“Of course!” was the somewhat indignant reply. “I’m surprised atyou, Greene. You wouldn’t put him to the edge of the sword without a trial, would you?”
“No, Greene,” added Vereker. “Not goin’ to waste a goodshenzilike that. We’re goin’ to have a jolly good Court-Martial out of him before we do him in. . . . And I shall hang him, Clarence—rope or no rope.”
“May I swing on his feet, Vereker?” begged Augustus. “Dolet me! . . . Be a sport. . . .”
“Everything will be done properly and nicely,” was the reply, “and in the best style. There will be no swinging on theprisoner’s legs whileI’m M.C. . . . Not unless the prisoner himself suggests it,” he added.
“How’ll we tell him of his many blessin’s, and so on?” enquired Berners.
“There’s an Arab blighter of Lindsay’s who professes to know a tongue spoken by a porter who knows Wadego. The bloke talks to the porter in Wadego, the porter talks to the Arab in the Tongue, the Arab talks to Wavell in Arabic, and Wavell talks to us in any language we like—French, German, Swahili, Hindustani, Latin, Greek, American, Turkish, Portuguese, Taal or even English. He knows all those. . . .”
“Let’s ask him to talk them all at once, while we smoke and quaff beakers of rum,” suggested Augustus. “And Isay—couldn’t we torture the prisoner? I know lots of ripping tortures.”
“Well, I’m not going to have him ripped,” vetoed Vereker. “You gotter hand him over to the Provost-Marshal in good condition. . . Fair wear and tear of trial and incarceration allowed for, of course. . . . Bound to besomedepreciation, I know.”
“What’s ‘to incarcerate’ mean, exactly?” enquired Augustus.
“Same as ‘incinerate.’”
“Can we do it to him by law?” asked Augustus.
“You read the Orders, my lad,” replied Vereker. “On the notice-board in the Orderly Room. That post’s the Orderly Room. Written and signed by the Station Staff Officer. And look up Field and General Court-Martials in the King’s Regulations and you’ll know what your Powers are.”
“I say, Berners. Let me find you the least contrary of those turned sausages, and have it nicely fried for you,” begged Augustus. “You’d hardly taste anything awkward about it if you had some lemon-peel done with it. Plenty of lemon-peel and some coco-nut. I’ll find the peel I threw away this morning. . . .Do.”
“This is very kind and thoughtful of you, Gussie. What’s the idea?” replied Berners.
“I want to propitiate you, Berners. You’ll be President of the Court-Martial.”
“And?”
“I want you to promise you won’t have the prisoner found Guilty unless Vereker promises to let me swing on his feet. . . . I’veneveronce had the chance. . . . And now my chance hascome. . . . And Vereker feels thwartful. . . . It’s due to his having a boil—and no cushion with him. . . . Be a good soul, Berners. . . ”
“Let’s see the sausages,” said the President-elect.
“That’s done it,” admitted Augustus, and dropped the subject with a heavy sigh.
Bertram noticed that, in spite of his flow of cheery nonsense, Augustus ate nothing at all and looked very ill indeed. He remembered a sentence he had read in a book on board theElymas:
“Comedy lies lightly upon all things, like foam upon the dark waters. Beneath are tragedy and the tears of time.”
After breakfast Bertram attended Court, which was a table under a tree, and took his seat on the Bench, an inverted pail, as a Ruler and a Judge, for the first and last time in his life. He felt that it was a strange and terrible thing that he should thus be suddenly called upon to try a man for his life.
Suppose that his two fellow-judges, Berners and Clarence, disagreed as to the death-sentence, and he had to give his verdict, knowing that a man’s life depended on it! . . .
A couple ofaskarisof the King’s African Rifles, police-orderlies of “Leesey” Lindsay’s, brought in the prisoner. He was a powerful and decidedly evil-looking negro, clad in a striped petticoat. He had more of the appearance of furtive intelligence than is usual withshenzisof his tribe. Bertram decided that he carried his guilt in his face and had trickster and traitor written all over it. He then rebuked himself for pre-judging the case and entertaining prejudice against an untried, and possibly innocent, man.
“Guilty,” said Augustus Gus. “Who’s coming for a walk?”
“I’m President of this Court,” replied Berners. “Who asked you to open your head? If I’m not sure as to his guilt, I may consult you later. Or I may not.”
“Look here, Berners—let’s do the thing properly,” was the reply. “There’s a Maxim—or is it a Hotchkiss—of English Lawwhich says that a man is to be considered Guilty until he is proved to be Innocent. Therefore we start fair. He is Guilty, I say. Now we’ve got to prove him Innocent. Do be a sport, and give the poor blighter a show.”
“I b’lieve it’s the other way about,” said Berners.
“Oh, indeed!” commented Augustus. “You’d say the feller’s innocent and then start in to prove him guilty, would you? . . . Dirty trick, I call it. Filthy habit.”
Wavell appeared at the entrance to his tent, holding a green, silk-covered book in his hand. The cover was richly embroidered and had a flap, like that of an envelope, provided with strings for tying it down. It was a copy of the Koran, and on it all witnesses were sworn, repeating an oath administered by Wavell in Arabic. . . .
“Ready?” asked he of the President, and proceeded with great patience, skill and knowledge of languages and dialects, to interpret the statements of Wadegos, Swahilis, Arabs, and assorted Africans. Occasionally it was beyond his power, or that of any human being, to convey the meaning of some simple question to a savage mind, and to get a rational answer.
For the prosecution, Lindsay, who was down with dysentery, had produced fellow-villagers of the accused, from each of whom Wavell obtained the same story.
Prisoner was enamoured of a daughter of the headman of the village, and, because his suit was dismissed by this gentleman, he had led a German raiding-party to the place, and, moreover, had shown them where hidden treasures werecached, and where fowls, goats, and cattle had been penned in the jungle, and where grain was stored. Also, he had “smelt out” enemies of theGermanisamong his former neighbours, wicked men who, he said, had led English raiding-parties into the country of theGermanis, and had otherwise injured them. These enemies of theGermaniswere all, as it happened, enemies of his own. . . . When this raiding-party ofaskaris, led by half a dozenGermanis, had burnt the village, killed all the villagers who had not escaped in time, and carried off all they wanted in the way of livestock, women, grain and gear, they had rewarded accused with a share of the loot. . . .
“Do they all tell the same tale in the same way, as though they had concocted it and learnt it by heart?” asked Bertram.
“No,” replied Wavell. “I didn’t get that impression.”
“Let’s question them one by one,” said Berners.
A very, very old man, a sort of “witch-doctor” or priest, by his ornaments, entered the witness-box—otherwise arose from the group of witnesses and stood before the Court—to leeward by request.
“Hullo, Granpa! How’s things?” said Augustus.
The ancient ruin mumbled something in Swahili, and peered with horny eyes beneath rheumy, shrivelled lids at the Court, as he stood trembling, his palsied head ashake.
“Don’t waggle your head atme, Rudolph,” said Augustus severely, as the old man fixed him with a wild and glassy eye. “I’m not going to uphold you. . . . Pooh!Whatan odour of sanctity! You’re ahighpriest, y’know,” and murmured as he sought his handkerchief, “Poignant! . . . Searching. . . .”
The old man repeated his former mumble.
“He says he did not mean to steal the tobacco,” interpreted Wavell.
“Sort of accident that might happen to anybody, what?” observed Augustus. “Ask him if he knows the prisoner.”
The question was put to him in his own tongue, and unfalteringly he replied that he had not meant to steal the tobacco—had notreallystolen it, in fact.
Patiently Wavell asked, and patiently he was answered. “Do you know the prisoner?”
“I never steal.”
“Do you know this man?”
“Tobacco I would never steal.”
“What is this man’s name?”
“Tobacco.”
“Have you ever seen that man before?”
“What man?”
“This one.”
“Yes. He is the prisoner.”
“When have you seen him before?”
“Last night.”
“When, before that?”
“He ate rice with us last night. He is the prisoner.”
“Do you know him well?”
“Yes, I know he is the prisoner.Hestole the tobacco.”
“Have you known him long?”
“No. He is only a young man. He steals tobacco.”
“Does he come from your village?”
“Yes.”
“Have you known him all his life?”
“No, because he went and spent some time in theGermanis’country. I think he went to steal tobacco.”
“Did he come back alone from theGermanis’country?”
“No. He broughtaskarisandmuzangos.[183a]They killed my people and burnt my village.”
“You are sure it was this man who brought them?”
“Is he not a prisoner?”
Suddenly an ancient hag arose from the group of witnesses and bounded into Court. At the feet of Wavell she poured forth a torrent of impassioned speech.
“Cheer up, Auntie!” quoth Augustus, and as the woman ceased, added: “Ask her if she’d come to Paris for the week-end.”
“What does she say?” enquired the President of the Court.
“In effect—that she will be security forwitness’sgood behaviour, as he is her only child and never steals tobacco. He only took the tobacco because he wanted a smoke. He is ninety years of age, and a good obedient son to her. It is her fault for not looking after him better. She hopes he will not be hung, as she is already an orphan, and would then be a childless orphan. . . . She undertakes to beat him with arunga.”[183b]
“Does she identify prisoner as the man who led the German raiding-party?” asked Bertram, after Augustus had called for three loud cheers for the witness, had been himself called to order by the President, and had threatened that he would not play if further annoyed by that official.
Again, in careful Swahili, Wavell endeavoured to find traces of evidence for or against the accused.
“Do you know this man?”
“Yes,Bwana.”
“Who is he?”
“The prisoner,Bwana Macouba(Great Master).”
“Why is he a prisoner?”
“Because he brought theGermanisto Pongwa, oh,Bwana Macouba Sana(Very Great Master).”
“How do you know he brought theGermanisto Pongwa?”
“Because he has been made prisoner for doing so, oh,Bwana Macouba Kabeesa Sana(Very Greatest Master).”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“He is the man who stole the tobacco which my little boy took.”
All being translated and laid before the Court, it was decided that, so far, prisoner was scarcely proven guilty.
“Let’s ask him whether he would like to say anything as to the evidence of the last two witnesses,” suggested Bertram.
“He doesn’t understand Swahili,” objected Berners.
“I feel sure he does,” replied Bertram. “I have been watching his face. He half grinned when they talked about tobacco, and looked venomous when they talked about him.”
“Do you understand Swahili?” asked Wavell, suddenly, of the prisoner.
“No, not a word,” replied that individual in the same tongue.
“Can you speak it?”
“No, not a word,” he reaffirmed in Swahili.
“Well—did the last two witnesses tell the truth about you?”
“They did not. I have never seen them before. They have never seen me before. I do not know where Pongwa is. I think this is a very fine trial. I like it.”
Other witnesses swore that the accused had indeed done the treacherous deed. One swore with such emphasis and certainty that he carried conviction to the minds of the Court—until it was discovered that witness was swearing that prisoner had stolen a bundle of leaf-tobacco from the son of the woman who was an orphan. . . .
The Court soon found that it could tell when a point was scored against the defendant, without waiting for translation, inasmuch as he always seized his stomach with both hands, groaned, rolled his eyes, and cried that he was suffering horribly fromtumbo, when evidence was going unfavourably.
At length all witnesses had been examined, even unto the last, who swore he was the prisoner’s brother, and that he saw the prisoner leading theGermanisand, lo, it wasn’t his brother at all, and concluded with: “Yes—this is true evidence. I have spoken well. I can prove it, for I can produce thesufuria[184]which prisoner gave me to say that I am his brother, and to speak these truths.He is my innocent brother, and was elsewhere when he led theGermanisto Pongwa.”
“Let’s give him something out of the poor-box,” suggested Augustus when this speech was interpreted, and then marred this intimation of kindly feelings by adding: “and then hang the lot of them.”
“Has the prisoner anything to say?” asked the President.
The prisoner had.
“This is a good trial,” quoth he, in Swahili. “I am now an important man. All the witnesses are liars. I have never seen any of them before. I do not associate with such. I have never seen Pongwa, and I have never seen aGermani. I will tell . . .”
Wavell looked at him suddenly, but made no movement.
“Noch nichte!” said he in German, very quietly.
The man stopped talking at once.
“You understand German. You speak German!” said Wavell, in that language, and pointing at him accusingly. “Answer quickly. You speak German.”
“Ganz klein wenig—just a very little,” replied the prisoner, adding in English: “I am a very clever man”—and then, in German: “Ich hab kein Englisch.”
“Prisoner has never seen aGermani—but he understands German!” wrote Bertram in his notes of the trial. “Also Swahili and English.”
“Please ask him if he hasn’t had enough trial now, and wouldn’t he like to be hanged to save further trouble,” said Augustus.
“Tiffin tyar hai,[185]Sahib,” said the Mess butler, approaching the President, and the Court adjourned.
The afternoon session of the Court proved dull up to the moment when the lady who was an orphan and the mother of the ninety-year-old, bounded into Court with a scream of:
“Ask him where he got his petticoat!”
Apparently this was very distressful to the defendant, for he was instantly seized with violent stomachic pains.
“Poignant! . . . Searching! . . .” murmured Augustus.
“Where did you get that’Mericani?” asked Wavell of the prisoner, pointing to his only garment.
“He got it from theGermanis. It was part of his share of theloot,” screamed the old lady. “It is from my own shop. I know it by that mark,” and she pointed to a trade-mark and number stencilled in white paint upon the selvedge of the loin-cloth.
Terrible agonies racked the prisoner as he replied: “She is a liar.”
“Trade-mark don’t prove much,” remarked the President. “My pants and vest might have same trade-mark as the Kaiser’s—but that wouldn’t prove he stole them from me.”
The sense of this remark was conveyed to the witness.
“Then see if a mark likethisis not in the corner of that piece of’Mericani,” said the old lady, and plucking up her own wardrobe, showed where a small design was crudely stitched.
Theaskarisin charge of the prisoner quickly demonstrated that an identical “laundry-mark” ornamented his also. Presumably the worthy woman’s secret price-mark, or else her monogram.
Terrific agonies seized the prisoner, and with a groan of “Tumbo,” he sank to the ground.
A kick from each of theaskarisrevived him, and he arose promptly and took a bright interest in the subsequent proceedings, which consisted largely in the swearing by several of the villagers that they had seen theGermanisloot the old lady’s store and throw some pieces of the’Mericanito the accused. Two of the witnesses were wearing petticoats which they had bought from the female witness, and which bore her private mark. . . .
“Gentlemen,” said the President at length, “I should like your written findings by six o’clock this evening, together with the sentence you would impose if you were sole judge in this case. The Court is deeply indebted to Captain Wavell for his courteous and most valuable assistance as interpreter. The witnesses may be discharged, and the prisoner removed to custody. . . . Clear the blasted Court, in fact, and come to the Bristol Bar. . . .”
“Oh, hang it all, Berners,” objected Augustus, “let’s hang himnow. We can watch him dangle while we have tea. . . .” But the Court had risen, and the President was asking where the devil some bally, fat-headed fool had put his helmet, eh? . . .
For an hour Bertram sat in hisbandawith throbbing, aching head, considering his verdict. He believed the man to be a spy and a treacherous, murderous scoundrel—but what was reallyproven, save that he knew German and wore a garment marked similarly to those of three inhabitants of Pongwa? Were thesefacts sufficient to warrant the passing of the death sentence and to justify Bertram Greene, who, till a few days ago, was the mildest of lay civilians, to take the responsibility of a hanging judge and imbrue his hands with the blood of this man? If all that was suspected of him were true, what, after all, was he but a savage, a barbarous product of barbaric uncivilisation? . . . What right had anyone to apply the standards of a cultured white man from London to a savage black man from Pongwa? . . . A savage who had been degraded and contaminated by contact with Germans moreover. . . .
After many unsatisfactory efforts, he finally wrote out his judgment on leaves torn from his military pocket-book, and proposed, as verdict, that the prisoner be confined for the duration of the war as a spy, and receive twenty-five strokes of thekibokofor perjury. . . .
On repairing to Berners’ hut at the appointed time, he found that Clarence had written a longer and better judgment than his own, and had proposed as sentence that the accused be detained during the King’s pleasure at Mombasa Gaol, since it was evident that he had dealings with Germans and had recently been in German East Africa. He found the charge of leading a German raiding-party Not Proven.
The sentence of the President was that prisoner should receive twenty lashes and two years’ imprisonment, for receiving stolen goods, well knowing them to be stolen, and for committing perjury.
“And that ought to dish the lad till the end of the war,” observed he, “whereafter he’ll have precious small use for his German linguistic lore—unless he goes to Berlin for the Iron Cross or a Commission in the Potsdammer Poison-Gas Guards, or somethin’, what?”
There was a sound of revelry by night, at the Bristol Bar. A Plum Pudding had arrived. Into that lonely outpost, where men languished and yearned for potatoes, cabbage, milk, cake, onions,beer, steaks, chocolate, eggs, cigarettes, bacon, fruit, coffee, bread, fish, jam, sausages, honey, sugar, ham, tobacco, pastry, toast, cheese, wine and other things of which they had almost forgotten the taste, a Plum Pudding had drifted. When it had begun to seem that food began and ended with coco-nut, maize, bully-beef and dog-biscuit—a Plum Pudding rose up to rebuke error.
At least, it was going to do so. At present it lay, encased in a stout wooden box and a soldered sarcophagus of tin, at the feet of the habitués of the Bristol Bar, what time they looked upon the box and found it good in their sight. . . .
“You’ll dine with us and sample it, I hope, Wavell?” said the Major, eyeing the box ecstatically.
“Thanks,” was the reply. “Delighted. . . . May I bring over some brandy to burn round it?”
“Stout fella,” said the Major warmly.
“Do we eat it as it is—or fry it, or something, or what?” he added. “I fancy you bake ’em. . . .”
“I believe puddings are boiled, sir,” remarked Bertram.
“Yes—I b’lieve you’re right, Greene,” agreed Major Mallery. . . . “I seem to know the expression, ‘boiled plum-pudding.’ . . . Yes—boiled plum-pudding. . . .”
“Better tell the cook to boil the bird at once, hadn’t we?” suggested Captain Macke.
“Yes,” agreed Vereker. “I fancy I’ve heard our housekeeper at home talk about boiling ’em forhours. Hours and hours. . . . Sure of it.”
“But s’pose the beastly thing’sbinboiled already—what then?” asked Augustus. “Bally thing’ddissolve, I tell you. . . . Have to drink it. . . .”
“Very nice, too,” declared Halke.
“I’d sooner eat pudding and drink brandy, than drink pudding and burn brandy,” stated Augustus firmly. “What would we boil it in, anyhow?” he added. “It wouldn’t go in a kettle, an’ if you let it loose in a dam’ greatdekchior something, it’d all go to bits. . . .”
“Tie it up in a shirt or something,” said Forbes. . . . “What’s your idea, Greene—as a man of intellect and education?”
“I’d say boil it,” replied Bertram. “I don’t believe theycanbe boiled too much. . . . I fancy it ought to be tied up, though, as Clarence suggests, or it might disintegrate, I suppose.”
“Who’s got a clean shirt or vest or pants or something?” asked the Major. “Or could we ram it into a helmet and tie it down?”
It appeared that no one had averyclean shirt, and it happened that nobody spoke up with military promptitude and smart alacrity when Lieutenant Bupendranath Chatterji offered to lend his pillow-case.
“I know,” said the Major, in a tone of decision and finality. “I’ll send for the cook, tell him there’s a plum-pudding, an’ he can dam’ well serve it hot for dinner as a plum-puddingoughtto be served—or God have mercy on him, for we will have none. . . .”
And so it was. Although at first the cook protested that the hour being seven and dinner due at seven-thirty, there was not time for the just and proper cooking of a big plum-pudding. But, “To hell with that for a Tale,” said the Major, and waved pudding and cook away, with instructions to serve the pudding steaming hot, in half an hour, with a blaze of brandy round it, a sprig of holly stuck in it, and a bunch of mistletoe hung above it.
“And write ‘God Bless Our Home’ on thebandawall,” he added, as a happy after-thought. The cook grinned. He was a Goanese, and a good Christian cheat and liar.
The Bristol Bar settled down again to talk of Home, hunting, theatres, clubs, bars, sport, hotels, and everything else—except religion, women and war. . . .
“Heard about the new lad, Major?” asked Forbes. “Real fuzzy-wuzzy dervish Soudanese. Lord knows how he comes to be in these parts. Smelt war like a camel smells water, I suppose. . . . Got confused ideas about medals though. . . . Tell the tale, Wavell.”
“Why—old Isa ibn Yakub, my Sergeant-Major—you know Isa, six-feet-six and nine medals, face like black satin”—began Wavell, “brought me a stout lad—with grey hair—who looked like his twin brother. Wanted to join my Arab Company. He’d come from Berbera to Mombasa in a dhow, and then strolled down here through the jungle. . . . Conversation ran somewhat thus:
“‘You want to enlist in my Arab Company, do you? Why?’
“‘I want to fight.’
“‘Against theGermanis?’
“‘Anybody.’
“‘You know what the pay is?’
“‘Yes. It is enough. But I also want my Omdurman medal—like that worn by Isa ibn Yakub.’
“‘Oh—you have fought before? And at Omdurman.’
“‘Yes. And I want my medal.’
“‘You are sure you fought at Omdurman?’
“‘Yes. Was I not wounded there and left for dead? Look at this hole through my side, below my arm. I want my medal—like that of Isa ibn Yakub.’
“‘How is it that you have not got it, if you fought there as you say?’
“‘They would not give it to me. I want you to get it for me.’
“‘I do not believe you fought at Omdurman at all.’
“‘I did. Was I not shot there?’
“‘Were you in a Soudanese Regiment?’
“‘No.’
“‘What then?’
“‘In the army of Our Lord the Mahdi. And I was shot in front of the line of British soldiers who wear petticoats! . . .’”
“Did you take him?” asked the Major, as the laugh subsided.
“Rather!” was the reply. “A lad who fought against us and expects us to give him a medal for it, evidently thinks we are sportsmen, and probably is one himself. I fancy he’s done a lot of mixed fighting at different times. . . . Says he knew Gordon. . . .”
The cook, Mess butler, and a deputation of servants approached, salaamed as one man, and held their peace.
“What’s up?” asked the Major. “Anyone dead?”
“The Pudding, sah,” said the cook, and all the congregation said, “The Pudding.”
A painful brooding silence settled upon the Bristol Bar.
“If you’ve let pi-dogs orshenzisor kites eat that pudding, they shall eat you—alive,” promised the Major—and he had the air of one whose word is his bond.
“Nossir,” replied the cook. “Pudding all gone to damn. Sahib come and see. I am knowing nothing. It is bad.”
“What?” roared the Major, and rose to his feet.
“Sah, I am a poor man. You are my father and my mother,” said the cook humbly, and all the congregation said that they werepoor men and that the Major was their father and their mother.
The Major said that the congregation were liars.
“Bad?” stammered Forbes. “Puddings can’t gobad. . . .”
“Oh, Mother, Mother!” said Augustus, and cried, his head upon his knees.
“Life in epitome,” murmured Vereker. “Tout lasse;tout passe;tout casse.”
“Strike me blind!” said Halke.
“Feller’s a purple liar. . . . Must be,” opined Berners.
“Beat the lot of them,” suggested Macke. “Puddings keep for ever if you handle ’em properly.”
“Yes—the brutes haven’t treated it kindly,” said Augustus, wiping his eyes. “Here, Vereker, you’re Provost-Marshal. Serve them so thattheygo bad—and see how they like it.”
“It may just have a superficial coating of mould or mildew that can be taken off,” said Bertram.
“Let’s go an’ interview the dam’ thing,” suggested Augustus. “We can then take measures—or rum.”
The Bristol Bar was deserted in the twinkling of an eye as, headed by the Major, the dozen or so of British officers sought out the Pudding, that they might hold an inquest upon it. . . .
Near the cooking-fire in the straw shed behind the Officers’ Messbanda, upon some boards beside a tin sarcophagus, lay a large green ball, suggestive of a moon made of green cheese.
In silent sorrow the party gazed upon it, stricken and stunned. And the congregation of servants stood afar off and watched.
Suddenly the Major snatched up the gleamingpangathat had been used for prising open the case and for cutting open the tin box in which the green horror had arrived.
Raising the weapon above his head, the Major smote with all his might. Right in the centre of the Pudding the heavy, sharp-edged blade struck and sank. . . . The Pudding fell in halves, revealing an interior even greener and more horrible than the outside, as a cloud of greenish, smoke-like dust went up to the offended heavens. . . .
“Bury the damned Thing,” said the Major, and in his wake the officers of the Butindi garrison filed out, their hearts too full, their stomachs too empty for words.
And the servants buried the Pudding, obeying the words of the Major.
But in the night the Sweeper arose and exhumed the Pudding and ate of it right heartily. And through the night of sorrow he groaned. And at dawn he died. This is the truth.
* * * * *
Dinner that night was a silent meal, if meal it could be called. No man dared speak to his neighbour for fear of what his neighbour might reply. The only reference to the Pudding was made by Augustus, who remarked, as a servant brought in a dish of roasted maize-cobs, where the Pudding should have come—chicken-feed where should have been Food of the Gods—“I am almost glad poor Murie and Lindsay are so ill that they couldn’t possibly have eaten any Pudding in any case. . . . Seems some small compensation to ’em, don’t it, poor devils. . . .”
“I do not think Murie will get better,” observed Lieutenant Bupendranath Chatterji. “Fever and dysentery, both violent, and I have not proper things. . . .”
The silence seemed to deepen as everybody thought of the two sick men, lying in their dirty clothes, on dirty camp-beds, in leaky grass huts, with a choice of bully-beef, dog-biscuit, coco-nut and maize as a dysentery diet.
Whose turn next? And what sort of a fight could the force put up if attacked by Africans when all the Indians and Europeans were ill with fever and dysentery? Heaven bless the Wise Man who had kept the African Army of British East Africa so small and had disbanded battalions of the King’s African Rifles just before the war. What chance would Indians and white men, who had lived for months in the most pestilential swamp in Africa, have against salted Africans led by Germans especially brought down from the upland health-resorts where they lived? . . .
“Can you give me a little quinine, Chatterji?” asked Augustus. “Got any calomel? I b’lieve my liver’s as big as my head to-day. I feel a corner of it right up between my lungs. Stops my breathing sometimes. . . .”
“Oah, yees. Ha! Ha!” said the medical gentleman. “I have a few tablets. I will presently send you some also. . . .”
Next morning Augustus came in last to breakfast.
“Thanks for the quinine tablets, Chatterji,” said he. “The hospital orderly brought them in his bare palm. I swallowed all ten, however. What was it—twenty grains?”
“Oah! That was calomel!” replied the worthy doctor, andAugustus arose forthwith and retired, murmuring: “Poignant!Searching!”
He had once taken a quarter of a grain of calomel, and it had tied him in knots.
When Bertram visited Murie, Lindsay and Augustus in their respective huts, Augustus seemed the worst of the three. With white face, set teeth, and closed eyes, he lay bunched up, and, from time to time, groaned, “Oh, poignant!Searching! . . .”
It being impossible for him to march, it fell to Bertram to take his duty that day, and lead an officers’ patrol to reconnoitre a distant village to which, according to information received by the Intelligence Department, a German patrol had just paid a visit. For some reason the place had been sacked and burnt.
It was Bertram’s business to discover whether there were any signs of abomahaving been established by this patrol; to learn anything he could about its movements; whence it had come and whither it had gone; whether the massacre were a punishment for some offence, or just the result of high animal (German) spirits; whether there were manyshambas, of no further use to slaughtered people, in which the raiders had left any limes, bananas, papai or other fruits, vegetables, or crops; whether any odd chicken or goat had been overlooked, and was wanting a good home; and, in short, to find out anything that could be found out, see all that was to be seen, do anything that might be done. . . . As he marched out of the Fort at the head of a hundred Gurkhas, with a local guide and interpreter, he felt proud and happy, quite reckless, and absolutely indifferent to his fate. He would do his best in any emergency that might arise, and he could do no more. He’d leave it at that.
He’d march straight ahead with a “point” in front of him, and if he was ambushed, he was ambushed.
When they reached the village, he’d deploy into line and send scouts into the place. If he was shot dead—a jolly good job. If he were wounded and left lying for the Germanaskaristo find—or the wild beasts at night . . . he turned from the thought.
Anyhow, he’d got good cheery, sturdy Gurkhas with him, and it was a pleasure and an honour to serve with them.
One jungle march is precisely like another—and in three or four hours the little column reached the village, deployed, and skirmished into it, to find it a deserted, burnt-out ruin.Kulturhad passed that way, leaving its inevitable and unmistakable sign-manual. The houses were only blackened skeletons; the gardens, wildernesses; the byres, cinder-heaps; the fruit-trees, withering wreckage. What had been pools of blood lay here and there, with clumps of feathers, burnt and broken utensils, remains of slaughtered domestic animals and chickens.
Kulturhad indeed passed that way. To Bertram it seemed, in a manner, sadder that this poor barbarous little African village should be so treated than that a walled city of supermen should suffer. . . “Is there not more cruelty and villainy in violently robbing a crying child of its twopence than in snatching his gold watch from a portly stockbroker?” thought he, as he gazed around on the scene of ruin, desolation and destruction.
To think of Europeans finding time, energy, and occasion to effectthisin such a spot, so incredibly remote from their marts and ways and busy haunts! Christians! . . .
Having posted sentries and chosen a spot for rally and defence, he sent out tiny patrols along the few jungle paths that led to the village, and proceeded to see what he could, as there was absolutely no living soul from whom he could learn anything. There was little that the ablest scoutmaster could deduce, save that the place had been visited by a large party of mischievously destructive and brutal ruffians, who wore boots. There was nothing of use or of value that had not been either destroyed or taken. Even papai trees that bore no fruit had been hacked down, and thepangahad been laid to the root of tree and shrub and sugar-cane. Not a plantain, lime, mango, or papai was to be seen.
Bertram entered one of the least burnt of the well-made huts of thatch and wattle. There was what had been blood on the earthen floor, blackened walls, charred stools, bed-frames and domestic utensils. He felt sick. . . . In a corner was a child’s bed of woven string plaited over a carved frame. It would make a useful stool or a resting-place for things which should not lie on the muddy floor of hisbanda. He picked it up. Underneath it was a tiny black hand with pinkish finger-tips. He dropped the bed and was violently sick.Kulturhad indeed passed that way. . . .
Hurrying out into the sunlight, as soon as he was able to do so, he completed his tour of inspection. There was little of interest and nothing of importance.
Apparently the hamlet had boasted an artist, a sculptor, some village Rodin, before the Germans came to freeze the genial current of his soul. . . . As Bertram studied the handiwork of the absent one, his admiration diminished, however, and he withdrew the “Rodin.” The man was an arrant, shameless plagiarist, a scoundrelly pick-brain imitator, a mere copying ape, for, seen from the proper end, as it lay on its back, the clay statue of a woman, without form and void, boneless, wiggly, semi-deliquescent, was an absolutely faithful and shameless reproduction of the justly world-famous Eppstein Venus.
“The man ought to be prosecuted for infringement of copyright,” thought Bertram, “if there is any copyright in statues. . . .”
The patrols having returned with nothing to report, Bertram marched back to Butindi and reported it.
And so passed the days at Butindi, with a wearisome monotony of Stand-to, visiting the pickets, going out on patrol, improving the defences of theboma, foraging, gathering information, reconnoitring, trying to waylay and scupper enemy patrols, communicating with the other British outposts, surveying and map-making, beating off half-hearted attacks by strong raiding-patrols—all to the accompaniment of fever, dysentery, and growing weakness due to malnutrition and the terrible climate.
To Bertram it all soon became so familiar and normal that it seemed strange to think that he had ever known any other kind of life. His chief pleasure was to talk to Wavell, that most uncommon type of soldier, who was also philosopher, linguist, student, traveller, explorer and ethnologist.
From the others, Bertram learnt that Wavell was, among other things, a second Burton, having penetrated into Mecca and Medina in the disguise of ahaji, a religious pilgrim, at the very greatest peril of his life. He had also fought, as a soldier of fortune, for the Arabs against the Turks, whom he loathed as only those who have lived under their rule can loathe them. Hecould have told our Foreign Office many interesting things about the Turk. (When, after he had been imprisoned and brutally treated by them at Sanaa, in the Yemen, he had appealed to our Foreign Office, it had sided rather with the Turk indeed, confirming the Unspeakable One’s strong impression that the English were a no-account race, even as the Germans said.) So Wavell had fought against them, helping the Arabs, whom he liked. And when the Great War broke out, he had raised a double company of these fierce, brave, and blood-thirsty little men in Arabia, and had drilled them into fine soldiers. Probably no other Englishman—or European of any sort—could have done this; but then Wavell spoke Arabic like an Arab, knew the Koran almost by heart, and knew his Arabs quite by heart.
That he showed a liking for Bertram was, to Bertram, a very great source of pride and pleasure. When Wavell went out on a reconnoitring-patrol, he went with him if he could get Major Mallery’s permission, and the two marched through the African jungle discussing art, poetry, travel, religion, and the ethnological problems of Arabia—followed by a hundred or so Arabs—Arabs who were killing Africans and being killed by Africans, often of their own religion and blood, because a gang of greedy materialists, a few thousand miles away, was suffering from megalomania. . . .
Indeed to Bertram it was food for much thought that in that tinybomain a tropical African swamp, Anglo-Indians, Englishmen, Colonials, Arabs, Yaos, Swahilis, Gurkhas, Rajputs, Sikhs, Marathas, Punjabis, Pathans, Soudanese, Nubians, Bengalis, Goanese, and a mob of assortedshenzisof the primeval jungle, should be laying down their lives because, in distant Berlin, a hare-brained Kaiser could not control a crowd of greedy and swollen-headed military aristocrats.
* * * * *
“Your month’s tobacco ration, Greene,” said Berners one morning, as he entered Bertram’s hut, “anddon’tleave your boots on the floor to attract jigger-fleas—unless youwantblood-poisoning and guinea-worm—or is it guinea-fowl? Hang them on the wall. . . . And look between your toes every time you take ’em off. Jigger-fleas are, hell, once they get under the skin and lay their eggs. . .” and he handed Bertram some cakes of perfectly black tobacco.
“But, my dear chap, I couldn’t smokethat,” said Bertram, eyeing the horrible stuff askance.
“Of course you can’tsmokeit,” replied Berners.
“What can I do with it, then?” he asked.
“Anything you like. . . . I don’t care. . . . It’s your tobacco ration, and I’ve issued it to you, and there the matter ends. .. . You can revet your trench parapet with it if you like—or give it to the Wadegos to poison their arrows with. . . . Jolly useful stuff, really. . . . Sole your boots, tile the roof of yourbanda, make a parquet floor round your bed, put it in Chatterji’s tea, make a chair seat, lay down a pathway to the Mess, make your mother a teapot-stand, feed the chickens—oh, lots of things. But you can’tsmokeit, of course. . . . You expect too much, my lad. . . .”
“Why do they issue it, then?” asked Bertram.
“Same reason that they issue inedible bully-beef and unbreakable biscuits, I s’pose—contractors mustlive, mustn’t they? . . . Be reasonable. . . .”
And again it seemed to the foolish civilian mind of this young man that, since tons of this black cake tobacco (which no British officer ever has smoked or could smoke) cost money, however little—there would be more sense in spending the money on a small quantity of Turkish and Virginian cigarettes thatcouldbe smoked, by men accustomed to such things, and suffering cruelly for lack of them. Throughout the campaign he saw a great deal of this strong, black cake issued (to men accustomed to good cigarettes, cigars or pipe-mixture), but he never saw any of it smoked. He presented his portion to Ali, who traded it to people of palate and stomach less delicate than those the British Government expects the British officer to possess. . . .
“You look seedy, Greene,” observed the Major that same evening, as Bertram dragged himself across the black mud from hisbandato the Bristol Bar—wondering if he would ever get there.
“Touch of fever, sir. I’m all right,” replied he, wishing that everyone and everything were not so nebulous and rotatory.
He did not mention that he had been up all night with dysentery, and had been unable to swallow solid food for three days. (Nor that his temperature was one hundred and four—because he was unaware of the fact.) But he knew that the moment wasnot far off when all his will-power and uttermost effort would be unable to get him off his camp-bed. He had done his best—but the worst climate in the world, a diet of indigestible and non-nutritious food, taken in hopelessly inadequate quantities; bad water; constant fever; dysentery; long patrol marches; night alarms; high nerve-tension (when a sudden bang followed by a fusillade might mean a desultory attention, a containing action while a more important place was being seriously attacked, or that final and annihilating assault of a big force which was daily expected); and the monotonous, dirty, dreary life in that evil spot, had completely undermined his strength. He was “living on his nerves,” and they were nearly gone. “You look like an old hen whose neck has been half-wrung for to-morrow’s dinner before she was found to be the wrong one, and reprieved,” said Augustus. “You let me make you a real, rousing cock-eye, and then we’ll have ann’goma[198]—all the lot of us. . . .”
But finding Bertram quite unequal to dealing with a cock-eye or sustaining his part in a tribal dance that should “astonish the natives,” he helped Bertram over to hisbanda, took off his boots and got him a hot drink of condensed milk and water laced with ration rum.
In the morning Bertram took his place at Stand-to and professed himself equal to performing his duty, which was that of making a reconnoitring-patrol as far as Paso, where there was another outpost. . . .
Here he arrived in time for tea, and had some with real fresh cow’s milk in it; and had a cheery buck with Major Bidwell, Captains Tucker and Bremner, and Lieutenants Innes (another Filbert), Richardson, Stirling, Carroll, and Jones—stout fellows all, and very kind to him. He was very sorry indeed when it was time for him to march back again with his patrol.
He started on the homeward journey, feeling fairly well, for him; but he could never remember how he completed it. . . .
The darkness gathered so rapidly that he had a suspicion that the darkness was within him. Then he found that he was continually running into trees or being brought up short by impenetrable bush that somehow sprang up before him. . . . Also he was talking aloud, and rather surprised at his eloquence. . . . Then he was lying on the ground—being put on hisfeet again—falling again . . . trying to fight a bothering swarm ofaskariswith a quill pen, while he addressed the House of Commons on the iniquity of allowing Bupendranath Chatterji to be in medical charge of four hundred men with insufficient material to deal with a street accident. . . . Marching again, falling again, being put on his feet again. . . .
* * * * *
After two days on his camp-bed he was somewhat better, and on the next day he found himself in sole command of the Butindi outpost and a man of responsibility and pride. Urgent messages had taken Major Mallery with half the force in one direction, and Captain Wavell with half the remainder in another.
Suppose there should be an attack while he was in command! He half hoped there would be. . . .
Towards evening an alarm from a sentry and the turning out of the guard brought him running to the main gate, shouting “Stand-to!” as he ran.
Through his glasses he saw that a European and a small party of natives were approaching theboma. . . .
The new-comer was an Englishman of the name of Desmont, in the Intelligence Department, who had just made a long and dangerous tour through the neighbouring parts of German East in search of information. Apparently Butindi was the first British outpost that he had struck, as he asked endless questions about others—apparently with a view to visiting themen routeto the Base Camp. Bertram extended to him such hospitality as Butindi could afford, and gave him all the help and information in his power. He had a very strong conviction that the man was disguised (whether his huge beard was false or not), but he supposed that it was very natural in the case of an Intelligence Department spy, scout, or secret agent. Anyhow, he was most obviously English. . . .
While he sat in the Officers’ Mess and talked with the man—a most interesting conversation—Ali Suleiman entered with coco-nuts and a rum-jar. Seeing the stranger, he instantly wheeled about and retired, sending another servant in with the drinks. . . .
After a high-tea of coco-nut, biscuit, bully-beef, and roasted mealie-cobs, Desmont, who looked worn out, asked if he mightlie down for a few hours before he “moved off” again. Bertram at once took him to his ownbandaand bade him make himself at home. Five minutes later came Ali with an air of mystery to where Bertram paced up and down the “High Street,” and asked if he might speak with him.
“That man aGermani, sah!” quoth he. “Spy-man he is. Debbil-man. His own namenotDesmontBwana, and he is big man in Dar-es-Salaam and Tabora, and knowing all the bigGermani bwanas. I was his gun-boy and I go with him toGermaniEast. . . .Bwanago and shoot him for dead, sah, by damn!”
Bertram sat down heavily on a chop-box.
“What?” gasped he.
“Yessah, thank you please. One of those porters not ashenziat all. He DesmontBwana’shead boy Murad. Very bad man, sah. Master look in this spy-man’s chop-boxes.Germaniuniform in one—under rice and posho. Master see. . . .”
“You’re a fool, Ali,” said Bertram.
“Yessah,” said Ali, “and DesmontBwanaaGermanispy-man. Master go an’ shoot him for dead while asleep—or tie him to tree till MalleryBwanacoming. . . .”
Nowwhat was to be done? Here was a case for swift action by the “strong silent man” type of person who thought like lightning and acted like some more lightning.
If he did nothing and let the man go when he had rested, would his conduct be that of a fool and a weakling who could not act promptly and efficiently on information received—conduct deserving the strongest censure? . . .
And if he arrested and detained one of their own Intelligence Officers, on the word of a native servant, would he ever hear the last of it?
“Bwanacome and catch this bad man Murad,” suggested Ali. “Bwanasay, ‘Jambo,Murad ibn Mustapha!How much rupees Desmont Bwana paying you for spy-work?’ andBwanasee him jump! By damn, sah!Bwanahold revolver ready.” . . .
“Does the man know English then?” asked the perturbed and undecided Bertram.
“Yessah—all the same better as I do,” was the reply. “And he pretending to be poorshenziporter. He knowingGermanitoo. . . .”
At any rate, he might look intothis, and if anything suspicious transpired, he could at least prevent Desmont from leaving before Mallery returned.
“Has he seen you?” asked Bertram.
“No, sah, nor has DesmontBwana,” was the reply—and Bertram bade Ali show him where the porters were.
They were outside theboma, squatting round a cooking-fire near the “lines” of the Kavirondo porters.
Approaching the little group, Bertram drew his revolver and held it behind him. He did not know why he did this. Possibly subconscious memory of Ali’s advice, perhaps with the expectation that the men might attack him or attempt to escape; or perhaps a little pleasant touch of melodrama. . . .
“Jambo,Murad ibn Mustapha!” he said suddenly. “Desmont Bwana wants you at once.Go quickly.”
A man arose immediately and approached him. “Go back and sit down,” said Bertram, covering the man with his revolver and speaking in German. He returned and sat down. Evidently he understood English and German and answered to the name of Murad ibn Mustapha! . . .
Ali had spoken the truth and it was now up to Bertram Greene to act wisely, promptly and firmly. This lot should be kept under arrest anyhow. But might not all this be part of Desmont’s game as a scout, spy and secret service agent of the British Intelligence Department. Yes,orof the German Intelligence Department.
If there was a German uniform in one of the chop-boxes, it might well be a disguise for him to wear in German East. Or it might be his real dress. Anyhow—he shouldn’t leave the outpost until Major Mallery returned. .
. . And that was a weak shelving of responsibility. He was in command of the post, and Major Mallery and the other officers with him might be scuppered. It was quite possible that neither the Major’s party nor Captain Wavell’s might ever get back to Butindi. He strolled over to hisbandaand looked in.
Desmont was evidently suffering from digestive troubles or a bad conscience, for his face was contorted, he moved restlessly and ground his teeth.
Suddenly he screamed like a woman and cried:
“Ach!Gott in Himmel!Nein,Nein!Ich. . .”
Bertram drew his revolver. The man was a German. Englishmen don’t talk German in their sleep.
The alleged Desmont moaned.
“Zu müde,” he said. “Zu müde.” . . .
Bertram sat down on his camp-stool and watched the man.
* * * * *
The Herr Doktor Karl Stein-Brücker had made a name for himself in German East, as one who knew how to manage the native. This in a country where they all pride themselves on knowing how to manage the native—how to put the fear of Frightfulness andKulturinto his heart. He had once given a great increase to a growing reputation by flogging a woman to death, on suspicion of unfaithfulness. He had wielded thekibokowith his own (literally) red right hand until he was aweary, and had then passed the job on to Murad ibn Mustapha, who was very slow to tire. But even he had had to be kept to it at last. . . .
“Noch nichte!” had the Herr Doktor said, “Not yet!” as Murad wished to stop, and
“Ganz klein wenig!” as the brawny arm dropped. “Just a little more.” . . .
It had been a notable and memorable punishment—but the devil of it was that whenever the Herr Doktor got run down or over-ate himself, he had a most terrible nightmare, wherein Marayam, streaming with blood, pursued him, caught him, and flogged him. And when she tired, he was doomed to urge her on to further efforts. After screaming with agony, he must moan “Zu müde!Zu müde!” and then—when she would have stopped—“Noch nichte!” and “Ganz klein wenig!” so that she began afresh. Then he must struggle, break free, leap at her—and find himself sweating, weeping and trembling beside his bed.
Presently the moaning sleeper cried “Noch nichte!” and a little later “Ganz klein wenig!”—and then with a scream and a struggle, leapt from the camp cot and sprang at Bertram, whose revolver straightway went off. With a cough and a gurgle thesoi-disantDesmont collapsed with a ·450 service bullet through his heart.
When Major Mallery returned at dawn he found a delirious Second-Lieutenant Greene (and a dead European, and a wonderful tale from one Ali Suleiman. . . .)
With a temperature of 105·8 he did not seem likely to live. . . .
Whether Bertram Greene lived or died, however, he had, albeit ignorantly, avenged the cruel wrong done to his father. . . . He—the despised and rejected one—had avenged Major Hugh Walsingham Greene. Fate plays some queer tricks and Time’s whirligig performs some quaint gyrations!
Luckily for himself, Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene was quite unconscious when he was lifted from his camp-bed into a stretcher by the myrmidons of Mr. Chatterji and dispatched, carriage paid, to M’paga. What might happen to him there was no concern of Mr. Chatterji’s—which was the important point so far as that gentleman was concerned.
Unconscious he remained as the four Kavirondo porters, the stretcher on their heads, jogged along the jungle path in the wake of Ali and the three other porters who bore his baggage. Behind the stretcher-bearers trotted four more of their brethren who would relieve them of their burden at regular intervals.
Ali was in command, and was also in a hurry, for various reasons, including prowling enemy patrols and his master’s dire need of help. He accordingly set a good pace and kept the “low niggers” of his party to it by fabulous promises, hideous threats, and even more by the charm of song—part song in fact. Lifting up his powerful voice he delivered in deep diapason a mighty
“Ah-Nah-Nee-Nee!Ah-Nah-Nee-Nee!”
to which all the congregation responded
“Umba Jo-eel!Umba Jo-eel”
as is meet and right to do.
And when, after a few hundred thousand repetitions of this, in strophe and antistrophe, there seemed a possibility that restless and volatile minds desiring change might seek some new thing, Ali sang
“Hay-Ah-Mon-Nee!Hay-Ah-Mon-Nee!”
which is quite different, and the jogging, sweating congregation, with deep earnestness and conviction, took up the response:
“Tunk-Tunk-Tunk-Tunk!”
and all fear of the boredom of monotony was gone—especially as, after a couple of hours of this, you could go back to the former soulful and heartsome Threnody, and begin again. But if they got no forrader with the concert they steadily got forrader with the journey, as their loping jog-trot ate up the miles.
And, in time to their regular foot-fall and chanting, the insensible head of the white man rolled from side to side unceasingly. . . .
Unconscious he still was when the little party entered the Base Camp, and Private Henry Hall remarked to Private John Jones:
“That there bloke’s gone West all right but ’e ain’t gone long. . . . You can see ’e’s dead becos ’is ’ead’s a waggling and you can see ’e ain’t bin deadlongbecos ’is ’ead’s a waggling. . . .”
And Private John Jones, addressing the speaker as Mister Bloomin’-Well Sherlock ’Olmes, desired that he would cease to chew the fat.
Steering his little convoy to the tent over which the Red Cross flew, Ali handed over his master and the cleft stick holding Major Mallery’s letter, to Captain Merstyn, R.A.M.C., and then stood by for orders.
It appeared that theBarjordanwas off M’paga, that a consignment of sick and wounded was just going on board, and that Second-Lieutenant Greene could go with them. . . .
That night Bertram was conveyed out to sea in a dhow (towed by a petrol-launch from theBarjordan), taken on board that ship, and put comfortably to bed. The next night he was in hospital at Mombasa and had met Mrs. Stayne-Brooker.
* * * * *
As, thanks to excellent nursing, he very slowly returned to health and strength, Bertram began to take an increasing interest in the very charming and very beautiful woman whom he had once seen and admired at the Club, who daily took his temperature, brought his meals, administered his medicine, kept his official chart, shook up his pillows, put cooling hands upon his forehead, found him books to read, talked to him at times, attended the doctor on his daily visits, and superintended the brief labours of the Swahili youth who was ward-boy and house-maid on that floor of the hospital.
Before long, the events of the day were this lady’s visits, and,on waking, he would calculate the number of hours until she would enter his room and brighten it with her presence. He had never seen so sweet, kind, and gentle a face. It was beautiful too, even apart from its sweetness, kindness and gentleness. He was very thankful when he found himself no longer too weak to turn his head and follow her with his eyes, as she moved about the room. It was indescribably delightful to have a woman, and such a woman, about one’s sick bed—after negro servants, Indian orderlies,shenzistretcher-bearers, and Bengali doctors. How his heart swelled with gratitude as she laid her cool hand on his forehead, or raised his head and gave him a cooling drink. . . . But how sad she looked! . . . He hated to see her putting up the mosquito-curtains that covered the big frame-work, like the skeleton of a room, in which his bed stood, and which, at night, formed a mosquito-proof room-within-a-room, and provided space for his bedside chair, table and electric-lamp, as well as for the doctor and nurse, if necessary.
One morning he sat up and said:
“Pleaselet me do that, Sister—I hate to see you working for me—though I love to seeyou. . .” and then had been gently pushed back on to his pillow as, with a laugh, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker said:
“That’s what I’m here for—to work I mean,” and patted his wasted hand. (Hewassuch a dear boy, and so appreciative of what one could do for him. It made one’s heart ache to see him such a wasted skeleton.)
The time came when he could sit in a long chair with leg-rest arms, and read a book; but he found that most of his time was spent in thinking of the Sister and in the joys of retrospection and anticipation. He had to put aside, quite resolutely, all thought of the day when he would be declared fit for duty and be “returned to store.” Think of abandaat Butindi and of this white room with its beautiful outlook across the strait to the palm-feathered shore; think of Ali as one’s cup-bearer and of this sweet angelic Englishwoman. . . . Better not think of it at all. . . .
It was quite a little shock to him, one day, to notice that she wore a wedding-ring. . . . He had never thought of that. . . . He felt something quite like a little twinge of jealousy. . . . He was sure the man must be a splendid fellow though, or she would never have married him. . . . How old would she be? It was nobusiness of his, and it was not quite gentlemanly to speculate on such a subject—but somehow he had not thought of her as “an old married woman.” Not that married women are necessarily older than unmarried women. . . . A silly expression—“old” married women. He had imagined her to be about his own generation so to speak. Possibly alittleolder than himself—in years—but years don’t make age really. . . . Fancy her being married! Well, well, well! . . . But what did that matter—she was just as much the charming and beautiful woman for whom he would have laid down his life in sheer gratitude. . . .
* * * * *
A man gets like this after fever. He is off his balance, weak, neurasthenic, and devoid of the sense of proportion. He waxes sentimental, and is to be forgiven.
* * * * *
But there is not even this excuse for Mrs. Stayne-Brooker.
* * * * *
She began by rather boring her daughter, Eva, about her new patient—his extreme gratitude, his charming ways and thoughts, his true gentleness of nature, his delightful views, thenicenessof his mind, the likeableness of him. . . . She wondered aloud as to whether he had a mother—she must be a very nice woman. She wondered in silence as to whether he had a wife—she must be a very happy woman. . . . How old was he? . . . It was so hard to tell with these poor fellows, brought in so wasted with fever and dysentery; and rank wasn’t much guide to age nowadays. Hemightbe. . . . Well—he’d be up and gone before long, and she’d never see him again, so what was the good of wondering. . . . And she continued to wonder. . . . And then, from rather boring Miss Stayne-Brooker with talk about Lieutenant Greene she went to the extreme, and never mentioned him at all.
For, one day, with an actual gasp of horrified amazement, she found that she had suddenly realised that possibly the poets and novelists were not so wrong as she had believed, and that theremightbe such a thing as the Love—they hymned and described—and that Peace and Happiness might be its inseparable companions. . . . She would read her Browning, Herrick, Swinburne, Rosetti again, her Dante, her Mistral, and some of those plays and poems of Love that the world called wonderful,beautiful, true, for she had an idea that she might see glimmerings of wonder, beauty and truth in them—now. . . .