_Stein-Brücker Meets Bertram Greene—and Death_
And so passed the days at Butindi, with a wearisome monotony of Stand-to,
visiting the pickets, going out on patrol, improving the defences of the
_boma_, foraging, gathering information, reconnoitring, trying to waylay
and scupper enemy patrols, communicating with the other British outposts,
surveying and map-making, beating off half-hearted attacks by strong
raiding-patrols—all to the accompaniment of fever, dysentery, and growing
weakness due to malnutrition and the terrible climate.
To Bertram it all soon became so familiar and normal that it seemed
strange to think that he had ever known any other kind of life. His
chief pleasure was to talk to Wavell, that most uncommon type of soldier,
who was also philosopher, linguist, student, traveller, explorer and
ethnologist.
From the others, Bertram learnt that Wavell was, among other things, a
second Burton, having penetrated into Mecca and Medina in the disguise of
a _haji_, a religious pilgrim, at the very greatest peril of his life.
He had also fought, as a soldier of fortune, for the Arabs against the
Turks, whom he loathed as only those who have lived under their rule can
loathe them. He could have told our Foreign Office many interesting
things about the Turk. (When, after he had been imprisoned and brutally
treated by them at Sanaa, in the Yemen, he had appealed to our Foreign
Office, it had sided rather with the Turk indeed, confirming the
Unspeakable One’s strong impression that the English were a no-account
race, even as the Germans said.) So Wavell had fought against them,
helping the Arabs, whom he liked. And when the Great War broke out, he
had raised a double company of these fierce, brave, and blood-thirsty
little men in Arabia, and had drilled them into fine soldiers. Probably
no other Englishman—or European of any sort—could have done this; but
then Wavell spoke Arabic like an Arab, knew the Koran almost by heart,
and knew his Arabs quite by heart.
That he showed a liking for Bertram was, to Bertram, a very great source
of pride and pleasure. When Wavell went out on a reconnoitring-patrol,
he went with him if he could get Major Mallery’s permission, and the two
marched through the African jungle discussing art, poetry, travel,
religion, and the ethnological problems of Arabia—followed by a hundred
or so Arabs—Arabs who were killing Africans and being killed by Africans,
often of their own religion and blood, because a gang of greedy
materialists, a few thousand miles away, was suffering from megalomania.
. . .
Indeed to Bertram it was food for much thought that in that tiny _boma_
in a tropical African swamp, Anglo-Indians, Englishmen, Colonials, Arabs,
Yaos, Swahilis, Gurkhas, Rajputs, Sikhs, Marathas, Punjabis, Pathans,
Soudanese, Nubians, Bengalis, Goanese, and a mob of assorted _shenzis_ of
the primeval jungle, should be laying down their lives because, in
distant Berlin, a hare-brained Kaiser could not control a crowd of greedy
and swollen-headed military aristocrats.
* * * * *
“Your month’s tobacco ration, Greene,” said Berners one morning, as he
entered Bertram’s hut, “and _don’t_ leave your boots on the floor to
attract jigger-fleas—unless you _want_ blood-poisoning and guinea-worm—or
is it guinea-fowl? Hang them on the wall. . . . And look between your
toes every time you take ’em off. Jigger-fleas are, hell, once they get
under the skin and lay their eggs. . .” and he handed Bertram some cakes
of perfectly black tobacco.
“But, my dear chap, I couldn’t smoke _that_,” said Bertram, eyeing the
horrible stuff askance.
“Of course you can’t _smoke_ it,” replied Berners.
“What can I do with it, then?” he asked.
“Anything you like. . . . I don’t care. . . . It’s your tobacco ration,
and I’ve issued it to you, and there the matter ends. .. . You can
revet your trench parapet with it if you like—or give it to the Wadegos
to poison their arrows with. . . . Jolly useful stuff, really. . . .
Sole your boots, tile the roof of your _banda_, make a parquet floor
round your bed, put it in Chatterji’s tea, make a chair seat, lay down a
pathway to the Mess, make your mother a teapot-stand, feed the
chickens—oh, lots of things. But you can’t _smoke_ it, of course. . . .
You expect too much, my lad. . . .”
“Why do they issue it, then?” asked Bertram.
“Same reason that they issue inedible bully-beef and unbreakable
biscuits, I s’pose—contractors must _live_, mustn’t they? . . . Be
reasonable. . . .”
And again it seemed to the foolish civilian mind of this young man that,
since tons of this black cake tobacco (which no British officer ever has
smoked or could smoke) cost money, however little—there would be more
sense in spending the money on a small quantity of Turkish and Virginian
cigarettes that _could_ be smoked, by men accustomed to such things, and
suffering cruelly for lack of them. Throughout the campaign he saw a
great deal of this strong, black cake issued (to men accustomed to good
cigarettes, cigars or pipe-mixture), but he never saw any of it smoked.
He presented his portion to Ali, who traded it to people of palate and
stomach less delicate than those the British Government expects the
British officer to possess. . . .
“You look seedy, Greene,” observed the Major that same evening, as
Bertram dragged himself across the black mud from his _banda_ to the
Bristol Bar—wondering if he would ever get there.
“Touch of fever, sir. I’m all right,” replied he, wishing that everyone
and everything were not so nebulous and rotatory.
He did not mention that he had been up all night with dysentery, and had
been unable to swallow solid food for three days. (Nor that his
temperature was one hundred and four—because he was unaware of the fact.)
But he knew that the moment was not far off when all his will-power and
uttermost effort would be unable to get him off his camp-bed. He had
done his best—but the worst climate in the world, a diet of indigestible
and non-nutritious food, taken in hopelessly inadequate quantities; bad
water; constant fever; dysentery; long patrol marches; night alarms; high
nerve-tension (when a sudden bang followed by a fusillade might mean a
desultory attention, a containing action while a more important place was
being seriously attacked, or that final and annihilating assault of a big
force which was daily expected); and the monotonous, dirty, dreary life
in that evil spot, had completely undermined his strength. He was
“living on his nerves,” and they were nearly gone. “You look like an old
hen whose neck has been half-wrung for to-morrow’s dinner before she was
found to be the wrong one, and reprieved,” said Augustus. “You let me
make you a real, rousing cock-eye, and then we’ll have an _n’goma_
{198}—all the lot of us. . . .”
But finding Bertram quite unequal to dealing with a cock-eye or
sustaining his part in a tribal dance that should “astonish the natives,”
he helped Bertram over to his _banda_, took off his boots and got him a
hot drink of condensed milk and water laced with ration rum.
In the morning Bertram took his place at Stand-to and professed himself
equal to performing his duty, which was that of making a
reconnoitring-patrol as far as Paso, where there was another outpost. . . .
Here he arrived in time for tea, and had some with real fresh cow’s milk
in it; and had a cheery buck with Major Bidwell, Captains Tucker and
Bremner, and Lieutenants Innes (another Filbert), Richardson, Stirling,
Carroll, and Jones—stout fellows all, and very kind to him. He was very
sorry indeed when it was time for him to march back again with his
patrol.
He started on the homeward journey, feeling fairly well, for him; but he
could never remember how he completed it. . . .
The darkness gathered so rapidly that he had a suspicion that the
darkness was within him. Then he found that he was continually running
into trees or being brought up short by impenetrable bush that somehow
sprang up before him. . . . Also he was talking aloud, and rather
surprised at his eloquence. . . . Then he was lying on the ground—being
put on his feet again—falling again . . . trying to fight a bothering
swarm of _askaris_ with a quill pen, while he addressed the House of
Commons on the iniquity of allowing Bupendranath Chatterji to be in
medical charge of four hundred men with insufficient material to deal
with a street accident. . . . Marching again, falling again, being put
on his feet again. . . .
* * * * *
After two days on his camp-bed he was somewhat better, and on the next
day he found himself in sole command of the Butindi outpost and a man of
responsibility and pride. Urgent messages had taken Major Mallery with
half the force in one direction, and Captain Wavell with half the
remainder in another.
Suppose there should be an attack while he was in command! He half hoped
there would be. . . .
Towards evening an alarm from a sentry and the turning out of the guard
brought him running to the main gate, shouting “Stand-to!” as he ran.
Through his glasses he saw that a European and a small party of natives
were approaching the _boma_. . . .
The new-comer was an Englishman of the name of Desmont, in the
Intelligence Department, who had just made a long and dangerous tour
through the neighbouring parts of German East in search of information.
Apparently Butindi was the first British outpost that he had struck, as
he asked endless questions about others—apparently with a view to
visiting them _en route_ to the Base Camp. Bertram extended to him such
hospitality as Butindi could afford, and gave him all the help and
information in his power. He had a very strong conviction that the man
was disguised (whether his huge beard was false or not), but he supposed
that it was very natural in the case of an Intelligence Department spy,
scout, or secret agent. Anyhow, he was most obviously English. . . .
While he sat in the Officers’ Mess and talked with the man—a most
interesting conversation—Ali Suleiman entered with coco-nuts and a
rum-jar. Seeing the stranger, he instantly wheeled about and retired,
sending another servant in with the drinks. . . .
After a high-tea of coco-nut, biscuit, bully-beef, and roasted
mealie-cobs, Desmont, who looked worn out, asked if he might lie down for
a few hours before he “moved off” again. Bertram at once took him to his
own _banda_ and bade him make himself at home. Five minutes later came
Ali with an air of mystery to where Bertram paced up and down the “High
Street,” and asked if he might speak with him.
“That man a _Germani_, sah!” quoth he. “Spy-man he is. Debbil-man. His
own name _not_ Desmont _Bwana_, and he is big man in Dar-es-Salaam and
Tabora, and knowing all the big _Germani bwanas_. I was his gun-boy and
I go with him to _Germani_ East. . . . _Bwana_ go and shoot him for
dead, sah, by damn!”
Bertram sat down heavily on a chop-box.
“_What_?” gasped he.
“Yessah, thank you please. One of those porters not a _shenzi_ at all.
He Desmont _Bwana’s_ head boy Murad. Very bad man, sah. Master look in
this spy-man’s chop-boxes. _Germani_ uniform in one—under rice and
posho. Master see. . . .”
“You’re a fool, Ali,” said Bertram.
“Yessah,” said Ali, “and Desmont _Bwana_ a _Germani_ spy-man. Master go
an’ shoot him for dead while asleep—or tie him to tree till Mallery
_Bwana_ coming. . . .”
_Now_ what was to be done? Here was a case for swift action by the
“strong silent man” type of person who thought like lightning and acted
like some more lightning.
If he did nothing and let the man go when he had rested, would his
conduct be that of a fool and a weakling who could not act promptly and
efficiently on information received—conduct deserving the strongest
censure? . . .
And if he arrested and detained one of their own Intelligence Officers,
on the word of a native servant, would he ever hear the last of it?
“_Bwana_ come and catch this bad man Murad,” suggested Ali. “_Bwana_
say, ‘_Jambo_, _Murad ibn Mustapha_! _How much rupees Desmont Bwana
paying you for spy-work_?’ and _Bwana_ see him jump! By damn, sah!
_Bwana_ hold revolver ready.” . . .
“Does the man know English then?” asked the perturbed and undecided
Bertram.
“Yessah—all the same better as I do,” was the reply. “And he pretending
to be poor _shenzi_ porter. He knowing _Germani_ too. . . .”
At any rate, he might look into _this_, and if anything suspicious
transpired, he could at least prevent Desmont from leaving before Mallery
returned.
“Has he seen you?” asked Bertram.
“No, sah, nor has Desmont _Bwana_,” was the reply—and Bertram bade Ali
show him where the porters were.
They were outside the _boma_, squatting round a cooking-fire near the
“lines” of the Kavirondo porters.
Approaching the little group, Bertram drew his revolver and held it
behind him. He did not know why he did this. Possibly subconscious
memory of Ali’s advice, perhaps with the expectation that the men might
attack him or attempt to escape; or perhaps a little pleasant touch of
melodrama. . . .
“_Jambo_, _Murad ibn Mustapha_!” he said suddenly. “_Desmont Bwana wants
you at once_. _Go quickly_.”
A man arose immediately and approached him. “Go back and sit down,” said
Bertram, covering the man with his revolver and speaking in German. He
returned and sat down. Evidently he understood English and German and
answered to the name of Murad ibn Mustapha! . . .
Ali had spoken the truth and it was now up to Bertram Greene to act
wisely, promptly and firmly. This lot should be kept under arrest
anyhow. But might not all this be part of Desmont’s game as a scout, spy
and secret service agent of the British Intelligence Department. Yes,
_or_ of the German Intelligence Department.
If there was a German uniform in one of the chop-boxes, it might well be
a disguise for him to wear in German East. Or it might be his real
dress. Anyhow—he shouldn’t leave the outpost until Major Mallery
returned. .
. . And that was a weak shelving of responsibility. He was in command
of the post, and Major Mallery and the other officers with him might be
scuppered. It was quite possible that neither the Major’s party nor
Captain Wavell’s might ever get back to Butindi. He strolled over to his
_banda_ and looked in.
Desmont was evidently suffering from digestive troubles or a bad
conscience, for his face was contorted, he moved restlessly and ground
his teeth.
Suddenly he screamed like a woman and cried:
“_Ach_! _Gott in Himmel_! _Nein_, _Nein_! _Ich_ . . .”
Bertram drew his revolver. The man was a German. Englishmen don’t talk
German in their sleep.
The alleged Desmont moaned.
“_Zu müde_,” he said. “_Zu müde_.” . . .
Bertram sat down on his camp-stool and watched the man.
* * * * *
The Herr Doktor Karl Stein-Brücker had made a name for himself in German
East, as one who knew how to manage the native. This in a country where
they all pride themselves on knowing how to manage the native—how to put
the fear of Frightfulness and _Kultur_ into his heart. He had once given
a great increase to a growing reputation by flogging a woman to death, on
suspicion of unfaithfulness. He had wielded the _kiboko_ with his own
(literally) red right hand until he was aweary, and had then passed the
job on to Murad ibn Mustapha, who was very slow to tire. But even he had
had to be kept to it at last. . . .
“_Noch nichte_!” had the Herr Doktor said, “_Not yet_!” as Murad wished
to stop, and
“_Ganz klein wenig_!” as the brawny arm dropped. “_Just a little more_.”
. . .
It had been a notable and memorable punishment—but the devil of it was
that whenever the Herr Doktor got run down or over-ate himself, he had a
most terrible nightmare, wherein Marayam, streaming with blood, pursued
him, caught him, and flogged him. And when she tired, he was doomed to
urge her on to further efforts. After screaming with agony, he must moan
“_Zu müde_! _Zu müde_!” and then—when she would have stopped—“_Noch
nichte_!” and “_Ganz klein wenig_!” so that she began afresh. Then he
must struggle, break free, leap at her—and find himself sweating, weeping
and trembling beside his bed.
Presently the moaning sleeper cried “_Noch nichte_!” and a little later
“_Ganz klein wenig_!”—and then with a scream and a struggle, leapt from
the camp cot and sprang at Bertram, whose revolver straightway went off.
With a cough and a gurgle the _soi-disant_ Desmont collapsed with a ·450
service bullet through his heart.
When Major Mallery returned at dawn he found a delirious
Second-Lieutenant Greene (and a dead European, and a wonderful tale from
one Ali Suleiman. . . .)
With a temperature of 105·8 he did not seem likely to live. . . .
Whether Bertram Greene lived or died, however, he had, albeit ignorantly,
avenged the cruel wrong done to his father. . . . He—the despised and
rejected one—had avenged Major Hugh Walsingham Greene. Fate plays some
queer tricks and Time’s whirligig performs some quaint gyrations!
PART III
THE BAKING OF BERTRAM BY LOVE
CHAPTER I
_Mrs. Stayne-Brooker Again_
Luckily for himself, Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene was quite
unconscious when he was lifted from his camp-bed into a stretcher by the
myrmidons of Mr. Chatterji and dispatched, carriage paid, to M’paga.
What might happen to him there was no concern of Mr. Chatterji’s—which
was the important point so far as that gentleman was concerned.
Unconscious he remained as the four Kavirondo porters, the stretcher on
their heads, jogged along the jungle path in the wake of Ali and the
three other porters who bore his baggage. Behind the stretcher-bearers
trotted four more of their brethren who would relieve them of their
burden at regular intervals.
Ali was in command, and was also in a hurry, for various reasons,
including prowling enemy patrols and his master’s dire need of help. He
accordingly set a good pace and kept the “low niggers” of his party to it
by fabulous promises, hideous threats, and even more by the charm of
song—part song in fact. Lifting up his powerful voice he delivered in
deep diapason a mighty
“_Ah-Nah-Nee-Nee_! _Ah-Nah-Nee-Nee_!”
to which all the congregation responded
“_Umba Jo-eel_! _Umba Jo-eel_”
as is meet and right to do.
And when, after a few hundred thousand repetitions of this, in strophe
and antistrophe, there seemed a possibility that restless and volatile
minds desiring change might seek some new thing, Ali sang
“_Hay-Ah-Mon-Nee_! _Hay-Ah-Mon-Nee_!”
which is quite different, and the jogging, sweating congregation, with
deep earnestness and conviction, took up the response:
“_Tunk-Tunk-Tunk-Tunk_!”
and all fear of the boredom of monotony was gone—especially as, after a
couple of hours of this, you could go back to the former soulful and
heartsome Threnody, and begin again. But if they got no forrader with
the concert they steadily got forrader with the journey, as their loping
jog-trot ate up the miles.
And, in time to their regular foot-fall and chanting, the insensible head
of the white man rolled from side to side unceasingly. . . .
Unconscious he still was when the little party entered the Base Camp, and
Private Henry Hall remarked to Private John Jones:
“That there bloke’s gone West all right but ’e ain’t gone long. . . .
You can see ’e’s dead becos ’is ’ead’s a waggling and you can see ’e
ain’t bin dead _long_ becos ’is ’ead’s a waggling. . . .”
And Private John Jones, addressing the speaker as Mister Bloomin’-Well
Sherlock ’Olmes, desired that he would cease to chew the fat.
Steering his little convoy to the tent over which the Red Cross flew, Ali
handed over his master and the cleft stick holding Major Mallery’s
letter, to Captain Merstyn, R.A.M.C., and then stood by for orders.
It appeared that the _Barjordan_ was off M’paga, that a consignment of
sick and wounded was just going on board, and that Second-Lieutenant
Greene could go with them. . . .
That night Bertram was conveyed out to sea in a dhow (towed by a
petrol-launch from the _Barjordan_), taken on board that ship, and put
comfortably to bed. The next night he was in hospital at Mombasa and had
met Mrs. Stayne-Brooker.
* * * * *
As, thanks to excellent nursing, he very slowly returned to health and
strength, Bertram began to take an increasing interest in the very
charming and very beautiful woman whom he had once seen and admired at
the Club, who daily took his temperature, brought his meals, administered
his medicine, kept his official chart, shook up his pillows, put cooling
hands upon his forehead, found him books to read, talked to him at times,
attended the doctor on his daily visits, and superintended the brief
labours of the Swahili youth who was ward-boy and house-maid on that
floor of the hospital.
Before long, the events of the day were this lady’s visits, and, on
waking, he would calculate the number of hours until she would enter his
room and brighten it with her presence. He had never seen so sweet,
kind, and gentle a face. It was beautiful too, even apart from its
sweetness, kindness and gentleness. He was very thankful when he found
himself no longer too weak to turn his head and follow her with his eyes,
as she moved about the room. It was indescribably delightful to have a
woman, and such a woman, about one’s sick bed—after negro servants,
Indian orderlies, _shenzi_ stretcher-bearers, and Bengali doctors. How
his heart swelled with gratitude as she laid her cool hand on his
forehead, or raised his head and gave him a cooling drink. . . . But how
sad she looked! . . . He hated to see her putting up the
mosquito-curtains that covered the big frame-work, like the skeleton of a
room, in which his bed stood, and which, at night, formed a
mosquito-proof room-within-a-room, and provided space for his bedside
chair, table and electric-lamp, as well as for the doctor and nurse, if
necessary.
One morning he sat up and said:
“_Please_ let me do that, Sister—I hate to see you working for me—though
I love to see _you_ . . .” and then had been gently pushed back on to his
pillow as, with a laugh, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker said:
“That’s what I’m here for—to work I mean,” and patted his wasted hand.
(He _was_ such a dear boy, and so appreciative of what one could do for
him. It made one’s heart ache to see him such a wasted skeleton.)
The time came when he could sit in a long chair with leg-rest arms, and
read a book; but he found that most of his time was spent in thinking of
the Sister and in the joys of retrospection and anticipation. He had to
put aside, quite resolutely, all thought of the day when he would be
declared fit for duty and be “returned to store.” Think of a _banda_ at
Butindi and of this white room with its beautiful outlook across the
strait to the palm-feathered shore; think of Ali as one’s cup-bearer and
of this sweet angelic Englishwoman. . . . Better not think of it at all.
. . .
It was quite a little shock to him, one day, to notice that she wore a
wedding-ring. . . . He had never thought of that. . . . He felt
something quite like a little twinge of jealousy. . . . He was sure the
man must be a splendid fellow though, or she would never have married
him. . . . How old would she be? It was no business of his, and it was
not quite gentlemanly to speculate on such a subject—but somehow he had
not thought of her as “an old married woman.” Not that married women are
necessarily older than unmarried women. . . . A silly expression—“old”
married women. He had imagined her to be about his own generation so to
speak. Possibly a _little_ older than himself—in years—but years don’t
make age really. . . . Fancy her being married! Well, well, well! . . .
But what did that matter—she was just as much the charming and beautiful
woman for whom he would have laid down his life in sheer gratitude. . . .
* * * * *
A man gets like this after fever. He is off his balance, weak,
neurasthenic, and devoid of the sense of proportion. He waxes
sentimental, and is to be forgiven.
* * * * *
But there is not even this excuse for Mrs. Stayne-Brooker.
* * * * *
She began by rather boring her daughter, Eva, about her new patient—his
extreme gratitude, his charming ways and thoughts, his true gentleness of
nature, his delightful views, the _niceness_ of his mind, the
likeableness of him. . . . She wondered aloud as to whether he had a
mother—she must be a very nice woman. She wondered in silence as to
whether he had a wife—she must be a very happy woman. . . . How old was
he? . . . It was so hard to tell with these poor fellows, brought in so
wasted with fever and dysentery; and rank wasn’t much guide to age
nowadays. He _might_ be. . . . Well—he’d be up and gone before long,
and she’d never see him again, so what was the good of wondering. . . .
And she continued to wonder. . . . And then, from rather boring Miss
Stayne-Brooker with talk about Lieutenant Greene she went to the extreme,
and never mentioned him at all.
For, one day, with an actual gasp of horrified amazement, she found that
she had suddenly realised that possibly the poets and novelists were not
so wrong as she had believed, and that there _might_ be such a thing as
the Love—they hymned and described—and that Peace and Happiness might be
its inseparable companions. . . . She would read her Browning, Herrick,
Swinburne, Rosetti again, her Dante, her Mistral, and some of those plays
and poems of Love that the world called wonderful, beautiful, true, for
she had an idea that she might see glimmerings of wonder, beauty and
truth in them—_now_. . . .
But then—how absurd!—at _her_ age. Of course she would not read them
again! At _her_ age! . . .
And proceeded to do so at _her_ Dangerous Age. . . .
Strange that _his_ name should be Green or Greene—he was the fifth person
of that name whom she had met since she left Major Walsingham Greene,
eighteen years ago. . . .
CHAPTER II
_Love_
All too soon for two people concerned, Doctor Mowbray, the excellent
Civil Surgeon of Mombasa, in whose hospital Bertram was, decided that
that young gentleman might forthwith be let loose on ticket-of-leave
between the hours of ten and ten for a week or two, preparatory to his
discharge from hospital for a short spell of convalescence-leave before
rejoining his regiment. . . .
“I’ll call for you and take you for a drive after lunch,” said Mrs.
Stayne-Brooker, “and then you shall have tea with me, and we’ll go over
to the Club and sit on the verandah. You mustn’t walk much, your first
day out.”
“I’m going to run miles,” said Bertram, smiling up into her face and
taking her hand as she stood beside his chair—a thing no other patient
had dared to do or would have been permitted to do. (“He was such a dear
boy—one would never dream of snubbing him or snatching away a hand he
gratefully stroked—it would be like hitting a baby or a nice friendly
dog. . . .”)
“Then you’ll be ill again at once,” rejoined Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, giving
the hand that had crept into hers a little chiding shake.
“Exactly . . . and prolong my stay here. . .” said Bertram, and his eyes
were very full of kindness and gratitude as they met eyes that were also
very full.
(“What a sweet, kind, good woman she was! And what a cruel wrench it
would be to go away and perhaps never see her again. . . .”)
He went for his drive with Mrs. Stayne-Brooker in a car put at her
disposal, for the purpose, by the Civil Surgeon; and found he was still
very weak and that it was nevertheless good to be alive.
At tea he met Miss Stayne-Brooker, and, for a moment, his breath was
taken away by her beauty and her extraordinary likeness to her mother.
He thought of an opened rose and an opening rose-bud (exactly alike save
for the “open” and “opening” difference), on the same stalk. . . . It
was wonderful how alike they were, and how young Mrs. Stayne-Brooker
looked—away from her daughter. . . . The drive-and-tea programme was
repeated almost daily, with variations, such as a stroll round the
golf-course, as the patient grew stronger. . . . And daily Bertram saw
the very beautiful and fascinating Miss Stayne-Brooker and daily grew
more and more grateful to Mrs. Stayne-Brooker. He was grateful to her
for so many things—for her nursing, her hospitality, her generous giving
of her time; her kindness in the matter of lending him books (the books
she liked best, prose works _and_ others); her kind interest in him and
his career, ambitions, tastes, views, hopes and fears; for her being the
woman she was and for brightening his life as she had, not to mention
saving it; and, above all, he was grateful to her for having such a
daughter. . . . He told her that he admired Miss Stayne-Brooker
exceedingly, and she did not tell him that Miss Stayne-Brooker did not
admire him to the same extent. . . . She was a little sorry that her
daughter did not seem as enthusiastic about him as she herself was, for
we love those whom we admire to be admired. But she realised that a chit
of a girl, fresh from a Cheltenham school, was not to be expected to
appreciate a man like this one, a scholar, an artist to his finger-tips,
a poet, a musician, a man who had read everything and could talk
interestingly of anything—a man whose mind was a sweet and pleasant
storehouse—a _kind_ man, a gentleman, a man who, thank God, _needed_ one,
and yet to whom one’s ideas were of as much interest as one’s face and
form. Of course, the average “Cheerioh” subaltern, whose talk was of
dances and racing and sport, would, very naturally, be of more interest
to a callow girl than this man whose mind (to Mrs. Stayne-Brooker) a
kingdom was, and who had devoted to the study of music, art, literature,
science, and the drama, the time that the other man had given to the
pursuit of various hard and soft balls, inoffensive quadrupeds, and less
inoffensive bipeds.
Thus Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, addressing, in imagination, a foolishly
unappreciative Eva Stayne-Brooker.
* * * * *
As she and her daughter sat at dinner on the verandah which looked down
on to Vasco da Gama Street, one evening, a month later, her Swahili
house-boy brought Mrs. Stayne-Brooker a message. . . . A _shenzi_ was
without, and he had a _chit_ which he would give into no hands save those
of Mrs. Stayne-Brooker herself.
It was the escaped Murad ibn Mustapha, in disguise.
On hearing his news, she did what she had believed people only did in
books. She fell down in a faint and lay as one dead.
* * * * *
Miss Stayne-Brooker tried to feel as strongly as her mother evidently
did, but signally failed, her father having been an almost complete
stranger to her. She was a little surprised that the blow should have
been so great as to strike her mother senseless, for there had certainly
been nothing demonstrative about her attitude to her husband—to say the
least of it. She supposed that married folk got like that . . . loved
each other all right but never showed it at all. . . Nor had what she
had seen of her father honestly impressed her with the feeling that he
was a _very_ lovable person. Neither before dinner nor after it—when he
was quite a different man. . . .
Still—here was her mother, knocked flat by the news of his death, and now
lying on her bed in a condition which seemed to vary between coma and
hysteria. . . .
Knocked flat—(and yet, from time to time, she murmured, “Thank God! Oh,
thank God!”). Queer!
* * * * *
When Mr. Greene called next day, Miss Eva received him in the
morning-sitting-drawing-room and told him the sad news. Her father had
died. . . . He was genuinely shocked.
“Oh, your poor, _poor_ mother!” said he. “I am grieved for her”—and sat
silent, his face looking quite sad. Obviously there was no need for
sympathy with Miss Eva as she frankly confessed that she scarcely knew
her father and felt for him only as one does for a most distant relation,
whom one has scarcely ever seen.
With a request that she would convey his most heart-felt condolence and
deepest sympathy to her mother, he withdrew and returned to the Mombasa
Hotel, where he was now staying, an ex-convalescent awaiting orders. . .
He had hoped for an evening with Eva. That evening the _Elymas_ steamed
into Kilindini harbour and Bertram, strolling down to the pier, met
Captain Murray, late Adjutant of the One Hundred and Ninety-Ninth, and
Lieutenant Reginald Macteith, both of whom had just come ashore from her.
He wrung Murray’s hand, delighted to see him, and congratulated him on
his escape from regimental duty, and shook hands with Macteith.
“By Jove, Cupid, you look ten years older than when I saw you last,” said
Murray, laying his hand on Bertram’s shoulder and studying his face. “I
should hardly have known you. . . .”
“Quite a little man now,” remarked Macteith, and proceeded to enquire as
to where was the nearest and best Home-from-Home in Mombasa, where one
could have A-Drink-and-a-Little-Music-what-what?
“I am staying at the Mombasa Hotel,” said Bertram coldly, to which
Macteith replied that he hoped it appreciated its privilege.
Bertram felt that he hated Macteith, but also had a curious sense that
that young gentleman had either lost in stature or that he, Bertram, had
gained. . . . Anyhow he had seen War, and, so far, Macteith had not. He
had no sort of fear of anything Macteith could say or do—and he’d welcome
any opportunity of demonstrating the fact. . . . Dirty little worm!
Chatting gaily with Murray, he took them to the Mombasa Club and there
found a note from Mrs. Stayne-Brooker asking him to come to tea on the
morrow.
* * * * *
“I won’t attempt to offer condolence nor express my absolute sympathy,
Mrs. Stayne-Brooker,” said Bertram as he took her hand and led her to her
favourite settee.
“Don’t,” said she.
“My heart aches for you, though,” he added.
“It need not,” replied Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, and, as Bertram looked his
wonder at her enigmatic reply and manner, she continued:
“I will not pretend to _you_. I will be honest. Your heart need not
ache for me at all—because mine sings with relief and gratitude and joy.
. . .”
Bertram’s jaw fell in amazement. He felt inexpressibly shocked.
Or was it that grief had unhinged the poor lady’s mind?
“I am going to say to you what I have never said to a living soul, and
will never say again. . . . I have never even said it to myself. . . .
_I hated him most utterly and most bitterly_. . . .”
Bertram was more shocked than he had ever been in his life. . . This was
terrible! . . . He wanted to say, “Oh, hush!” and get up and go away.
“I could not _tell_ you how I hated him,” continued Mrs. Stayne-Brooker,
“for he spoilt my whole life. . . . I am not going into details nor am I
going to say one word against him beyond that. I repeat that he _made_
me loathe him—from my very wedding-day . . . and I leave you to judge. .
. .”
Bertram judged.
He was very young—much younger than his years—and he judged as the young
do, ignorantly, harshly, cruelly. . . .
What manner of woman, after all, was this, who spoke of her dead husband?
Of her own husband—scarcely cold in his grave. Of her _husband_ of all
people in the world! . . . He could have wept with the shame and misery
of it, the disillusionment, the shattering blow which she herself had
dealt at the image and idol that he had set up in his heart and
gratefully worshipped.
He looked up miserably as he heard the sound of a sob in the heavy
silence of the room. She was weeping bitterly, shaken from head to foot
with the violence of her—her—what could it be? not grief for her husband
of course. Did she weep for the life that he had “spoilt” as she
expressed it? Was it because of her wasted opportunities for happiness,
the years that the locust had eaten, the never-to-return days of her
youth, when joy and gaiety should have been hers?
What could he say to her?—save a banal “Don’t cry”? There was nothing to
say. He did not know when he had felt so miserable and uncomfortable. . . .
“It is over,” she said suddenly, and dried her tears; but whether she
alluded to the unhappiness of her life with her husband, or to her brief
tempest of tears, he did not know.
What could he say to her? . . . It was horrible to see a woman cry. And
she had been _so_ good to him. She had revived his interest in life when
through the miasma of fever he had seen it as a thing horrible and
menacing, a thing to flee from. How could he comfort her? She had made
no secret of the fact that she liked him exceedingly, and that to talk to
him of the things that matter in Life, Art, Literature, Music, History,
was a pleasure akin to that of a desert traveller who comes upon an
inexhaustible well of pure water. Perhaps she liked him so well that he
could offer, acceptably, that Silent Sympathy that is said to be so much
finer and more efficacious than words. . . . Could he? . . Could he? . . .
Conquering his sense of repulsion at her attitude toward her newly dead
husband, and remembering all he owed to her sweet kindness, he crossed to
her settee, knelt on one knee beside her, took her hand, and put it to
his lips without a word. She would understand—and he would go.
With a little sobbing cry, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker snatched her hand from
him, and, throwing her arms about his neck, pressed her lips to his—her
face was transfigured as with a great light—the light of the knowledge
that the poets had told the great and wondrous truth when they sang of
Love as the Greatest Thing—and sung but half the truth. All that she
longed for, dreamed of, yearned over—and disbelieved—was true and had
come to pass. . . .
She looked no older than her own daughter—and forgot that she was a woman
of thirty-seven years, and that the man who knelt in homage (the moment
that she was free to receive his homage!) _might_ be but little over
thirty.
She did not understand—but perhaps, in that moment, received full
compensation for her years of misery, and her marred, thwarted, wasted
womanhood.
Oh, thank God; thank God, that he loved her . . . she could not have
borne it if . . .
* * * * *
Glad that he had succeeded in comforting her, slightly puzzled and
vaguely stirred, he arose and went out, still without a word.
* * * * *
Returning to his hotel, he found a telegram ordering him to proceed
“forthwith” to a place called Soko Nassai _via_ Voi and Taveta, and as
“forthwith” means the next train, and the next train to Voi on the Uganda
Railway went in two hours, he yelled for Ali, collected his kit, paid his
Club bill and got him to the railway station without having time or
opportunity to make any visits of farewell. That he had to go without
seeing Miss Eva again troubled him sorely, much more so than he would
have thought possible.
In fact he thought of her all night as he lay on the long bed-seat of his
carriage in a fog of fine red dust, instead of sleeping or thinking of
what lay before him at Taveta, whence, if all or any of the Club gossip
were true, he would be embarking upon a very hard campaign, and one of
“open” fighting, too. This would be infinitely more interesting than the
sit-in-the-mud trench warfare, but it was not of this that he found
himself thinking so much as of the length and silkiness of Miss Eva’s
eyelashes, the tendrils of hair at her neck, the perfection of her lips,
and similar important matters. He was exceedingly glad that he was going
to be attached to a Kashmiri regiment, because it was composed of Dogras
and Gurkhas, and he liked Gurkhas exceedingly, but he was ten thousand
times more glad that there was a Miss Eva Stayne-Brooker in the world,
that she was in Mombasa, that he could think of her there, and, best of
all, that he could return and see her there when the war was o’er—and he
sang aloud:
“When the war is o’er,
We’ll part no more.”
No—damn it all—one couldn’t sing “at Ehren on the Rhine,” after the
German had shown his country to be the home of the most ruffianly,
degraded, treacherous and despicable brute the world has yet produced;
and, turning over with an impatient jerk, he tipped a little mound of
drifted red dust and sand into his mouth and his song turned to dust and
ashes and angry spluttering. _Absit omen_.
At Taveta, a name on a map and a locality beneath wooded hills, Bertram
found a detachment of his regiment, and was accepted by his
brother-officers as a useful-looking and very welcome addition to their
small Mess. He was delighted to renew acquaintance with Augustus and
with the Gurkha Subedar—whom he had last seen at M’paga. Here he also
found the 29th Punjabis, the 130th Baluchis, and the 2nd Rhodesians. In
the intervals of thinking of Miss Eva, he thought what splendid troops
they looked, and what a grand and fortunate man he was to be one of their
glorious Brigade.
When he smelt the horrible fever smell of the pestilential Lumi swamp, he
hoped Miss Eva would not get fever in Mombasa.
When he feasted his delighted eyes on Kilimanjaro, on the rose-flushed
snows and glaciers of Kibo and Mawenzi, their amazing beauty was as the
beauty of her face, and he walked uplifted and entranced.
When the daily growing Brigade was complete, and marched west through
alternating dense bush and open prairie of moving grass, across dry sandy
nullahs or roughly bridged torrents, he marched with light heart and
untiring body, neither knowing nor caring whether the march were long or
short.
When Gussie Augustus Gus said it was dam’ hot and very thoughtless
conduct of Jan Smuts to make innocent and harmless folk walk on their
feet at midday, Bertram perceived that it _was_ hot, though he hadn’t
noticed it. His spirit had been in Mombasa, and his body had been unable
to draw its attention to such minor and sordid details as dust, heat,
thirst, weariness and weakness.
The ice-cold waters of the Himo River, which flows from the Kilimanjaro
snows to the Pangani, reminded him of the coolness of her firm young
hands.
As the Brigade camped on the ridge of a green and flower-decked hill
looking across the Pangani Valley, to the Pare Hills, a scene of fertile
beauty, English in its wooded rolling richness, he thought of her with
him in England; and as the rancid smell of a frying _ghee_, mingled with
the acrid smell of wood smoke, was wafted from where Gurkha, Punjabi,
Pathan and Baluchi cooked their _chapattis_ of _atta_, he thought of her
in India with him. . . .
Day after day the Brigade marched on, and whether it marched between
impenetrable walls of living green that formed a tunnel in which the red
dust floated always, thick, blinding and choking, or whether it marched
across great deserts of dried black peat over which the black dust hung
always, thicker, more blinding and more choking—it was the same to
Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, as he marched beside the sturdy little
warriors of his regiment. His spirit marched through the realms of
Love’s wonderland rather than through deserts and jungles, and the things
of the spirit are more real, and greater than those of the flesh.
For preference he marched alone, alone with his men that is, and not with
a brother officer, that he might be spared the necessity of conversation
and the annoyance of distraction of his thoughts. For miles he would
trudge beside the Subedar in companionly silence. He grew very fond of
the staunch little man to whom duty was a god. . . .
When the Brigade reached Soko Nassai it joined the Division which
(co-operating with Van Deventer’s South African Division, then
threatening Tabora and the Central Railway from Kondoa Irangi) in three
months conquered German East Africa—an almost adequate force having been
dispatched at last. It consisted of the 2nd Kashmir Rifles, 28th
Punjabis, 130th Baluchis, the 2nd Rhodesians, a squadron of the 17th
Cavalry, the 5th and 6th Batteries of the S.A. Field Artillery, a section
of the 27th Mountain Battery, and a company of the 61st Pioneers, forming
the First East African Brigade. There were also the 25th Royal
Fusiliers, the M.I. and machine-guns of the Loyal North Lancashire
Regiment, the East African Mounted Rifles, a Howitzer Battery of Cornwall
Territorials, “Z” Signalling Company, a “wireless” section, and a fleet
of armoured cars. In reserve were the 5th and 6th South Africans.
Few divisions have ever done more than this one did—under the greatest
hardships in one of the worst districts in the world.
Its immediate task was to clear the Germans from their strong positions
in the Pare and Usambara Mountains, and to seize the railway to Tanga on
the coast, a task of all but superhuman difficulty, as it could only be
accomplished by the help of a strong force making a flanking march
through unexplored roadless virgin jungle, down the Pangani valley, the
very home of fever, where everything would depend upon efficient
transport—and any transport appeared impossible. How could motor
transport go through densest trackless bush, or horse and bullock
transport where horse-sickness and tsetse fly forbade?
The First Brigade made the Pangani march and turning movement, performing
the impossible, and with it went Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, head
in air and soul among the stars, his heart full of a mortal tenderness
and caught up in a great divine uplifting,
CHAPTER III
_Love and War_
As he marched on, day after day, his thoughts moving to the dogged tramp
of feet, the groan of laden bullock-carts, the creak of mule packs, the
faint rhythmic tap of tin cup on a bayonet hilt, the clank of a swinging
chain end, through mimosa thorn and dwarf scrub, dense forest, mephitic
swamp or smitten desert, ever following the river whose waters gave life
and sudden death, the river to leave which was to die of thirst, and to
stay by which was to die of fever, this march which would have been a
nightmare of suffering, was merely a dream—a dream from which he would
awake to arise and go to Mombasa. . . .
“I always thought you had guts, Greene,” said Augustus coarsely, one
night, as they laid their weary bones beneath a tarpaulin stretched
between two carts. “I always thought you had ’em beneath your
gentle-seeming surface, so to speak—but dammy, you’re _all_ guts. . . .
You’re a blooming whale, to march. . . . Why the devil don’t you growl
and grumble like a Christian gentleman, eh? . . . I hate you ‘strong
silent men.’ . . . Dammitall—you march along with a smug smile on your
silly face! . . . You’re a perfect tiger, you know. . . . Don’t like
it. . . . Colonel will be saying your ‘conduct under trying
circumstances is an example and inspiration to all ranks.’ . . . Will
when you’re dead anyhow. . . . Horrid habit. . . . You go setting an
example to _me_, and I’ll bite you in the stomach, my lad. . . .”
Bertram laughed and looked out at the great stars—blue diamonds sprinkled
on black velvet—and was very happy.
Was he tired? Everybody else was, so he supposed he must be.
Was he hungry? Yes—for the sight of a face. . . . Oh, the joy of
shutting his eyes and calling it to memory’s eye, and of living over
again every moment spent in her presence!
He realised, with something like amazement, that Love grows and waxes
without the food and sustenance of the loved one’s real presence. He
loved her more than he had done at Mombasa. Had he really _loved_ her at
Mombasa at all? Certainly not as he did now—when he thought of nothing
else, and performed all his duties and functions mechanically and was
only here present in the mere dull and unfeeling flesh. . . .
As the column halted where, across an open glade, the menacing sinister
jungle might at any moment burst into crackling life, as machine-gun and
rifle-fire crashed out to mow men down, he felt but mild interest, little
curiosity and no vestige of fear. He would do his duty to the utmost, of
course, but—how sweet to get a wound that would send him back to where
she was!
As the column crossed the baked mud of former floods, and his eye noted
the foot-prints, preserved in it, of elephant, lion, large and small
antelope, rhinoceros and leopard, these wonders moved him to but faint
interest, for he had something a thousand times more interesting to think
of. Things that would have thrilled him before this great event, this
greatest event, of his life—such as the first complete assembling of the
Brigade in the first sufficient open space it had yet encountered—by the
great spare rock, Njumba-ya-Mawe, the House of Stone, on which General
Jan Smuts himself climbed to see them pass; the sight of his own
Kashmiris cutting a way straight through the bush with their _kukris_;
the glimpses of animals he had hitherto only seen in zoological gardens;
the faint sound of far-distant explosions where the retiring Germans were
blowing up their railway culverts and bridges; the sight of deserted
German positions with their trenches littered with coco-nut shells,
husks, and mealie-cobs, their cunning machine-gun positions, and their
officers’ _bandas_ littered with empty tins and bottles; the infernal
hullabaloo when a lion got within the perimeter one night and stampeded
the mules; the sudden meeting with a little band of ragged emaciated
prisoners, some German patrol captured by the Pathan _sowars_ of the 17th
or the Mounted Infantry of the Lancashires; the passing, high in air, of
a humming yellow aeroplane; the distant rattle of machine-guns, like the
crackling of a forest fire, as the advance-guard came in sight of some
retiring party of Kraut’s force; the hollow far-off boom of some big gun
brought from the _Konigsberg_—dismantled and deserted in the Rufigi
river—as it fired from Sams upon the frontal feint of the 2nd Brigade’s
advance down the railway or at the column of King’s African Rifles from
M’buyini—these things which would have so thrilled him once, now left him
cold—mere trifles that impinged but lightly on his outer consciousness. . . .
“You’re a blasé old bloke, aren’t you, Greene?” said the puzzled
Augustus. “Hardened old warrior like you can’t be expected to take much
interest in a dull game like war, unless they let you charge guns and
squares with cavalry, what? Sport without danger’s no good to you, what?
You wait till you find a dam’ great Yao _askari_ looking for your liver
with a bayonet, my lad. . . . See you sit up and take notice then, what?
Garn! You patient, grinning Griselda . . .” and so forth.
But, one evening, as the column approached the South Pare Mountains, near
Mikocheni, Bertram “sat up and took notice,” very considerable notice, as
with a rush and a roar and a terrific explosion, a column of black smoke
and dust shot up to the sky when a shell burst a few score yards away—the
first of a well-placed series of four-point-one high explosive shells.
The column halted and lay low in the bush. Further progress would be
more wholesome in the dark.
“Naval guns: over seven miles away: dam’ good shootin’,” quoth Augustus
coolly, and with the air of a connoisseur, adding, “and we’ve got nothing
that could carry half-way to ’em. I’m goin’ ’ome. . . .”
Bertram, everything driven from his mind but the thought that he was
under fire, was rejoiced to find himself as cool as Augustus, who
suddenly remarked, “I’m not as ’appy as you look, and I don’t b’lieve you
are either”—as the column hurriedly betook itself from the
position-betraying dust of the open to the shelter of the scrub that lay
between it and the river, the river so beautiful in the rose-glow and
gold of evening, and so deadly to all who could not crawl beneath the
sheltering mosquito curtains as the light faded from the sinister-lovely
scene.
* * * * *
Next day the column found one of the enemy’s prepared positions in the
dense bush, and it was not, as hitherto, a deserted one. The first
intimation was, as usual in the blind, fumbling fighting of East Africa,
a withering blast of Maxim fire, and terribly heavy casualties for a
couple of minutes.
At one moment, nothing at all—just a weary, plodding line of hot, weary
and dusty men, crossing a _dambo_, all hypnotised from thought of danger
by fatigue, familiarity and normal immunity; at the next moment,
slaughter, groans, brief confusion, burst upon burst of withering fire, a
line of still or writhing forms.
It is an inevitable concomitant of such warfare, wherein one feels for
one’s enemy rather than looks for him, and a hundred-mile march is a
hundred-mile ambush.
This particular nest of machine-guns and large force of _askaris_ was
utterly invisible at a few yards’ range, and, at a few yards’ range, it
blasted the head and flank of the column.
Instinctively the war-hardened Sepoys who survived dropped to earth and
opened fire at the section of bush whence came the hail of death—a few
scattered rifles against massed machine-guns and a battalion of highly
trained _askaris_, masters of jungle-craft. As, still firing, they
crawled backward to the cover of the scrub on the side of the glade
opposite to the German position, the companies who had been marching
behind them deployed and painfully skirmished toward the concealed enemy,
halting to fire volleys into the dense bush in the probable direction,
striving to keep touch with their flanking companies, to keep something
like a line, to keep direction, to keep moving forward, and to keep a
sharp look-out for the enemy who, having effected their surprise and
caught the leading company in the open, had vanished silently,
machine-guns and all, from the position which had served their purpose. . . .
A few feet in advance of his men as they skirmished forward, extended to
one pace interval, Bertram, followed by the Subedar, crossed the line of
dead and wounded caught by the first blast of fire. He saw two men he
knew, lieutenants of the 130th Baluchis, who had evidently been made a
special target by the concealed riflemen and machine-gunners. He saw
another with his leg bent in the middle at right-angles—and realised with
horror that it was bent _forward_. Also that the wounded man was Terence
Brannigan. . . .
He feared he was going to be sick, and shame himself before his Gurkhas
as his eye took in the face of a Baluchi whose lower jaw had been removed
as though by a surgeon’s knife. He noted subconsciously how raven-blue
the long oiled hair of these Pathans and Baluchis shone in the sun, their
_puggris_ having fallen off or been shot away. The machine-guns must
have over-sighted and then lowered, instead of the reverse, as everybody
seemed to be hit in the head, neck or chest except Brannigan, whose knee
was so shattered that his leg bent forward until his boot touched his
belt—with an effect as of that of a sprawled rag doll. Probably he had
been hit by one of the great soft-nosed slugs with which the swine armed
their _askaris_. The hot, heavy air reeked with blood. Some of the
wounded lay groaning; some sat and smiled patiently as they held up
shattered arms or pressed thumbs on bleeding legs; some rose and
staggered and fell, rose and staggered and fell, blindly going nowhere.
One big, grey-eyed Pathan lustily sang his almost national song, “_Zakhmi
Dil_”—“The Wounded Heart,” but whether in bravado, delirium, sheer
_berserk_ joy of battle, or quiet content at getting a wound that would
give him a rest, change and privileges, Bertram did not know.
“_Stretcher-bearer log ainga bhai_,” {221a} said Bertram, as he passed
him sitting there singing in a pool of blood.
“_Béshak Huzoor_,” replied the man with a grin, “_ham baitha hai_,”
{221b} and resumed his falsetto nasal dirge. Another, crouching on all
fours with his face to the ground, suddenly raised that grey-green,
dripping face, and crawled towards him. Bertram saw that he was trailing
his entrails as he moved. To avoid halting and being sick at this
shocking sight, he rushed forward to the edge of the scrub whence all
this havoc had been wrought, his left hand pressed over his mouth, all
his will-power concentrated upon conquering the revolt of his stomach.
Thinking he was charging an enemy, his men dashed forward after him, only
to find the place deserted. Little piles of empty cartridge-cases marked
the places where the machine-guns had stood behind natural and artificial
screens. One tripod had been fixed on an ant-hill screened by bushes,
and must have had a fine field of fire across the glade. How far back
had they gone—and then, in which direction? How long would it be before
the column would again expose a few hundred yards of its flank to the
sudden blast of the machine-guns of this force and the withering
short-range volleys of its rifles? Would they get away now and go on
ahead of the column and wait for it again, or, that being the obvious
thing, would they move down toward the tail of the column, and attack
there? Or was it just a rear-guard holding the Brigade up while Kraut
evacuated Mikocheni? . . . Near and distant rifle and machine-gun fire,
rising to a fierce crescendo and dying away to a desultory popping,
seemed to indicate that this ambush was one of many, or that the Brigade
was fighting a regular battle. . . . Probably a delaying action by a
strong rear-guard. . . . Anyhow, his business was to see that his men
kept direction, kept touch, kept moving forward slowly, and kept a sharp
look-out. . . . Firing came nearer on the right flank. That part of the
line had seen something—or been fired on, evidently—and suddenly he came
to the edge of the patch or belt of jungle and, looking across another
glassy glade, he saw a white man striking, with a whip or stick, at some
_askaris_ who were carrying off a machine-gun. Apparently he was
hurrying their retirement. Quickly Bertram turned to the grim little
Subedar and got a section of his men to fire volleys at the spot, but
there was no sign of life where, a minute earlier, he had certainly seen
a German machine-gun team. . . .
He felt very cool and very strong, but knew that this great strength
might fail him at any moment and leave him shaking and trembling, weak
and helpless. . . .
He must line this edge of the jungle and examine every bush and tree of
the opposite edge, across the glade, before adventuring out into its
naked openness.
Suppose a dozen machine-guns were concealed a few yards within that
sinister sullen wall. He bade the Subedar halt the whole line and open
rapid fire upon it with a couple of sections. If he watched through his
glasses carefully, he might see some movement in those menacing depths
and shadows, movement induced by well-directed fire—possibly he might
provoke concealed machine-gunners or _askaris_ to open fire and betray
their positions. If so, should he lead his men in one wild charge across
the glade, in the hope that enough might survive to reach them? If only
the Gurkhas could get there with their _kukris_, the guns would change
hands pretty speedily. . . . It would be rather a fine thing to be “the
chap who led the charge that got the Maxims.” . . .
“_Gya_, _Sahib_,” said the Subedar as he stared across the glade. “_Kuch
nahin hai_.” {222}
Should he move on? And if he led the line out into a deathtrap? . . .
He could see nothing of the companies on the left and right flank, even
though this was thin and penetrable bush. How would he feel if he gave
the order to advance and, as soon as the line was clear of cover, it was
mown down like grass?
Bidding the Subedar wait, he stepped out and, with beating heart,
advanced across the open. . . . He couldn’t talk to the Gurkhas, but he
could show them that a British officer considered their safety before his
own. He entered the opposite scrub, his heart in his mouth, his revolver
shaking wildly in his trembling hand, but an exhilarating excitement
thrilling him with a kind of wild joy. . . . He rather hoped he would be
fired at. He wished to God they would break the horrible stillness and
open fire. . . . He felt that, if they did not soon do so, he would
scream and blaspheme or run away. . . .
Nothing there. No trenches. No suspicious broken branches or withering
bushes placed _en camouflage_. He wheeled about, re-entered the glade,
and gave the signal for his men to advance. They crossed the glade.
Again they felt their way, tore, pushed, writhed, forced their way,
through a belt of thin jungle, and again came upon a narrow glade and, as
the line of jungle-bred, jungle-trained Gurkhas halted at its edge, a
horde of _askaris_ in a rough double line dashed out from the opposite
side and, as the Gurkhas instinctively opened independent magazine fire,
charged yelling across, with the greatest _élan_ and ferocity. Evidently
they thought they were swooping down upon the scattered remnants of the
company that had headed the column, or else were in great strength, and
didn’t care what they “bumped into,” knowing that their enemy had no
prepared positions and death-traps for them to be caught in. . . .
As he stood behind a tree, steadily firing his revolver at the charging,
yelling _askaris_ now some forty yards distant, Bertram was aware of
another line, or extended mob, breaking like a second wave from the
jungle, and saw a couple of machine-gun teams hastily fling down their
boxes and set up their tripods. He knew that a highly trained German
gunner would sit behind each one and fire single shots or solid streams
of bullets, according to his targets and opportunities. Absolute
artists, these German machine-gunners and, ruffianly brutal bullies or
not, very cool, brave men.
So was he cool and brave, for the moment—but how soon he would collapse,
he did not know. He had emptied his revolver, and he realised that he
had sworn violently with every shot. . . . He reloaded with trembling
fingers, and, looking up, saw that the fight was about to become a
hand-to-hand struggle. Firing rapidly, as the _askaris_ charged, the
Gurkhas had thinned their line, and the glade was dotted with dozens of
their dead and wounded—but the survivors, far outnumbering the Gurkhas,
were upon them—and, with shrill yells, the little men rose and rushed at
their big enemies _kukri_ in hand.
The Subedar dashed at a huge non-commissioned officer who raised his
fixed bayonet to drive downward in a kind of two-handed spear-thrust at
the little man. Bertram thought the Gurkha was killed but, as he raised
his revolver, he saw the Subedar duck low and slash with incredible
swiftness at the negro’s thigh and again at his stomach. In the very act
of springing sideways he then struck at the _askari’s_ wrist and again at
his neck. The little man was using his national weapon (the _kukri_, the
Gurkha’s terrible carved knife, heavy, broad and razor-edged, wherewith
he can decapitate an ox) when it came to fighting—no sword nor revolver
for him—and the negro fell, with four horrible wounds, within four
seconds of raising his rifle to stab, his head and hand almost severed,
his thigh cut to the bone and his abdomen laid open.
“Sha-bas!” {224a} yelled Bertram, seeing red, and going mad with battle
lust, and shouting “Maro! Maro!” {224b} at the top of his voice, rushed
into the hacking, hewing, stabbing throng that, with howls, grunts, and
screams, swayed to and fro, but gradually approached the direction whence
the Gurkhas had advanced. . . .
And the two artists behind the machine-guns, the two merry manipulators
of Death’s brass band, sat cool and calm, playing delicate airs upon
their staccato-voiced instruments—here a single note and there a single
note, now an arpeggio and now a run as they got their opportunity at a
single man or a group, a charging section or a firing-line. Where a
whirling knot of clubbing, thrusting, slashing men was seen to be more
foe than friend they treated it as foe and gave it a whole _rondo_—these
heralds and trumpeters of Death.
And, as Bertram rushed out into the open, each said “Offizier!” and gave
him their undivided attention.
“Shah-bas! Subedar Sahib,” he yelled; “Maro! Maro!” and the Gurkhas who
saw and heard him grinned and grunted, slashing and hacking, and
thoroughly enjoying life. . . . (This was worth all the marching and
sweating, starving and working. . . . _This_ was something like! A
_kukri_ in your hand and an enemy to go for!)
Firing his revolver into the face of an _askari_ who swung up his clubbed
rifle, and again into the chest of one who drove at him with his bayonet,
he shouted and swore, wondering at himself as he did so.
And then he received a blow on his elbow and his revolver was jerked from
his open, powerless hand. Glancing at his arm he saw it was covered with
blood, and, at the same moment, a gigantic _askari_ aimed a blow at his
skull—a blow that he felt would crush it like an egg . . . and all he
could do was to put his left arm across his face . . . and wait . . . for
a fraction of a second. . . . He saw the man’s knees crumple. . . . Why
had he fallen instead of delivering that awful blow?
The nearer machine-gunner cursed the fallen man and played a trill of
five notes as he got a clear glimpse of the white man. . . .
Someone had kicked his legs from under Bertram—or had they thrown a
stone—or what? He was on the ground. He felt as though a swift
cricket-ball had hit his shin, and another his knee, and his right arm
dropped and waggled aimlessly—and when it waggled there was a grating
feeling (which was partly a grating sound) horrible to be heard. . . .
And he couldn’t get up. . . .
He felt very faint and could see nothing, by reason of a blue light which
burnt dully, but obscured his vision, destroying the sunlight. Darkness,
and a loud booming and rushing sound in his ears. . . .
Then he felt better and, half raising himself on his left hand, saw
another line emerge from the scrub and charge. . . . Baluchis and
Gurkhas, friends . . . thank God!! And there was Augustus. He’d pass
him as, just now, he had passed Terence Brannigan and the two other
Baluchi subalterns. Would Augustus feel sick at the sight of him, as
_he_ had done? . . .
With a wild yell, the big Baluchis and little Gurkhas charged, and the
line was borne back toward the machine-gunners, who disappeared with
wonderful dispatch, in search of a desirable and eligible pitch,
preferably on a flank, for their next musical performance.
“Hullo, Priceless Old Thing, stopped one?” asked Augustus, pausing in his
rush.
“Bit chipped,” Bertram managed to say.
“Oh, poignant! Search—” began Augustus . . . and fell across Bertram,
causing him horrible agony, a bullet-hole the size of a marble in his
forehead, the back of his head blown completely out.
Bertram fainted as his friend’s brains oozed and spread across his chest.
Having dodged and manœuvred to a flank position, one of the
machine-gunners played a solo to the wounded while waiting a more
favourable moment and target. His fellow sons of _kultur_ wanted no
wounded German _askaris_ on their hands, and of course the wounded Sepoys
and British were better dead. Dead men don’t recover and fight again. . . .
So he did a little neat spraying of twitching, writhing, crawling,
wriggling or staggering individuals and groups. Incidentally he hit the
two British officers again, riddling the body which was on top of the
other, putting one bullet through the left arm of the underneath one. . . .
Then he had to scurry off again, as the fighting-line was getting so
far towards his left that he might be cut off. . . . Anyhow he’d had a
very good morning and felt sure his “good old German God” must be feeling
quite pleased about it.
CHAPTER IV
_Baked_
§1
When he recovered consciousness, Bertram found himself lying on a
stretcher in a little natural clearing in the bush—a tiny square enclosed
by acacia, sisal, and mimosa scrub. On a candelabra tree hung a bunch of
water-bottles, a helmet, some haversacks, a tunic, and strips of white
rag.
An officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps and a _babu_ of the Indian
Subordinate Medical Service were bending over a medical pannier.
Stretcher-bearers brought in another burden as he turned his head to look
round. It was a Native Officer. On top of his head was an oblong of
bare-shaven skull—some caste-mark apparently. Following them with his
eyes Bertram saw the stretcher-bearers place the unconscious (or dead)
man at the end of a small row of similar still forms. . . . There was
Brannigan. . . . There was a man with whom he had shared a tent for a
night at Taveta. . . . What was his name? . . . There were the two
Baluchi subalterns. . . . Was that the dead row—the mortuary, so to
speak, of this little field ambulance? Was he to join it?
The place stunk of blood, iodine and horrors. He could move neither hand
nor foot, and the world seemed to be a Mountain of Pain upon the peak of
which he was impaled. . . .
The continued rattle of firing was coming nearer, surely? It was—much
nearer. The stretcher-bearers brought in another casualty, the stretcher
dripping blood. No “walking wounded” appeared to come to this particular
dressing-station.
The firing was getting quite close, and the sound of the cracking of
branches was audible. Leaves and twigs, cut from the trees by the
bullets, occasionally fell upon the mangled and broken forms as though to
hide them. . . .
“Sah—they are coming!” said the _babu_ suddenly. His face was a mask of
fear, but he continued to perform his duties as dresser, as well as his
shaking hands would permit.
Suddenly a ragged line of Gurkhas broke into the clearing, halting to
fire, retreating and firing again, fighting from tree to tree and bush to
bush. . . . The mixed, swaying and changing battle-line was going to
cross the spot where the wounded lay. . . . Those of them who were
conscious knew what _that_ meant. . .
So did the medical officer, and he shouted to the stretcher-bearers,
_babu_, mule-drivers, porters, everybody, to carry the wounded farther
into the bush—quick—quick. . . .
As his stretcher was snatched up, Bertram—so sick with pain, and the
cruel extra agony of the jolts and jars, that he cared not what befell
him—saw a group of _askaris_ burst into the clearing, glare around, and
rush forward with bayonets poised. He shut his eyes as they reached the
other stretchers. . . .
§2
On the terrible journey down the Tanga Railway to M’buyuni, between
Taveta and Voi, Bertram kept himself alive with the thought that he would
eventually reach Mombasa. . . .
He had forgotten Eva only while he was in the fight and on the stretcher,
but when he lay on the floor of the cattle-truck he seemed to wake from a
night of bad dreams—to awake again into the brightness and peace of the
day of Love.
Of course, the physical agony of being jolted and jerked for a hundred
and fifty miles, throughout which every bump of every wheel over every
railway joint gave a fresh stab of pain to each aching wound and his
throbbing head, was a terrible experience—but he would rather have been
lying on the floor of that cattle-truck bumping towards Mombasa, than
have been marching in health and strength away from it.
Every bump that racked him afresh meant that he was about forty feet
nearer to M’buyuni which was on the line to Voi which is on the line to
Mombasa.
What is the pain of a shattered right elbow, a broken left arm, a bullet
hole in the right thigh and another in the left calf, when one is on the
road to where one’s heart is, and one is filled with the divine wonder of
first love?
He could afford to pity the poor uninjured Bertram Greene of yesterday,
marching farther and farther from where all hope, happiness, joy, peace
and plenty lay, where love lay, and where alone in all the world could he
know content. . . .
She would not think the less of him that he had temporarily lost the use
of his hands and, for a time, was lame. . . . He had done his duty and
was out of it! Blessed wounds! . . .
§3
In the hospital at M’buyuni the clean bullet-holes in the flesh of his
legs healed quickly. Lucky for him that they had been made by nickel
Maxim-bullets and not by the horrible soft-nosed slugs of the _askaris’_
rifles. The bone-wounds in his arms were more serious, and he could walk
long before he could use his hands.
His patient placidity was remarkable to those who came in contact with
him—not knowing that he dwelt in a serene world apart and dreamed love’s
young age-old dream therein.
Every day was a blessed day in that it brought him much nearer to the
moment when he would see her face, hear her voice, touch her hand. What
unthinkably exquisite joy was to be his—and was his _now_ in the mere
contemplation of it!
His left arm began to do well, but the condition of his right arm was
less satisfactory.
“Greene, my son,” said the O.C. M’buyuni Stationary Hospital to him one
day, “you’re for the Hospital Ship _Madras_, her next trip. Lucky young
dog. Wish I was. . . . Give my love to Colonel Giffard and Major Symons
when you get on board. . . . You’ll get a trip down to Zanzibar, I
believe, on your way to Bombay. . . . You’ll be having tea on the lawn
at the Yacht Club next month—think of it!”
Bertram thought of something else and radiated joy.
“Aha! That bucks you, does it? Wounded hero with his arm in a sling at
the Friday-evening-band-night-tea-on-the-lawn binges, what?”
Bertram smiled.
“Could I stay on in Mombasa a bit, sir?” he asked.
The O.C. M’buyuni Stationary Hospital stared.
“Eh?” said he, doubting that he could have heard aright. Bertram
repeated the question, and the O.C., M.S.H., felt his pulse. Was this
delirium?
“No,” he said shortly in the voice of one who is grieved and
disappointed. “You’ll go straight on board the _Madras_—and damned lucky
too. . . . You don’t deserve to. . . . I’d give . . .”
“What is the procedure when I get to Bombay?” asked Bertram, as the
doctor fell into a brown study.
“You’ll go before a Medical Board at Colaba Hospital. They may detain
you there, give you a period of sick leave, or invalid you out of the
Service. Depends on how your right arm shapes. . . . You’ll be all
right, I think.”
“And if my arm goes on satisfactorily I shall be able to come back to
East Africa in a month or two perhaps?” continued Bertram.
“Yes. Nice cheery place, what?” said the Medical Officer and departed.
He never could suffer fools gladly and he personally had had enough, for
the moment, of heat, dust, stench, monotony, privation, exile, and
overwork. . . . _Hurry_ back to East Africa! . . . Zeal for duty is
zeal for duty—and lunacy’s lunacy. . . . But perhaps the lad was just
showing off and talking through his hat, what?
§4
The faithful Ali, devoted follower of his old master’s peregrinations,
saw the muddy, blood-stained greasy bundles, which were that master’s
kit, safe on board the _Madras_ from the launch which had brought the
party of wounded officers from the Kilindini pier. Personally he
conducted the bundles to the cabin reserved for Second-Lieutenant B.
Greene, I.A.R., and then sought their owner where he reclined in a
_chaise longue_ on deck, none the better for his long journey on the
Uganda Railway.
“I’m coming back, Ali,” said he as his retainer, a monument of restrained
grief, came to him.
“Please God, _Bwana_,” was the dignified reply.
“What will you do while I am away?” he asked, for the sake of something
to say.
“Go and see my missus and childrens, my little damsels and damsons at
Nairobi, sah,” was the sad answer. “When _Bwana_ sailing now?”
“Not till this evening,” answered Bertram, “and the last thing I want you
to do for me is to take these two _chits_ to Stayne-Brooker Mem-Sahib and
Stayne-Brooker Miss-Sahib as quickly as you can. You’ll catch them at
tiffin if you take a trolley now from Kilindini. They _must_ have them
quickly. . . . If they come to see me before the ship sails at six,
there’ll be an extra present for one Ali Suleiman, what?”
“Oh, sah! _Bwana_ not mentioning it by golly,” replied Ali and fled.
Mrs. Stayne-Brooker was crossing from the Hospital to Vasco da Gama
Street for lunch when, having run quicker than any trolley ever did, he
caught sight of her, salaamed and presented the two _chits_, written for
Bertram by a hospital friend and companion of his journey, as soon as
they got on board. She opened the one addressed to herself.
“_My Dear Mrs. Stayne-Brooker_,” it ran, “_I have just reached the
Madras_, _and sail at six this evening_. _I cannot tell you how much
I should like to see you_, _if you could take your evening drive in
this direction and come on board_. _How I wish I could stay and
convalesce in Mombasa_! _Very much more than __ever words could
possibly express_. _It is just awful to pass through like this_.
“_I do hope you can come_.
“_Your ever grateful and devoted_
“BERTRAM GREENE.”
The worthy Ali, panting and perspiring, thought the lady was going to
fall.
“_Bertram_!” she whispered, and then her heart beat again, and she
regained control of her trembling limbs.
“You are Greene _Bwana’s_ boy!” she said, searching Ali’s bedewed but
beaming countenance. “Is he—is he ill—hurt—wounded?” (She did not know
that the man had been in her husband’s service.)
“Yes, Mem,” was the cheerful reply. “Shot in all arms and legs. Also
quite well, thank you.”
“Go and tell him I will come,” she said. “Be quick. Here—_baksheesh_.
. . . Now, _hurry_.”
“Oh, Mem! Mem-Sahib not mentioning it, thank you please,” murmured Ali
as his huge paw engulfed the rupees. Turning, he started forthwith upon
the four-mile return run.
Putting the note addressed to her daughter on the lunch-table, beside her
plate, she hurried into her room, crying for joy, and, with trembling
hands, made her toilette. She must look her best—look her youngest.
He was back! He was safe! He was alive! Oh, the long, long night of
silence through the black darkness of which she had miserably groped!
The weary, weary weeks of waiting and wondering, hoping and fearing,
longing and doubting! But her prayers had been answered—and she was
about to _see_ him. . . . And if he were shattered and broken? She
could almost find it in her heart to hope he was—that she might spend her
life in guarding, helping, comforting him. He would _need_ her, and oh,
how she yearned to be needed, she who had never yet been really needed by
man, woman, or child. . . .
“_Mother_!” said Miss Stayne-Brooker, as she went in to lunch. “_What_ a
bright, gay girlie you look! . . . Here’s a note from that Mr. Greene of
yours. He says:
‘_Dear Miss Stayne-Brooker_,
‘_I am passing through Mombasa_, _and am now on board the __Madras_.
_I can’t come and see you—do you think you’d let your mother bring
you to see me_’—_he’s crossed that out and put_ ‘_see the Hospital
Ship Madras_’—‘_it might interest you_. _I have written to ask if
she’d care to come_. _Do—could you_?
‘_Always your grateful servant_,
‘BERTRAM GREENE.’
But I am playing golf with Reggie and having tea with him at the Club,
you know.”
“All right, dear. I’ll go and see the poor boy.”
“That’s right, darling. You won’t mind if I don’t, will you? . . . He’s
_your_ friend, you know.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Stayne-Brooker, “he’s _my_ friend,” and Miss
Stayne-Brooker wondered at the tone of her mother’s voice. . . . (Poor
old Mums; she made quite a silly of herself over this Mr. Greene!)
§5
Having blessed and rewarded the worthy Ali, returned dove-like to the
_Madras_, Bertram possessed his soul with what patience he could, and
sought distraction from the gnawing tooth of anxiety by watching the
unfamiliar life of a hospital-ship. . . .
Suppose Eva Stayne-Brooker could not come! Suppose the ship sailed
unexpectedly early! . . .
He could not sit still in that chair and wait, and wait. . . .
A pair of very pretty nurses, with the sallow ivory complexion, black
hair and large liquid eyes of the Eurasian, walked up and down.
Another, plain, fat, and superiorly English, walked apart from them.
Two very stout Indian gentlemen, in the uniform of Majors of the Indian
Medical Service, promenaded, chattering and gesticulating. The Chief
Engineer (a Scot, of course), leaning against the rail and smoking a
black Burma cheroot, eyed them with a kind of wonder, and smiled
tolerantly upon them. . . . Travel and much time for philosophical
reflection had confairrmed in him the opeenion that it tak’s all sorrts
to mak’ a Univairse. . . .
From time to time, a sick or wounded man was hoisted on board, lying on a
platform that dangled from four ropes at the end of a chain and was
worked by a crane. From the launch to the deck of the ship he was slung
like so much merchandise or luggage, but without jar or jolt. Or a
walking-wounded or convalescent sick man would slowly climb the companion
that sloped diagonally at an easy angle along the ship’s side from the
promenade-deck to the water.
On the fore and aft well-decks, crowds of sick or wounded Sepoys crouched
huddled in grey blankets, or moved slowly about with every evidence of
woe and pain. It takes an Indian Sepoy to do real justice to illness of
any kind. He is a born actor and loves acting the dying man better than
any part in life’s drama. This is not to say that he is a malingerer or
a weakling—but that when he is sick he _is_ going to get, at any rate,
the satisfaction of letting everybody know it and of collecting such
sympathy and admiration as he can.
“No, there is no one so sick as a sick Indian,” smiled Bertram to
himself.
In contrast was the demeanour of a number of British soldiers sitting and
lying about the deck allotted to them, adjoining but railed off from that
of the officers.
Laughter and jest were the order of the day. One blew into a mouth-organ
with more industry than skill; another endeavoured to teach one of the
ship’s cats to waltz on its hind legs; some played “brag” with a pack of
incredibly dirty little cards; and others sat and exchanged experiences,
truthfully and otherwise.
Near to where Bertram stood, a couple sprawled on the deck and leaned
against a hatch. The smaller of the two appeared to be enjoying the
process of annoying the larger, as he tapped his protruding and outlying
tracts with a _kiboko_, listening intently after each blow in the manner
of a doctor taking soundings as to the thoracic or abdominal condition of
a patient.
An extra sharp tap caused the larger man to punch his assailant violently
in the ribs, whereupon the latter threw his arms round the puncher’s
neck, kissed him, and stated, with utter disregard for facts:
“’Erb! In our lives we was werry beautiful, an’ in our deafs we wos not
diwided.” (Evidently a reminiscence of the Chaplain’s last sermon.)
But little mollified by the compliment, Herbert smote again, albeit less
violently, as he remarked with a sneer:
“Ho, yus! You wouldn’t a bin divided all right if you’d stopped one o’
them liddle four-point-seven shells at Mikocheni, you would. Not ’arf,
you wouldn’t. . . .”
But for crutches, splints, slings and bandages, no one would have
supposed this to be a collection of sick and wounded men, wreckage of the
storm of war, flotsam and jetsam stranded here, broken and useless. . . .
Bertram returned to his chair and tried to control his sick impatience
and anxiety. Would she come? What should he say to her if she did? . .
. Should he “propose”—(beastly word)? He had not thought much about
marriage. . . . To see her and hear her voice was what he really wanted.
Should he tell her he loved her? . . . Surely that would be unnecessary.
And then his heart stood still, as Mrs. Stayne-Brooker stepped from the
companion-platform on to the deck, and came towards him—her face shining
and radiant, her lips quivering, her eyes suffused.
He realised that she was alone, and felt that he had turned pale, as his
heart sank like lead. But perhaps _she_ was behind. . . . Perhaps she
was in another boat. . . . Perhaps she was coming later. . . .
He rose to greet her mother—who gently pushed him back on the long cane
couch-chair and rested herself on the folding stool that stood beside it.
Still holding his left hand, she sat and tried to find words to ask of
his hurts, and could say nothing at all. . . . She could only point to
the sling, as she fought with a desire to gather him to her, and cry and
cry and cry for joy and sweet sorrow.
“Yes,” said Bertram, “but that’s the only bad one. . . . Shan’t lose the
use of it, I expect, though. . . . Would she—would a woman—think it
cheek if a maimed man—would she mind his being—if she really . . . ?”
“Oh, my dear, my dear! Don’t! Oh, don’t!” Mrs. Stayne-Brooker broke
down. “She’d love him ten thousand times more—you poor, foolish . . .”
“Will she come?” he interrupted. “And dare I tell her I . . .”
_And Mrs. Stayne-Brooker understood_.
She was a brave woman, and Life had taught her not to wear her poor heart
upon her sleeve, had taught her to expect little (except misery), and to
wear a defensive mask.
“_Eva is engaged to marry Mr. Macteith_,” she said in a toneless voice,
and rose to go—to go before she broke down, fainted, became hysterical,
or went mad. . . .
Had two kind people ever dealt each other two such blows?
She looked at his face, and knew how her own must look. . . .
Why _should_ God treat her so? . . . To receive so cruel a wound and to
have to deal one as cruel to the heart she so loved! . . .
He looked like a corpse—save that his eyes stared through her, burning
her, seeing nothing. She must go, or disgrace herself—and him. . . .
She felt her way, blindly fumbling, to the companion, realising even then
that, when the stunned dullness immediately following this double blow
gave place to the keen agony that awaited her recovery of her senses,
there would be one spot of balm to her pain, there would be one feeble
gleam of light in the Stygian darkness of her life—she would not be
aching and yearning for the passionate love of her own son-in-law! . . .
And, were this veracious chronicle a piece of war-fiction woven by a
romancer’s brain, Bertram Greene would have been standing on the deck
that evening, looking his last upon the receding shores of the country
wherein he had suffered and done so much.
On his breast would have been the Victoria Cross, and by his side the
Woman whom he had Also Won.
She would have murmured “Darling!” . . . He would have turned to her, as
the setting sun, ever obliging, silhouetted the wonderfully lovely palms
of the indescribably beautiful Kilindini Creek, and said to her:
“_Darling_, _life is but beginning_.”
* * * * *
Facts being facts, it is to be stated that Bertram sat instead of
standing, as the _Madras_ moved majestically down the Creek; that on his
breast, instead of the Cross, a sling with a crippled arm; and by his
side, instead of the Woman, a Goanese steward, who murmured:
“Master having tea out here, sir, please?” and to whom Bertram turned as
the setting sun silhouetted the palms and said: “_Oh_, _go to hell_!”
(and then sincerely apologised.)
* * * * *
Captain Stott passed and recognised him, in spite of changes. He noted
the hardened face, the line between the eyes, the hollowed cheeks, the
puckers and wrinkles, the steel-trap mouth, and wondered again at how War
can make a boy into a Man in a few months. . . .
There was nothing “half-baked” about _that_ face.
* * * * *
And so, in ignorance, the despised and rejected boy again avenged his
father, this time upon the woman who had done him such bitter, cruel
wrong.
CHAPTER V
_Finis_
After war, peace; after storm, calm; after pain, ease. . . .
Almost the first people whom he met in the Bombay Yacht Club after
visiting the Colaba Hospital and being given six months’ leave by the
Medical Board, were his father and Miranda Walsingham.
Major Walsingham Greene had been severely wounded in Mesopotamia—but he
had at last won decoration, promotion, recognition. He was acting
Brigadier-General when he fell—and it was considered certain that he
would get the Victoria Cross for which he had been recommended.
When he beheld his son, in khaki, war-worn and wounded (like himself,
like his father and grandfather, like a true Greene of that ilk), his cup
was full and he was a happy man—at last.
And Miranda! She could scarcely contain herself. She almost threw her
arms round her old playmate’s neck, then and there, in the middle of the
Yacht Club lawn. . . . How splendid he looked! Who said her Bertram
might make a scholar and a gentleman—but would never make a _man_?
Oh, joy! She had come out to bring home her “Uncle” Hugh and generally
look after him—and now there were _two_ patients to look after.
* * * * *
It was a happy voyage Home, and a very happy six months at Leighcombe
Priory thereafter. . . .
And when acting Brigadier-General Walsingham Greene and his son returned
to India, Miranda Walsingham went with them as Mrs. Bertram Greene.
But Bertram was no longer “Cupid”—he seemed to have left “Cupid” in
Africa.
NOTES.
{17a} Plain.
{17b} Loin-cloth.
{21a} Good.
{21b} Make.
{21c} “I want the Colonel. Where is he?”
{30} Cupboard.
{38a} “Is all well?”
{38b} “Without doubt.”
{50} Woolly ones. Negroes.
{54} Bullock-cart men.
{56a} Yes.
{56b} Without doubt.
{66} Here.
{67} Store-sheds.
{72a} Oxen.
{72b} Bring here.
{72c} Talk, palaver.
{72d} Savages.
{81} “Very good, sir.”
{98} “Be careful—_you_!”
{101a} “Good!”
{101b} “Kill the devils. Do well.”
{101c} “It is not the enemy.”
{133a} Medicine.
{133b} “Great Simba has killed a white man.”
{134a} “Wait. Lie on the stretcher.”
{134b} “It is nothing.”
{134c} “Thanks. It is nothing. Do not hold me.”
{142} Clever and competent.
{148} Sit down.
{150} Open plain.
{167} Food.
{168a} “Dinner is ready.”
{168b} Yes.
{173} Cultivation, garden.
{174} Over-eating.
{183a} White men.
{183b} Club.
{184} Cooking-pot.
{185} “Lunch is ready.”
{198} Tribal dance.
{221a} “The stretcher-bearers will come, brother.”
{221b} “No doubt, sir. I am waiting.”
{222} “Gone, sir. There is nothing.”
{224a} “Bravo.”
{224b} “Kill! Kill!”