Cupid in Africa Part 12

"Lookere," interrupted the large red man, "_you_ don' wanter discover no mistakes, not until you drunk that tea, you don't. . . . You push that daown yore neck and then give that n.i.g.g.e.r a cent an' tell 'im to be less careful nex' time. You don' wanter _dis_courage a good lad like that, you don't. Not 'arf, you do."

"But-Sergeant Jones's tea" began Bertram, looking unhappily at the half-emptied cup.

"_Sergeant Jones's tea_!" mimicked the rude red man, in a high falsetto.

"_If_ ole Shifter Jones drunk a cup o' tea it'd be in all the paipers nex' mornin', it would. Not arf it wouldn't. Don' believe 'e ever tasted tea, I don't, an' if he _did_-"

But at this moment a white-clad naval officer of exalted rank strode into the room, and the large red man sprang to his feet with every sign of respect and regard. Picking up a Navy straw hat from the floor, the latter gentleman stood at attention with it in his hand. Bertram decided that he was a naval petty officer on some sh.o.r.e-job or other, perhaps retired and now a coast-guard or Customs official of some kind.

Evidently he knew the exalted naval officer and held him, or his Office, in high regard.

"Get my message, William Hankey?" he snapped.

"Yessir," replied William Hankey.

"Did you telephone for the car at once?"

"Nossir," admitted Hankey, with a fluttering glance of piteous appeal.

The naval officer's face became a ferocious and menacing mask of wrath and hate, lit up by a terrible glare. Up to that moment he had been rather curiously like Hankey. Now he was even more like a very infuriated lion. He took a step nearer the table, fixed his burning, baleful eye upon the wilting William, and withered him with the most extraordinary blast of scorching invective that Bertram had ever heard, or was ever likely to hear, unless he met Captain Sir Thaddeus Bellingham ffinch Beffroye again.

"You blundering bullock," quoth he; "you whimpering weasel; you bleating blup; you miserable dog-potter; you h.o.r.n.y-eyed, bleary-nosed, bat-eared, lop-sided, longsh.o.r.e loafer; you perishing shrimp-peddler; you Young Helper; you Mother's Little Pet; you dear Ministering Child; you blistering bug-house body-s.n.a.t.c.her; you bloated b.u.mboat-woman; you hopping hermaphrodite-what d'ye mean by it? Eh? . . . _What d'ye mean by it_, you anaemic Aggie; you ape-faced anthropoid; you adenoid; you blood-stained buzzard; you abject abortion; you abstainer; you sickly, one-lunged, half-baked, under-fed alligator; you scrofulous s...o...b..tic; you peripatetic pimple; you perambulating pimp-faced poodle; what about it? Eh? _What about it_?"

Mr. William Hankey stood silent and motionless, but in his face was the expression of one who, with critical approval, listens and enjoys. Such a look may be seen upon the face of a musician the while he listens to the performance of a greater musician.

Having taken breath, the Captain continued: "What have you got to say for yourself, you frig-faced farthing freak, you? Nothing! You purple poultice-puncher; you hopeless, helpless, herring-gutted hound; you dropsical drink-water; you drunken, drivelling dope-dodger; you mouldy, mossy-toothed, mealy-mouthed maggot; you squinny-faced, squittering, squint-eyed squab, you-what have you got to say for yourself? Eh? . . .

_Answer me_, you mole; you mump; you measle; you k.n.o.b; you nit; you noun; you part; you piece; you portion; you bald-headed, slab-sided, jelly-bellied jumble; you mistake; you accident; you imperial stinker; you poor, pale pudding; you populous, pork-faced parrot-why don't you speak, you doddering, dumb-eared, deaf-mouthed dust-hole; you jabbering, jawing, jumping Jezebel, why don't you answer me? Eh? _D'ye hear_ me, you fighting gold-fish; you whistling water-rat; you Leaning Tower of Pisa-pudding; you beer-belching ration-robber; you pink-eyed, perishing pension-cheater; you flat-footed, frog-faced fragment; you trumpeting tripe-hound? Hold your tongue and listen to me, you barge-bottom barnacle; you nestling gin-lapper; you barmaid-biting bun-bolter; you tuberculous tub; you mouldy manure-merchant; you moulting mop-chewer; you kagging, corybantic c.o.c.kroach; you lollipop-looting lighterman; you naval know-all. _Why didn't you telephone for the car_?"

"'Cos it were 'ere all the time, sir," replied Mr. William Hankey, perceiving that his superior officer had run down and required rest.

"_That's_ all right, then," replied Captain Sir Thaddeus Bellingham ffinch Beffroye pleasantly, and strode to the door. There he turned, and again addressed Mr. Hankey.

"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 ca.n.a.l bargee."

Mr. Hankey looked hurt, _touche_, broken.

"Oh, _sir_!" said he, stricken at last.

"William Hankey, you are a _volunteer_," continued his remorseless judge.

Mr. Hankey fell heavily into his chair, and fetched a deep groan.

"William Hankey-Pankey-you are a _conscientious 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 _'im_ fer 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 bra.s.s-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. He was 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 cold _chupattis_. 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 trucks _never_ come? 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 of the 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 he _must_ do, 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 G.o.d 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. . . .

"_Bwana_ turning feet to left hands here," said Ali Suleiman from where, abreast of Bertram, he strode along at the edge of the road. "If _Bwana_ will 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 ma.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 his _Bwana_, 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 a _kukri_ just as its owner was, so he said, fanning himself with it (with the _kukri_, not the goat). So some fed full, and others fuller.