheni, you would. Not ’arf, you wouldn’t. . . .”
But for crutches, splints, slings and bandages, no one would have supposed this to be a collection of sick and wounded men, wreckage of the storm of war, flotsam and jetsam stranded here, broken and useless. . . .
Bertram returned to his chair and tried to control his sick impatience and anxiety. Would she come? What should he say to her if she did? . . . Should he “propose”—(beastly word)? He had not thought much about marriage. . . . To see her and hear her voice was what he really wanted. Should he tell her he loved her? . . . Surely that would be unnecessary.
And then his heart stood still, as Mrs. Stayne-Brooker stepped from the companion-platform on to the deck, and came towards him—her face shining and radiant, her lips quivering, her eyes suffused.
He realised that she was alone, and felt that he had turned pale, as his heart sank like lead. But perhapsshewas behind. . . . Perhaps she was in another boat. . . . Perhaps she was coming later. . . .
He rose to greet her mother—who gently pushed him back on the long cane couch-chair and rested herself on the folding stool that stood beside it.
Still holding his left hand, she sat and tried to find words to ask of his hurts, and could say nothing at all. . . . She could only point to the sling, as she fought with a desire to gather him to her, and cry and cry and cry for joy and sweet sorrow.
“Yes,” said Bertram, “but that’s the only bad one. . . . Shan’t lose the use of it, I expect, though. . . . Would she—would a woman—think it cheek if a maimed man—would she mind his being—if she really . . . ?”
“Oh, my dear, my dear! Don’t! Oh, don’t!” Mrs. Stayne-Brooker broke down. “She’d love him ten thousand times more—you poor, foolish . . .”
“Will she come?” he interrupted. “And dare I tell her I . . .”
And Mrs. Stayne-Brooker understood.
She was a brave woman, and Life had taught her not to wearher poor heart upon her sleeve, had taught her to expect little (except misery), and to wear a defensive mask.
“Eva is engaged to marry Mr. Macteith,” she said in a toneless voice, and rose to go—to go before she broke down, fainted, became hysterical, or went mad. . . .
Had two kind people ever dealt each other two such blows?
She looked at his face, and knew how her own must look. . . .
WhyshouldGod treat her so? . . . To receive so cruel a wound and to have to deal one as cruel to the heart she so loved! . . .
He looked like a corpse—save that his eyes stared through her, burning her, seeing nothing. She must go, or disgrace herself—and him. . . . She felt her way, blindly fumbling, to the companion, realising even then that, when the stunned dullness immediately following this double blow gave place to the keen agony that awaited her recovery of her senses, there would be one spot of balm to her pain, there would be one feeble gleam of light in the Stygian darkness of her life—she would not be aching and yearning for the passionate love of her own son-in-law! . . .
And, were this veracious chronicle a piece of war-fiction woven by a romancer’s brain, Bertram Greene would have been standing on the deck that evening, looking his last upon the receding shores of the country wherein he had suffered and done so much.
On his breast would have been the Victoria Cross, and by his side the Woman whom he had Also Won.
She would have murmured “Darling!” . . . He would have turned to her, as the setting sun, ever obliging, silhouetted the wonderfully lovely palms of the indescribably beautiful Kilindini Creek, and said to her:
“Darling,life is but beginning.”
* * * * *
Facts being facts, it is to be stated that Bertram sat instead of standing, as theMadrasmoved majestically down the Creek; that on his breast, instead of the Cross, a sling with a crippled arm; and by his side, instead of the Woman, a Goanese steward, who murmured:
“Master having tea out here, sir, please?” and to whom Bertram turned as the setting sun silhouetted the palms and said: “Oh,go to hell!” (and then sincerely apologised.)
* * * * *
Captain Stott passed and recognised him, in spite of changes. He noted the hardened face, the line between the eyes, the hollowed cheeks, the puckers and wrinkles, the steel-trap mouth, and wondered again at how War can make a boy into a Man in a few months. . . .
There was nothing “half-baked” aboutthatface.
* * * * *
And so, in ignorance, the despised and rejected boy again avenged his father, this time upon the woman who had done him such bitter, cruel wrong.