Cupid in Africa Part 7

"Better let your men file on board with their rifles first, and then off again for their kits and bedding, and then back again to the quarters I showed you. Having pegged out their claims there, and each man hung his traps on the peg above his sleeping-mat, they can go up on the after well-deck and absolutely nowhere else. See? And no man to leave the s.h.i.+p again, on any pretence whatever. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," replied Bertram, and privately wondered if he would even find his way again to that cage-like cloak-room in the hold, and that "horizontal section of the fo'c'sle three storeys down."

But he _must_ do this, his very first job, absolutely correctly, and without any bungling and footling. He must imagine that he was going in for an examination again-an examination this time in quite a new subject, "The art of getting men on board a s.h.i.+p, bedding them down, each with his own bundle of kit, in one place, and storing their rifles in another, without confusion or loss of time." _Quite_ a new subject, and one in which previous studies, Cla.s.sics, Literature, Philosophy, Art, were not going to be of any great value.

Perhaps it would be as well to take the Jemadar, Havildars and Naiks on a personally conducted tour to the armoury, quarters, cooking-places and taps, and explain the _modus operandi_ to them as well as he could. One can do a good deal to eke out a scanty knowledge of the vernacular by means of signs and wonders-though sometimes one makes the signs and the other person wonders. . . .

Returning to the oven-like shed, resonant with the piercing howls of _byle-ghari-wallas_, {54} coolies, Lascars and overseers; the racking rattle and clang and clatter of chains, cranes, derricks and donkey-engines; the cras.h.i.+ng of iron-bound wheels over cobble-stones, and the general pandemonium of a busy wharf, he beckoned the Jemadar to him and made him understand that he wanted a couple of Havildars and four Naiks to accompany him on board.

Suddenly he had a bright idea. (Good old drill-book and retentive memory of things read, heard, or seen!) . . . "Why have you set no sentry over the arms, Jemadar Sahib? It should not be necessary for me to have to give the order," he said as well as he could in his halting Hindustani.

The Jemadar looked annoyed-and distinctly felt as he looked. Half the men had heard the reproof. He, an old soldier of fifteen years' service, to be set right by a child like this! And the annoying part of it was that the amateur was right! Of course he should have put a sentry over the arms. It was probably the first time he had omitted to do so, when necessary, since he had first held authority . . . and he raged inwardly.

There are few things that annoy an Indian more than to be "told off"

before subordinates, particularly when he is obviously in the wrong. Was this youthful Greene Sahib a person of more knowledge and experience than had been reported by the Adjutant's Office _babu_? The _babu_ had certainly described him as one whom the other officers laughed at for his ignorance and inexperience. Had not the worthy Chatterji Chuckerb.u.t.ti related in detail how Macteith Sahib had called upon his G.o.ds and feigned great sickness after offensively examining Greene Sahib through his field-gla.s.ses? Strange and unfathomable are the ways of Sahibs, and perhaps the true inwardness of the incident had been quite otherwise? It might have been an honorific ceremony, in fact, and Macteith Sahib might have feigned sickness at his own unworthiness, according to etiquette?

. . . After all, the military salute itself is only a motion simulating the shading of one's eyes from the effulgent glory of the person one salutes; and the Oriental bowing and touching the forehead is only a motion simulating taking up dust and putting it on one's head. . . .

Yes-the _babu_ may have been wrong, and Macteith Sahib may really have been acclaiming Greene Sahib his superior, and declaring his own miserable unworthiness. . . . One never knew with Sahibs. Their minds are unreadable, and one can never get at what they are thinking, or grasp their point of view. One could only rest a.s.sured that there is always method in their madness-that they are clever as devils, brave as lions, and-averse from giving commissions as lieutenants, captains, majors, and colonels to Indian Native Officers. . .

"Get a move on, Jemadar Sahib," said the voice of Greene Sahib curtly, in English, and the Jemadar bustled off to set the sentry and call the Havildars and Naiks-rage in his heart. . . .

More easily than he had expected, Bertram found his way, at the head of the party, to the required places, and showed the Jemadar and Non-commissioned Officers how the men should come and depart, in such manner as to avoid hindering each other and to obviate the possibility of a jam.

The Jemadar began to ask questions, and Bertram began to dislike the Jemadar. He was a talker, and appeared to be what schoolboys call "tricky." He knew that Bertram had very little Hindustani, and seemed anxious to increase the obviousness of the fact.

Bertram felt unhappy and uncomfortable. He wished to be perfectly courteous to him as a Native Officer, but it would not do to let the man mistake politeness for weakness, and inexperience for inefficiency. . . .

Was there a faint gleam of a grin on the fellow's face as he said: "I do not understand," at the end of Bertram's attempt at explanation?

"Do _you_ understand?" the latter said, suddenly, turning to the senior Havildar, the man who had turned out the Guard for him on his first approach to the Lines on that recent day that seemed so long ago.

"_Han_, {56a} _Sahib_," replied the man instantly and readily.

"_Beshak_!" {56b}

"Then you'd better explain to the Jemadar Sahib, who does not," said Bertram with a click of his jaw, as he turned to depart.

The Jemadar hastened to explain that he _fully_ understood, as Bertram strode off. Apparently complete apprehension had come as soon as he realised that his dullness was to be enlightened by the explanation of the quicker-witted Havildar. He gave that innocent and unfortunate man a look of bitter hatred, and, as he followed Bertram, he ground his teeth.

Havildar Afzul Khan Ishak should live to learn the extreme unwisdom of understanding things that Jemadar Ha.s.san Ali professed not to understand.

As for Second-Lieutenant Greene-perhaps he should live to learn the unwisdom of quarrelling with an experienced Native Officer who was the sole channel of communication between that stranger and the Draft at whose head he had been placed by a misguided Sircar. . . .

Returning to the wharf, and conscious that he had a splitting head, a sticky mouth, shaking limbs, sore throat and husky voice, Bertram roared orders to the squatting Sepoys, who sprang up, fell in, unpiled arms, and marched in file up the gangway and down into the bowels of the s.h.i.+p, shepherded and directed by the Non-commissioned Officers whom he had posted at various strategic points. All went well, and, an hour later, his first job was successfully accomplished. His men were on board and "shaking down" in their new quarters. He was free to retire to his cabin, bathe his throbbing head, and lie down for an hour or so.

At about midday he arose refreshed, and went on deck, with the delightful feeling that, his own labours of the moment accomplished, he could look on at the accomplishment of those of others. Excellent! . . . And for many days to come he would be free from responsibility and anxiety, he would have a time of rest, recuperation, and fruitful thought and study.

. . . Throughout the morning detachments of Sepoys of the Indian Army and Imperial Service Troops continued to arrive at the wharf and to embark. Bertram was much interested in a double-company of Gurkhas under a Gurkha Subedar, their yellowish Mongolian faces eloquent of determination, grit, and hardiness.

They contrasted strongly with a company of tall, hairy Sikhs, almost twice their size, man for man, but with evidences of more enthusiasm than discipline in their bearing. Another interesting unit was a band of warriors of very mixed nationality, under a huge Jemadar who looked a picture of fat contentment, his face knowing no other expression than an all-embracing smile. It was whispered later that this unit saw breech-loading rifles for the first time, on board the _Elymas_, having been more familiar, hitherto, with jezails, jingals, match-locks, flintlocks, and blunderbusses. Probably a gross exaggeration, or an invention of Lieutenant Stanner, of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, who gave them the name of "The Mixed Pickles."

All three of these detachments were Imperial Service Troops-that is to say, were in the service of various Indian Rajahs-but were of very different value, both the Gurkhas and the Sikhs being as good material as could be found among native troops anywhere in the world.

To Bertram, the picture of the little Gurkha Subedar, the tall Sikh Subedar, and the burly Jemadar of the Mixed Pickles, was a very interesting one, as the three stood together on the wharf, eyeing each other like three strange dogs of totally different breeds-say, a fighting terrier, a wolf-hound and a mastiff.

With a snap and a slick, and a smart "_One two_," a company of British Infantry arrived and embarked. Beside the Mixed Pickles they were as a Navy motor-launch beside a native bunderboat. At them they smiled amusedly, at the Sikhs they stared, and at the Gurkhas they grinned appreciatively.

The news having spread that the _Elymas_ would not start until the morrow, various visitors came on board, in search of friends whom they knew to be sailing by her. Captain Stott, R.A.M.C., came over from the _Madras_ hospital s.h.i.+p, in search of Colonel Haldon. Murray and Macteith came down to see Stanner, of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth, and one Terence Brannigan, of the Baluchis. . . .

"Who's the chap on your right, Colonel?" asked Captain Stott, of gentle and kindly old Colonel Haldon at dinner that evening. "Rather an unusual face to be 'in' khaki-or one would have said so before the war," and he indicated Bertram.

"Dunno," was the reply. "Stranger to me. Nice-lookin' boy. . . . Looks a wee-trifle more like a chaplain than a butcher, as you say," though Captain Stott had not said that at all.

Seeing Bertram talking to Murray and Macteith after dinner, Captain Stott asked the latter who he was, for physiognomy and character-study were a hobby of his.

Macteith told him what he knew, and added: "And they're sending _that_ half-baked milksop to British East" (and implied: "While _I_, Lieutenant and Quartermaster Reginald Macteith, remain to kick my heels at the depot.")

Next day the _Elymas_ began her voyage, a period of delightful _dolce far niente_ that pa.s.sed like a dream, until one wonderful evening, the palm-clad sh.o.r.es of Africa "arose from out of the azure sea," and, with a great thrill of excitement, hope, anxiety and fear Bertram gazed upon the beautiful scene, as the _Elymas_ threaded the lovely Kilindini Creek which divides the Island of Mombasa from the mainland.

CHAPTER V _Mrs. Stayne-Brooker_

And on those same palm-clad sh.o.r.es that arose from out the azure sea, an unhappy woman had been expiating, by long years of bitter suffering, in tears and shame and humiliation, the madness of a moment. . . .

Mrs. Stayne-Brooker's life in German East Africa was, if possible less happy than her life in the British colony. The men she met in Nairobi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Witu or Lamu, though by no means all gentlemen, all treated her as a gentlewoman; while the men she met in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanga, Tabora, Lindi or Bukoba, whether "gentlemen" or otherwise, did not. In British East Africa her husband was treated by planters, Government officials, sportsmen, and Army men, as the popular and cheery old Charlie Stayne-Brooker-a good man in the club-bar, card-room and billiard-room, on the racecourse, at the tent club, and on shooting trips. With several a.s.sistant District Commissioners and officers of the King's African Rifles he was very intimate. In German East Africa he was treated differently-in a way difficult to define. It was as though he were a person of importance, but _decla.s.se_ and contemptible, and this impression she gained in spite of her knowing no German (a condition of ignorance upon which her husband insisted). The average German official and officer, whether of the exiled Junker cla.s.s, or of plebeian origin, she loathed-partly because they seemed to consider her "fair game," and made love to her, in more or less broken English, without shame or cessation. Nor did it make life easier for the poor lady that her husband appeared to take delight in the fact. She wondered whether this was due to pride in seeing a possession of his coveted by his "high-well-born," and other, compatriots, or to a desire to keep ever before her eyes a realisation of what her fate would be if he cast her off, or she ran away from him.

Worst of all was life in the isolated lonely house on his coffee and rubber plantation, where for months on end she would never see a white face but his, and for weeks on end, when he was away on his mysterious affairs, no white face at all. . . . And at the bottom of his compound were _bandas_, gra.s.s huts, in an enclosure, wherein dwelt native women.

One night, in the year 1914, she sat alone in the silent lonely house, thinking of her daughter Eva at Cheltenham, of her happy, if hapless, girlhood in her father's house, of her brief married life with an honourable English gentleman (oh, the contrast!), and wondering how much longer she could bear her punishment. . . Suddenly and noiselessly appeared in the verandah her husband's chief factotum, head house-boy, and familiar, one Murad, an Arab-Swahili, whom she feared and detested.

"_Bwana_ coming," said he shortly, and as noiselessly disappeared.

Going out on to the verandah, she saw her husband and a few "boys"

(gun-bearers, porters, and servants) coming through the garden. It was seven weeks since she had seen or heard anything of him.

"Pack," was his greeting, "at once. You start on _safari_ to the railway as soon as possible, or sooner. You are going to Mombasa. I have cabled to Eva to come out by the next boat. . . . P. and O. to Aden, and thence to Mombasa. . . . She should be here in three weeks or so . . ." and he went off to bath and change. At dinner he informed her that she was to settle at Mombasa with Eva, make as many new friends as possible, entertain, and generally be the most English of English matrons with the most English of English daughters-the latter fresh from boarding-school in England. . . . Dear old Charlie Stayne-Brooker, it was to be known, had gone to Bukoba, to the wonderful sleeping-sickness hospital, for diagnosis of an illness. Nothing serious, really, of course-but one couldn't be too careful when one had trouble with the glands of the neck, and certain other symptoms, after spending some time in that beastly tsetse-fly country. . . . She was to give the impression that he had made light of it, and quite "taken her in"-wouldn't dream of allowing his wife and daughter to go up there. People were to form the opinion that poor old Charlie might be in a worse way than his wife imagined.

_And_ if such a thing as war broke out; _if_ such a thing came to pa.s.s, mark you; her house in Mombasa was to be a perfect Home-from-Home for the officers of the British Expeditionary Force which would undoubtedly be dispatched from India. It would almost certainly be the Nth Division from Bombay-so she need not antic.i.p.ate the pleasure of receiving her late husband and his friends. . . . Further instructions she would receive in the event of war, but meanwhile, and all the time, her business was to demonstrate the utter Englishness of the Stayne-Brooker family, and to keep her eyes and ears open. What General or Staff-Officer will not "talk" to a beautiful woman-of the right sort? Eh? Ha-Ha! That was her business in Mombasa now-_and ten times more so if war broke out_-to be a beautiful woman-of the right sort, tremendously popular with the people who know things and do things. Moreover, Eva, her daughter, was to be trained right sedulously to be a beautiful woman-of the right sort. . . .

Staff-officers in her pocket. Eh? Ha-Ha! . . . And, sick at heart, loving her daughter, loathing her husband, and loathing the unspeakable role he would force upon her, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker travelled to Mombasa, met her daughter with mingled joy and terror, happiness and apprehensive misery, and endeavoured to serve two masters-her conscience and her husband.

CHAPTER VI _Mombasa_

"If you'd like to go ash.o.r.e and have a look at Mombasa after tiffin, Mr.

Greene," said the fourth officer of the _Elymas_ to Bertram, the next morning, as he leant against the rail and gazed at the wonderful palm-forest of the African sh.o.r.e, "some of us are going for a row-to stretch our muscles. We could drop you at the Kilindini _bunder_."

"Many thanks," replied Bertram. "I shall be very much obliged," and he smiled his very attractive and pleasant smile.