Cupid in Africa Part 23

A very tall man, with the face and moustache of a Viking, rose and extended his hand.

"How do, Greene?" said he. "Glad to see you. . . . Hope you brought the rum ration safe. . . . Take your bonnet off and undo your furs. . . .

Hope that pistol's not loaded. . . . Nor that sword sharp. . . .

Oughtn't to go about with nasty, dangerous things like that. . . . Hope the rum ration's safe. . . . Have some tea and a bloater. . . .

Berners, go and do Quartermaster, like a good lad. . . . Have some rum and a bloater, Greene. . . ."

"Thank you, sir," said Bertram, noting that the big man had a crown on one shoulder of his s.h.i.+rt and a safety-pin spanning a huge hole on the other. His great arms and chest were bare, and a pair of corduroy riding-breeches, quite unfastened at the knee and calf, left an expanse of bare leg between their termination and the beginning of grey, sagging socks. Hob-nailed boots, fastened with string, completed his attire. He looked like a tramp, a scarecrow, and a strong leader of men.

"'Fraid you'll have to drink out of a condensed milk tin, until your kit turns up. . ." said a pale and very handsome youth. "You get a flavour of milk, though," he added with an air of impartiality, "as well as of tin and solder. . . . They burn your fingers so d.a.m.nably, though, when you go to pick 'em up. . . . Or why not drink out of the teapot, if everyone has finished? . . . Yes-I'll drop in a spot of condensed milk."

"No-d.a.m.n it all, Vereker," put in the Major, "let's do him well and create an impression. Nothing like beginning as you don't mean to go on-or can't possibly go on. . . . He can have The Gla.s.s this evening.

And some fresh tea. And his own tin of condensed. . . . And a bloater.

Hasn't he brought us rum and hope? . . ."

The pale and handsome Vereker sighed.

"You create a _false_ impression, sir," he said, and, taking a key from his neck, arose and unlocked a big chop-box that stood in a corner of the _banda_. Thence he produced a gla.s.s tumbler and set it before Bertram.

"There's The Gla.s.s," said he. "It's now in your charge, present and correct. I'll receive it from you and return the receipt at 'Stand-to.'

Bertram gathered that the tumbler was precious in the Major's sight, and that honour was being shown him. He had a faint sense of having reached Home. He was disappointed when a servant brought fresh tea, a newly-opened tin of milk, and the lid of a biscuit-box for a plate, to discover that the banana which reposed upon it was the "bloater" of his hopes and the Major's promise.

"For G.o.d's sake use plenty of condensed milk," said that gentleman, as Bertram put some into the gla.s.s, preparatory to pouring out his tea.

Bertram thought it very kind and attentive of him-until he added: "And pour the tea _on_ to it, and not down the side of the gla.s.s. . . .

That's how the other tumbler got done in. . . ."

As he gratefully sipped the hot tea and doubtfully munched a _chapatti_, Bertram took stock of the other members of the Mess. Beside Major Mallery sat a very hard-looking person, a typical fighting-man with the rather low forehead, rather protruding ears, rather high cheek-bones, heavy jaw and jutting chin of his kind. He spoke little, and that somewhat truculently, wore a big heavy knife in his belt, looked like a refined prize-fighter, and answered to the name of Captain Macke.

Beside him, and in strong contrast, sat a young man of the Filbert genus.

He wore a monocle, his nails were manicured, he spoke with the euphuism and euphemism of a certain Oxford type, he had an air of languor, boredom and acute refinement, was addressed as Cecil Clarence, when not as Gussie Augustus Gus, and seemed to be one of the very best.

On the same string bed, and in even stronger contrast, sat a dark-faced Indian youth. On his shoulder-straps were the letters I.M.S. and two stars. A lieutenant of the Indian Medical Service, and, as such, a member of this British Officers' Mess. Bertram wondered why the fact that he had been to England and read certain books should have this result; and whether the society of the Subedar-Major of the regiment would have been preferred by the British officers. The young man talked a lot, and appeared anxious to show his freedom from anxiety, and his knowledge of English idiom and slang. When he addressed anyone by the nickname which intimate pals bestowed upon him, Bertram felt sorry for this youth with the hard staccato voice and raucous, mirthless laugh.

Cecil Clarence said of him that "if one gave him an inch he took an 'ell of a lot for granted." His name was Bupendranath Chatterji, and his papa sat cross-legged and bare-footed in the doorway of a little shop in a Calcutta bazaar, and lent moneys to the poor, needy and oppressed, for a considerable consideration.

"'Bout time for Stand-to, isn't it?" said the Major, consulting his wrist-watch. "Hop it, young Clarence. . . . You might come round with me to-night, Greene, if you've finished tea. . . . Can't offer you another bloater, I'm afraid. . . ."

The other officers faded away. A few minutes later a long blast was blown on a whistle, there were near and distant cries of "Stand-to," and Cecil Clarence returned to the Mess _banda_. He was wearing tunic and cross-belt. On his cheerful young face was a look of portentous solemnity as he approached the Major, halted, saluted, stared at him as at a perfect stranger, and said: "Stand-to, sir. All present and correct."

Over the Major's face stole a similar expression. He looked as one who has received sudden, interesting and important but anxious news.

"Thank you," said he. "I'll-ah-go round. Yes. Come with me, will you?

. . ." Cecil Clarence again saluted, and fell in behind the Major as he left the _banda_. Bertram followed. The Major went to his tent and put on his tunic and cross-belt. These did little to improve the unfastenable riding-breeches, bare calves and grey socks, but were evidently part of the rite.

Proceeding thence to the entrance to the _boma_, the Major squeezed through, was saluted by the guard, and there met by an English officer in the dress of the small men whom Bertram had noticed on his arrival. His white face looked incongruous with the blue turban and tartan petticoat.

"All present and correct, sir," said he. Half his men were down in the trench, their rifles resting in the loop-holes of the parapet. These loop-holes were of wicker-work, like bottomless waste-paper baskets, and were built into the earthwork of the parapet so that a man, looking through one, had a foot of earth and logs above his head. The other half of his blue-clad force was inside the _boma_ and lining the wall. This wall, some eight feet in height, had been built by erecting two walls of stout wattle and posts, two feet apart, and then filling the s.p.a.ce between these two with earth. Along the bottom of the wall ran a continuous fire-step, some two feet in height, and a line of wicker-work loop-holes pierced it near the top. In the angle, where this side of the _boma_ met the other, was a tower of posts, wattle and earth, some twelve feet in height, and on it, within an earth-and-wattle wall, and beneath a thatched roof, was a machine-gun and its team of King's African Rifles _askaris_, in charge of an English N.C.O. On the roof squatted a sentry, who stared at the sky with a look of rapt attention to duty.

"How are those two men, Black?" asked the Major, as the N.C.O. saluted.

"Very bad, sir," was the reply. "They'll die to-night. I'm quite sure the Germans had poisoned that honey and left it for our _askari_ patrols to find. I wondered at the time that they 'adn't skoffed it themselves.

. . . And it so near their _boma_ and plain to see, an' all. . . . I never thought about poison till it was too late. . . ."

"Foul swine!" said the Major. "I suppose it's a trick they learnt from the _shenzis_, this poisoning wild honey? . . ."

"More like they taught it 'em, sir," was the reply. "There ain't no savage as low as a German, sir. . . . I lived in German East, I did, afore the war. . . . I _know_ 'em. . . ."

The next face of the _boma_ was held by the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth.

Captain Macke met the Major and saluted him as a revered stranger. He, too, wore tunic and cross-belt and a look of portentous solemnity, such as that on the faces of the Major, Cecil Clarence, and, indeed, everybody else. Bertram, later, labelled it the Stand-to face and practised to acquire it.

"How many sick, Captain Macke?" enquired the Major.

"Twenty-seven, sir," was the reply. Bertram wondered whether they were "present" in the spirit and "correct" in form.

"All fever or dysentery-or both, I suppose?" said the Major.

"Yes-except one with a poisoned foot and one who seems to be going blind," was the reply.

As they pa.s.sed along, the Major glanced at each man, looked into the canvas water-tanks, scrutinised the residential sheds beneath the wall-and, in one of them discovered a sc.r.a.p of paper! As the ground was covered with leaves, twigs, and bits of gra.s.s, as well as being thick with mud, Bertram did not see that this piece of paper mattered much.

This only shows his ignorance. The Major pointed at it, speechless.

Captain Macke paled-with horror, wrath or grief. Gussie Augustus Gus stooped and stared at it, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his monocle in the tighter, that he might see the better and not be deceived. Vereker turned it over with his stick, and only then believed the evidence of three of his senses.

The Jemadar shook his head with incredulous but pained expression. He called for the Havildar, whose mouth fell open. The two men were very alike, being relatives, but while the senior wore a look of incredulous pain, the junior, it seemed to Bertram, rather wore one of pained incredulity. That is to say, the Jemadar looked stricken but unable to believe his eyes, whereas the Havildar looked as though he could not believe his eyes but was stricken nevertheless.

All stared hard at the piece of paper. . . . It was a poignant moment. . . .

No one moved and no one seemed to breathe. Suddenly the Havildar touched a Naik who stood behind his men, with his back to the group of officers, and stared fixedly at Nothing. He turned, beheld the paper at which the Havildar's accusing finger pointed, rigid but tremulous. . . .

What next? The Naik pocketed the paper, and the incident was closed.

Bertram was glad that he had witnessed it. He knew, thenceforth, the proper procedure for an officer who, wearing the Stand-to face, sees a piece of paper.

The third wall of the _boma_ was occupied by a company of Dogras of an Imperial Service Corps, under a Subedar, a fine-looking Rajput, and a company of Marathas of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, under the Subedar-Major of that regiment. Bertram was strongly attracted to this latter officer, and thought that never before had he seen an Indian whose face combined so much of patient strength, gentle firmness, simple honesty, and n.o.ble pride.

He was introduced to Bertram, and, as they shook hands and saluted, the fine old face was lit up with a smile of genuine pleasure and friendly respectfulness. A man of the old school who recognised duties as well as "rights"-and in whose sight "_false to his salt_" was the last and lowest epithet of uttermost degradation.

"You'll have charge of this face of the fort to-morrow, Greene," said the Major, as they pa.s.sed on. "Subedar-Major Luxman Atmaram is a priceless old bird. He'll see you have no trouble. . . . Don't be in a hurry to tell him off for anything, because it's a hundred to one you'll find he's right."

Bertram smiled to himself at the thought of his being the sort to "tell off" anybody without due cause and was secretly pleased to find that Major Mallery had thought such a thing possible. . . .

The remaining side of the fort was held by Gurkhas, and Bertram noted the fact with pleasure. He had taken a great fancy to these cheery, steady people. Another machine-gun, with its team of _askaris_ of the King's African Rifles, occupied the middle of this wall.

"Don't cough or sneeze near the gun," murmured Vereker to Bertram, "or it may fall to pieces again. The copper-wire is all right, but the boot-lace was not new to begin with."

"What kind of gun is it?" he asked.

"It was a Hotchkiss once. It's a Hot-potch now," was the reply. "Don't touch it as you pa.s.s," and the puzzled Bertram observed that it was actually bound with copper-wire at one point and tied with some kind of cord or string at another.

By the hospital-a horrible pit with a tent over it-stood the Indian youth and a party of Swahili stretcher-bearers.

Bertram wondered whether it would ever be his fate to be carried on one of those blood-stained stretchers by a couple of those negroes, laid on the mud at the bottom of that pit, and operated on by that young native of India. He shuddered. Fancy one's life-blood ebbing away into that mud. Fancy dying, mangled, in that hole with no one but a Bupendranath Chatterji to soothe one's last agonies. . . .

Having completed his tour of inspection, Major Mallery removed the Stand-to face and resumed his ordinary one, said: "They can dismiss," to Captain Macke and the group of officers, and tore off his cross-belt and tunic.