“Why couldn’t you say so, instead of chattering and jabbering and mouthing and mopping and mowing and yapping and yiyiking for an hour, Mr. Woozy, Woolly-witted, Wandering William Hankey?” he enquired.
The large red man looked penitent.
“Hankey,” the officer added, “you are a land-lubber. You are a pier-head yachtsman. You are a beach pleasure-boat pilot. You are a canal bargee.”
Mr. Hankey looked hurt,touché, broken.
“Oh,sir!” said he, stricken at last.
“William Hankey, you are avolunteer,” continued his remorseless judge.
Mr. Hankey fell heavily into his chair, and fetched a deep groan.
“William Hankey-Pankey—you are aconscientious objector,” said the Captain in a quiet, cold and cruel voice.
A little gasping cry escaped Mr. Hankey. He closed his eyes, swayed a moment, and then dropped fainting on the table, the which his large red head smote with a dull and heavy thud, as the heartless officer strode away.
A moment later Mr. Hankey revived, winked at the astonished Bertram, and remarked:
“I’d swim in blood fer ’im, I would, any day. I’d swim in beer wi’ me mouf shut, if ’e ast me, I would. . . . ’E’s the pleasant-manneredest, kindest, nicest bloke I was ever shipmates wiv, ’e is. . .”
“His bark is worse than his bite, I suppose?” hazarded Bertram.
“Bark!” replied Mr. Hankey. “’E wouldn’ bark at a blind beggar’s deaf dog, ’e wouldn’t. . . . The ship’s a ’Appy Ship wot’s got’imfer Ole Man. . . . Why—the matlows do’s liddle things jest to git brought up before ’im to listen to ’is voice. . . . Yes. . . . Their Master’s Voice. . . . Wouldn’ part brass-rags wiv ’im for a nogs’ead o’ rum. . . .”
Feeling a different man for the tea and biscuits, Bertram thanked Mr. Hankey for his hospitality, and stepped out on to the quay, thinking, as the heat-blast struck him, that one would experience very similar sensations by putting his head into an oven and then stepping on to the stove. In the shade of the sheds the Sepoys sprawled, even the cheery Gurkhas seemed unhappy and uncomfortable in that fiery furnace.
Bertram’s heart smote him. Had it been the act of a good officer to go and sit down in that shed, to drink tea and eat biscuits, while his men . . . ? Yes, surely that was all right. Hewas far less acclimatised to heat and glare than they, and it would be no service to them for him to get heat-stroke and apoplexy or “a touch of the sun.” They had their water-bottles and their grain-and-sugar ration and their coldchupattis. They were under conditions far more closely approximating to normal than he was. Of course it is boring to spend hours in the same place with full equipment on, but, after all, it was much worse for a European, whose thoughts run on a cool club luncheon-room; a bath and change; and a long chair, a cold drink and a novel, under a punkah on the club verandah thereafter. . . . Would those infernal trucksnevercome? Suppose they never did? Was he to stay there all night? He had certainly received definite orders from the “competent military authority” to stay there until all his baggage had been sent off. Was that to relieve the competent military authority of responsibility in the event of any of it being stolen? . . . Probably the competent military authority was now having his tea, miles away at the Club. What should he do if no trucks had materialised by nightfall? How about consulting the Native Officers? . . . Perish the thought! . . . They’d have to stick it, the same as he would. The orders were quite clear, and all he had got to do was to sit tight and await trucks—if he grew grey in the process.
Some six hours from the time at which he had landed, a couple of small four-wheeled trucks were pushed on to the wharf by a fatigue-party of Sepoys from the camp; the Naik in charge of them saluted and fled, lest he and his men be impounded for further service; and Bertram instructed the Gurkha Subedar to get a fatigue-party of men to work at loading the two trucks to their utmost capacity, with baggage, kit, and ration-boxes. It was evident that the arrival of the trucks did not mean the early departure of the force, for several journeys would he necessary for the complete evacuation of the mound of material to be shifted. Having loaded the trucks, the fatigue-party pushed off, and it was only as the two unwieldy erections of baggage were being propelled through the gates by the willing little men, that it occurred to Bertram to enquire whether they had any idea as to where they were going.
Not the slightest, and they grinned cheerily. Another problem! Should he now abandon the force and lead the fatigue-party in the light of the Military Landing Officer’s description ofthe route, or should he endeavour to give the Gurkha Subedar an idea of the way, and send him off with the trucks? And suppose he lost his way and barged ahead straight across the Island of Mombasa? That would mean that the rest of them would have to sit on the wharf all night—if he obeyed the Military Landing Officer’s orders. . . . Which hemustdo, of course. . . . Bertram was of a mild, inoffensive and quite unvindictive nature, but he found himself wishing that the Military Landing Officer’s dinner might thoroughly disagree with him. . . . His own did not appear likely to get the opportunity. . . . He then and there determined that he would never again be caught, while on Active Service, without food of some kind on his person, if he could help it—chocolate, biscuits, something in a tablet or a tin. . . . Should he go and leave the Native Officer in command, or should he send forth the two precious trucks into the gathering gloom and hope that, dove-like, they would return? . . .
And again the voice of Ali fell like balm of Gilead, as it boomed, welcome, opportune and cheering.
“Sah, I will show the Chinamans the way to camp and bring them back P.D.Q.,” quoth he.
“Oh! Good man!” said Bertram. “Right O! But they’re not Chinamen—they are Gurkha soldiers. . . . Don’t you hit one, or chivvy them about. . . .”
“Sah, I am knowing all things,” was the modest reply, and the black giant strode off, followed by the empiled wobbling waggons.
More weary waiting, but, as the day waned, the decrease of heat and sultriness failed to keep pace with the increasing hunger, faintness and sickness which made at least one of the prisoners of the quay wish that either he or the Emperor of Germany had never been born. . . .
Journey after journey having been made, each by a fresh party of Gurkhas (for Bertram, as is customary, used the willing horse, when he saw that the little hill-men apparently liked work for its own sake, as much as the other Sepoys disliked work for any sake), the moment at last arrived when the ammunition-boxes could be loaded on to the trucks and the whole force could be marched off as escort thereunto, leaving nothing behind them upon the accursed stones of that oven, which had been their gaol for ten weary hours.
Never was the order, “Fall in!” obeyed with more alacrity, and it was with a swinging stride that the troops marched out through the gates in the rear of their British officer, who strode along with high-held head and soldierly bearing, as he thanked God there was a good moon in the heavens, and prayed that there might soon be a good meal in his stomach.
Up the little hill and past the trolley “terminus” the party tramped, and the hot, heavy night seemed comparatively cool after the terrible day on the shut-in, stone and iron heat-trap of the quay. . . . As he glanced at the diamond-studded velvet of the African sky, Bertram thought how long ago seemed that morning when he had made his first march at the head of his company. It seemed to have taken place, not only in another continent, but in another age. Already he seemed an older, wiser, more resourceful man. . . .
“Bwanaturning feet to left hands here,” said Ali Suleiman from where, abreast of Bertram, he strode along at the edge of the road. “IfBwanawill following me in front, I am leading him behind”—with which clear and comprehensible offer, he struck off to the left, his long, clean night-shirt looming ahead in the darkness as a pillar of cloud by night. . . .
Again Bertram blessed him, and thanked the lucky stars that had brought him across his path. He had seen no railway-bridge nor railway-line; he could see no tents, and he was exceedingly thankful that it was not his duty to find, by night, the way which had seemed somewhat vaguely and insufficiently indicated for one who sought to follow it by day. Half an hour later he saw a huge black mass which, upon closer experience, proved to be a great palm grove, in the shadow of which stood a number of tents.
* * * * *
In a remarkably short space of time, the Sepoys had occupied four rows of the empty tents, lighted hurricane lamps, unpacked bedding and kit bundles, removed turbans, belts and accoutrements, and, set about the business of cooking, distributing, and devouring their rations.
The grove of palms that had looked so very inviolable and sacredly remote as it stood untenanted and silent in the brilliant moonlight, now looked and smelt (thanks to wood fires and burning ghee) like an Indian bazaar, as Sikhs, Gurkhas, Rajputs,Punjabis, Marathas, Pathans and “down-country” Carnatics swarmed in and out of tents, around cooking-fires, at the taps of the big railway water-tank, or the kit-and-ration dump—the men of each different race yet keeping themselves separate from those of other races. . . .
As the unutterably weary Bertram stood and watched and wondered as to what military and disciplinary conundrums his motley force would provide for him on the morrow, his ancient and faithful family retainer came and asked him for his keys. That worthy had already, in the name of hisBwana, demanded the instant provision of a fatigue-party, and directed the removal of a tent from the lines to a spot where there would be more privacy and shade for its occupant, and had then unstrapped the bundles containing his master’s bed, bedding and washhand-stand, and now desired further to furnish forth the tent with the suitable contents of the sack. . . .
And so Bertram “settled in,” as did his little force, save that he went to bed supperless and they did not. Far from it—for a goat actually strayed bleating into the line and met with an accident—getting its silly neck in the way of akukrijust as its owner was, so he said, fanning himself with it (with thekukri, not the goat). So some fed full, and others fuller.
Next day, Bertram ate what Ali, far-foraging, brought him; and rested beneath the shade of the palms and let his men rest also, to recover from their sea-voyage and generally to find themselves. . . . For one whole day he would do nothing and order nothing to be done; receive no reports, issue no instructions, harry nobody and be harried by none. Then, on the morrow, he would arise, go on the warpath in the camp, and grapple bravely with every problem that might arise, from shortage of turmeric to excess of covert criticism of his knowledge and ability.
But the morrow never came in that camp, for the Base Commandant sent for him in urgent haste at eventide, and bade him strain every nerve to get his men and their baggage, lock, stock and barrel, on board theBarjordan, just as quickly as it could be done (and a dam’ sight quicker), for reinforcements were urgently needed at M’paga, down the coast.
Followed a sleepless nightmare night, throughout which he worked by moonlight in the camp, on the quay, and on theBarjordan’sdeck, reversing the labours of the previous day, andre-embarking his men, their kit, ammunition, rations and impedimenta—and in addition, two barge-loads of commissariat and ordnance requisites for the M’paga Brigade.
At dawn the last man, box, and bale was on board and Bertram endeavoured to speak a word of praise, in halting Hindustani, to the Gurkha Subedar, who, with his men, had shown an alacrity and gluttony for work, beyond all praise. All the other Sepoys had worked properly in their different shifts—but the Gurkhas had revelled in work, and when their second shift came at midnight, the first shift remained and worked with them!
Having gratefully accepted coffee from Mr. Wigger, the First Officer, Bertram, feeling “beat to the world,” went down to his cabin, turned in, and slept till evening. When he awoke, a gazelle was gazing affectionately into his face.
He shut his eyes and shivered. . . . Was this sunstroke, fever, or madness? He felt horribly frightened, his nerves being in the state natural to a person of his temperament and constitution when overworked, underfed, affected by the sun, touched by fever, and overwrought to the breaking-point by anxiety and worry.
He opened his eyes again, determined to be cool, wise and brave, in face of this threatened breakdown, this hallucination of insanity.
The gazelle was still there—there in a carpeted, comfortable cabin, on board a ship, in the Indian Ocean. . . .
He rubbed his eyes.
Then he put out his hand to pass it through the spectral Thing and confirm his worst fears.
The gazelle licked his hand, and he sat up and said: “Oh, damn!” and laughed weakly.
The animal left the cabin, and he heard its hoofs pattering on the linoleum.
Later he found it to be a pet of the captain of theBarjordan, Captain O’Connor.
Next morning the ship anchored a mile or so from a mangrove swamp, and the business of disembarkation began again, this time into the ship’s boats and some sailing dhows that had met theBarjordanat this spot.
When all the Sepoys and stores were in the boats and dhows, he put on thepuggriwhich Bludyer had given him, with theassistance of Ali Suleiman and the Gurkha Subedar, looked at himself in the glass, and wished he felt as fine and fierce a fellow as he looked. . . . He then said “Farewell” to kindly Captain O’Connor and burly, energetic Mr. Wigger—both of whom he liked exceedingly—received their hearty good wishes and exhortations to slay and spare not, and went down on the motor-launch that was to tow the laden boats to the low gloomy shore—if a mangrove swamp can be called a shore. . . .
One more “beginning”—or one more stage on the road to War! Here washe, Bertram Greene, armed to the teeth, with a turban on his head, about to be landed—and left—on the shores of the mainland of this truly Dark Continent. He was about to invade Africa! . . .
If only his father and Miranda could see himnow!
Bertram waded ashore and looked around.
Through a rank jungle of high grass, scrub, palms, trees and creepers, a narrow mud path wound past the charred remnants of a native village to where stood the shell-scarred ruins of a whitewashedadobebuilding which had probably been a Customs-post, treasury, post-office and Government Offices in general. . . . He was on the mainland of the African Continent, and he was on enemy territory in the war area! How far away was the nearest German force? What should he do if he were attacked while disembarking? How was he to find the main body of his own brigade? What should he do if there were an enemy force between him and them? And what was the good of asking himself conundrums, instead of concentrating every faculty upon a speedy and orderly disembarkation?
Turning his back upon the unutterably dreary and depressing scene, as well as upon all doubts and fears and questions, he gave orders that the Gurkhas should land first. His only object in this was to have what he considered the best fighting men ashore first, and to form them up as a covering force, ready for action, in the event of any attack being made while the main body was still inthe confusion, muddle and disadvantage of the act of disembarkation. And no bad idea either—but the Subedar of the Sherepur Sikhs saw, or affected to see, in this Gurkha priority of landing, an intentional and studied insult to himself, his contingent, and the whole Sikh race. He said as much to his men, and then, standing up in the bows of the boat, called out:
“Sahib! Would it not be better to let the Sherepur Sikh Contingent land first, to ensure the safety of—er—those beloved of the Sahib? There might be an attack. . . .”
Not understanding in the least what the man was saying, Bertram ignored him altogether, though he disliked the sound of the laughter in the Sikh boat, and gathered from the face of the Gurkha Subedar that something which he greatly resented had been said.
“Khabadar. . .tum!”[98]the Gurkha hissed, as he stepped ashore, and, with soldierly skill and promptness, got his men formed up, in and around the ruined building and native village, in readiness to cover the disembarkation of the rest. Five minutes after he had landed, Bertram found it difficult to believe that a hundred Gurkha Sepoys were within a hundred yards of him, for not one was visible. At the end of a couple of hours the untowed dhows had arrived, all troops, ammunition, supplies and baggage were ashore, the boats had all departed, and Bertram again found himself the only white man and sole authority in this mixed force, and felt the burden of responsibility heavy upon him.
The men having been formed up in their respective units, with the rations, ammunition, and kit dump in their rear, Bertram began to consider the advisability of leaving a strong guard over the latter, and moving off in search of the brigade camp. Would this be the right thing to do? Certainly his force was of no earthly use to the main body so long as it squatted in the mud where it had landed. Perhaps it was urgently wanted at that very moment, and the General was praying for its arrival and swearing at its non-arrival—every minute being precious, and the fate of the campaign hanging upon its immediate appearance. It might well be that an attack in their rear by four hundred fresh troops would put to flight an enemy who, up to that moment, had been winning. He would not know the strength of this new assailant, nor whether it was to be measured in hundreds or in thousands.Suppose the General was, at that very moment, listening for his rifles, as Wellington listened for the guns of his allies at Waterloo! And here he was, doing nothing—wasting time. . . . Yes, but suppose this dense bush were full of scouts and spies, as it well might be, and probably was, and supposing that the ration and ammunition dump was captured as soon as he had marched off with his main body? A pretty start for his military career—to lose the ammunition and food supply for the whole force within an hour or two of getting it ashore! His name would be better known than admired by the British Expeditionary Force in East Africa. . . . What would Murray have done in such a case? . . . Suppose he “split the difference” and neither left the stores behind him nor stuck in the mud with them? Suppose he moved forward in the direction of the Base Camp, taking everything with him? But that would mean that every soldier in the force would be burdened like a coolie-porter—and, moreover, they’d have to move in single file along the mud path that ran through the impenetrable jungle. Suppose they were attacked? . . .
Bertram came to the conclusion that it may be a very fine thing to have an independent command of one’s own, but that personally he would give a great deal to find himself under the command of somebody else—be he never so arrogant, unsympathetic and harsh. Had Colonel Frost suddenly appeared he would (metaphorically) have cast himself upon that cold, stern man’s hard bosom in transports of relief and joy. . . . He was going to do his very best, of course, and would never shirk nor evade any duty that lay before him—but—he felt a very lonely, anxious, undecided lad, and anxiety was fast becoming nervousness and fear—fear of doing the wrong thing, or of doing the right thing in the wrong way. . . . Should he leave a strong guard over the stores and advance? Should he remain where he was, and protect the stores to the last? Or should he advance with every man and every article the force possessed? . . .
Could the remainder carry all that stuff if he told off a strong advance-guard and rear-guard? And, if so, what could a strong advance-guard or rear-guard do in single file if the column were attacked in front or rear? How could he avoid an ambush on either flank by discovering it in time—in country which rendered the use of flank guards utterly impossible? A man could only make his way through that jungle of thorn, scrub, trees, creepersand undergrowth by the patient and strenuous use of a broad axe and a saw. A strong, determined man might do a mile of it in a day. . . . Probably no human foot had trodden this soil in a thousand years, save along the little narrow path of black beaten mud that wound tortuously through it. Should he send on a party of Gurkhas with a note to the General, asking whether he should leave the stores or attempt to bring them with him? The Gurkhas were splendid jungle-fighters and splendidly willing. . . . But that would weaken his force seriously, in the event of his being attacked. . . . And suppose the party were ambushed, and he stuck there waiting and waiting, for an answer that could never come. . . .
With a heavy sigh, he ran his eye over the scene—the sullen, oily water, the ugly mangrove swamp of muddy, writhing roots and twisted, slimy trunks, the dense, brooding jungle, the grey, dull sky—all so unfriendly and uncomfortable, giving one such a homeless, helpless feeling. The Gurkhas were invisible. The Sherepur Sikhs sat in a tight-packed group around their piled arms and listened to the words of their Subedar, the men of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth squatted in a double row along the front of theadobebuilding, and the Very Mixed Contingent was just a mob near the ration-dump, beside which Ali Suleiman stood on guard over his master’s kit. . . . Suppose there were a sudden attack? But there couldn’t be? An enemy could only approach down that narrow path in single file. The impenetrable jungle was his friend until he moved. Directly he marched off it would be his terrible foe, the host and concealer of a thousand ambushes.
He felt that he had discovered a military maxim on his own account.Impenetrable jungle is the friend of a force in position,and the enemy of a force on the march. . . . Anyhow, the Gurkhas were out in front as a line of sentry groups, and nothing could happen to the force until they had come into action. . . . Should he—
“Sahib!Ek Sahib ata hai. . . .Bahut hubshi log ata hain,” said a voice, and he sprang round, to see the Gurkha Subedar saluting.
Whatwas that? “A sahib is coming. . . .Many African natives are coming!” . . . Then theywereattacked after all! A German officer was leading a force ofaskarisof the ImperialAfrican Rifles against them—those terrible Yaos and Swahilis whom the Germans had disciplined into a splendid army, and whom they permitted to loot and to slaughter after a successful fight. . . .
His mouth went dry and the backs of his knees felt loose and weak. He was conscious of a rush of blood to the heart and a painful, sinking sensation of the stomach. . . . It had come. . . . The hour of his first battle was upon him. . . .
He swallowed hard.
“Achcha,[101a]Subedar Sahib,” he said with seeming nonchalance, “shaitan-log ko maro.Achcha kam karo,”[101b]and turning to the Sherepur Sikhs, the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth and the Very Mixed Contingent bawled: “Fall in!” in a voice that made those worthies perform the order as quickly as ever they had done it in their lives.
“Dushman nahin hai,[101c]Sahib,” said the Gurkha Subedar—as he realised that Bertram had ordered him “to kill the devils”—and explained that the people who approached bore no weapons.
Hurrying forward with the Subedar to a bend in the path beyond the burnt-out native village, Bertram saw a white man clad in khaki shirt, shorts and puttees, with a large, thick “pig-sticker” solar-topi of pith and quilted khaki on his head, and a revolver and hunting-knife in his belt. Behind him followed an apparently endless column of unarmed negroes. Evidently these were friends—but there would be no harm in taking all precautions in case of a ruse.
“Be ready,” he said to the Subedar.
That officer smiled and pointed right and left to where, behind logs, mounds, bushes, and other cover, both natural and hastily prepared, lay his men, rifles cuddled lovingly to shoulder, fingers curled affectionately round triggers, eyes fixed unswervingly upon the approaching column, and faces grimly expectant. So still and so well hidden were they, that Bertram had not noticed the fact of their presence. He wondered whether the Subedar had personally strewn grass, leaves and brushwood over them after they had taken up their positions. He thought of the Babes in the Wood, and visualised the fierce little Gurkha as a novel kind of robin for the work of burying with dead leaves. . . .
He stopped in the path and awaited the arrival of the white man.
“Good morning, Mr. Greene,” said that individual, as he approached. “Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, but I had another job to finish first.”
Bertram stared in amazement at this person who rolled up from the wilds of the Dark Continent with an unarmed party, addressed him by name, and apologised for being late! He was a saturnine and pessimistic-looking individual, wore the South African War ribbons on his breast, and the letters C.C. on his shoulders, and a lieutenant’s stars.
“Good morning,” replied Bertram, shaking hands. “I’m awfully glad to see you. I was wondering whether I ought to push off or stay here. . . .”
“No attractions much here,” said the new-comer. “I should bung off. . . . Straight along this path. Can’t miss the way.”
“Is there much danger of attack?” asked Bertram.
“Insects,” replied the other.
“Why not by Germans?” enquired Bertram.
“River on your left flank,” was the brief answer of the saturnine and pessimistic one.
“Can’t they cross it by bridges?”
“No; owing to the absence of bridges. I’m the only Bridges here,” sighed Mr. Bridges, of the Coolie Corps.
“Why not in boats then?”
“Owing to the absence of boats.”
“Might not the Germans open fire on us from the opposite bank then?” pursued the anxious Bertram, determined not to begin his career in Africa with a “regrettable incident,” due to his own carelessness.
“No; owing to the absence of Germans,” replied Mr. Bridges. “Where’s your stuff? I’ve brought a thousand of my blackbirds, so we’ll shift the lot in one journey. If you like to shove off at once, I’ll see nothing’s left behind. . . .” And then, suddenly realising that there was not the least likelihood of attack nor cause for anxiety, and that all he had to do was to stroll along a path to the camp, where all responsibility for the safety of men and materials would be taken from him, Bertram relaxed, and realised that the heat was appalling and that he felt very faint and ill. His kit had suddenly grown insupportably heavy andunsufferably tight about his chest; his turban gave no shade to his eyes nor protection to his temples and neck, and its weight seemed to increase by pounds per minute. He felt very giddy, blue lights appeared before his eyes, and there was a surging and booming in his ears. He sat down, to avoid falling.
“Hullo! Seedy?” ejaculated Bridges, and turned to a big negro who stood behind him, and appeared to be a person of quality, inasmuch as he wore the ruins of a helmet, a khaki shooting-jacket much too small for him, and a whistle on a string. (“Only that and nothing more.”)
“Here, MacGinty-my-lad,” said Bridges to this gentleman, “m’dafu late hapa,” and with a few whistling clicks and high-pitched squeals, the latter sped another negro up a palm tree. Climbing it like a monkey, the negro tore a huge yellow coco-nut from the bunch that clustered beneath the spreading palm leaves, and flung it down. This, Mr. MacGinty-my-lad retrieved and, with one skilful blow of apanga, a kind ofmacheteor butchers’ axe, decapitated.
“Have a swig at this,” said Bridges, handing the nut to Bertram, who discovered it to contain about a quart of deliciously cool, sweet “milk,” as clear as distilled water.
“Thanks awfully, Bridges,” said he. “I think I had a touch of the sun. . . .”
“Had a touch of breakfast?” enquired the other.
“No,” replied Bertram.
“Hence the milk in the coco-nut,” said Bridges, and added, “If you want to live long and die happy in Africa, youmustdo yourself well. It’s the secret of success. You treat your tummy well—and often—and it’ll do the same for you. . . . If you don’t, well, you’ll be no good to yourself nor anyone else.”
“Thanks,” said the ever-grateful Bertram, and arose feeling much better.
“Fall in, Subedar Sahib,” said he to the Gurkha officer, and the latter quickly assembled his men as a company in line.
The Subedar of the Sherepur Sikhs approached and saluted. “We want to be the advance-guard, Sahib,” he said.
“Certainly,” replied Bertram, and added innocently, “There is no enemy between here and the camp.”
The Sikh flashed a glance of swift suspicion at him. . . . Was this an intentionalriposte? Was the young Sahib more subtlethan he looked? Had he meant “The Sikhs may form the advance-guardbecausethere is no fear of attack,” with the implication that the Gurkhas would again have held the post of honour and danger if there had been any danger?
“I don’t like the look of that bloke,” observed Bridges, as the Sikh turned away, and added: “Well—I’ll handle your stuff now, if you’ll bung off,” and continued his way to the dump, followed by Mr. MacGinty and a seemingly endless file of very tall, very weedy, Kavirondo negroes, of an unpleasant, scaly, greyish-black colour and more unpleasant, indescribable, but fishlike odour. These worthies were variously dressed, some in apangaormachete, some in a tin pot, others in a gourd, a snuff-box, a tea-cup, a saucepan or a jam-jar. Every man, however, without exception, possessed a red blanket, and every man, without exception, wore it, for modesty’s sake, folded small upon his head—where it also served the purpose of a porter’s pad, intervening between his head and the load which it was his life’s work to bear thereupon. . . . When these people conversed, it was in the high, piping voices of little children, and when Bridges, Mr. MacGinty-my-lad, or any lessneapara(head man), made a threatening movement towards one of them, the culprit would forthwith put his hands to his ears, draw up one foot to the other knee, close his eyes, cringe, and emit an incredibly thin, small squeal, a sound infinitely ridiculous in the mouth of a man six feet or more in stature. . . . When the last of these quaint creatures had passed, Bertram strode to where the Sherepur Sikhs had formed up in line, ready to march off at the head of the force. The Subedar gave an order, the ranks opened, the front rank turned about, and the rifles, with bayonet already fixed, came down to the “ready,” and Bertram found himself between the two rows of flickering points.
“Charge magazhinge,” shouted the Subedar, and Bertram found an odd dozen of rifles waving in the direction of his stomach, chest, face, neck and back, as their owners gaily loaded them. . . . Was there going to be an “accident”? . . . Were there covert smiles on any of the fierce bearded faces of the big men? . . . Should he make a dash from between the ranks? . . . No—he would stand his ground and look displeased at this truly “native” method of charging magazines. It seemed a long time before the Subedar gave theorders, “Front rank—about turn. . . . Form fours. . . . Right,” and the company was ready to march off.
“All is ready, Sahib,” said the Subedar, approaching Bertram. “Shall I lead on?”
“Yes, Subedar Sahib,” replied Bertram, “but why do your men face each other and point their rifles at each other’s stomachs when they load them?”
His Hindustani was shockingly faulty, but evidently the Subedar understood.
“They are not afraid of being shot, Sahib,” said he, smiling superiorly.
“Then it is a pity they are not afraid of being called slovenly, clumsy, jungly recruits,” replied Bertram—and before the scowling officer could reply, added: “March on—and halt when I whistle,” in sharp voice and peremptory manner.
Before long the little force was on its way, the Gurkhas coming last—as the trusty rear-guard, Bertram explained—and, after half an hour’s uneventful march through the stinking swamp, reached the Base Camp of the M’paga Field Force—surely one of the ugliest, dreariest and most depressing spots in which ever a British force sat down and acquired assorted diseases.
Halting his column, closing it up, and calling it to attention, Bertram marched past the guard of King’s African Rifles and entered the Camp. This consisted of a huge square, enclosed by low earthen walls and shallow trenches, in which were the “lines” of the Indian and African infantry, composing the inadequate little force which was invading German East Africa, rather with the idea of protecting British East than achieving conquest. The “lines” of the Sepoys andaskarisconsisted of rows of tiny low tents, while along the High Street of the Camp stood hospital tents, officers’ messes, the General’s tent, and that of his Brigade Major, and various other tents connected with the mysteries of the field telegraph and telephone, the Army Service Corps’ supply and transport, and various offices of Brigade andRegimental Headquarters. As he passed the General’s tent (indicated by a flagstaff and Union Jack), a tall lean officer, with a white-moustached, keen-eyed face, emerged and held up his hand. Seeing the crossed swords of a General on his shoulder-straps, Bertram endeavoured to rise to the occasion, roared: “Eyes right,” “Eyes front,” and then “Halt,” saluted and stepped forward.
The General shook hands with him, and said: “Glad to see you. Hope you’re ready for plenty of hard work, for there’s plenty for you. . . Glad to see your men looking so businesslike and marching so smartly. . . . All right—carry on. . . .”
Bertram would gladly have died for that General on the spot, and it was positively with a lump (of gratitude, so to speak) in his throat that he gave the order “Quick march,” and proceeded, watched by hundreds of native soldiers, who crawled out of their low tents or rose up from where they lay or squatted to clean accoutrements, gossip, eat, or contemplate Infinity.
Arrived at the opposite entrance of the Camp, Bertram felt foolish, but concealed the fact by pretending that he had chosen this as a suitable halting place, bawled: “Halt,” “Into line—left turn,” “Stand at ease,” “Stand easy,” and determined to wait events. He had carried out his orders and brought the troops to the Camp as per instructions. Somebody else could come and take them if they wanted them. . . .
As he stood, trying to look unconcerned, a small knot of British officers strolled up, headed by a tall and important-looking person arrayed in helmet, open shirt, shorts, grey stockings and khaki canvas shoes.
“Greene?” said he.
“Yes, sir,” said Bertram, saluting.
“Brigade Major,” continued the officer, apparently introducing himself. “March the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth on and report to Colonel Rock. The Hundred and Ninety-Eighth are outside the perimeter,” and he pointed to where, a quarter of a mile away, were some grass huts and rows of tiny tents. “The remainder will be taken over by their units here, and your responsibility for them ceases.”
Bertram, very thankful to be rid of them, marched on with the Hundred, and halted them in front of the low tents, from which, with whoops of joy, poured forth the warriors of the Hundredand Ninety-Eighth in search of anybhai, pal, townee, bucky, or aunt’s cousin’s husband’s sister’s son—(who, as such, would have a strong claim upon his good offices)—in the ranks of this thrice-welcome reinforcement.
Leaving the Hundred in charge of Jemadar Hassan Ali to await orders, Bertram strode to a large grassbanda, or hut, consisting of three walls and a roof, through the open end of which he could see a group of British officers sitting on boxes and stools, about a long and most uneven, undulating table of box-sides nailed on sticks and supported by four upright logs.
At the head of this table, on which were maps and papers, sat a small thick-set man, who looked the personification of vigour, force and restless activity. Seeing that this officer wore a crown and star on his shoulder-strap, Bertram went up to him, saluted, and said:
“Second-Lieutenant Greene, I.A.R., sir. I have brought a hundred men from the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth, and nine cooking-pots—which Colonel Frost wishes to have returned at once. . . .”
“The men or the cooking-pots, or both?” enquired Colonel Rock, whose habit of sarcastic and savage banter made him feared by all who came in contact with him, and served to conceal a very kindly and sympathetic nature.
“The cooking-pots, sir,” replied Bertram, blushing as the other officers eyed him critically and with half-smiles at the Colonel’s humour. Bertram felt, a little cynically, that such wit from an officer of their own rank would not have seemed so pleasingly humorous to some of these gentlemen, and that, moreover, he had again discovered a Military Maxim on his own account.The value and humorousness of any witty remark made by any person in military uniform is in inverse ratio to the rank and seniority of the individual to whom it is made. In other words, a Colonel must smile at a General’s joke, a Major must grin broadly, a Captain laugh appreciatively, a Subaltern giggle right heartily, a Warrant Officer or N.C.O. explode into roars of laughter, and a private soldier roll helpless upon the ground in spasms and convulsions of helpless mirth.
Hearing a distinct snigger from the end of the table, Bertram glanced in that direction, said to himself, “You’re a second-lieutenant, by your appreciative giggle,” and encountered thesneering stare of a vacant-faced youth whom he heartily disliked on sight.
“Wants the cooking-pots back, but not the men, eh?” observed the Colonel, and, turning to the officer who sat at his left hand, a tall, handsome man with a well-bred, pleasant, dark face, who was Adjutant of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth, added:
“Better go and see if there’s good reason for his not wanting them back, Hall. . . . Colonel Frost’s a good man at selling a horse—perhaps he’s sold us a pup. . . .”
More giggles from the vacant faced youth as Captain Hall arose and went out of the shed of grass and sticks, thatched on a framework of posts, which was the Officers’ Mess of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth Regiment.
Feeling shy and nervous, albeit most thankful to be among senior officers who would henceforth relieve him of the lonely responsibility he had found so trying and burdensome, Bertram seized the opportunity of the Adjutant’s departure to escape, and followed that officer to where the Hundred awaited the order to dismiss.
“Brought a tent?” asked Captain Hall, as they went along.
“No,” replied Bertram. “Ought I to have done so?”
“If you value your comfort on these picnics,” was the answer. “You’ll find it a bit damp o’ nights when it rains, in one of these grass huts. . . . You can pig in with me to-night, and we’ll set a party of Kavirondo to build you abandato-morrow if you’re staying on here.”
“Thanks awfully,” acknowledged Bertram. “Am I likely to go on somewhere else, though?”
“I did hear something about your taking a provision convoy up to Butindi the day after to-morrow,” was the reply. “One of our Majors is up there with a mixed force of Ours and the Arab Company, with some odds and ends of King’s African Rifles and things. . . . Pity you haven’t a tent.”
After looking over the Hundred and committing them to the charge of the Subedar-Major of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, Captain Hall invited Bertram “to make himself at home” in his hut, and led the way to where a row of green tents and grass huts stood near the Officers’ Mess. On a Roorkee chair, at the door of one of these, sat none other than the Lieutenant Stanner whom Bertram had last seen on the deck ofElymas. Withhim was another subaltern, one of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth.
“Hullo, Greene-bird!” cried Stanner. “Welcome home. Allow me to present you to my friend Best. . . . He is Very Best to-day, because he has got a bottle of whisky in his bed. He’ll only be Second Best to-morrow, because he won’t have any by then. . . . Not if he’s a gentleman, that is,” he added, eyeing Best anxiously.
That officer grinned, arose, and entering the hut, produced the whisky, a box of “sparklets,” a kind of siphon, and a jug of dirty water.
“You already know Hall?” continued Stanner, the loquacious. “I was at school with his father. He’s a good lad. Address him as Baronial Hall when you want something, Music Hall when you’re feeling girlish, Town Hall when he’s coming the pompous Adjutant over you, and Mission Hall when you’re tired of him.”
“Don’t associate with him, Greene. Come away,” said Captain Hall. “He’ll teach you to play shove-ha’penny, to smoke, and to use bad language,” but as Best handed him a whisky-and-dirty-water, feebly aerated by a sparklet, he tipped Stanner from his chair, seated himself in it, murmured, “When sinners entice thee, consent thou some,” and drank.
“Why are you dressed like that? Is it your birthday, or aren’t you very well?” enquired Stanner suddenly, eyeing Bertram’s lethal weapons and Sepoy’s turban. Bertram blushed, pleaded that he had nowhere to “undress,” and had only just arrived. Whereupon the Adjutant, remarking that he must be weary, arose and took him to his hut.
“Get out of everything but your shirt and shorts, my son,” said he, “and chuck that sillypuggriaway before you get sunstroke. All very well if you’re going into a scrap, but it’s as safe as Piccadilly round here.” Bertram, as he sank into the Adjutant’s chair, suddenly realised that he was more tired than ever he had been in his life before.
“WhereBwanasleeping to-night, sah, thank you, please?” boomed a familiar voice, and before the tent stood the faithful Ali, bowing and saluting—behind him three tall Kavirondo carrying Bertram’s kit. Ali had commandeered these men from Bridges’ party, and had hurried them off far in advance of the porters who were bringing in the general kit, rations, andammunition. By means best known to himself he had galvanised the “low niggers” into agility and activity that surprised none more than themselves.
“Oh—it’s my servant,” said Bertram to the Adjutant. “May he put my bed in here, then?”
“That’s the idea,” replied Captain Hall, and, in a few minutes, Bertram’s camp-bed was erected and furnished with bedding and mosquito net, his washhand-stand was set up, and his canvas bucket filled with water. Not until everything possible had been done for his master’s comfort did Ali disappear to that mysterious spot whereunto native servants repair beyond the ken of the master-folk, when in need of food, leisure and relaxation.
Having washed, eaten and slept, Bertram declared himself “a better and wiser man,” and asked Hall if he might explore the Camp, its wonders to admire. “Oh, yes,” said Hall, “but don’t go into the gambling dens, boozing-kens, dancing-saloons and faro tents, to squander your money, time and health.”
“Arethere any?” asked Bertram, in wide-eyed astonishment.
“No,” replied Hall.
Bertram wished people would not be so fond of exercising their humour at his expense. He wondered why it was that he was always something of a butt. It could not be that he was an absolute fool, or he would not have been a Scholar of Balliol. He sighed.Couldone be a Scholar of Balliol and a fool? . . .
“You might look in on the General, though,” continued Hall, “and be chatty. . . . It’s a very lonely life, y’know, a General’s. I’m always sorry for the poor old beggars. Yes—he’d be awfully glad to see you. . . . Ask you to call him Willie before you’d been there a couple of hours, I expect.”
“D’you mean I ought to call on the General formally?” asked Bertram, who knew that Hall was “ragging” again, as soon as he introduced the “Willie” touch.
“Oh, don’t be too formal,” was the reply. “Be matey and cosy with him. . . . I don’t suppose he’s had a really heart-to-heart chat with a subaltern about the things thatreallymatter—the Empire (the Leicester Square one, I mean); Ciro’s; the girls; George Robey, George Graves, Mr. Bottomley, Mrs. Pankhurst and the other great comedians—since I dunno-when. He’dloveto buck about what’s doing in town, withyou, y’know. . . .”
Bertram sighed again. It was no good.Everybodypulled hisleg and seemed to sum him up in two minutes as the sort of green ass who’d believe anything he was told, and do anything that was suggested.
“I say, Hall,” he said suddenly, “I’m a civilian, y’know, and a bit of a fool, too, no doubt. I am absolutely ignorant of all military matters, particularly those of etiquette. I am going to ask you things, since you are Adjutant of the corps I’m with. If you score off me, I think it’ll be rather a cheap triumph and an inglorious victory, don’t you? . . . I’m not a bumptious and conceited ass, mind—only an ignorant one, who fully admits it, and asks for help. . . .”
As the poet says, it is a long lane that has no public-house, and a long worm that has no turning.
Hall stared.
“Well said, Greene,” quoth he, and never jested at Bertram’s expense again.
“Seriously—should I leave a card on the General?” continued Bertram.
“You should not,” was the reply. “Avoid Generals as you would your creditors. They’re dangerous animals in peace-time. On manœuvres they’re ferocious. On active service they’re rapid. . . .”
“Any harm in my strolling round the Camp?” pursued Bertram. “I’m awfully interested, and might get some ideas of the useful kind.”
“None whatever,” said Hall. “No reason why you shouldn’t prowl around like the hosts of Midian till dinner-time. There’s nothing doing in the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth till four a.m. to-morrow, and you’re not in that, either.”
“What is it?” asked Bertram.
“Oh, a double-company of Ours is going out to mop up a little post the Germans have established across the river. We’re going to learn ’em not to do such,” said Hall.
“D’you think I might go?” asked Bertram, wondering, even as he spoke, whether it was his voice that was suggesting so foolish a thing as that Bertram Greene should arise at three-thirty in the morning to go, wantonly and without reason, where bullets were flying, bayonets were stabbing, and death and disablement were abroad.
“Dunno,” yawned Hall. “Better ask the Colonel. What’sthe matter with bed at four ack emma? That’s where I’d be if I weren’t in orders for this silly show.”
As Bertram left the tent on his tour of exploration he decided that he would ask the Colonel if he might go with the expedition, and then he decided that he would do nothing so utterly foolish. . . . No, of course he wouldn’t. . . .
Yes, he would. . . .
Rightly or wrongly, Bertram gathered the impression, as he strolled about the Camp, that this was not a confident and high-spirited army, drunk with the heady fumes of a debauch of victory. The demeanour of the Indian Sepoys led him to the conclusion, just or unjust, that they had “got their tails down.” They appeared weary, apprehensive, even despondent, when not merely apathetic, and seemed to him to be distinctly what they themselves would callmugra—pessimistic and depressed.
The place alone was sufficient to depress anybody, he freely admitted, as he gazed around at the dreary grey environs of this little Britishpied-à-terre—grey thorn bush; grey grass; grey baobab trees (like hideous grey carrots with whiskerish roots, pulled up from the ground and stood on end); grey shell-strewn mud; grey bushwood; grey mangroves; grey sky. Yes, an inimical minatory landscape; a brooding, unwholesome, sinister landscape; the home of fever, dysentery, disease and sudden death. And over all hung a horrible sickening stench of decay, an evil smell that seemed to settle at the pit of the stomach as a heavy weight.
No wonder if Indians from the hills, deserts, plains and towns of the Deccan, the Punjab, Rajputana, and Nepal, found this terrible place of most terrific heat, foul odour, bad water and worse mud, enervating and depressing. . . . Poor beggars—it wasn’ttheirwar either. . . . The faces of the negroes of the King’s African Rifles were inscrutable, and, being entirely ignorant of their ways, manners, and customs, he could not tell whether they were exhibiting signs of discouragement and depression, orwhether their bearing and demeanour were entirely normal. Certainly they seemed a stolid and reserved folk, with a kind of dignity and self-respecting aloofness that he had somehow not expected. In their tall tarbooshes, jerseys, shorts and puttees, they looked most workman-like and competent soldiers. . . . Certainly they did not tally with his preconceived idea of them as a merry, care-free, irresponsible folk who grinned all over their faces for sheer light-heartedness, and spent their leisure time in twanging the banjo, clacking the bones, singing rag-time songs and doing the cake-walk. On duty, they stood like ebon statues and opened not their mouths. Off duty they squatted like ebon statuettes and shut them. Perhaps they did not know that England expects every nigger to do his duty as a sort of born music-hall, musical minstrel—or perhaps theyweredepressed, like the Sepoys, and had laid aside their banjoes, bones, coon-songs and double-shuffle-flap-dancing boots until brighter days? . . . Anyhow, decided Bertram, he would much rather be with these stalwarts than against them, when they charged with their triangular bayonets on their Martini rifles; and if the Germanaskariswere of similar type, he cared not how long his first personal encounter with them might be postponed. . . . Nor did the Englishmen of the Army Service Corps, the Royal Engineers, the Signallers and other details, strike him as light-hearted and bubbling with thejoie de vivre. Frankly they looked ill, and they looked anxious. . . .
Strolling past the brushwood-and-grass hut which was the R.A.M.C. Officers’ Mess, he heard the remark:
“They’ve only got to leave us here in peace a little while for us all to die natural deaths of malaria or dysentery. The wily Hun knowsthatall right. . . . No fear—we shan’t be attacked here. No such luck.”
“Not unless we make ourselves too much of a nuisance to him,” said another voice. “’Course, if we go barging about and capturing his trading posts and ‘factories,’ and raiding hisshambas, he’ll come down on us all right. . . .”
“I dunno what we’re doing here at all,” put in a third speaker. “You can’t invade a bloomingcontinentlike German East with a weak brigade of sick Sepoys. . . . Sort of bloomin’ Jameson’s Raid. . . . Why—they could come down the railway from Tabora or Kilimanjaro way with enough European troops aloneto eat us alive. What are we here, irritating ’em at all for,Iwant to know? . . .”
“Why, to maintain Britain’s glorious traditions—of sending far too weak a force in the first place,” put in the first speaker. “They’ll send an adequate army later on, all right, and do the job in style. We’ve got to demonstrate the necessity for the adequate army first, though. . . .”
“Sort of bait, like,” said another, and yawned. “Well, we’ve all fished, I expect. . . . Know how the worm feels now. . . .”
“I’ve only fished with flies,” observed a languid and euphuistic voice.
“Whatan honour for the ’appy fly!” replied the worm-fisherman, and there was a guffaw of laughter.
Bertram realised that he was loitering to the point of eavesdropping, and strolled on, pondering many things in his heart. . . .
In one corner of the great square of mud which was the Camp, Bertram came upon a battery consisting of four tiny guns. Grouped about them stood their Sepoy gunners, evidently at drill of some kind, for, at a sudden word from a British officer standing near, they leapt upon them, laboured frantically for five seconds, stood clear again, and, behold, each gun lay dismembered and prone upon the ground—the wheels off, the trail detached, the barrel of the gun itself in two parts, so that the breech half was separate from the muzzle half. At another word from the officer the statuesque Sepoys again sprang to life, seized each man a piece of the dismembered gun, lifted it above his head, raised it up and down, replaced it on the ground and once more stood at attention. Another order, and, in five seconds, the guns were reassembled and ready to fire.
“A mountain-battery of screw guns, so called because they screw and unscrew in the middle of the barrel,” said Bertram to himself, and concluded that the drill he had just witnessed was that required for putting the dissected guns on the backs of mules for mountain transport, and rebuilding them for use. Certainly they were wonderfully nippy, these Sepoys, and seemed, perhaps, rather more cheery than the others. One old gentleman who had a chestful of medal-ribbons raised and lowered a gun-wheel above his head as though it had been of cardboard, in spite of his long grey beard and pensioner-like appearance.
Bertram envied the subaltern in command of this battery. Howsplendid it must be to know exactly what to do and to be able to do it; to be conscious that you are adequate and competent, equal to any demand that can be made upon you. Probably this youth was enjoying this campaign in the mud and stench and heat as much as he had ever enjoyed a picnic or tramping or boating holiday in England. . . . Lucky dog. . . .
At about seven o’clock that evening, Bertram “dined” in the Officers’ Mess of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth. The rickety hut, through the walls of which the fires of the Camp could be seen, and through the roof of which the great stars were visible, was lighted, or left in darkness, by a hurricane-lamp which dangled from the ridge-pole. The officers of the corps sat on boxes, cane-stools, shooting-seats, or patent “weight-less” contrivances of aluminium and canvas. The vacant-faced youth, whose name was Grayne, had a bicycle-saddle which could be raised and lowered on a metal rod. He was very proud of it and fell over backwards twice during dinner. Bertram would have had nothing whatever to sit on had not the excellent and foresighted Ali discovered the fact in time to nail the two sides of a box in the shape of the letter T by means of a stone and the nails still adhering to the derelict wood. On this Bertram balanced himself with less danger and discomfort than might have been expected, the while he viewed with mixed feelings Ali’s apologies and promise that he would steal a really nice stool or chair by the morrow.
On the mosaic of box-sides that formed the undulating, uneven, and fissured table-top, the Mess servant places tin plates containing a thin and nasty soup, tasting, Bertram thought, of cooking-pot, dish-cloth, wood-smoke, tin plate and the thumb of the gentleman who had borne it from the cook-house, or rather the cook-hole-in-the-ground, to the Mess hut. The flourish with which Ali placed it before his “beloved ole marstah” as he ejaculated “Soop, sah, thick an’ clear thank-you please” went some way to make it interesting, but failed to make it palatable.
Although sick and faint for want of food, Bertram was not hungry or in a condition to appreciate disgraceful cooking disgustingly served.
As he sat awaiting the next course, after rejecting the thick-an’-clear “soup,” Bertram took stock of the gentlemen whom, in his heart, he proudly, if shyly, called his brother-officers.
At the head of the table sat the Colonel, looking gloomy and distrait. Bertram wondered if he were thinking of the friends and comrades-in-arms he had left in the vile jungle round Tanga—his second-in-command and half a dozen more of his officers—and a third of his men. Was he thinking of his School—and Sandhurst—and life-long friend and trusted colleague, Major Brett-Boyce, slain by the Germanaskarisas he lay wounded, propped against a tree by the brave and faithful dresser of the subordinate medical service, who was murdered with him in the very midst of his noble work, by those savage and brutal disciples of a more savage and brutalkultur?
Behind him stood his servant, a tall Mussulman in fairly clean white garments, and a big white turban round which was fastened a broad ribbon of the regimental colours adorned with the regimental crest in silver.
“Tell the cook that he and I will have a quiet chat in the morning, if he’ll be good enough to come to my tent after breakfast—and then the provost-marshal shall show him a new game, perhaps,” said the Colonel to this man as he finished his soup.
With the ghost of a smile the servant bowed, removed the Colonel’s plate and departed to gloat over the cook, who, as a Goanese, despised “natives” heartily and without concealment, albeit himself as black as a negro.
Returning, the Colonel’s servant bore a huge metal dish on which reposed a mound of most repulsive-looking meat in lumps, rags, shreds, strings, tendrils and fibres, surrounded by a brownish clear water. This was a seven-pound tin of bully-beef heated and turned out in all its native ugliness, naked and unadorned, on to the dish. Like everyone else, Bertram took a portion on his plate, and, like everyone else, left it on his plate, and, like everyone else, left it after tasting a morsel—or attempting to taste, for bully-beef under such conditions has no taste whatever. To chew it is merely as though one dipped a ball of rag and string into dirty water, warmed it, put it in one’s mouth, and attempted to masticate it. To swallow it is moreover to attain the same results—nutrient, metabolic and sensational—as would follow upon the swallowing of the said ball of rags and string.
The morsel of bully-beef that Bertram put in his mouth abode with him. Though of the West it was like the unchanging East,for it changed not. He chewed and chewed, rested from his labours, and chewed again, in an honest and earnest endeavour to take nourishment and work out his own insalivation, but was at last forced to acknowledge himself defeated by the stout and tough resistance of the indomitable lump. It did not know when it was beaten and it did not know when it was eaten; nor, had he been able to swallow it, would the “juices” of his interior have succeeded where those of his mouth, aided by his excellent teeth, had failed. In course of time it became a problem—another of those small but numerous and worrying problems that were fast bringing wrinkles to his forehead, hollows to his cheeks, a look of care and anxiety to his eyes, and nightmares to his sleep. He could not reduce it, he could not swallow it, he could not publicly reject it. Whatcouldhe do? . . . A bright idea. . . . Tactics. . . . He dropped his handkerchief—and when he arose from stooping to retrieve it, he was a free man again. A few minutes later a lump of bully-beef undiminished, unaffected and unfrayed, travelled across the mud floor of the hut in the mandibles of an army of big black ants, to provide them also with a disappointment and a problem, and, perchance, with a bombproof shelter for their young in a subterranean dug-out of the ant-hill. . . .
Bertram again looked around at his fellow-officers. Not one of them appeared to have reduced the evil-looking mass of fibrous tissue and gristle that lay upon his plate—nor, indeed, did Bertram, throughout the campaign, ever see anyone actually eat and swallow the disgusting and repulsive muck served out to the officers and European units of the Expeditionary Force—hungry as they often were.
To his foolish civilian mind it seemed that if the money which this foul filth cost (for even bully-beef costs money—ask the contractors) had been spent on a half or a quarter or a tithe of the quantity ofediblemeat—such as tinned ox-tongue—sick and weary soldiers labouring and suffering for their country in a terrible climate, might have had a sufficiency of food which they could have eaten with pleasure and digested with benefit, without costing their grateful country a penny more. . . . Which is an absurd and ridiculous notion expressed in a long and involved sentence. . . .
Next, to the Colonel, eyeing his plate of bully-beef through hismonocle and with patent disgust, sat Major Manton, a tall, aristocratic person who looked extraordinarily smart and dapper. Hair, moustache, finger-nails and hands showed signs of obvious care, and he wore tunic, tie and, in fact, complete uniform, in an assembly wherein open shirts, bare arms, white tennis shoes, slacks, shorts, and even flannel trousers were not unknown. Evidently the Major put correctness before comfort—or, perhaps, found his chief comfort in being correct. He spoke to no one, but replied suavely when addressed. He looked to Bertram like a man who loathed a rough and rude environment having the honour or pleasure or satisfaction of knowing that he noticed its existence, much less that he troubled to loathe it. Bertram imagined that in the rough and tumble of hand-to-hand fighting, the Major’s weapon would be the revolver, his aim quick and clean, his demeanour unhurried and unflurried, the expression of his face cold and unemotional.
Beside him sat a Captain Tollward in strong contrast, a great burly man with the physiognomy and bull-neck of a prize-fighter, the hands and arms of a navvy, and the figure of a brewer’s dray-man. Frankly, he looked rather a brute, and Bertram pictured him in a fight—using a fixed bayonet or clubbed rifle with tremendous vigour and effect. He would be purple of face and wild of eye, would grunt like a bull with every blow, roar to his men like a charging lion, and swear like a bargee between whiles. . . . “Thank God for all England’s Captain Tollwards this day,” thought Bertram as he watched the powerful-looking man, and thought of the gladiators of ancient Rome.
Stanner was keeping him in roars of Homeric laughter with his jests and stories, no word of any one of which brought the shadow of a smile to the expressionless strong face of Major Manton, who could hear every one of the jokes that convulsed Tollward and threatened him with apoplexy. Next to Stanner sat Hall, who gave Bertram, his left-hand neighbour, such information and advice as he could, anent his taking of the convoy to Butindi, should such be his fate.
“You’ll see some fighting up there, if you ever get there,” said he. “They’re always having little ‘affairs of out-posts’ and patrol scraps. You may be cut up on the way, of course. . . . If the Germans lay for you they’re bound to get you, s’ far as I can see. . . . Howcanyou defend a convoy of a thousand portersgoing in single file through impenetrable jungle along a narrow path that it’s practically impossible to leave? . . . You can have an advance-guard and a rear-guard, of course, and much good may they do you when yoursafaricovers anything from a couple of miles to three or four. . . . What are you going to do if it’s attacked in the middle, a mile or so away from where you are yourself? . . . What are you going to do if they ambush your advance-guard and mop the lot up, as they perfectly easily could do, at any point on the track, if they know you’re coming—as of course they will do, as soon as we know it ourselves. . . .”
“You fill me with despondency and alarm,” said Bertram, with a lightness that he was far from feeling, and a sinking sensation that was not wholly due to emptiness of stomach.
Suddenly he was aware that a new stench was contending with the familiar one of decaying vegetation, rotting shell-fish, and the slime that was neither land nor water, but seemed a foul grease formed by the decomposition of leaves, grasses, trees, fish, molluscs and animals in an inky, oily fluid that the tides but churned up for the freer exhalation of poisonous miasma, and had not washed away since the rest of the world arose out of chaos and darkness, that man might breathe and thrive. . . . The new smell was akin to the old one but more penetrating, more subtly vile, morevulgar, than that ancient essence of decay and death and dissolution, and—awaking from a brown study in which he saw visions of himself writhing beneath the bayonets of a dozen gigantic savages, as he fell at the head of his convoy—he perceived that the new and conquering odour proceeded from the cheese. On a piece of tin, that had been the lid of a box, it lay and defied competition, while, with the unfaltering step of a strong man doing right, because it is his duty, Ali Suleiman bore it frombwanatobwanawith the booming murmur: “Cheese, please God, sah, thank you.” To the observant and thoughtful Bertram its reception by each member of the Mess was interesting and instructive, as indicative of his character, breeding, and personality.
The Colonel eyed it with a cold smile.
“Yes. Please God itisonly cheese,” he remarked, “but take it away—quick.”
Major Manton glanced at it and heaved a very gentle sigh. “No, thank you, Boy,” he said.
Captain Tollward sniffed hard, turned to Stanner, and roared with laughter.
“What ho, the High Explosive!” he shouted, and “What ho, the Forty Rod Gorgonzola—so called because it put the battery-mules out of action at that distance. . . . Who unchained it, I say? Boy, where’s its muzzle?” and he cut himself a generous slice.
Stanner buried his nose in his handkerchief and waved Ali away as he thrust the nutritious if over-prevalent delicacy upon his notice.
“Take it to BascombeBwanaand ask him to fire it from his guns,” said he. “Serve the Germans right for using poison-gas and liquid fire. . . . Teach ’em a lesson, what, Tollward?”
“Don’t be dev’lish-minded,” replied that officer when laughter permitted him to speak. “You’re as bad as the bally Huns yourself to suggest such an atrocity. . . .”
“Seems kinder radio-active,” said Hall, eyeing it with curiosity. “Menacing . . .” and he also drove it from him.
Bertram, as one who, being at war, faces the horrors of war as they come, took a piece of the cheese and found that its bite, though it skinned the roof of his mouth, was not as bad as its bark. Grayne affected to faint when the cheese reached him, and the others did according to their kind.
Following in the tracks of Ali came another servant, bearing a wooden box, which he tendered to each diner, but as one who goeth through an empty ritual, and without hope that his offering will be accepted. In the box Bertram saw large thick biscuits exceedingly reminiscent of the dog-biscuit of commerce, but paler in hue and less attractive of appearance. He took one, and the well-trained servant only dropped the box in his surprise.