CHAPTER II_And is Ordered to East Africa_
That afternoon the Adjutant very good-naturedly devoted to assistingBertram to remedy his utter nakedness and ashamedness in the matter ofnecessary campaigning kit. Taking him in his dog-cart to the greatMadrutta Emporium, he showed him what to buy, and, still better, what notto buy, that he might be fully equipped, armed and well prepared, as aself-supporting and self-dependent unit, provided with all he needed andnothing he did not need, that he might go with equal mind wheresoeverFate—or the Military Secretary—might suddenly send him.
After all, it was not very much—a very collapsible camp-bed of greencanvas, hardwood and steel; a collapsible canvas washstand to match; acollapsible canvas bath (which was destined to endanger the blamelessnessof Blameless Bertram’s language by providing more collapses than baths);a canteen of cooking utensils; a green canvas valise which containedbedding, and professed to be in itself a warm and happy home from home,even upon the cold hard ground; and a sack of similar material, providedwith a padlock, and suitable as a receptacle for such odds and ends ofclothing and kit as you might choose to throw in it.
“Got to remember that, if you go on active service, your stuff may haveto be carried by coolies,” said the Adjutant. “About forty pounds to aman. No good trying to make one big package of your kit. Say, one sackof spare clothing and things; one bundle of your bed, bath, and washingkit; and the strapped-up valise and bedding. If you had to abandon oneof the three, you’d let the camp-bed, bath and wash-stand go, and hang onto the sleeping-valise and sack of underclothes, socks, boots, spareuniform and sundries,” and much other good advice.
To festoon about Cupid’s person, in addition to his sword, revolver,water-bottle and haversack, he selected a suitable compass, map-case,field-glasses, ammunition-pouch, whistle and lanyards, since his earnestand anxious protégé desired to be fitted out fully and properly formanœuvres, and as though for actual active service.
Assurance being received that his purchases would be forthwith dispatchedto the Adjutant’s bungalow, Bertram drove back to the Mess with thatkindly officer, and gratefully accepted his invitation to dine with him,that night, at the famous Madrutta Club.
“What about kit, though?” enquired Bertram. “I’ve only got what I standup in. I left all my—”
“That’s all right,” was the reply. “Everybody’s in khaki, now we’remobilised—except the miserable civilians,” he added with a grin, whereatBertram, the belted man of blood, blushed and smiled.
At dinner Bertram sat respectfully silent, collecting the pearls ofwisdom that fell from the lips of his seniors, fellow-guests of theAdjutant. And his demeanour was of a gravity weighty and serious evenbeyond his wont, for was he not now a soldier among soldiers, auniformed, commissioned, employed officer of His Majesty the KingEmperor, and attached to a famous fighting regiment? Yes—a King’sOfficer, and one who might conceivably be called upon to fight, andperhaps to die, for his country and for those simple Principles for whichhis country stood.
He was a little sorry when some of his bemedalled fellow-guests joked onsolemn and sacred subjects, and spoke a little slightingly of persons andprinciples venerable to him; but he comforted and consoled himself withthe recollection and reflection that this type of man so loathed anydisplay, or even mention, of sentiment and feeling, that it went to theopposite extreme, and spoke lightly of things weighty, talked ribaldly ofdignitaries, and gave a quite wrong impression as to its burningearnestness and enthusiasm.
After dinner, when the party broke up for bridge, billiards or the bar,he sat on, listening with all his ears to the conversation of theAdjutant and an officer, who seemed exceedingly well informed on thesubject of the battle of Tanga, in German East Africa, concerning whichthe general public knew nothing at all.
Murray noticed his intelligent and attentive silence, and counted it forrighteousness unto the boy, that he could “keep his head shut,” at anyrate. . . .
And next day The Blow fell!
For poor Captain and Adjutant Murray, of the Hundred and Ninety-NinthInfantry, it dawned like any ordinary day, and devoid of baleful omens.
There was nothing ominous about the coming of the tea, toast, and orangesthat “Abdul the Damned,” his bearer, brought into the big, bare andcomfortless room (furnished with two camp-beds, one long chair, one_almirah_ {30} and a litter on the floor) in which he and Bertram slept.
Early morning parade passed off without unusual or untoward event.
Breakfast was quite without portent, omen, or foreshadow of disaster.The Colonel’s silence was no more eloquent than usual, the Major’sremarks were no ruder, the Junior Subaltern’s no sillier, and those ofthe other fellows were no more uninteresting than upon other days; andall unconscious of his fate the hapless victim strayed into his office,followed by his faithful and devoted admirer, Second-Lieutenant BertramGreene, who desired nothing better than to sit at his feet and learn. . . .
And then it came!
It came in the shape of a telegram from the Military Secretary, and, onthe third reading of the fair-writ type, Murray had to realise that thewords undoubtedly and unmistakably were:
_To O.C. 199th Infantry_, _A.A.A._
_Second-Lieutenant Greene_, _I.A.R._, _to proceed to Mombasa forthwith incharge of your draft of one hundred P.M.’s and one Native Officer_, _bys.s. Elymas to-morrow and report to O.C._, _One Hundred and Ninety-Eighthimmediately_. _A.A.A._ _Military Secretary_, _Delhi_.
He read it through once again and then laid it on his table, leant hishead on his hand and felt physically faint and sick for a moment. He hadnot felt quite as he did then more than three or four times in the wholeof his life. It was like the feeling he had when he received the news ofhis mother’s death; when his proposal of marriage to the one-and-onlygirl had been rejected; when he had been bowled first ball in thePresidency Match, and when he had taken a toss from his horse at theBirthday Parade, as the beast, scared at the _feu-de-joie_, had suddenlybucked and bounced like an india-rubber ball. . . . He handed thetelegram to Bertram without comment.
That young gentleman read it through, and again. He swallowed hard andread it once more. His hand shook. He looked at the Adjutant, whonoticed that he had turned quite pale.
“Got it?” enquired Murray. “Here, sit down.” He thought the boy wasgoing to faint.
“Ye-e-s. I—er—think so,” was the reply. “_I_ am to take the draft fromthe Hundred and Ninety-Ninth to the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth in EastAfrica! . . . Oh, Murray, I _am_ sorry—for you. . . . And I am soutterly inadequate and incompetent. . . . It is cruel hard luck for you.. . .”
The Adjutant, a really keen, good soldier, said nothing. There wasnothing to say. He felt that his life lay about him in ruins. At theend of the war—which might come anywhen now that Russia had “gotgoing”—he would be one of the few professional soldiers without activeservice experience, without a medal or decoration of any sortwhatever. . . . Children who had gone straight from Sandhurst to the Frontwould join this very battalion, after the war, with their honours thick uponthem—and when he, the Adjutant, tried to teach them things, they’d smileand say: “We—ah!—didn’t do it like that at the Marne and Ypres. . . .”He could go straight away and shoot himself then and there. . . . Andthis pink civilian baby! This “Cupid”! No, there was nothing tosay—apart from the fact that he could not trust himself to speak.
For minutes there was complete silence in the little office. Bertram wasas one in a dream—a dream which was partly sweet and partly a nightmare._He_ to go to the Front to-morrow? To go on Active Service? He whomfellows always ragged, laughed at, and called Cupid and Blameless Bertramand Innocent Ernest? To go off from here in sole charge of a hundred ofthese magnificent fighting-men, and then to be an officer in a regimentthat had been fighting for weeks and had already lost a third of its menand a half of its officers, in battle? He, who had never fired a gun inhis life; never killed so much as a pheasant, a partridg
e, a grouse or arabbit; never suffered so much as a tooth-extraction—to shoot at hisfellow-men, to risk being horribly mangled and torn! . . . Yes—but whatwas that last compared with the infinitely greater horror, theunspeakable ghastliness of being _inadequate_, of being too incapable andinexperienced to do his duty to the splendid fellows who would look tohim, the White Man, their Officer, for proper leadership and handling?
To fail them in their hour of need. . . . He tried to moisten dry lipswith a dry tongue.
Oh, if only he had the knowledge and experience of the Adjutant—he wouldthen change places with no man in the world. Why had the England thathad educated him so expensively, allowed him to grow up so hopelesslyignorant of the real elemental essentials of life in the World-As-It-Is?He had been brought up as though the World were one vast ExaminationHall, and nothing else. Yes—he had been prepared for examinations allhis life, not prepared for the World at all. Oh, had he but Murray’sknowledge and experience, or one-tenth part of it—he would find theability, courage, enthusiasm and willingness all right.
But, as it was, who was _he_, Bertram Greene, the soft-handed sedentary,the denizen of libraries and lecture-rooms, the pale student, to dare tooffer to command, control and guide trained and hardy men of war? Whathad he (brought up by a maiden “aunt”!) to do with arms and blood, withstratagems and ambuscades, with gory struggles in unknown holes andcorners of the Dark Continent? Why, he had never shouted an order in hislife; never done a long march; never administered a harsh reprimand;never fired a revolver nor made a pass with a sword. (If only he _had_had more to do with such “passes” and less with his confoundedexamination passes—he might feel less of an utter fraud now.) At schooland at Oxford he had been too delicate for games, and in India, too busy,and too interested in more intellectual matters, for shikar, sport andhunting. He had just been “good old Blameless Bertram” and “our valuedand respected Innocent Ernest,” and “our pretty pink Cupid”—more at homewith antiquarians, ethnologists, Orientalists and scientists than withsportsmen and soldiers. . . .
The fact was that Civilisation led to far too much specialisation anddivision of labour. Why shouldn’t fellows be definitely trained andtaught, physically as well as mentally? Why shouldn’t every man be a bitof an artisan, an agriculturalist, a doctor, and a soldier, as well as amere wretched book-student? Life is not a thing of books. . . .
Anyhow, in the light of this telegram, it was pretty clear that hisuncle, General Sir Hugh Walsingham, K.C.S.I., had described him moreoptimistically than accurately when forwarding his application foradmission to the Indian Army Reserve of Officers, to the MilitarySecretary. . . . Another awful thought—suppose he let Uncle Hugh downbadly. . . . And what of his father? . . .
Well—there was one thing, he would do his absolute utmost, his reallyultimate best; and no one could do more. But, oh, the fathomlessprofundity of his ignorance and inexperience! Quite apart from anyquestion of leading men in battle, how could he hope to avoid incurringtheir contempt on the parade-ground? They’d see he was an Ass, and avery ignorant one to boot, before he had been in front of them for fiveminutes. . . . One thing—he’d know that drill-book absolutely by heartbefore long. His wretched examination training would stand him in goodstead there, at any rate. . . .
“Must tell the Colonel,” said Murray suddenly, and he arose and left theoffice.
A few minutes later the Quartermaster, Lieutenant Macteith, entered.Instead of going to his desk and settling down to work, he took apowerful pair of field-glasses from their case on Murray’s table andcarefully examined Bertram through them.
Bertram coloured, and felt quite certain that he did not like Macteith atall.
Reversing the glasses, that gentleman then examined him through thelarger end.
“Oh, my God!” he ejaculated at last, and then feigned unconquerablenausea.
He had heard the news, and felt personally injured and insulted that thismiserable half-baked rabbit should be going on Active Service whileLieutenant and Quartermaster Macteith was not.
An orderly entered, saluted, and spoke to him in Hindustani.
“Colonel wants you,” he said, turning to Bertram, as the orderly againsaluted, wheeled about, and departed. “He wants to strain you to hisbreast, to clasp your red right hand, to give you his photograph and begfor yours—or else to wring your neck!” And as Bertram rose to go, headded: “Here—take this pen with you.”
“What for?” asked Bertram.
“To write something in his autograph-album and birthday-book—he’s sure toask you to,” was the reply.
Bertram turned and departed, depressed in spirit. He hated anyone tohate him, and he had done Macteith no harm. But in spite of hisdepression, he was aware of a wild little devil of elation who caperedmadly at the back of his brain. This exuberant little devil appeared tobe screaming joyous war-whoops and yelling: “_Active Service_! . . ._You are going to see service and to fight_! . . . _You will have awar-medal and clasps_! . . . _You are going to be a real war-hardenedand experienced soldier_! . . . _You are going to be a devil of afellow_! . . . _Whoop and dance_, _you Ass_! . . . _Wave your armsabout_, _and caper_! . . . _Let out a loud yell_, _and do a fandango_!. . .” But in the Presence of the Colonel, Bertram declined to entertainthe little devil’s suggestions, and he neither whooped nor capered. Hewondered, nevertheless, what this cold monument of imperturbability woulddo if he suddenly did commence to whoop, to caper and to dance beforehim. Probably say “H’m!”—since that was generally reported to be theonly thing he ever said. . . .
Marching into the room in which the Colonel sat at his desk, Bertramhalted abruptly, stood at attention stiffly, and saluted smartly. Thenhe blushed from head to foot as he realised that he had committed theghastly _faux pas_, the horrible military crime, of saluting bare-headed.He could have wept with vexation. To enter so smartly, hearing himselflike a trained soldier—and then to make such a Scarlet Ass of himself!. . . The Colonel gazed at him as at some very repulsive andindescribable, but very novel insect.
“. . . And I’ll make a list of the cooking-pots and other kit thatthey’ll have to take for use on board, sir, and give it to Greene with aletter to Colonel Rock asking him to have them returned here,” theAdjutant was saying, as he laid papers before the Colonel for signature.
“H’m!” said the Colonel.
“I have ordered the draft to parade at seven to-morrow, sir,” hecontinued, “and told the Bandmaster they will be played down to theDocks. . . . Greene can take them over from me at seven and march themoff. I have arranged for the kits to go down in bullock-cartsbeforehand. . . .”
“H’m!” said the Colonel.
“I’ll put Greene in the way of things as much as possible to-day,” wenton the Adjutant. “I’ll go with him and get hold of the cooking-potshe’ll take for the draft to use on board—and then I’d better run down andsee the Staff Embarkation Officer with him, about his cabin and the men’squarters on the _Elymas_, and. . .”
“H’m!” said the Colonel, and taking up his cane and helmet, departedthence without further remark.
“. . . And—I hope you’ll profit by every word you’ve heard from theColonel, my lad,” the Adjutant concluded, turning ferociously uponBertram. “Don’t stand there giggling, flippant and indifferent—a perfectpicture of the Idle Apprentice, I say,” and he burst into a peal oflaughter at the solemn, anxious, tragic mask which was Bertram’s face.
“No,” he added, as they left the room. “Let the Colonel’s wise andpregnant observations sink into your mind and bring forth fruit. . . .Such blossoming, blooming flowers of rhetoric _oughter_ bring forth fruitin due season, anyhow. . . . Come along o’ me.”
Leaving the big Mess bungalow, the two crossed the _maidan_, whereinnumerous small squads of white-clad recruits were receivingmusketry-instruction beneath the shady spread of gigantic banyans. Thequickly signalled approach of the dread Adjutant-Sahib galvanised theHavildar and Naik ins
tructors to a fearful activity and zeal, which wanednot until he had passed from sight. In one large patch of shade theBandmaster—an ancient Pathan, whose huge iron-rimmed spectacles accordedbut incongruously with his fierce hawk face, ferocious curling whitemoustache and beard, and bemedalled uniform—was conducting the band’stentative rendering of “My Bonnie is over the Ocean,” to Bertram’swide-eyed surprise and interest. Through the Lines the two officers madea kind of Triumphal Progress, men on all sides stiffening to “attention”and saluting as they passed, to where, behind a cook-house, lay ninelarge smoke-blackened cooking-pots under a strong guard.
“There they are, my lad,” quoth the hitherto silent Adjutant. “Regardthem closely, and consider them well. Familiarise yourself with them,and ponder.”
“Why?” asked Bertram.
“For in that it is likely that they, or their astral forms, will hauntyour thoughts by day, your dreams by night. Your every path through lifewill lead to them,” answered the Adjutant.
“What have I got to do with them?” enquired Bertram, with uncomfortablevisions of adding the nine big black cauldrons to his kit.
“Write about them,” was the succinct reply.
“To whom?” was the next query.
“Child,” said the Adjutant solemnly, “you are young and ignorant, thoughearnest. To you, in your simplicity and innocence—
‘A black cooking-pot by a cook-house door A black cooking-pot is, and nothing more,’
as dear William Wordsworth so truly says in his _Ode on the Imitations ofImmorality_, is it—or is it in ‘_Hark how the Shylock at Heaven’s gatesings_’? I forget. . . . But these are _much_ more. Oh, very much.”
“How?” asked the puzzled but earnest one.
“_How_? . . . Why they are the subject-matter, from this moment, of aCorrespondence which will be still going on when your children’sgrandchildren are doddering grey-beards, and you and I are long sinceswept into the gulf of well-deserved oblivion. _Babus_ yet unborn willbatten on that Correspondence and provide posts for their relativesunnumbered as the sands of the seashore, that it may be carried onunfailing and unflagging. As the pen drops from their senile palsiedhands they will see the Correspondence take new lease of life, and theywill turn their faces to the wall, smile, and die happy.”
“I am afraid I don’t really understand,” admitted Bertram.
“_Do_ you think Colonel Rock will return these pots? Believe me, he willnot. He will say, ‘_A pot in the hand is worth two in thebush-country_,’ or else ‘_What I have I hold_,’ or ‘_Ils suis_, _ilsreste_’—being a bit of a scholar like—or perhaps he’ll just swear hebought ’em off a man he went to see about a dog, just round the corner,at the pub. I don’t know about _that_—but return them he will not. . . .”
“But if I say they belong to Colonel Frost and that he wants themback—and that I promised to make it clear to him that Colonel Frostdesires their immediate return,” protested Bertram, who visualisedhimself between the anvil of Colonel Rock and the hammer of ColonelFrost.
“Why then he’ll probably say they now ‘belong to Colonel Rock and that he_doesn’t_ want them to go back, and that you must promise to make itclear to Colonel Frost that he desires _his_ immediate return’—to thedevil,” replied the Adjutant.
“Yes—every time,” he continued. “He will pretend that fighting Germansis a more urgent and important matter than returning pots. He will layaside no plans of battle and schemes of strategy to attend to the pots.He will detail no force of trusty soldiers to convoy them to the coast. . . .He will refuse to keep them prominently before his vision. . . . Inshort, he will hang on to the damn things. . . . And when the war iso’er and he returns, he’ll swear he never had a single cooking-pot inAfrica, and in any case they are his own private property, and alwayswere. . . .”
“I shall have to keep on reminding him about them,” observed Bertram,endeavouring to separate the grain of truth from the literal “chaff” ofthe Adjutant—who seemed to be talking rapidly and with bitter humour, tokeep himself from thinking of his cruel and crushing disappointment, orto hide his real feelings.
“If you go nightly to his tent, and, throwing yourself prostrate at hisfeet, clasp him around the knees, and say: ‘_Oh_, _sir_, _think of poorpot-less Colonel Frost_,’ he will reply: ‘_To hell with Colonel Frost_!. . .’ Yes—every time. . . . Until, getting impatient of your reproachfulpresence, he will say: ‘_You mention pots again and I’ll fill you withdespondency and alarm_. . .’ He’ll do it, too—he’s quite good at it.”
“Rather an awkward position for me,” ventured Bertram.
“Oh, quite, quite,” agreed Murray. “Colonel Frost will wire that unlessyou return his pots, he’ll break you—and Colonel Rock will state that ifyou so much as hint at pots, _he’ll_ break you. . . . But that’s neitherhere nor there—the Correspondence is the thing. It will begin when youare broke by one of the two—and it will be but waxing in volume to itsgrand climacteric when the war is forgotten, and the pots are but thedust of rust. . . . A great thought. . . Yes. . .”
Bertram stared at the Adjutant. Had he gone mad? Fever? A touch of thesun? It was none of these things, but a rather terrible blow, ablighting and a shattering of his almost-realised hopes—and he musteither talk or throw things about, if he were not to sit down andblaspheme while he drank himself into oblivion. . . .
For a time they regarded the pots in awed contemplative silence and feltthemselves but ephemeral in their presence, as they thought of the GreatCorrespondence, but yet with just a tinge of that comforting andsustaining _quorum pais magna fui_ feeling, to which Man, the MightyAtom, the little devil of restless interference with the Great Forces, isever prone.
In chastened silence they returned to the Adjutant’s office, and Bertramsat by his desk and watched and wondered, while that official got throughthe rest of his morning’s work and dealt faithfully with many—chieflysinners.
He then asked the Native Adjutant, who had been assisting him, to sendfor Jemadar Hassan Ali, who was to accompany Bertram and the draft on themorrow, and on that officer’s arrival he presented him to the younggentleman.
As he bowed and shook hands with the tall, handsome Native Officer,Bertram repressed a tendency to enquire after Mrs. Ali and all the littleAllies, remembering in time that to allude directly to a nativegentleman’s wife is the grossest discourtesy and gravest immorality. Allhe could find to say was: “_Salaam_, _Jemadar Sahib_! _Sub achcha hai_?”{38a} which at any rate appeared to serve, as the Native Officer gaveevery demonstration of cordiality and pleasure. What he said in reply,Bertram did not in the least understand, so he endeavoured to put on alook combining pleasure, comprehension, friendliness and agreement—whichhe found a slight strain—and remarked: “_Béshak_! _Béshak_!” {38b} as henodded his head. . . .
The Jemadar later reported to his colleagues that the new Sahib, albeitthrust in over the heads of tried and experienced Native Officers,appeared to _be_ a Sahib, a gentleman of birth, breeding, and goodmanners; and evidently possessed of far more than such slight perceptionand understanding as was necessary for proper appreciation of the worthand virtues of Jemadar Hassan Ali. Also that he was but a hairless-facedbabe—but doubtless the Sircar knew what it was about, and was quite rightin considering that a young boy of the Indian Army Reserve was fitter tobe a Second-Lieutenant in the _pultan_, than was a Jemadar of fifteenyears’ approved service and three medals. One of his hearers laughedsarcastically, and another grunted approval, but the Subedar-Majorremarked that certain opinions, however tenable, were, perhaps, betterleft unvoiced by those who had accepted service under the Sircar onperfectly clear and definite terms and conditions.
When the Jemadar had saluted and left the office, Murray turned uponBertram suddenly, and, with a concentrated glare of cold ferocity,delivered himself.
“Young Greene,” quoth he, “yesterday I said you were a Good Egg and adesirable. I called you Brother, and fell upon yo
ur neck, and I welcomedyou to my hearth. I overlooked your being the son of a beknightedGeneral. I looked upon you and found you fair and good—as a ‘relief.’You were a stranger, and I took you in. . . . Now you have taken _me_in—and I say you are a cuckoo in the nest, a viper in the back-parlour, aworm in the bud, a microbe in the milk, and an elephant in the ointment.. . . You are a—a—”.
“I’m _awfully_ sorry, Murray,” interrupted the unhappy Bertram. “I’d do_anything_—”
“Yes—and any _body_,” continued the Adjutant. “I say you are a pillar ofthe pot-houses of Gomorrah, a fly-blown turnip and a great mistake.Though of apparently most harmless exterior and of engaging manners, youare an orange filled with ink, an addled egg of old, and an UtterImprobability. I took you up and you have done me down. I took you outand you have done me in. I took you in and you have done me out—of mychance in life. . . . Your name is now as a revolting noise in my ears,and your face a repulsive sight, a thing to break plates on . . . andthey ‘call you _Cupid_’!”
“I can’t tell you how distressed I am about it, Murray,” broke in thesuffering youth. “If only there were anything I could do so that youcould go, and not I—”
“You can do nothing,” was the cold reply. “You can not even, in meredecency, die this night like a gentleman. . . . And if you did, they’donly send some other pale Pimple to take the bread out of a fellow’smouth. . . . This is a civilians’ war, mark you; they don’t wantprofessional soldiers for a little job like this. . . .”
“It wasn’t _my_ fault, Murray,” protested Bertram, reduced almost totears by his sense of wicked unworthiness and the injustice to his kindmentor of yesterday.
“Perhaps not,” was the answer, “but why were you ever _born_, CupidGreene, that’s what I ask? You say it isn’t your fault—but if you’dnever been born . . . Still, though I can never forget, I forgive you,and would share my last pot of rat-poison with you cheerfully. . . .Here—get out your note-book,” and he proceeded to give the boy every“tip” and piece of useful advice and information that he could think ofas likely to be beneficial to him, to the men, to the regiment, and tothe Cause.
Cupid in Africa Page 5
