Cupid in Africa Part 18

A deep and hollow groan, apparently from beneath Bertram's bed, almost froze that young gentleman's blood.

Pulling on his slippers and turning on his electric torch, Hall dashed out of the hut. Bertram heard him exclaim, swear, and ask questions in Hindustani. He was joined by others, and the group moved away. . . .

"Bright lad nearly blown his hand off," said Hall, re-entering the hut and lighting a candle-lamp. "Says he was cleaning his rifle. . . ."

"Do you clean a rifle while it is loaded, and also put one hand over the muzzle and the other on the trigger while you do it?" asked Bertram.

"_I_ don't, personally," replied Captain Hall, shortly. He was loath to admit that this disgrace to the regiment had intentionally incapacitated himself from active service, though it was fairly obvious.

"I wish he'd gone somewhere else to clean his rifle," said Bertram. "I believe the thing was pointed straight at my ear. I tell you-I felt as though a sh.e.l.l had burst in the hut."

"Bullet probably came through here," observed Hall nonchalantly as he laced his boots. (Later Bertram discovered that it had actually cut one of the four sticks that supported his mosquito curtain, and had torn the muslin thereof.)

Sleep being out of the question, Bertram decided that he might as well arise and watch the setting-forth of the little expedition.

"Going to get up and see you off the premises," said he.

"Stout fella," replied Hall. "I love enthusiasm-but it'll wear off. . . .

The day'll come, and before long, when you wouldn't get out of bed to see your father shot at dawn. . . . Not unless you were in orders to command the firing-party, of course," he added. . .

Bertram dressed, feeling weak, ill and unhappy. . . .

"Am I coming in, sah, thank you?" said a well-known voice at the doorless doorway of the hut.

"Hope so," replied Bertram, "if that's tea you've got."

It was. In a large enamel "tumbler" was a pint of glorious hot tea, strong, sweet and scalding.

"Useful bird, that," observed Hall, after declining to share the tea, as he was having breakfast at four o'clock over in the Mess. "I s'pose you hadn't ordered tea at three forty-five, had you?"

Bertram admitted that he had not, and concealed the horrid doubt that arose in his mind-born of memories of Sergeant Jones's tea at Kilindini-as to whether he was not drinking, under Hall's very nose, the tea that should have graced Hall's breakfast, due to be on the table in the Mess at that moment. . . .

If Captain Hall found his tea unduly dilute he did not mention the fact when Bertram came over to the Mess _banda_, and sat yawning and watching him-the man who could nonchalantly sit and shovel horrid-looking porridge into his mouth at four a.m., and talk idly on indifferent subjects, a few minutes before setting out to make a march in the darkness to an attack at dawn. . . .

Ill and miserable as he felt, Bertram forgot everything in the thrilling interest of watching the a.s.sembly and departure of the little force. Out of the black darkness little detachments appeared, sometimes silhouetted against the red background of cooking fires, and marched along the main thoroughfare of the Camp to the place of a.s.sembly at the quarter-guard.

Punctual to the minute, the column was ready to march off, as Captain Hall strolled up, apparently as unconcerned as if he were in some boring peace manuvres, or about to ride to a meet, instead of to make a cross-country night march, by compa.s.s, through an African jungle-swamp to an attack at dawn, with the responsibility of the lives of a couple of hundred men upon his shoulders, as well as that of making a successful move on the chess-board of the campaign. . . .

At the head of the column were a hundred Sepoys of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, under Stanner. In the light of the candle-lantern which he had brought from the _banda_, Bertram scrutinised their faces. They were Mussulmans, and looked determined, hardy men and fine soldiers.

Some few looked happily excited, some ferocious, but the prevailing expression was one of weary depression and patient misery. Very many looked ill, and here and there he saw a sullen and resentful face. On the whole, he gathered the impression of a force that would march where it was led and would fight bravely, venting on the foe its anger and resentment at his being the cause of their sojourning in a stinking swamp to rot of malaria and dysentery.

How was Stanner feeling, Bertram wondered. He was evidently feeling extremely nervous, and made no secret of it when Bertram approached and addressed him. He was anything but afraid, but he was highly excited.

His teeth chattered as he spoke, and his hand shook when he lit a cigarette.

"Gad! I should hate to get one of their beastly expanding bullets in my stomach," said he. "They fire a brute of a big-bore slug with a flat nose. Bad as an explosive bullet, the swine," and he shuddered violently. "Stomach's the only part I worry about, and I don't give a d.a.m.n for bayonets. . . . But a bullet through your stomach! You live for weeks. . . ."

Bertram felt distinctly glad to discover that a trained regular officer, like Stanner, could entertain these sensations of nervous excitement, and that he himself had no monopoly of them. He even thought, with a thrill of hope and confidence, that when his turn came he would be less nervous than Stanner. He knew that Stanner was not frightened, and that he did not wish he was snug in bed as his brother-officers were, but he also knew that Bertram Greene would not be frightened, and hoped and believed he would not be so palpably excited and nervous. . . .

Behind the detachment of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth came a machine-gun team of _askaris_ of the King's African Rifles, in charge of a gigantic Sergeant. The dismounted gun and the ammunition-boxes were on the heads of Swahili porters.

Bertram liked the look of the Sergeant. He was a picture of quiet competence, reliability and determination. Although a full-blooded Swahili, his face was not unhandsome in a fierce, bold, and vigorously purposeful way, and though he had the flattened, wide-nostrilled nose of the negro, his mouth was Arab, thin-lipped and clear cut as Bertram's own. There was nothing bovine, childish nor wandering in his regard, but a look of frowning thoughtfulness, intentness and concentration.

And Sergeant Simba was what he looked, every inch a soldier, and a fine honourable fighting-man, brave as the lion he was named after; a subordinate who would obey and follow his white officer to certain death, without question or wavering; a leader who would carry his men with him by force of his personality, courage and leadership, while he could move and they could follow. . . . Beside Sergeant Simba, the average German soldier is a cur, a barbarian, and a filthy brute, for never in all the twenty years of his "savage" warfare has Sergeant Simba butchered a child, tortured a woman, murdered wounded enemies, abused (nor used) the white flag, fired on the Red Cross, turned captured dwelling-places into pig-styes and latrines in demonstration of his _kultur_-nor, when caught and cornered, has he waggled dirty hands about cunning, cowardly head with squeal of _Kamerad_! _Kamerad_! . . . Could William the Kultured but have officered his armies with a hundred thousand of Sergeant Simba, instead of with his high-well-born Junkers, the Great War might have been a gentleman's war, a clean war, and the word _German_ might not have become an epithet for all time, nor the "n.o.ble and knightly" sons of ancient houses have received commissions as Second Nozzle-Holder in the Poison-Gas Grenadiers, Sub Tap-Turner in a Fire-Squirting Squadron, or Ober Left-behind to Poison Wells in the Prussic (Acid) Guard. . . .

As Bertram watched this st.u.r.dy-looking Maxim-gun section, with their imperturbable, inscrutable faces, an officer of the King's African Rifles emerged from the circ.u.mambient gloom and spoke with Sergeant Simba in Swahili. As he departed, after giving his orders and a few words of advice to Sergeant Simba, he raised his lantern to the face of the man in charge of the porters who carried the gun and ammunition. The man's face was instantly wreathed in smiles, and he giggled like a little girl. The officer dug him affectionately in the ribs, as one smacks a horse on dismounting after a long run and a clean kill, and the giggle became a cackle of elfin laughter most incongruous. Evidently the man was the officer's pet b.u.t.t and prize fool.

"_Cartouchie n'gapi_?" asked the officer.

"Hundrem millium, _Bwana_," replied the man, and as the officer turned away with a laugh, Bertram correctly surmised that on being asked how many cartridges he had got, the man had replied that he possessed a hundred million.

Probably he spoke in round numbers, and used the only English words he knew. . . . The African does not deal in larger quant.i.ties than ten-at-a-time, and his estimates are vague, and still more vague is his expression of them. He will tell you that a place is "several nights distant," or perhaps that it is "a few rivers away." It is only just, however, to state that he will cheerfully accept an equal vagueness in return, and will go to your tent with the alacrity of clear understanding and definite purpose, if you say to him: "Run quickly to my tent and bring me the thing I want. You will easily distinguish it, as it is of about the colour of a flower, the size of a piece of wood, the shape of elephant's breath, and the weight of water. _You_ know-it's as long as some string and exactly the height of some stones. You'll find it about as heavy as a dead bird or a load on the conscience. That thing that looks like a smell and feels like a sound. . . ." He may bring your gun, your tobacco-pouch, your pyjamas, your toothbrush, or one slipper, but he will bring _something_, and that without hesitation or delay, for he immediately and clearly grasped that that particular thing, and none other, was what you wanted. He recognised it from your clear and careful description. It was not as though you had idly and carelessly said: "Bring me my hat" (or my knife or the matches or some other article that he handled daily), and left him to make up his mind, unaided, as to whether you did not really mean trousers, a book, washhand-stand, or the pens, ink, and paper of the gardener's aunt. . . .

Behind the Swahili was a half-company of Gurkhas of the Kashmir Imperial Service Troops. As they stood at ease and chatted to each other, they reminded Bertram of a cla.s.s of schoolboys waiting to be taken upon some highly pleasurable outing. There was an air of cheerful excitement and joyous expectancy.

"_Salaam_, _Subedar Sahib_," said Bertram, as the fierce hard face of his little friend came within the radius of the beams of his lantern.

"_Salaam_, _Sahib_," replied the Gurkha officer, "_Sahib ata hai_?" he asked.

"_Nahin_," replied Bertram. "_Hamara Colonel Sahib hamko hook.u.m dea ki_ '_Mut jao_,'" and the Subedar gathered that Bertram's Colonel had forbidden him to go. He commiserated with the young Sahib, said it was bad luck, but doubtless the Colonel Sahib in his wisdom had reserved him for far greater things.

As he strolled along their flank, Bertram received many a cheery grin of recognition and many a "Salaam, Sahib," from the friendly and lovable little hill-men.

In their rear, Bertram saw, with a momentary feeling that was something like the touch of a chill hand upon his heart, a party of Swahili stretcher-bearers, under an Indian of the Subordinate Medical Department, who bore, slung by a crossbelt across his body, a large satchel of dressings and simple surgical appliances. . . . Would these stretcher-bearers come back laden-sodden and dripping with the life-blood of men now standing near them in full health and strength and vigour of l.u.s.ty life? Perhaps this fine Sergeant, perhaps the Subedar-Major of the Gurkhas? Stanner? Hall? . . .

Suddenly the column was in motion and pa.s.sing through the entrance by which Bertram had come into the Camp-was it a month ago or only yesterday?

Without disobeying the Colonel, he might perhaps go with the column as far as the river? There was a water-picket there permanently. If he did not go beyond the picket-line, it could not be held that he had "gone out" with the force in face of the C.O.'s prohibition.

Along the narrow lane or tunnel which wound through the impenetrable jungle of elephant-gra.s.s, acacia scrub, live oak, baobab, palm, thorn, creeper, and undergrowth, the column marched to the torrential little river, thirty or forty yards wide, that swirled brown, oily, and ugly, between its reed-beds of sucking mud. Here the column halted while Hall and Stanner, lantern in hand, felt their slow and stumbling way from log to log of the rough and unrailed bridge that spanned the stream. On the far side Hall waited with raised lantern, and in the middle stayed Stanner and bade the men cross in single file, the while he vainly endeavoured to illuminate each log and the treacherous gap beside it.

Before long the little force had crossed without loss-(and to fall through into that deep, swift stream in the darkness with accoutrements and a hundred rounds of ammunition was to be lost for ever)-and in a minute had disappeared into the darkness, swallowed up and lost to sight and hearing, as though it had never pa.s.sed that way. . . .

Bertram turned back to Camp and came face to face with Major Manton.

"Morning, Greene," said he. "Been to see 'em off? Stout fella." And Bertram felt as pleased and proud as if he had won a decoration. . . .

The day dawned grey, cheerless and threatening over a landscape as grey, cheerless and threatening as the day. The silent, menacing jungle, the loathsome stench of the surrounding swamp, the heavy, louring sky, the moist, suffocating heat; the sense of lurking, threatening danger from savage man, beast and reptile, insect and microbe; the feeling of utter homelessness and rough discomfort, combined to oppress, discourage and disturb. . . .

Breakfast, eaten in silence in the Mess _banda_, consisted of porridge that required long and careful mastication by any who valued his digestion; pieces of meat of dull black surface and bright pink interior, also requiring long and careful mastication by all who were not too wearied by the porridge drill; and bread.

The bread was of interest-equally to the geologist, the zoologist, the physiologist, the chemist, and the merely curious. To the dispa.s.sionate eye, viewing it without prejudice or partiality, the loaf looked like an oblate spheroid of sandstone-say the Old Red Sandstone in which the curious may pick up a mammoth, aurochs, sabre-toothed tiger, or similar ornament of their little world and fleeting day-and to the pa.s.sionate hand hacking _with_ prejudice and partiality (for crumb, perhaps), it also felt like it. It was Army Bread, and quite probably made since the outbreak of the war. The geologist, wise in Eras-_Paleolithic_, _Pliocene_, _Eocene_, _May-have-been_-felt its challenge at once. To the zoologist there was immediate appeal when, by means of some sharp or heavy tool, the outer crust had been broken. For that interior was honey-combed with large, shiny-walled cells, and every cell was filled with a strange web-like kind of coc.o.o.n of finest filaments, now grey, now green, to which adhered tiny black specks. Were these, asked the zoologist, the eggs of insects, and, if so, of what insects? Were they laid before the loaf petrified, or after? If before, had the burning process in the kiln affected them? If after, how did the insect get inside? Or were they possibly of vegetable origin-something of a fungoid nature-or even on that strange borderland 'twixt animal and vegetable where roam the yeasty microbe and boisterous bacillus? Perhaps, after all, it was neither animal nor vegetable, but mineral? . . . So ponders the geologist who incurs Army Bread in the wilds of the earth.

The physiologist merely wonders once again at the marvels of the human organism, that man can swallow such things and live; while the chemist secretes a splinter or two, that he may make a qualitative and quant.i.tative a.n.a.lysis of this new, compound, if haply he survive to return to his laboratory.

To the merely curious it is merely curious-until he essays to eat it-and then his utterance may not be merely precious. . . .

After this merry meal, Bertram approached the Colonel, saluted, and said:

"Colonel Frost, of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth, ordered me to be sure to request you to return his nine cooking-pots at your very earliest convenience, sir, if you please."