CHAPTER XVI_The Bristol Bar_
“Come along to the Bristol Bar and have a drink, Greene,” said CecilClarence, _alias_ Gussie Augustus Gus, emerging from his _banda_, intowhich he had cast his tunic and Sam Browne belt.
“Thanks,” replied Bertram, wondering if there were a Jungle Hotel withineasy reach of the _boma_, or whether the outpost had its own Place,“licensed for the sale of beer, wine, spirits, and tobacco, to beconsumed on the premises. . . .”
In the High Street, next door to the Officers’ Mess, were two greentents, outside one of which stood a rough camp-table of the “folding”variety, a native string bed, and a circle of Roorkee chairs, boxes andstools. On an erection of sticks and withes, resembling an umbrellastand, stood an orderly array of fresh coco-nuts, the tops of which hadbeen sliced off to display the white interior with its pint or so ofsweet, limpid milk.
Emerging from the tent, an Arab “boy” in a blue turban, blue jacketbuttoning up to the chin, blue petticoat and puttees, placed bottles ofvarious kinds on the table, together with a “sparklet” apparatus and apannikin of water. The Bristol Bar was open. . . . From the other tentemerged an officer in the blue uniform of the little fair men.
He eyed the muddy ground, the ugly grey _bandas_ of withered grass andleaves, the muddy, naked Kavirondo—piling their loads on the commissariatdump, and the general dreary, cheerless scene, with the cold eye ofextreme distaste and disfavour.
“_Yah_!” said he. He eyed the bottles on the table.
“_Ah_!” said he, and seated himself behind the Bristol Bar.
“Start with a Ver-Gin, I think, as I’ve been such a good boy to-day,” hemurmured, and, pouring a measure of Italian vermuth into an enamelledmug, he added a smaller allowance of gin.
“Wish some fool’d roll up so that I can get a drink,” he grumbled,holding the mug in his hand.
It did not occur to him to “_faire Suisse_,” as the French say—to drinkalone. He must at least say “Chin-chin” or “Here’s how” to somebody elsewith a drink in his hand. Had it been cocoa, now, or something of thatsort, one might drink gallons of it without a word to a soul. One couldlie in bed and wallow and soak, lap it up like a cat or take it inthrough the pores—but this little drop of alcohol must not be drunkwithout a witness and a formula. So Lieutenant Forbes possessed his soulin impatience.
A minute later, from every _banda_ and tent, from the Officers’ Mess andfrom all directions, came British officers, bearing each man in his handssomething to drink or something from which to drink.
The Major bore The Glass, and, behind him, the Mess butler carried asquare bottle of ration whisky. He was followed by a Swahili clasping tohis bosom a huge jar of ration rum, newly arrived. “Leesey” Lindsay, ofthe Intelligence Department, brought a collapsible silver cup, which, ashe said, only wanted knowing. It leaked and it collapsed atinappropriate moments, but, on the other hand, it _did_ collapse, and youcould put it in your pocket—where it collected tobacco dust, crumbs,fluff, and grit. Vereker carried a fresh coco-nut and half a coco-nutshell. This latter he was going to carve and polish. He said thatcoco-nut shells carved beautifully and took a wonderful polish. . . .His uncle, an admiral, had one which he brought from the South SeaIslands. It was beautifully carved and had taken a high polish—fromsomeone or other. A cannibal chief had drunk human blood from it foryears. . . . Vereker was going to drink whisky from his for years, andkeep it all his life—carving and polishing it between whiles. . . .“Yes. I used that as a drinking-cup all through my first campaign. Itnearly fell on my head in the first battle I ever fought. Cut off thetree by a bullet. Carved and polished it myself,” he would be able tosay, in years to come. Meanwhile it looked a very ordinary half-shell ofthe common coco-nut of commerce as known to those who upon Saints’ Daysand Festivals do roll, bowl, or pitch. . . .
Captain Macke brought a prepared siphon of “sparklet” water and hisration whisky. Gussie Augustus Gus walked delicately, bearing a brimmingcondensed milk tin, and singing softly—
“Dear, sweet Mother, Kind and true; She’s a boozer, Through and through . . . . But roll your tail, And roll it high, And you’ll be an angel By and by. . . .”
Lieutenant Bupendranath Chatterji brought a harsh laugh and anuncultivated taste, but a strong liking, for assorted liquors, preferablysweet. The officer who had been in command of the side of the fortoccupied by the men in blue entered the tent and, having removed hisbelt, seated himself beside Lieutenant Forbes, behind the bar.
“Good evening, Major,” said he; “won’t you come and have a drink? . . .Do!”
Regarding The Glass with a look of surprise, and as though wondering howthe devil it came to be there, the Major considered the invitation.
“Thanks!” said he. “Don’t mind if I _do_ sit down for a moment.” And heplaced The Glass upon the table. Strangely enough, his own Roorkee chairwas already in the centre of the circle facing the said table, as it hadbeen any evening at this time for the last fifty nights. The Mess butlerput the rum and whisky beneath his chair. “Let me introduce LieutenantGreene, attached to Ours. Wavell . . .” said he. . . . “Captain Wavellof Wavell’s Arabs, Greene,” and Bertram shook hands with a remarkable andromantic soldier of fortune, explorer and adventurous knight-errant, whomhe came to like, respect, and admire with the greatest warmth. Theothers drifted up and dropped in, accidentally and casually, as it were,until almost all were there, and the Bristol Bar was full; the hour ofthe evening star and the evening drink had arrived; _l’heure d’absinthe_,_l’heure verte_ had struck; the sun was below the yard-arm; now the daywas over, night was drawing nigh, shadows of the evening stole across thesky; and, war or no war, hunger, mud, disease and misery, or no hunger,mud, disease and misery, the British officer was going to have hisevening cocktail, his evening cheroot, and his evening “buck” at the clubbar—and to the devil with all Huns who’d interfere with his sacred rightsand their sacred rites.
“Here’s the best, Major,” said Forbes, and drank his ver-gin with gustoand appreciation. His very fine long-lashed eyes beneath faultlesslycurving eyebrows—eyes which many a woman had enviously and regretfullyconsidered to be criminally wasted on a mere man—viewed the grey prospectwith less disgust. The first drink of the day provided the best minuteof the day to this exile from the cream of the joys of Europe; and heeyed the array of bottles with something approaching optimism as heconsidered the question of what should be his drink for the evening.
“Cheerioh!” responded the Major, and took a pull at the whisky andslightly-aerated water in The Glass. “Here’s to Good Count Zeppelin—ourfinest recruiting agent, and Grandpa Tirpitz—who’ll bring America in onour side. . . .”
“What’ll you drink, Greene?” asked Wavell. “Vermuth? Whisky? Rum?Gin? Try an absinthe? Or can I mix you a Risky—rum and whisky, youknow—or a Whum—whisky and rum, of course?”
“They’re both helpful and cheering,” added Forbes.
“Let me make you a cock-eye,” put in Gussie Augustus Gus. “Thing of myown. Much better than a mere cocktail. Thought of it in bed last nightwhile I was sayin’ my prayers. This is one,” and he raised his condensedmilk tin. “Cross between milk-punch, cocktail, high-ball, gin-sling,rum-shrub, and a bitters. . . . Go down to posterity as a ‘Gussie’—alongwith the John Collins and Elsie May. . . . Great thought. . . . Let uspause before it. . . .”
“What’s in it?” asked Captain Macke.
“Condensed milk,” replied Augustus, “ration lime-juice, ration rum,ration whisky, medical-comfort brandy, vermuth, coco-nut milk, angostura,absinthe, glycerine. . . .”
“And a damn great flying caterpillar,” added the Major as a hideousinsect, with a fat, soft body, splashed into the pleasing compound.
“Dirty dog!” grumbled Augustus, fishing for the creature. “Here, don’tplay submarines in the mud, Eustace—be a sport and swim. . . . I candrink down to him, anyhow,” he added,
failing to secure the enterprisinglittle animal with a finger and thumb that groped short of the bottomstratum of his concoction. “Got his head stuck in the toffee-milk at thebottom.” Bertram declined a “Gussie,” feeling unworthy, also unable.
“Have you tried rum and coco-nut milk?” asked Wavell. “It’s a kind oflocal industry since we’ve been here. The Intelligence Department keepsa Friendly Tribe at work bringing in fresh coco-nuts, and our numerousdifferent detachments provide fatigue-parties in rotation to open them. . . .Many a worse drink than half a tumbler of ration rum poured into thecoco-nut. . . .”
“Point of fact—I’m a teetotaller just at present,” replied Bertram, sadlybut firmly. “May I substitute lime-juice for rum? . . .”
Vereker screwed in his monocle and regarded him. Not with astonishmentor interest, of course, for nothing astonished or interested him anymore. He was too young and wise for those emotions. But he regardedhim.
“What a dreadful habit to contract at your age, Greene,” observedAugustus, slightly shocked. “Y’ought to pull yourself together, y’know.. . . Give it up. . . . Bad. . . . Bad. . .” and he shook his head.
“What’s it feel like?” asked Captain Macke.
“You’ve been getting into bad company, my lad,” said Major Mallery.
“Oah! Maan, maan! You must not do thatt!” said Mr. Chatterji.
“I’ve got some ration lime-juice here,” said Wavell, “but I really don’tadvise it as a drink in this country. It’s useful stuff to have aboutwhen you can’t get vegetables of any sort—but I believe it thins yourblood, gives you boils, and upsets your tummy. . . . Drop of rum orwhisky in the evening . . . do you more good.”
Bertram’s heart warmed to the kindly friendliness of his voice andmanner—the more because he felt that, like himself, this famous travellerand explorer was of a shy and diffident nature.
“Thanks. I’ll take your advice then,” he said, and reflected that whatwas good enough for Wavell was good enough for him, in view of theformer’s unique experience of African and Asiatic travel. “I’ll try therum and coco-nut milk if I may,” he added.
“Three loud cheers!” remarked Augustus. “Won’t mother be pleased! . . .I’m going to write a book about it, Greene, if you don’t mind. . . .‘The Redemption of Lieutenant Greene’ or somethin’. . . . _You_ know—howon the Eve of Battle, in a blinding flash of self-illuminatingintrospection, he saw his soul for the Thing it was, saw just where hestood—on the brink of an Abyss. . . . And repented in time. . . .Poignant. . . . Repented and drank rum. . . . Searching.”
“Probably Greene’s pulling our legs the whole time, my good ass,” put inVereker. “Dare say he’s really a frightful drunkard. Riotous revellerand wallowing wassailer. . . . He’s got rather a wild eye. . . .”
Bertram laughed with the rest. It was impossible to take offence, forthere was nothing in the slightest degree offensive about these pleasant,friendly people.
Berners joined the group and saluted the Major. “Ammunition and rationindents all present and correct, sir,” said he.
“Rum ration all right?” asked the Major. “How do you know the jarsaren’t full of water?”
“P’raps he’d better select one at random as a sample and bring it overhere, Major,” suggested Macke. And it was so. . . .
Another officer drifted in and was introduced to Bertram as LieutenantHalke of the Coolie Corps, in charge of the Kavirondo, Wakamba, andMonumwezi labourers and porters attached to the Butindi garrison.
He was an interesting man, a big, burly planter, who had been in thecolony for twenty years. “I want your birds to dig another trenchto-morrow, Halke,” said the Major. “Down by the water-picket.”
“Very good, sir,” replied Halke. “I’m glad that convoy rolled up safelyto-day. Their _posho_ {167} was running rather low . . .” and theconversation became technical.
Bertram felt distinctly better for his rum and milk. His weariness fellfrom him like a garment, and life took on brighter hues. He was not awretched, weary lad, caught up in the maelstrom of war and flung frompleasant city streets into deadly primeval jungles, where lurked Death inthe form of bacillus, savage beast, and more savage and more beastly Man.Not at all. He was one of a band of Britain’s soldiers in an outpost ofEmpire on her far-flung battle-line. . . . One of a group of cheerycomrades, laughing and jesting in the face of danger and discomfort. . . .He had Answered His Country’s Call, and was of the great freemasonryof arms, sword on thigh, marching, marching. . . . Camp-fire andbivouac. . . . The Long Trail. . . . Beyond the Ranges. . . . Men whohave Done Things. . . . A sun-burnt, weather-beaten man from the Back ofBeyond. . . . Strong, silent man with a Square Jaw. . . . Romance. . . .Adventure. . . . Life. He drank some more of his rum and felt veryhappy. He nodded, drooped, snored—and nearly fell off his stool. Wavellsmiled as he jerked upright again, and tried to look as though he hadnever slept in his life.
“So Pappa behaved nasty,” Gussie Augustus Gus was saying to a deeplyinterested audience. “He’d just been turned down himself by a gay andwealthy widowette whom he’d marked down for his Number 2. When I said,‘Pappa, I’m going to be married on Monday, please,’ he spake pompousplatitudes, finishing up with: ‘_A young man married is a young manmarred_.’ . . . ‘Yes, Pappa,’ says I thoughtlessly, ‘_and an old manjilted is an old man jarred_.’ . . . Caused quite a coolness. So I wentto sea.” Augustus sighed and drank—and then almost choked with violentspluttering and coughing.
“That blasted Eustace!” he said, as he suddenly and vehemently expelledsomething.
“Did you marry her?” asked Vereker, showing no sympathy in the matter ofthe unexpected recovery of the body of Eustace.
“No,” said Augustus. “Pappa did.” . . .
“That’s what I went to see,” he added.
“Don’t believe you ever had a father,” said Vereker.
“I didn’t,” said Gussie Augustus Gus. “I was an orphan. . . . Am still.. . . Poignant. . . . Searching. . . .”
Lieutenant Bupendranath Chatterji listened to this sort of thing with anowlish expression on his fat face. When anybody laughed he laughed also,loudly and raucously.
It was borne in upon Bertram that it took more than fever, hunger,boredom, mud, rain and misery to depress the spirits of the officers ofthe garrison of Butindi. . . .
“_Khana tyar hai_, {168a} _Sahib_,” announced the Major’s butler,salaaming.
“Come and gnaw ropes and nibble bricks, Greene,” said the officeraddressed, and with adieux to Wavell and Forbes, who ran a mess of theirown, the guests departed from the Bristol Bar and entered the Officers’Mess. Here Bertram learnt the twin delights of a native bedstead whenused as a seat. You can either sit on the narrow wooden edge until youfeel as though you have been sitting on a hot wire for a week, or you canslide back on to the string part and slowly, slowly disappear from sight,and from dinner.
“This water drawn from the river and been standing in the bath all day,boy?”
“_Han_, {168b} _Sahib_,” replied that worthy.
“Alum in the water?”
“_Han_, _Sahib_.”
“Water then filtered?”
“_Han_, _Sahib_.”
“Water then boiled?”
“_Han_, _Sahib_.”
“_Pukka_ boiled?”
“_Han_, _Sahib_, all bubbling.”
“Filtered again? You saw it all done yourself?”
“_Han_, _Sahib_.”
“That’s all right, then,” concluded the Major.
This catechism was the invariable prelude to the Major’s use of water fordrinking purposes, whether in the form of _aqua pura_, whisky and water,or tea. For the only foe that Major Mallery feared was the disease-germ.To bullet and bayonet, shrapnel and shell-splinter, he gave no thought.To cholera, enteric and dysentery he gave much, and if care with hisdrinking water would do it, he intended to avoid those accursed scourgesof the tropics. Hold
ing up the glass to the light of the hurricane lampwhich adorned the clothless table of packing-case boards, he gazedthrough it—as one may do when caressing a glass of crusted ruby port—andmused upon the wisdom that had moved him to make it the sole and specialwork of one special man to see that he had a plentiful supply of purefair water.
He gazed. . . . And slowly his idle abstracted gaze became a stare and aglare. His eyes protruded from his head, and he gave a yell of gaspinghorror and raging wrath that drew the swift attention of all—
While round and round in the alum-ised, filtered, boiled and re-filteredwater, there slowly swam—a little fish.
* * * * *
Dinner was painfully similar to that at M’paga, save that the party,being smaller, was more of a Happy Family. It began with what Verekercalled “Chatty” soup (because it was “made from talkative meat, in achattie”), proceeded to inedible bully-beef, and terminated withdog-biscuit and coco-nut—unless you chose to eat your daily banana then.
During dinner, another officer, who had been out all day on areconnaissance-patrol, joined the party, drank a pint of rum-and-coco-nutmilk and fell asleep on the bedstead whereon he sat. He looked terriblythin and ill.
Macke punched him in the ribs, sat him up, and banged the tin plate ofcold soup with his knife till the idea of “dinner” had penetrated thesleepy brain of the new-corner. “Feed yer face, Murie,” he shouted inhis ear.
“Thanks awf’ly,” said that gentleman, took up his spoon, and toppled overbackwards on to the bed with a loud snore.
“Disgustin’ manners,” said Gussie Augustus Gus.
“I wish we had a siphon of soda-water. I’d wake him all right.”
“Set him on fire,” suggested Vereker.
“He’s too beastly wet, the sneak,” complained Gussie.
“Oah, he iss sleepee,” observed Lieutenant Bupendranath Chatterji.
Vereker regarded him almost with interest.
“What makes you think so?” he asked politely. In the laugh thatfollowed, the sleeper was forgotten and remained where he was untilStand-to the following morning. He was living on quinine and hisnerves—which form an insufficient diet in tropical Africa.
“Where _Bwana_ sleeping to-night, sah, please Mister?” whispered Ali, as,dinner finished, Bertram sat listening with deep interest to theconversation.
Pipes alight, and glasses, mugs and condensed milk tins charged, the Messwas talking of all things most distant and different from jungle swampsand dirty, weary war. . . .
“Quite most ’sclusive Society in Oxford, I tell you,” Gussie was saying.“Called ourselves _The Astronomers_. . . .”
“What the devil for? Because you were generally out at night?” askedMacke.
“No—because we studied the Stars—of the Stage,” was the reply. . . .
“Rotten,” said Vereker, with a shiver. “You sh’d have called yourselves_The Botanists_,” he added a minute later.
“Why?”
“Because you culled Peroxide Daisies and Lilies of the Ballet.”
“Ghastly,” observed Gussie, with a shudder. “And _cull_ is a beastlyword. One who culls is a cully. . . . How’d you like to be called_Cully_, Murie?” he shouted in that officer’s ear. Receiving no reply,he pounded upon the sleeper’s stomach with one hand while violentlyrolling his head from side to side with the other.
Murie awoke.
“Whassup?” he jerked out nervously.
“How’d you like to be called _Cully_?” shouted Gussie again.
Murie fixed a glassy eye on him. His face was chalky white and his blackhair lay dank across his forehead.
“Eh?” said he.
Gussie repeated his enquiry.
“Call me anything—but don’t call me early,” was the reply, as he realisedwho and where he was, and closed his eyes again.
“_You’re_ an ornament to the Mess. _You_ add to the gaiety of nations._You_ ought to be on the halls,” shouted the tormentor. “You’re arefined Society Entertainer. . . .”
“Eh?” grunted Murie.
“Come for a walk in the garden I said,” shouted Augustus. “Oh, you giveme trypanosomiasis to look at you,” he added.
“You go to Hell,” replied Murie, and snored as he finished speaking.
Bertram felt a little indignant.
“Wouldn’t it be kinder to let him sleep?” he said.
“No, it wouldn’t,” was the reply. “He’ll sleep there for an hour, andthen go over to his hut and be awake all night because he’s had nodinner.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Bertram—and asked the Major where he was tosleep that night.
“On your right side, with your mouth shut,” was the reply; to whichAugustus added:
“Toe of the right foot in line with the mouth; thumb in rear of the seamof the pyjamas; heel of the left foot in the hollow of the back; andweight of the body on the chin-strap—as laid down in the drill-book.”
“Haven’t you a tent?” asked the Major, and, in learning that Bertram hadnot, said that a _banda_ should be built for him on the morrow, and thathe could sleep on or under the Mess table that night. . . .
When the Major had returned to his tent with the remark “All lights outin fifteen minutes,” Ali set up Bertram’s bed in the Mess _banda_, and ina few minutes the latter was alone. . . . As he sat removing his boots,Bertram was surprised to see Gussie Augustus Gus return to the Mess,carrying a native spear and a bundle of white material. Going to whereMurie lay, he raised the spear and drove it with all his force—apparentlyinto Murie’s body! Springing to his feet, Bertram saw that the spear wasstuck into the clay and that the shaft, protruding through the meshes ofthe bed string, stood up beside Murie. Throwing the mosquito-net overthe top of it, Gussie enveloped the sleeper in its folds, as well as hecould, and vanished.
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