Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

  CHAPTER XIV_The Convoy_

  Bertram never forgot this plunge into the primeval jungle with itsmingled suggestions of a Kew hot-house, a Turkish bath, a shower bath, amud bath and a nightmare.

  His mind was too blunted with probing into new things, his brain toodulled by the incessant battering of new ideas, too drunk with draughtsof strange mingled novelty, too covered with recent new impressions forhim to be sensitive to fresh ones.

  Had an elephant emerged from the dripping jungle, wagged its tail and satup and begged, he would have experienced no great shock of surprise. He,a town-bred, town-dwelling, pillar of the Respectable, the Normal and theEstablished, was marching through virgin forest at the head of a thousandAfrican porters and two hundred Indian soldiers and their camp-followers,surrounded by enemies—varying from an _ex_-Prussian Guard armed with amachine-gun to a Wadego savage armed with a poisoned arrow—to the reliefof hungry men in a stockaded outpost! . . . What further room was therefor marvels, wonders, and surprises? As he tramped, splashed, slippedand stumbled along the path, and the gloom of early morning, black sky,mist, and heavy rain slowly gave way to dawn and daylight, his fit ofsavage temper induced by “liver,” hunger, headache and disgust, slowlygave way, also, to the mental inertia, calm, and peace, induced bymonotonous exercise. The steady dogged tramp, tramp, tramp, was ananodyne, a sedative, a narcotic that drugged the mind, rendering itinsensitive to the pains and sickness of the body as well as to its ownworries, anxieties and problems. . . .

  Bertram felt that he could go on for a very long time; go on until hefell; but he knew that when he fell it would be quite impossible for himto get up again. Once his legs stopped moving, the spell would bebroken, the automaton would have “run down,” and motion would cease quitefinally. . . .

  As daylight grew, he idly and almost subconsciously observed the detailsof his environment.

  This was better than the mangrove-thicket of the swamp, in a clearing ofwhich the base camp lay. It was the densest of dense jungle throughwhich the track ran, like a stream through a cañon, but it was a jungleof infinite variety. Above the green impenetrable mat of elephant grassand nameless tangle of undergrowth, scrub, shrub, liana, bush, creeper,and young trees, stood, in solid serried array, great trees by themillion, palm, mango, baobab, acacia, live oak, and a hundred otherkinds, with bamboo and banana where they could, in defiance ofprobability, squeeze themselves in. Some of the trees looked like thehandiwork of prentice gods, so crude and formless were they, their fattrunks tapering rapidly from a huge ground-girth to a fine point, andputting forth little abortive leafless branches suggestive of stragglyhairs. Some such produced brilliant red blossoms, apparently on thetrunk itself, but dispensed with the banality of leaves and branches.Some great knotted creepers seemed to have threaded themselves with beadsas big as a man’s head, and the fruit of one arboreal freak was vastsausages.

  Through the aerial roadways of the forest, fifty feet above the heads ofthe _safari_, tribes of monkeys galloped and gambolled as they spied uponit and shrieked their comment.

  Apparently the varied and numerous birds held views upon the subject of_safaris_ also, and saw no reason to conceal them.

  One accompanied the advance-guard, piping and fluting: “_Poli-Poli_!_Poli-Poli_!” which, as Ali Suleiman informed Bertram, is Swahili for“Slowly! _Slowly_!”

  Another bird appeared to have fitted up his home with a chime of at leasteight bells, for, every now and then, a sweet and sonorous tolling rangthrough the jungle. One bird, sitting on a branch a few feet fromBertram’s head, emitted two notes that for depth of timbre and richsonorous sweetness could be excelled by no musical instrument or bell onearth. He had but the two notes apparently, but those two weremarvellous. They even roused Bertram to the reception of a newimpression and a fresh sensation akin to wonder.

  From many of the overhanging trees depended the beautifully wovenbottle-like nests of the weaver-bird. Brilliant parrots flashed throughthe tree-tops, incredible horn-bills carried their beaks about, thehypocritical widower-bird flaunted his new mourning, the blue starling,the sun-bird, and the crow-pheasant, with a score of other species,failed to give the gloomy, menacing jungle an air of brightness and life,seemed rather to emphasise its note of gloom, its insistence upon itselfas the home of death where Nature, red in tooth and claw, pursued hercycle of destruction with fierce avidity and wanton masterfulness. . . .

  Suddenly a whistle rang out—sharp, clear, imperative. Its incisive blowupon the silence of the deadly jungle startled Bertram from his apathy.His tired wits sprang to life and activity, urged on his weary flaggingmuscles. He wheeled round and faced the Sepoys just behind him, even asthe blast of the whistle ceased.

  “_Halt_! _Baitho_!” {148} he shouted—gave the drill-book sign to liedown—and waited, for a second that seemed like a year, to feel thewithering blast of fire that should tear through them at point-blankrange. . . . Why did it not come? . . . Why did no guttural Germanvoice shout an order to fire? . . . . He remained standing upright,while the Sepoys, crouching low, worked the bolts of their rifles to loadthe latter from their magazines. He was glad to see that they made readythus, without awaiting an order, even as they sank to the ground. Wouldit not be better to march in future with a cartridge in the chamber andthe cut-off of the magazine open? . . . Accidents? . . . Not if he madethem march with rifles at the “slope.” . . . Better the risk of anaccident than the risk of being caught napping. . . . Why did not theaccursed German give the order to fire? . . . Was it because Bertram hadgot his men crouching down so quickly? . . . Would the crashing volleythunder out, the moment they arose? . . . They could not stay squatting,kneeling and lying in the mud for ever. . . . Where was the ambush? . . .Had they Maxims in trees, commanding this path? . . . Were the enemymassed in a clearing a foot or two from the road, and separated from itonly by a thin screen of foliage? . . . . What should he do if therewere a sudden bayonet-charge down the path, by huge ferocious _askaris_?. . . You can’t meet a charge with efficient rifle-fire when you are insingle file and your utmost effort at deployment would get two, orpossibly three crowded and hampered men abreast. . . . On the otherhand, the enemy would not be charging under ideal conditions either. . . .More likely a machine-gun would suddenly nip out, from concealmentbeside the path, and wither the column away with a blast of fire at sixhundred rounds a minute. . . . Perhaps the “point” marching on aheadwould have the sense and the courage and the time to get into thegun-team with their bayonets before it got the gun going? . . . _Why didnot the enemy fire_? . . . He would go mad if they didn’t do so soon. . . .Were they playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse? . . .

  The whistle rang out again, harsh, peremptory, fateful—and then AliSuleiman laughed, and pointed at a small bird. As he did so, the birdwhistled again, with precisely the note of a police-whistle blown underthe stress of fear, excitement or anger, a clamant, bodeful, andinsistent signal.

  Bertram would have welcomed warmly an opportunity to wring littlebirdie’s neck, in the gust of anger that followed the fright.

  Giving the signal to rise and advance, Bertram strode on, and, stillunder the stimulus of alarm, forgot that he was tired.

  He analysed his feelings. . . . Was he frightened and afraid? Not atall. The whistle had “made him jump,” and given him a “start,” ofcourse. The waiting for the blast of fire, that he knew would follow thesignal, had been terribly trying—a torture to the nerves. The problem ofwhat to do, in response to the enemy’s first move, had been an agonisinganxiety—but he would certainly have done something—given clear orders asto object and distance if there had been anything to fire at; used hisrevolver coolly and set a good example if there had been a charge downthe path; headed a fierce rush at the Maxim if one had come out of coverand prepared to open fire. . . . No—he decidedly was not frightened andafraid. . . He was glad that he had remained erect, and, with his handon his revolver, had, with seeming coolness, scanned the surr
oundingtrees and jungle for signs of an ambushed enemy. . . .

  The road forked, and he turned to Ali Suleiman, who had marched near himfrom the start, in the proud capacity of guide.

  “Which of these paths?” said he.

  “The left hands, sah, please God,” was the reply; “the right is closedalso.”

  “What d’you mean?” asked Bertram, staring down the open track thatbranched to the right.

  “See, _Bwana_,” replied Ali, pointing to a small branch that lay in themiddle of the path, with its broken end towards them and its leaves awayfrom them. “Road closed. I ’spec _askari_ patrol from Butani putting itthere, when they know _Bwana_ coming, thank God, please.”

  Apparently this twig, to the experienced eye, was precisely equivalent toa notice-board bearing the legend, _No Thoroughfare_. Bertram signalleda halt and turned to the Havildar at the head of the advance-guard.

  “Take ten men and patrol down that path for a thousand yards,” said he.“Then march back, wait for the rear-guard, and report to the JemadarSahib.”

  The man saluted, and Bertram saw him and his patrol move off, before hegave the order for the column to advance again. . . . That should securethe _safari_ from attack down _that_ path, anyhow. Ten determined mencould hold up any number for any length of time, if they did the rightthing. . . . These beastly bush fighting conditions cut both ways. . . .Yes—then suppose a small patrol of enemy _askaris_ were on this track infront of him, and decided to hold the convoy up, what could he do?

  To advance upon them, practically in single file, would be likeapproaching a long stick of sealing-wax to the door of a furnace—thepoint would melt and melt until the whole stick had disappeared withoutreaching the fire. . . . Of course, if there was a possibility ofgetting into the jungle, he would send out parties to take them in flankas he charged down the path. But that was just the point—you _couldn’t_get more than a few yards into the jungle in the likeliest places, and,when you’d done that, you’d be utterly out of touch with your right andleft-hand man in no time—not to mention the fact that you’d have no senseof direction or distance. . . .

  No. . . . He’d just head a charge straight for them, and if it were areally determined one and the distance not too great, enough of theadvance-guard might survive to reach them with the bayonet. . . .Evidently, if there were any rules at all in this jungle warfare, onewould be that the smaller of the two forces should dispose itself tobring every rifle to bear with magazine fire, and the larger should makethe swiftest charge it possibly could. If it didn’t—a dozen men would beas good as a thousand—while their ammunition held out. . . . What anadvantage over the Indian Sepoy, with his open order _maidan_ {150}training, the _askari_, bred and born and trained to this bush-fighting,would have! The German _ought_ to win this campaign with his very bigarmy of indigenous soldiers and his “salted” Colonials. What chance hadthe Sepoy or the British Regular in these utterly strange andunthought-of conditions? . . . As well train aviators and then put themin submarines as train the Indian Army for the frontier and the plainsand then put them in these swamps and jungles where your enemy isinvisible and your sole “formation” is single file. What about thesacred and Medean Law: _Never fire until you can see something to fireat_? They’d never fire at all, at that rate, with an enemy whohabitually used machine-guns from tree-tops and fired from densecover—and small blame to him. . . .

  A sound of rushing water, and a few minutes later the path became theedge of a river-bank beneath which the torrent swirled. It looked asthough its swift erosion would soon bring the crumbling and beetling bankdown, and the path would lead straight into the river. He must mentionthe fact at Butindi.

  He stared at the jungle of the opposite bank, apparently lifeless anddeserted, though menacing, secretive and uncanny. An ugly place. . . .Suppose the Germans bridged the river just here. . . . He found that hehad come to a halt and was yearning to sit down. . . . He must not dothat. He must keep moving. But he did not like that gap in the pathwhere, for some yards, it ran along the edge of the bank. It was a gapin the wall, an open door in the house, a rent in the veil of protection.The jungle seemed a friend instead of a blinding and crippling hindrance,impediment, and obstacle, now that the path lay open and exposed alongthat flank. Suppose there were an ambush in the jungle on the other sideof the narrow rushing river, and a heavy fire was opened upon his men asthey passed? He could not get at an enemy so placed, nor return theirfire for long, from an open place, while they were in densest cover.They could simply prohibit the passing of the _safari_. . . . Anyhow,he’d leave a force there to blaze like fury into the jungle across theriver if a shot were fired from there.

  “Naik,” said he, to a corporal, “halt here with twenty men and line theedge of the bank. If you are fired at from across the river, pour inmagazine fire as hard as you can go—and make the porters _run_ like thedevil across this gap.” He then translated, as well as he could, andmarched on. He had done his best, anyhow.

  For another hour he doggedly tramped on. The rain ceased, and the heatgrew suffocating, stifling, terrible to bear. He felt that he wasbreathing pure steam, and that he must climb a tree in search of air—do_something_ to relieve his panting lungs. . . . He tore his tunic openat the throat. . . . _Help_! he was going to faint and fall. . . . Witha great effort he swung about and raised his hand for the “halt” andlowered it with palm horizontal downward for the “lie down.” . . . Ifthe men were down themselves they would not realise that he had fallen. . . .It would not do to fall while marching at their head, to fall andlie there for the next man to stumble over him, to set an example ofweakness. . . . The officer should be the last man to succumb toanything—but wounds—in front. . . .

  He sank to the ground, and feeling that he was going to faint away, puthis head well down between his knees, and, after a while, felt better.

  “_Bwana_ taking off tunic and belts,” said Ali Suleiman, “and I carrythem. _Bwana_ keep only revolver, by damn, please God, sah.”

  A bright idea! Why not? Where was the sense in marching through thesefoul swamps and jungles as though it were along the Queen’s Road atBombay? And Ali, who would rather die than carry a load upon his head,like a low _shenzi_ of a porter, would be proud to carry his master’ssword and personal kit.

  In his shirt-sleeves, with exposed chest, Bertram felt another man, gavethe signal to advance, and proceeded free of all impedimenta save hisrevolver. . . .

  Suddenly the narrow, walled-in path debouched into a most beautiful openglade of trees like live oaks. These were not massed together; there wasno undergrowth of bush; the grass was short and fine; the ground slopingslightly upward was gravelly and dry—the whole spot one of Africa’sfreakish contrasts.

  Bertram determined to halt the whole _safari_ here, get it “closed up”into something like fours, and see every man, including the rear-guard,into the place before starting off again.

  With the help of Ali, who interpreted to the headmen, he achieved hisobject, and, when he had satisfied himself that it was a case of “allpresent and correct,” he returned to the head of the column and sat himdown upon the trunk of a fallen tree. . . .

  Everybody, save the sentries, whom he had posted about the glade,squatted or lay upon the ground, each man beside his load. . . .

  Though free now of the horrible sense of suffocation, he felt sick andfaint, and very weary. Although he had not had a proper meal since heleft the _Barjordan_, he was not hungry—or thought he was not. . . .Would it be his luck to be killed in the first fight that he took partin? His _good_ luck? When one is ill and half starved, weary beyondwords, and bearing a nightmare burden of responsibility in conditions ascomfortless and rough as they can well be, Death seems less a grislyterror than a friend, bearing an Order of Release in his bony hand. . . .

  Ali stood before him unbuckling his haversack.

  “Please God, sah, I am buying _Bwana_ this chocolates in Mombasa whenfinding master got no
grubs for emergency rasher,” said he, producing abig blue packet of chocolate.

  “Good man!” replied Bertram. “I meant to get a stock of that myself. . . .”

  He ate some chocolate, drank of the cold tea with which the excellent Alihad filled his water-bottle, and felt better.

  After an hour’s rest he gave the order to fall in, the headmen of theporters got their respective gangs loaded up again, and the _safari_wound snake-like from the glade along the narrow path once more, Bertramat its head. He felt he was becoming a tactical soldier as he sent alance-naik to go the round of the sentries and bid them stand fast untilthe rear-guard had disappeared into the jungle, when they were to rejoinit.

  On tramped the _safari_, hour after hour, with occasional halts where thetrack widened, or the jungle, for a brief space, gave way to forest or_dambo_. Suddenly the head of the column emerged from the denser jungleinto an undulating country of thicket, glade, scrub, and forest. Bertramsaw the smoke of campfires far away to the left; and with one accord theporters commenced to beat their loads, drum-wise, with their _safari_sticks as they burst into some tribal chant or pæan of rejoicing. Theconvoy had reached Butindi in safety.