Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  But the German blight was there, instantly recognizable by any one not mentally perverted by German teaching. The place was governed — existed for and by leave of government. The inhabitants were there on suffrance, and aware of it — not in the very least degree enthusiastic over German rule, but awfully appreciative.

  The first thing we met of interest on entering the township was a chain-gang, fifty long, marching at top speed in step, led by a Nubian soldier with a loaded rifle, flanked by two others, and pursued by a fourth armed only with the hippo-hide whip, called kiboko by the natives, that can cut and bruise at one stroke. He plied it liberally whenever the gang betrayed symptoms of intending to slow down.

  Those Nubiains, we learned later, were deserters from British Sudanese regiments, and runaways from British jails, afraid to take the thousand-mile journey northward home again, scornful of all foreign black men, fanatic Muhammedans, and therefore fine tools in the German hand. They worked harder than the chain-gang, for they had to march with it step for step and into the bargain force it to do its appointed labor. The chain-gang kept the township clean — very clean indeed, as far as outward appearance went.

  The boma, or fort, was down by the water-front and its high eastern wall, pierced by only one gate, formed one boundary of the drill-ground that was also township square. Facing the wall on the eastern side of the square was a row of Indian and Arab stores. At the north end was the market building — an enormous structure of round stucco pillars supporting a great grass roof; and facing that at the southern end were the court-house, the hospital, and a store owned by the Deutch Oest Africa Gesellschaft, known far and wide by its initials — a concern that owned the practical monopoly of wholesale import and export trade, and did a retail business, too.

  We went first to the hospital. Fred and Will lifted me out of the hammock, for my wound had grown much worse during the last few days, and the door being shut they set me down on the step. Then we sent Kazimoto into the fort with a note to the senior officer informing him that a European waited at the hospital in need of prompt medical treatment.

  The sentry admitted Kazimoto readily enough, but he did not come out again for half-an-hour, and then looked glum.

  “Habanah!” he said simply, using the all-embracing native negative.

  “Isn’t any one in there?” we demanded all together.

  “Surely.”

  “How many?”

  “Very many.”

  “Officers?”

  He nodded.

  “Is a doctor there?”

  He told us he had asked for the doctor. A soldier had pointed him out.

  He had placed the note in the doctor’s hand.

  “Did he read it?” we asked.

  “Surely. He read it, and then showed it to the other officers.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They laughed and said nothing.”

  It seemed pretty obvious that Kazimoto had made a mistake in some way.

  Perhaps he had visited the non-commissioned officers’ mess.

  “I’ll go myself,” announced Will. “I can sling the German language like a barkeep. Bet you I’m back here with a doctor inside of three minutes!”

  He strode off like Sir Galahad in football shorts, and was passed through the gate by the sentry almost unchallenged. But he was gone more than fifteen minutes, and came back at last with his ears crimson. Nor would he answer our questions.

  “Shall I go?” suggested Fred.

  “Not unless you like insolence! We passed the camping-ground, it seems, on our way in. We’ve leave to pitch tents there. We’d better be moving.”

  So we trailed back the way we had come to a triangular sandy space enclosed by a cactus hedge at the junction of three roads. There were several small grass-roofed shelters with open sides in there, and two tents already pitched, but we were not sufficiently interested just then to see who owned the other tents. We pitched our own — stowed the loads in one of the shelters — gave our porters money for board and rations — and sent them to find quarters in the town. Another of the shelters we took over for a kitchen, and while our servants were cooking a meal we four gathered in Fred’s tent and began to question Will again.

  “They’ve got a fine place in there,” he said. “Neat as a new pin.

  Officers’ mess. Non-commissioned officers’ quarters. Stores.

  Vegetable garden. Jail — looks like a fine jail — hold a couple of

  hundred. Government offices. Two-story buildings. Everything fine.

  The officers were all sitting smoking on a veranda.

  “‘Is one of you the doctor?’ I asked in German, and a tall lean one with a mighty mean face turned his head to squint at me: but he didn’t take his feet off the rail. He looked inquisitive, that’s all.

  “‘Are you the doctor?’ I asked him.

  “‘I am staff surgeon,’ he answered. ‘What do you want?’

  “I told him about your wound, and how we’d marched about two hundred miles on purpose to get medical assistance. He listened without asking a question, and when I’d done he said curtly that the hospital opens for out-patients at eight in the morning.

  “Well, I piled it on then. I told him your leg was so rotten that you might not be alive to-morrow morning. He didn’t even look interested. I piled it on thicker and told him about the poisoned spear. He didn’t bat an eyelid or make a move. So I started in to coax him.

  “I did some coaxing. Believe me, I swallowed more pride in five minutes than I guessed I owned! A ward-heeler cadging votes for a Milwaukee alderman never wheedled more gingerly. I called him ‘Herr Staff Surgeon’ and mentioned the well-known skill of German medicos, and the keen sense of duty of the German army, and a whole lot of other stuff.

  “‘Tomorrow morning at eight!’ was all the answer I got from him.

  “I reckon it was somewhere about that time I began to get rattled. I pulled out money and showed it. He looked the other way, and when I went on talking he turned his back. I suspect he didn’t dare keep on lookin’ at money almost within reach. Anyhow, then I opened on him, firin’ both bow guns. I dared him to sit there, with a patient in need of prompt attention less than two hundred yards away. I called him names. I guaranteed to write to the German government and the United States papers about him. I told him I’d have his job if it cost me all my money and a lifetime’s trouble. He was just about ready to shoot — I’d just about got the red blood rising on his neck and ears — when along came the commandant — der Herr Capitain — the officer commanding Muanza — a swag-bellied ruffian with a beard and a beery look in his eye, but a voice like a man falling down three stories with all the fire-irons.

  “‘What do you want?’ he demanded in English, and I thanked him first for not having mistaken me for one of his own countrymen. Then I told him what I’d come for.

  “‘To-morrow at eight o’clock!’ he snapped, after he’d had a word with the medico. ‘Meanwhile, make yourself scarce out of here! There is a camping-ground for the use of foreigners. You and your party go to it! If you do any damage there you will hear from me later!’

  “I didn’t come as easy as all that. I stood there telling him things about Germany and Germans, and what I’d do to help his personal reputation with the home folks, until I guessed he had his craw as near full as he could stand it without having me arrested. Then I did come — whistling Yankee-doodle. And say — Fred! Where’s that concertina of yours?”

  Fred patted it. His beloved instrument was never far from hand.

  “Why don’t you play all the American and English tunes you know to-night? Play and sing ’em, Britannia Rule the Waves — Marching Through Georgia — My Country ’tis of Thee — The Marseillaise — The Battle Hymn of the Republic — and anything and everything you know that Squareheads won’t like. Let’s make this camp a reg’lar — hello — see who’s here!”

  Fred had begun fingering the keys already and the first strains of Marching Through Ge
orgia began to awake the neighborhood to recognition of the fact that foreigners were present who held no especial brief for German rule. The tent-door darkened. Brown leapt to his feet and swore.

  “Gassharamminy!” said a voice we all recognized instantly. “That tune sounds good! I’ve lived in the States! I’m a United States citizen! A man can’t forget his own country’s tunes so easily!”

  Cool and impudent, Georges Coutlass entered and, without waiting for an invitation, took a seat on a load of canned food. Brown grabbed the nearest rifle (it happened to be Fred’s) — snapped open the breach — discovered it was loaded — and took aim. Coutlass did not even blink. He was either sure Fred and Will would interfere, or else at the end of his tether and indifferent to death.

  “Don’t be an ass, Brown!”

  Fred knocked the rifle up. Will took it away and returned it to the corner.

  “All very easy for you men to take high moral ground and all that sort of rot,” Brown grumbled. “It’s my cattle he took! It’s me be’s ruined! What do I care if the Germans hang me? Let me have a crack at him — just one!”

  “Use your fists all you care to!” grinned Will.

  But Brown was no match for the Greek without weapons — very likely no match for him with them. Coutlass sat still and grinned, while Brown remained in the back of the tent, glaring.

  “Bah!” sneered Coutlass. “Of what use is being sulky? I found cattle in a village. How should I know whose cattle they were? Why blame me? The Masai got the cattle, not I! They took them from me, and they’d have taken them from you just the same! You lost nothing by my lifting them first! Gassharamminy! By blazes! We’re all in the same boat! Let’s be friendly, and treat one another like gentlemen! We’re all in the power of the Germans, unless we can think of a way to escape! I and my party are under arrest. So will you be by to-morrow! I shall tell a tale to-morrow that will keep you by the heels for a month at least while they investigate! Wait and see!”

  “Get out of this tent!” growled Fred in the dead-level voice he uses when he means to brook no refusal.

  “Presently!”

  Fred made a spring at him, but Coutlass was on his feet with the speed of a cat, and just outside the tent in time to avoid the swing of Fred’s fist. He withdrew about two yards and stood there grinning maliciously.

  “You’ll be glad to make terms with me by this time to-morrow!” he boasted. “By James, you’ll be glad to have me for a friend! Listen, you fools! Make terms with me now; let us all go together and unearth that Tippoo Tib ivory, and I can arrange with these Germans to let us go away! Otherwise, you shall see how long you stop here! By the Twelve Apostles! You shall rot in a German jail until your joints creak!”

  His Greek friend and the Goanese, supposing him in trouble perhaps, came and stood in line with him. Very comfortless they looked, and of the three only Coutlass had courage of a kind.

  “They stole the cattle on the British side of the border,” Will said sotto voice. “No earthly use threatening them with German law.”

  “Keep away from our camp,” Fred Ordered them, “or take the consequences! Mr. Brown here is in no mood for pleasantries!”

  “That drunkard Brown?” roared Coutlass. “He is in no mood for — oh, haw-hah-hee-ho-ha-ha-ha-ha! Drunkard Brown of Lumbwa wants to avenge himself, and his friends won’t let him! Oh, isn’t that a joke! Oh, ha-ha-ha-hee-hee-ha-ho-ho!”

  His two companions made a trio of it, yelling with stage laughter like disgusting animals. Fred took a short quick step forward. Will followed, and Brown reached for the rifle again. But I stopped all three of them.

  “Come back! Don’t let’s be fools!” I insisted. “I never saw a more obvious effort to start trouble in my life! It’s a trap! Keep out of it!”

  “Sure enough,” Will admitted. “You’re right!”

  He returned into the tent and the Greeks, perhaps supposing he went for weapons, retreated, continuing to shout abuse at Brown who, between a yearning to get drunk and sorrow for his stolen cattle, was growing tearful.

  “They got here first,” I argued. “They’ve had time to tell their own story. That may account for our cold reception by the Germans. He says they’re under arrest. That may be true, or it may be a trick. It’s perfectly obvious Coutlass wanted to start a fight, and I’m dead sure he wasn’t taking such a chance as it seemed. Who wants to look behind the cactus hedge and see whether he has friends in ambush?”

  “Drunkard Brown is on the town — on the town — on the town!” roared

  Coutlass and his friends from not very far away.

  “Oh, let me go and have a crack at ’em!” begged Brown. “I tell you I don’t care about jail! I don’t care if I do get killed!”

  Fred kept a restraining hand on him. Will left the tent and walked straight for the gap in the cactus hedge by which we had entered the enclosure. It was only twenty yards away.

  Once through the gap he glanced swiftly to right and left — laughed — and came back again.

  “Only six of ’em!” he grinned. “Six full-sized Nubians in uniform, with army boots on, no bayonets or rifles, but good big sticks and handcuffs! If we’d touched those Greeks they’d have jumped the fence and stretched us out! What the devil d’you suppose they want us in jail for?”

  “D’you suppose they think,” I said, “that if they had us in jail in this God-forsaken place we’d divulge the secret of Tippoo’s ivory?”

  “Why don’t we tell ’em the secret!” suggested Will, and that seemed such a good idea that we laughed ourselves back into good temper — even Brown, who had no notion whether we knew the secret, being perfectly sure we would not be such fools as to tell the true whereabouts of the hoard in any case.

  “I want to get even with all Africa!” he grumbled. “I want to make trouble that’ll last! I’d start a war this minute if I knew how! If it weren’t for those bloody Greeks laughing at me I’d get more drunk to-night than any ten men in the world ever were before in history! Yes, sir! And my name’s Brown of Lumbwa to prove I mean what I say!”

  After a while, seeing that no trouble was likely, the Nubian soldiers came out of ambush and marched away. We ate supper. The Greeks and the Goanese subsided into temporary quiet, and our own boys, squatting by a fire they had placed so that they could watch the Greeks’ encampment, began humming a native song. Their song reminded Fred of Will’s earlier suggestion, and he unclasped the concertina.

  Then for three-quarters of an hour he played, and we sang all the tunes we knew least likely to make Germans happy, repeating The Marseillaise and Rule Britannia again and again in pious hope that at least a few bars might reach to the commandant’s house on the hill.

  Whether they did or not — whether the commandant writhed as we hoped in the torture of supreme insult, or slept as was likely from the after-effect of too much bottled beer with dinner — there were others who certainly did hear, and made no secret of it.

  To begin with, the part of the township nearest us was the quarter of round grass roofs, where the aborigines lived; and the Bantu heart responds to tuneful noise, as readily as powder to the match. All that section of Muanza, man, woman and child, came and squatted outside the cactus hedge. (It was streng politzeilich verboten for natives to enter the European camping-ground, so that except when they wanted to steal they absolutely never trespassed past the hedge.)

  Enraptured by the unaccustomed strains they sat quite still until some Swahili and Arabs came and beat them to make room. When the struggle and hot argument that followed that had died down, Indians began coming, and other Greeks, until most of the inhabitants of the eastern side of town were either squatting or standing or pacing to and fro outside the camping-ground.

  At last rumor of what was happening reached the D.O.A.G. — the store at the corner of the drill-ground, where it seemed the non-commissioned officers took their pleasure of an evening. Pleasure, except as laid down in regulations, is not permitted in German colonies to any except w
hite folk. No less than eight German sergeants and a sergeant-major, all the worse for liquor, turned out as if to a fire and came down street at a double.

  They had kibokos in their hands. The first we heard of their approach was the crack-crack-crack of the black whips falling on naked or thin-cotton-clad backs and shoulders. There was no yelling (it was not allowed after dark on German soil, at least by natives) but a sudden pattering in the dust as a thousand feet hurried away. Then, in the glow of our lamplight, came the sergeant-major standing spraddle-legged in front of us.

  He was a man of medium height, in clean white uniform. The first thing I noticed about him was the high cheek-bones and murderous blue eyes, like a pig’s. His general build was heavy. The fair mustache made no attempt to conceal fat lips that curled cruelly. His general air was that most offensive one to decent folk, of the bully who would ingratiate by seeming a good fellow.

  “‘nabnd, meine Herren!” he said aggressively, with a smile more than half made up of contempt for courtesy. “Ich heiess Schubert-Feldwebel Hans Schubert.”

  “Wass wollen Sie?” Will asked. He was the only one of us who knew

  German well.

  But Schubert, it seemed, knew English and was glad to show it off.

  “You make fine music! Ach! Up at the D.O.A.G. very near here we Unteroffitzieren spend the evening, all very fond of singing, yet without music at all. Will you not come and play with us?”

  “I only know French and English tunes!” lied Fred.

  “Ach! I do not believe it! Kommen Sie! There is beer at the

  D.O.A.G. — champagne — brandy — whisky — rum — ?”

  “I’m going, then, for one!” announced Brown, getting up immediately.

  “Cigars — cigarettes — tobacco,” the sergeant-major continued. “There is no closing time.” He saw that the line of argument was not tempting, and changed his tactics. “Listen! You gentlemen have not too many friends in Muanza! I speak in friendship. I invite you on behalf of myself and other Unteroffitzieren to spend gemuthlich evening with us. That can do you no harm! In the course of friendly conversation much can be learned that official lips would not tell!