Cupid in Africa Part 15

Hearing a distinct sn.i.g.g.e.r from the end of the table, Bertram glanced in that direction, said to himself, "You're a second-lieutenant, by your appreciative giggle," and encountered the sneering stare of a vacant-faced youth whom he heartily disliked on sight.

"Wants the cooking-pots back, but not the men, eh?" observed the Colonel, and, turning to the officer who sat at his left hand, a tall, handsome man with a well-bred, pleasant, dark face, who was Adjutant of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth, added:

"Better go and see if there's good reason for his not wanting them back, Hall. . . . Colonel Frost's a good man at selling a horse-perhaps he's sold us a pup. . . ."

More giggles from the vacant faced youth as Captain Hall arose and went out of the shed of gra.s.s and sticks, thatched on a framework of posts, which was the Officers' Mess of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth Regiment.

Feeling shy and nervous, albeit most thankful to be among senior officers who would henceforth relieve him of the lonely responsibility he had found so trying and burdensome, Bertram seized the opportunity of the Adjutant's departure to escape, and followed that officer to where the Hundred awaited the order to dismiss.

"Brought a tent?" asked Captain Hall, as they went along.

"No," replied Bertram. "Ought I to have done so?"

"If you value your comfort on these picnics," was the answer. "You'll find it a bit damp o' nights when it rains, in one of these gra.s.s huts. . . .

You can pig in with me to-night, and we'll set a party of Kavirondo to build you a _banda_ to-morrow if you're staying on here."

"Thanks awfully," acknowledged Bertram. "Am I likely to go on somewhere else, though?"

"I did hear something about your taking a provision convoy up to Butindi the day after to-morrow," was the reply. "One of our Majors is up there with a mixed force of Ours and the Arab Company, with some odds and ends of King's African Rifles and things. . . . Pity you haven't a tent."

After looking over the Hundred and committing them to the charge of the Subedar-Major of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, Captain Hall invited Bertram "to make himself at home" in his hut, and led the way to where a row of green tents and gra.s.s huts stood near the Officers' Mess. On a Roorkee chair, at the door of one of these, sat none other than the Lieutenant Stanner whom Bertram had last seen on the deck of _Elymas_.

With him was another subaltern, one of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth.

"Hullo, Greene-bird!" cried Stanner. "Welcome home. Allow me to present you to my friend Best. . . . He is Very Best to-day, because he has got a bottle of whisky in his bed. He'll only be Second Best to-morrow, because he won't have any by then. . . . Not if he's a gentleman, that is," he added, eyeing Best anxiously.

That officer grinned, arose, and entering the hut, produced the whisky, a box of "sparklets," a kind of siphon, and a jug of dirty water.

"You already know Hall?" continued Stanner, the loquacious. "I was at school with his father. He's a good lad. Address him as Baronial Hall when you want something, Music Hall when you're feeling girlish, Town Hall when he's coming the pompous Adjutant over you, and Mission Hall when you're tired of him."

"Don't a.s.sociate with him, Greene. Come away," said Captain Hall.

"He'll teach you to play shove-ha'penny, to smoke, and to use bad language," but as Best handed him a whisky-and-dirty-water, feebly aerated by a sparklet, he tipped Stanner from his chair, seated himself in it, murmured, "When sinners entice thee, consent thou some," and drank.

"Why are you dressed like that? Is it your birthday, or aren't you very well?" enquired Stanner suddenly, eyeing Bertram's lethal weapons and Sepoy's turban. Bertram blushed, pleaded that he had nowhere to "undress," and had only just arrived. Whereupon the Adjutant, remarking that he must be weary, arose and took him to his hut.

"Get out of everything but your s.h.i.+rt and shorts, my son," said he, "and chuck that silly _puggri_ away before you get sunstroke. All very well if you're going into a sc.r.a.p, but it's as safe as Piccadilly round here."

Bertram, as he sank into the Adjutant's chair, suddenly realised that he was more tired than ever he had been in his life before.

"Where _Bwana_ sleeping to-night, sah, thank you, please?" boomed a familiar voice, and before the tent stood the faithful Ali, bowing and saluting-behind him three tall Kavirondo carrying Bertram's kit. Ali had commandeered these men from Bridges' party, and had hurried them off far in advance of the porters who were bringing in the general kit, rations, and ammunition. By means best known to himself he had galvanised the "low n.i.g.g.e.rs" into agility and activity that surprised none more than themselves.

"Oh-it's my servant," said Bertram to the Adjutant. "May he put my bed in here, then?"

"That's the idea," replied Captain Hall, and, in a few minutes, Bertram's camp-bed was erected and furnished with bedding and mosquito net, his washhand-stand was set up, and his canvas bucket filled with water. Not until everything possible had been done for his master's comfort did Ali disappear to that mysterious spot whereunto native servants repair beyond the ken of the master-folk, when in need of food, leisure and relaxation.

Having washed, eaten and slept, Bertram declared himself "a better and wiser man," and asked Hall if he might explore the Camp, its wonders to admire. "Oh, yes," said Hall, "but don't go into the gambling dens, boozing-kens, dancing-saloons and faro tents, to squander your money, time and health."

"_Are_ there any?" asked Bertram, in wide-eyed astonishment.

"No," replied Hall.

Bertram wished people would not be so fond of exercising their humour at his expense. He wondered why it was that he was always something of a b.u.t.t. It could not be that he was an absolute fool, or he would not have been a Scholar of Balliol. He sighed. _Could_ one be a Scholar of Balliol and a fool? . . .

"You might look in on the General, though," continued Hall, "and be chatty. . . . It's a very lonely life, y'know, a General's. I'm always sorry for the poor old beggars. Yes-he'd be awfully glad to see you. . . .

Ask you to call him Willie before you'd been there a couple of hours, I expect."

"D'you mean I ought to call on the General formally?" asked Bertram, who knew that Hall was "ragging" again, as soon as he introduced the "Willie"

touch.

"Oh, don't be too formal," was the reply. "Be matey and cosy with him. . . .

I don't suppose he's had a really heart-to-heart chat with a subaltern about the things that _really_ matter-the Empire (the Leicester Square one, I mean); Ciro's; the girls; George Robey, George Graves, Mr.

Bottomley, Mrs. Pankhurst and the other great comedians-since I dunno-when. He'd _love_ to buck about what's doing in town, with _you_, y'know. . . ."

Bertram sighed again. It was no good. _Everybody_ pulled his leg and seemed to sum him up in two minutes as the sort of green a.s.s who'd believe anything he was told, and do anything that was suggested.

"I say, Hall," he said suddenly, "I'm a civilian, y'know, and a bit of a fool, too, no doubt. I am absolutely ignorant of all military matters, particularly those of etiquette. I am going to ask you things, since you are Adjutant of the corps I'm with. If you score off me, I think it'll be rather a cheap triumph and an inglorious victory, don't you? . . .

I'm not a b.u.mptious and conceited a.s.s, mind-only an ignorant one, who fully admits it, and asks for help. . . ."

As the poet says, it is a long lane that has no public-house, and a long worm that has no turning.

Hall stared.

"Well said, Greene," quoth he, and never jested at Bertram's expense again.

"Seriously-should I leave a card on the General?" continued Bertram.

"You should not," was the reply. "Avoid Generals as you would your creditors. They're dangerous animals in peace-time. On manuvres they're ferocious. On active service they're rapid. . . ."

"Any harm in my strolling round the Camp?" pursued Bertram. "I'm awfully interested, and might get some ideas of the useful kind."

"None whatever," said Hall. "No reason why you shouldn't prowl around like the hosts of Midian till dinner-time. There's nothing doing in the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth till four a.m. to-morrow, and you're not in that, either."

"What is it?" asked Bertram.

"Oh, a double-company of Ours is going out to mop up a little post the Germans have established across the river. We're going to learn 'em not to do such," said Hall.

"D'you think I might go?" asked Bertram, wondering, even as he spoke, whether it was his voice that was suggesting so foolish a thing as that Bertram Greene should arise at three-thirty in the morning to go, wantonly and without reason, where bullets were flying, bayonets were stabbing, and death and disablement were abroad.

"Dunno," yawned Hall. "Better ask the Colonel. What's the matter with bed at four ack emma? That's where I'd be if I weren't in orders for this silly show."

As Bertram left the tent on his tour of exploration he decided that he would ask the Colonel if he might go with the expedition, and then he decided that he would do nothing so utterly foolish. . . . No, of course he wouldn't. . . .

Yes, he would. . . .

CHAPTER XI _Food and Feeders_

Rightly or wrongly, Bertram gathered the impression, as he strolled about the Camp, that this was not a confident and high-spirited army, drunk with the heady fumes of a debauch of victory. The demeanour of the Indian Sepoys led him to the conclusion, just or unjust, that they had "got their tails down." They appeared weary, apprehensive, even despondent, when not merely apathetic, and seemed to him to be distinctly what they themselves would call _mugra_-pessimistic and depressed.