Cupid in Africa Part 10

"What's a puck?" repeated Bertram, and a smile of bright intelligence engulfed the countenance of the big Swahili.

"Oh, yessah!" he rumbled. "Give two rupee and what _Bwana_ call 'puck-in-the-neck.' All the same, biff-on-the-napper, dig-in-the-ribs, smack-in-the-eye, kick-up-the-"

"_Oh_, yes, I see," interrupted Bertram, smiling-but at the back of his amus.e.m.e.nt was the sad realisation that he was not of the cla.s.s of _bwanas_ who can gracefully, firmly and finally present two-and-a-puck to extortionate and importunate trolley-boys.

He stepped on to the trolley and sat down, as Ali, saluting and salaaming respectfully, again bade him be of good cheer and high heart, as he would see him at Kilindini.

"How will you get there? Would you like to ride?" asked the kind-hearted and considerate Bertram (far too kind-hearted and considerate for the successful handling of black or brown subordinates and inferiors).

"Oh, G.o.d, sah, no, please," replied the smiling Ali. "This Swahili slave cannot sit with _Bwana_, and cannot run with d.a.m.n low trolley-boys. Can running by self though like gentleman, thank you, please," and as the trolley started, added: "So long, ole chap. See Master at Kilindini by running like h.e.l.l. Ta-ta by d.a.m.n!" When the trolley had disappeared round a bend of the road, he generously kilted up his flowing night-dress and started off at the long loping trot which the African can maintain over incredible distances.

Arrived at Kilindini, Bertram paid the trolley-boys and discovered that, while they absorbed rupees with the greatest avidity, they looked askance at such fractions thereof as the eight-anna, four-anna, and two-anna piece, poking them over in their palms and finally tendering them back to him with many grunts and shakes of the head as he said:

"Well, you'll _have_ to take them, you silly a.s.ses," to the uncomprehending coolies. "_That_ lot makes a rupee-one half-a-rupee and two quarters, and that lot makes a rupee-four two-anna bits and two four-annas, doesn't it?"

But the men waxed clamorous, and one of them threw his money on the ground with an impudent and offensive gesture. Bertram coloured hotly, and his fist clenched. He hesitated; ought he. . . . _Smack_! _Thud_!

and the man rolled in the dust as Ali Sloper, _alias_ Suleiman, sprang upon him, smote him again, and stood over him, pouring forth a terrific torrent of violent vituperation.

As the victim of his swift a.s.sault obediently picked up the rejected coins, he turned to Bertram.

"These dam' n.i.g.g.e.rs not knowing _annas_, sah," he said, "only _cents_.

This not like East Indiaman's country. Hundred cents making one rupee here. All shopkeepers saying, 'No d.a.m.n good' if master offering annas, please G.o.d, sah."

"Well-I haven't enough money with me, then-" began Bertram.

"I pay trolley-boys, sah," interrupted Ali quickly, "and Master can paying me to-morrow-or on pay-day at end of mensem."

"But, look here," expostulated Bertram, as this new-found guide, philosopher and friend sent the apparently satisfied coolies about their business. "I might not see you to-morrow. You'd better come with me to the ship and-"

"Oh, sah, sah!" cried the seemingly hurt and offended Ali, "am I not _Bwana's_ faithful ole servant?" and turning from the subject as closed, said he would produce a boat to convey his cherished employer to his ship.

"Master bucking up like h.e.l.l now, please," he advised. "No boat allowed to move in harbour after six pip emma, sah, thank G.o.d, please."

"Who on earth's Pip Emma?" enquired the bewildered Bertram, as they hurried down the hill to the quay.

"What British soldier-mans and officer-_bwanas_ in Signal Corps call 'p.m.,' sah," was the reply. "Master saying 'six p.m.,' but Signal _Bwana_ always saying 'six pip emma'-all same meaning but different language, please G.o.d, sah. P'r'aps German talk, sah? I do'n' know, sah."

And Bertram then remembered being puzzled by a remark of Maxton (to the effect that he had endeavoured to go down to his cabin at "three ack emma" and being full of "beer," had fallen "ack over tock" down the companion), and saw light on the subject. Truly these brigade signaller people talked in a weird tongue that might seem a foreign language to an uninitiated listener.

At the pier he saw Commander Finnis, of the Royal Indian Marine, and gratefully accepted an offer of a joy-ride in his launch to the good ship _Elymas_, to which that officer was proceeding.

"We're disembarking you blokes to-morrow morning," said he to Bertram, as they seated themselves in the stern of the smart little boat. "Indian troops going under canvas here, and British entraining for Nairobi. Two British officers of Indian Army to proceed by tug at once to M'paga, a few hours down the coast, in German East. Sc.r.a.p going on there. Poor devils will travel on deck, packed tight with fifty sheep and a gang of n.i.g.g.e.r coolies. . . . _Some_ whiff!" and he chuckled callously.

"D'you know who are going?" asked Bertram eagerly. Suppose he should be one of them-and in a "sc.r.a.p" by this time to-morrow! How would he comport himself in his first fight?

"No," yawned the Commander. "O.C. troops on board will settle that."

And Bertram held his peace, visualising himself as collecting his kit, hurrying on to a dirty little tug to sit in the middle of a flock of sheep while the boat puffed and panted through the night along the mysterious African sh.o.r.e, landing on some white coral beach beneath the palms at dawn, hurrying to join the little force fighting with its back to the sea and its face to the foe, leaping into a trench, seizing the rifle of a dying man whose limp fingers unwillingly relaxed their grip, firing rapidly but accurately into the-

"Up you go," quoth Commander Finnis, and Bertram arose and stepped on to the platform at the bottom of the ladder that hospitably climbed the side of His Majesty's Troop-ship _Elymas_.

CHAPTER VIII _Military and Naval Manuvres_

However nonchalant in demeanour, it was an eager and excited crowd of officers that stood around the foot of the boat-deck ladder awaiting the result of the conference held in the Captain's cabin, to which meeting-place its proprietor had taken Commander Finnis before requesting the presence of Colonel Haldon, the First Officer, and the Ship's Adjutant, to learn the decision and orders of the powers-that-be concerning all and sundry, from the ship's Captain to the Sepoys' cook.

Who would Colonel Haldon send forthwith to M'paga, where the sc.r.a.p was even then in progress (according to Lieutenant Greene, quoting Commander Finnis)? What orders did the papers in the fateful little dispatch-case, borne by the latter gentleman, contain for the various officers not already instructed to join their respective corps? Who would be sent to healthy, cheery Nairobi? Who to the vile desert at Voi? Who to interesting, far-distant Uganda? Who to the ghastly mangrove-swamps down the coast by the border of German East? Who to places where there was real active service, fighting, wounds, distinction and honourable death?

Who to dreary holes where they would "sit down" and sit tight, rotting with fever and dysentery, eating out their hearts, without seeing a single German till the end of the war. . . .

Bertram thought of a certain "lucky-dip bran-tub," that loomed large in memories of childhood, whence, at a Christmas party, he had seen three or four predecessors draw most attractive and delectable toys and he had drawn a mysterious and much-tied parcel which had proved to contain a selection of first-cla.s.s c.o.ke. What was he about to draw from Fate's bran-tub to-day?

When the Ship's Adjutant, bearing sheets of foolscap, eventually emerged from the Captain's cabin, ran sidling down the boat-deck ladder and proceeded to the notice-board in the saloon-companion, followed by the nonchalantly eager and excited crowd, as is the frog-capturing duck by all the other ducks of the farm-yard, Bertram, with beating heart, read down the list until he came to his own name-only to discover that Fate had hedged.

The die was not yet cast, and Second-Lieutenant B. Greene would disembark with detachments, Indian troops, and, at Mombasa, await further orders.

Captain Brandone and Lieutenant Stanner would proceed immediately to M'paga, and with wild cries of "Yoicks! Tally Ho!" and "Gone away!"

those two officers fled to their respective cabins to collect their kit.

Dinner that night was a noisy meal, and talk turned largely upon the merits or demerits of the places from Mombasa to Uganda to which the speakers had been respectively posted.

"Where are you going, Brannigan?" asked Bertram of that cheery Hibernian, as he seated himself beside him.

"Where am Oi goin', is ut, me bhoy?" was the reply. "Faith, where the loin-eating man-Oi mane the man-eating loins reside, bedad. Ye've heard o' the man-eaters of Tsavo? That's where Oi'm goin', me bucko-to the man-eaters of Tsavo."

Terence had evidently poured a libation of usquebagh before dining, for he appeared wound up to talk.

"Begorra-if ut's loin-eaters they are, it's Terry Brannigan'll gird up _his_ loins an' be found there missing entoirely. . . . Oi'd misloike to be 'aten by a loin, Greene . . ." and he frowned over the idea and grew momentarily despondent.

"'Tis not phwat I wint for a sojer for, at all, at all," he complained, and added a lament to the effect that he was not as tough as O'Toole's pig. But the mention of this animal appeared to have a cheering effect, for he burst into song.

"Ye've heard of Larry O'Toole, O' the beautiful town o' Drumgool?

Faith, he had but wan eye To ogle ye by, But, begorra, that wan was a jool. . . ."

After dinner, Bertram sought out Colonel Haldon for further orders, information and advice.

"Everybody clears off to-morrow morning, my boy," said he, "and in twenty-four hours we shall be scattered over a country as big as Europe.

You'll be in command, till further orders, of all native troops landed at Mombasa. I don't suppose you'll be there long, though. You may get orders to bung off with the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth draft of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, or you may have to see them off under a Native Officer and go in the opposite direction yourself. . . . Don't worry, anyway.

You'll be all right. . . ."

That night Bertram again slept but little, and had a bad relapse into the old state of self-distrust, depression and anxiety. This sense of inadequacy, inexperience and unworth was overwhelming. What did he know about Sepoys that he should, for a time, be in sole command and charge of a mixed force of Regular troops and Imperial Service troops which comprised Gurkhas, Sikhs, Pathans, Punjabi Mahommedans, Deccani Marathas, Rajputs, and representatives of almost every other fighting race in India? It would be bad enough if he could thoroughly understand the language of any one of them. As it was, he had a few words of cook-house Hindustani, and a man whom he disliked and distrusted as his sole representative and medium of intercourse with the men. Suppose the fellow was rather his _mis_-representative? Suppose he fomented trouble, as only a native can? What if there were a sudden row and quarrel between some of the naturally inimical races-a sort of inter-tribal shindy between the Sikhs and the Pathans, for example? Who was wretched little "Blameless Bertram," to think he could impose his authority upon such people and quell the riot with a word? What if they defied him and the Jemadar did not support him? What sort of powers and authority had he? . . . He did not know. . . . Suppose there _were_ a row, and there was real fighting and bloodshed? It would get into the papers, and his name would be held up to the contempt of the whole British Empire. It would get into the American papers too. Then an exaggerated account of it would be published in the Press of the Central Powers and their wretched allies, to show the rotten condition of the Indian Army. The neutral papers would copy it. Soon there would not be a corner of the civilised world where people had not heard the name of Greene, the name of the wretched creature who could not maintain order and discipline among a few native troops, but allowed some petty quarrel between two soldiers to develop into an "incident." Yes-that's what would happen, a "regrettable incident." . . . And the weary old round of self-distrust, depreciation and contempt went its sorry cycle once again. . . .

Going on deck in the morning, Bertram discovered that supplementary orders had been published, and that all native troops would be disembarked under his command at twelve noon, and that he would report, upon landing, to the Military Landing Officer, from whom he would receive further orders. . . . Troops would carry no ammunition, nor cooked rations. All kits would go ash.o.r.e with the men. . . .

Bertram at once proceeded to the companion leading down to the well-deck, called a Sepoy of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth, and "sent his salaams" to the Jemadar of that regiment, to the Subedar of the Gurkhas, the Subedar of the Sherepur Sikhs and the Jemadar of the Very Mixed Contingent.

To these officers he endeavoured to make it clear that every man of their respective commands, and every article of those men's kit, bedding, and accoutrements, and all stores, rations and ammunition, must be ready for disembarkation at midday.