In the long long ago, Frobisher and I, assisted by a handful of
native troopers, kept the flag flying at M'Vini.
We hoisted it to the top of a tree at sun-up, where it remained,
languidly flapping its tatters over leagues of Central Africa bush
till sunset, when we hauled it down again--an arduous life. After we
had been at M'Vini about six months, had shot everything worth
shooting, and knew one another's funny stories off by heart,
Frobisher and I grew bored with each other, hated in fact the sight,
sound and mere propinquity of each other, and, shutting ourselves up
in our separate huts, communicated only on occasions of the direst
necessity, and then by the curtest of official notes. Thus a further
three months dragged on.
Then one red-hot afternoon came Frobisher's boy to my wattle-and-dab,
bearing a note.
"Visitor approaching from S.W. got up like a May Queen; think it must
be the Kaiser. Lend me a bottle of whisky, and mount a guard--must
impress the blighter."
I attached my last bottle of Scotch to the messenger and sallied
forth to mount a guard, none too easy a job, as the Army had gone to
celebrate somebody's birthday in the neighbouring village. However,
I discovered one remaining trooper lying in the shade of a
loquat-tree. He was sick--dying, he assured me; but I persuaded him
to postpone his demise for at least half an hour, requisitioned his
physician (the local witch doctor) and two camp followers, and,
leaving my cook-boy to valet them, dashed to my hut to make my own
toilet. A glimpse through the cane mats five minutes later showed me
that our visitors had arrived.
A fruity German officer in full gala rig (white gloves and all) was
cruising about on mule-back before our camp, trying to discover
whether it was inhabited or not. We let him cruise for a quarter of
an hour without taking any steps to enlighten him. Then, at a given
signal, Frobisher, caparisoned in every fal-lal he could collect,
issued from his hut, and I turned out the improvised guard. A
stirring spectacle; and it had the desired effect, for the German
afterwards admitted to being deeply impressed, especially by the
local wizard, who paraded in his professional regalia, and, coming to
cross-purposes with his rifle, bayoneted himself and wept bitterly.
The ceremonies over and the casualty removed, we adjourned to
Frobisher's _kya_, broached the whisky and sat about in solemn state,
stiff with accoutrements, sodden with perspiration. Our visitor kept
the Red, White and Black flying on a tree over the border, he
explained; this was his annual ceremonial call. He sighed and
brushed the sweat from his nose with the tips of a white glove--"the
weather was warm, _nicht wahr_?" I admitted that we dabbled in
flag-flying ourselves and that the weather was all he claimed for it
(which effort cost me about four pounds in weight). Tongues lolling,
flanks heaving, we discussed the hut tax, the melon crop, the
monkey-nut market, the nigger--and the weather again.
Suddenly Frobisher sprang up, cast loose the shackles of his Sam
Browne, hurled it into a corner, and began tearing at his tunic
hooks. I stared at him in amazement--such manners before visitors!
But our immaculate guest leapt to his feet with a roar like a freed
lion, and, stripping his white gloves, flung them after the Sam
Browne, whereupon a fury of undressing came upon us. Helmets, belts,
tunics, shirts were piled into the corner, until at length we stood
in our underclothes, laughing and unashamed. After that we got on
famously, that Teuton and we, and three days later, when he swarmed
aboard his mule and left for home (in pyjamas this time) it was with
real regret we waved him farewell.
But not for long. Within a month we were surprised by a hail from
the bush, and there was Otto, mule, pyjamas and all.
"'Ullo, 'ullo, 'ullo!" he carolled. "'Ere gomes ze Sherman invasion!
Burn out ze guard!" He roared with laughter, fell off his palfrey
and bawled for his batman, who ambled up, balancing a square box on
his woolly pate.
His mother in Munich had sent him a case of Lion Brew, Otto
explained, so he had brought it along.
We wassailed deep into that night and out the other side, and we
liked our Otto more than ever. We had plenty in common, the same
loneliness, fevers, climate, and niggers to wrestle with; moreover he
had been in England, and liked it; he smoked a pipe; he washed.
Also, as he privily confided to us in the young hours of one morning,
he had his doubts as to the divinity of the Kaiser, and was not quite
convinced that Richard Strauss had composed the music of the spheres.
He was a bad Hun (which probably accounted for his presence at the
uttermost, hottermost edge of the All-Highest's dominions), but a
good fellow. Anyhow, we liked him, Frobisher and I; liked his
bull-mouthed laughter, his drinking songs and full-blooded anecdotes,
and, on the occasions of his frequent visits, put our boredom from
us, pretended to be on the most affectionate terms, and even laughed
uproariously at each other's funny stories. Up at M'Vini, in the
long long ago, the gleam of pyjamas amongst the loquats, and "'Ere
gomes ze Sherman invasion!" booming through the bush, became a signal
for general goodwill.
In the fullness of time Otto went home on leave, and, shortly
afterwards, the world blew up.
And now I have met him again, a sodden, muddy, bloody, shrunken,
saddened Otto, limping through a snow-storm in the custody of a
Canadian corporal. He was the survivor of a rear-guard, the Canuck
explained, and had "scrapped like a bag of wild-cats" until knocked
out by a rifle butt. As for Otto himself, he hadn't much to say; he
looked old, cold, sick and infinitely disgusted. He had always been
a poor Hun.
Only once did he show a gleam of his ancient form of those old hot,
happy, pyjama days on the Equator.
A rabble of prisoners--Jägers, Grenadiers, Uhlans, whatnots--came
trudging down the road, an unshorn, dishevelled herd of cut-throats,
propelled by a brace of diminutive kilties, who paused occasionally
to treat them to snatches of flings and to hoot triumphantly.
Otto regarded his fallen compatriots with disgusted lack-lustre eyes,
then turning to me with a ghost of his old smile, "'Ere gomes ze
Sherman invasion," said he.