ORDERS
Godfrey and his wife never went to Cornwall after all, for on Christmas
Day the weather turned so bad and travelling was so difficult that they
determined to stop where they were for a few days.
As for them the roof of this London hotel had become synonymous with
that of the crystal dome of heaven, this did not matter in the least.
There they sat in their hideous, over-gilded, private sitting-room, or,
when the weather was clear enough, went for walks in the Park, and once
to the South Kensington Museum, where they enjoyed themselves very
thoroughly.
It was on the fourth morning after their marriage that the blow fell.
Godfrey had waked early, and lay watching his wife at his side. The
grey light from the uncurtained window, which they had opened to air
the over-heated room, revealed her in outline but not in detail and
made her fine face mysterious, framed as it was in her yellow hair. He
watched it with a kind of rapture, till at length she sighed and
stirred, then began to murmur in her sleep.
“My darling,” she whispered, “oh! my darling, how have I
lived without you? Well, that is over, since alive or dead we can never
be parted more, not really—not really!”
Then she opened her grey eyes and stretched out her arms to receive him,
and he was glad, for he seemed to be listening to that which he was not
meant to hear.
A little later there came a knocking at the door, and a page boy’s
squeaky voice without said:
“Telegram for you, Sir.”
Godfrey called to him to put it down, but Isobel turned pale and
shivered.
“What can it be?” she said, clasping him. “No one knows our
address.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” he answered. “You forget you telephoned
to the Hall yesterday afternoon about the hospital business you had
forgotten and gave our number, which would be quite enough.”
“So I did, like a fool,” she exclaimed, looking as though she were
going to cry.
“Don’t be frightened, dear,” he said. “I dare say it is
nothing. You see we have no one to lose.”
“No, no, I feel sure it is a great deal and—we have each other.
Read it quickly and get the thing over.”
So he rose and fetched the yellow envelope which reposed upon Isobel’s
boots outside the door. A glance showed him that it was marked
“official,” and then his heart, too, began to sink. Returning to
the bed, he switched on the electric light and opened the envelope.
“There’s enough of it,” he said, drawing out three closely
written sheets.
“Read, read it!” answered Isobel.
So he read. It was indeed a very long telegram, one of such as are
commonly sent at the expense of the country, and it came from the War
Office. The gist of it was that attempts had been made to communicate
with him at an address he had given in Cornwall, but the messages had
been returned, and finally inquiry at Hawk’s Hall had given a clue.
He was directed to report himself “early to-morrow” (the telegram
had been sent off on the previous night) to take up an appointment
which would be explained to him. There was, it added, no time to lose,
as the ship was due to sail within twenty-four hours.
“There!” said Isobel, “I knew it was something of the sort.
This,” she added with a flash of inspiration, “is the result of the
meddling of that old General Cubitte. You see it must be a distant
appointment, or they would not talk about the ship being due to
sail.”
“I dare say,” he answered as cheerfully as he could. “Such
things are to be expected in these times, are they not?”
“Too bad!” she went on, “at any rate they might have let you
have your leave.”
Then they rose because they must and made pretence to eat some
breakfast, after which they departed in one of Isobel’s motors, which
had been summoned by telephone from her London house, to the Department
indicated in the telegram.
They need not have hurried, since the important person whom Godfrey must
see did not arrive for a full hour, during all which time Isobel sat
waiting in the motor. However, when he appeared he was very gracious.
“Oh! yes,” he said, “you are Major Knight, and we have a
mutual friend in old General Cubitte. In fact it was he who put an idea
into our heads, for which, as I understand you are just married—a
pretty hunt you gave us, by the way—perhaps you won’t altogether
bless him, since otherwise, as you are only just recovered from your
wounds, I have no doubt we could have given you a month or two extra
leave. However, I know you are very keen, for I’ve looked up your
record, and private affairs must give way, mustn’t they? Also, as it
happens, Mrs. Knight need not be anxious, as we are not going to send
you into any particular danger; I dare say you won’t see a shot
fired.
“Look here, Major, you have been a Staff officer, haven’t you, and
it is reported of you that you always got on extremely well with
natives, and especially in some semi-political billets which you have
held when you had to negotiate with their chiefs. Well, to cut it
short, a man of the kind is wanted in East Africa, coming out direct
from home with military authority. He will have to keep in touch with
the big chiefs in our own territory and arrange for them to supply men
for working or fighting, etc., and if possible, open negotiations with
those in German territory and win them over to us. Further, as you
know, there are an enormous number of Indians settled in East Africa,
with whom you would be particularly qualified to deal. We should look to
you to make the most of these in any way required. You see, the
appointment is a special one, and if the work be well done, as I have
no doubt it will be, I am almost sure,” he added significantly,
“that the results to the officer concerned will be special also.
“Now, I don’t ask you if you decline the appointment, because we
are certain in time of war you will not do so, and I think that’s all,
except that you will be accredited ostensibly to the staff of the
General in command in East Africa, and also receive private
instructions, of which the General and the local Governments will have
copies. Now, do you understand everything, especially that your powers
will be very wide and that you will have to act largely on your own
discretion?”
“I think so, Sir,” said Godfrey, concealing the complete confusion
of his mind as well as he was able. “At any rate, I shall pick things
up as I go along.”
“Yes, that’s the right spirit—pick things up as you go on, as
we are all doing in this war. I have to pick ’em up, I can tell you.
And now I won’t keep you any longer, for, you see, you’ll have to
hustle. I believe a special boat for East Africa with stores, etc.,
sails to-morrow morning, so you’ll have to take the last train to
Southampton. An officer will meet you at Waterloo with your
instructions, and if he misses you, will go on down to the boat. Also,
you will have details of your pay and allowances, which will be
liberal, though I am told you are not likely to want money in future.
So good-bye and good luck to you. You must report officially through
the General or the local Governors, but you will also be able to write
privately to us. Indeed, please remember that we shall expect you to do
so.”
So Godfrey went, but as he neared the door the big man called after him:
“By the way, I forgot to congratulate you. No, no, I don’t mean on
your marriage, but on your promotion. You’ve been informed, haven’t
you? Well, it will be gazetted to-morrow or in a day or two, and letters
will be sent to you with the other papers.”
“What promotion?” asked Godfrey.
“Oh! to be a colonel, of course. You did very well out there in
France, you know, and it is thought advisable that the officer
undertaking this special work should have a colonel’s rank, just to
begin with. Good-bye.”
So Godfrey went, and said vaguely to the waiting Isobel:
“I’m afraid, dear, that I shall have to ask you to help me to do
some shopping. I think there are some stores near here. We had better
drive to them.”
“Tell me everything,” said Isobel.
So he told her, and when he had finished she said slowly:
“It is bad enough, but I suppose it might be worse. Will they let me
go with you to Southampton?”
“I expect so,” he answered. “At any rate, we will try it on.
I think it is an ordinary train, and you have a right to take a
ticket.”
Then they shopped, all day they shopped, with the result, since money
can do much, that when they reached Waterloo his baggage containing
everything needful, or at least nearly everything, was already waiting
for him. So was the messenger with the promised papers, including a
formal communication notifying to him that he was now a
lieutenant-colonel.
“And to think that they have painted ‘Major’ on those tin
cases!” said Isobel regretfully, for no objection had been raised to
her accompanying Godfrey, with whom she was seated in a reserved
carriage.
They reached Southampton about midnight, and on Godfrey presenting
himself and asking when the boat sailed he was informed that this was
uncertain, but probably within the next week. Then remembering all he
had gone through that day, he swore as a man will, but Isobel rejoiced
inwardly, oh! how she rejoiced, though all she said was that it would
give him time to complete his shopping.
Save for the advancing shadow of separation and a constant stream of
telegrams and telephone messages to and from his chiefs in London,
which occupied many of the hours, these were very happy days,
especially as in the end they spread themselves out to the original
limit of his leave.
“At least we have not been cheated,” said Isobel when at last they
stood together on the deck of the ship, waiting for the second bell to
ring, “and others are worse off. I believe those two poor people,”
and she pointed to a young officer and his child-like bride, “were
only married yesterday.”
The scene on the ship was dreary, for many were going in her to the
various theatres of war, Egypt, Africa, and other places, and sad, oh!
sad were the good-byes upon that bitter winter afternoon. Some of the
women cried, especially those of the humbler class. But Isobel would
not cry. She remained quite calm to the last, arranging a few flowers
and unpacking a travelling bag in Godfrey’s cabin, for as a colonel
he had one to himself.
Then the second bell rang, and to the ears upon which its strident
clamour fell the trump of doom could not have been more awful.
“Good-bye, my darling,” she said, “good-bye, and remember
what I have told you, that near or far, living or dead, we can never
really be apart again, for ours is the Love Eternal given to us in the
Beginning.”
“Yes,” he answered briefly, “I know that it is so
and—enduring for ever! God bless us both as He sees best.”
The ship cast off, and Isobel stood in the evening light watching from
the quay till Godfrey vanished and the vessel which bore him was
swallowed up in the shadows. Then she went back to the hotel and,
throwing herself upon that widowed bed, kissed the place where his head
had lain, and wept, ah! how she wept, for her joy-days were done and
her heart was breaking in her.
After this Isobel took a night train back to town and, returning to
Hawk’s Hall, threw herself with the energy that was remarkable in her,
into the management of her hospital and many another work and charity
connected with the war. For it was only in work that she could forget
herself and her aching loneliness.
Godfrey had a comfortable and a prosperous voyage, since it was almost
before the days of submarines, at any rate so far as passenger steamers
were concerned, and they saw no enemy ships. Therefore, within little
more than a month he landed on the hot shores of Mombasa, and could
cable to Isobel that he was safe and well and receive her loving
answer.
His next business was to report himself in the proper quarter, which he
did. Those over him seemed quite bewildered as to what he had come for
or what he was to do, and could only suggest that he should travel to
Nairobi and Uganda and put himself in touch with the civil authorities.
This he did also and, as a result, formulated a certain scheme of
action, to which his military superiors assented, intimating that he
might do as he liked, so long as he did not interfere with them.
What happened to him may be very briefly described. In the end he
started to visit a great chief on the borders of German East Africa,
but in British territory, a man whose loyalty was rumoured to be
doubtful. This chief, Jaga by name, was a professed Christian, and at
his town there lived a missionary of the name of Tafelett, who had
built a church there and was said to have much influence over him. So
with the Reverend Mr. Tafelett Godfrey communicated by runners, saying
that he was coming to visit him. Accordingly he started with a guard of
native troops, a coloured interpreter and some servants, but without
any white companion, since the attack on German territory was beginning
and no one could be spared to go with him upon a diplomatic mission.
The journey was long and arduous, involving many days of marching across
the East African veld and through its forests, where game of all sorts
was extraordinarily plentiful, and at night they were surrounded by
lions. At length, however, with the exception of one man who remained
with the lions, they arrived safely at the town of Jaga and were met by
Mr. Tafelett, who took Godfrey into his house, a neat thatched building
with a wide verandah that stood by the church, which was a kind of
whitewashed shed, also thatched.
Mr. Tafelett proved to be a clergyman of good birth and standing, one of
those earnest, saint-like souls who follow literally the scriptural
injunction and abandon all to advance the cause of their Master in the
dark places of the earth. A tall, thin, nervous-looking man of not much
over thirty years of age; one, too, possessed of considerable private
means, he had some five years before given up a good living in England
in order to obey what he considered to be his “call.” Being sent to
this outlying post, he found it in a condition of the most complete
savagery, and worked as few have done. He built the church with native
labour, furnishing it beautifully inside, mostly at his own expense. He
learned the local languages, he started a school, he combated the
witch-doctors and medicine-men.
Finally he met with his reward in the conversion of the young chief
Jaga, which was followed by that of a considerable portion of his
people.
But here came the trouble. The bulk of the tribe, which was large and
powerful, did not share their chief’s views. For instance, his uncle,
Alulu, the head rain-maker and witch-doctor, differed from them very
emphatically. He was shrewd enough to see that the triumph of
Christianity meant his destruction, also the abandonment of all their
ancient customs. He harangued the tribe in secret, asking them if they
wished to bring upon themselves the vengeance of their ancestral and
other spirits and to go through their days as the possessors of only
one miserable wife, questions to which they answered that emphatically
they did not. So the tribe was rent in two, and by far the smaller half
clung to Jaga, to whom the dim, turbulent heathen thousands beneath his
rule rendered but a lip service.
Then came the war, and Alulu and his great following saw their
opportunity. Why should they not be rid of Jaga and the Christian
teacher with his new-fangled notions? If it could be done in no other
way, why should they not move across the border which was close by,
into German territory? The Germans, at any rate, would not bother them
about such matters; under their rule they might live as their
forefathers had done from the beginning, and have as many wives as they
chose without being called all sorts of ugly names.
This was the position when Godfrey arrived. His coming made a great
sensation. He was reported to be a very big lord indeed, as big, or
bigger than the King’s governor himself. Alulu put it about that he
had come to make a soldier of every fit man and to enslave the women
and the elders to work on the roads or in dragging guns. The place
seethed with secret ferment.
Mr. Tafelett knew something of all this through Jaga, who was genuinely
frightened, and communicated it to Godfrey. In the result a meeting of
all the headmen was held, which was attended by thousands of the
people. Godfrey spoke through his interpreter, saying that in this
great war the King of England required their help, and generally set
out the objects of his mission, remarks that were received in
respectful silence. Then Alulu spoke, devoting himself chiefly to an
attack upon the Christian faith and on the interference of the white
teacher with their customs, that, he observed, had resulted in their
ancestral spirits cursing them with the worst drought they had
experienced for years, which in the circumstances he, Alulu, could and
would do nothing to alleviate. How could they fight and work for the
Great King when their stomachs were pinched with hunger owing to the
witchcraft and magical rites which the white teacher celebrated in the
church?
“How, indeed?” shouted the heathen section, although in fact their
season had been very good; while the Christians, feeling themselves in a
minority, were silent.
Then the Chief, Jaga, spoke. He traversed all the arguments of Alulu,
whom he denounced in no measured terms, saying that he was plotting
against him. Finally he came down heavily on the side of the British,
remarking that he knew who were the would-be traitors and that they
should suffer in due course.
“It has been whispered in my ears,” he concluded, “that there
is a plot afoot against my friend, the white Teacher, who has done us
all so much good. It has even been whispered that there are those,”
here he looked hard at Alulu, “who have declared that it would be
well to kill this great white Lord who is our guest,” and he pointed
to Godfrey with his little chief’s staff, “so that he may not
return to tell who are the true traitors among the people of Jaga. I
say to you who have thought such things, that this Lord is the greatest
of all lords, and as well might you lay hands on our father, the mighty
King of England himself, as upon this his friend and counsellor. If a
drop of his blood is shed, then surely the King’s armies will come,
and we shall die, every one of us, the innocent and the guilty
together. For terrible will be the vengeance of the King.”
This outburst made a great impression, for all the multitude cried:
“It is so! We know that it is so,” and Alulu interposed that he
would as soon think of murdering his own mother (who, Mr. Tafelett
whispered to Godfrey, had been dead these many years) as of touching a
hair of the great white chief’s head. On the contrary, it was their
desire to do everything that he ordered them. But concerning the matter
of the new custom of having one wife only, etc.
This brought Mr. Tafelett to his feet, for on monogamy he was especially
strong, and the meeting ended in a theological discussion which nearly
resulted in blows between the factions. Finally it was adjourned for a
week, when it was arranged that an answer should be given to
Godfrey’s demands.
Three nights later an answer was given and one of a terrible sort.
Shortly after sundown Godfrey was sitting in the missionary’s house
writing a report. Mr. Tafelett, it being Sunday, was holding an evening
service in the church, at which Jaga and most of the Christians were
present. Suddenly a tumult arose, and the air was rent with savage
shouts and shrieks. Godfrey sprang up and snatched his revolver just as
some of his servants arrived and announced that the people in the
church were being killed. Acting on his first impulse, he ran to the
place, calling to his guard to follow him, which they did so tardily
that he entered it alone. Here a sight of horror met his eyes.
The building was full of dead and dying people. By the altar, dressed in
his savage witch-doctor’s gear, stood Alulu, a lamp in his hand, with
which evidently he had been firing the church, for tongues of flame ran
up the walls. On the altar itself was something that had a white cloth
thrown over it, as do the sacred vessels. Catching sight of Godfrey,
with a yell the brute tore away the napkin, revealing the severed head
of Mr. Tafelett, whose surplice-draped body Godfrey now distinguished
lying in the shadows on one side of the altar!
“Here is the white medicine-man’s magic wine,” he screamed,
pointing to the blood that ran down the broidered frontal. “Come,
drink! come, drink!”
Godfrey ran forward up the church, his pistol in his hand. When he
reached the chancel he stopped and fired at the mouthing, bedizened
devil who was dancing hideously in front of the altar. The heavy
service-revolver bullet struck him in some mortal place, for he leapt
into the air, grabbed at the altar cloth and fell to the ground. There
he lay still, covered by the cloth, with the massive brass crucifix
resting face downwards on his breast and the murdered man’s head
lying at his side—as though it were looking at him.
This was the last sight that Godfrey saw for many a day, for just then a
spear pierced his breast, also something struck him on the temple. A
curious recollection rose in his mind of the head of a mummy after the
Pasteur had broken it off, rolling along the floor in the flat at
Lucerne. Then he thought he heard Madame Riennes laughing, after which
he remembered no more; it might have been a thousand years, or it might
have been a minute, for he had passed into a state that takes no reck
of time.
Godfrey began to dream. He dreamed that he was travelling; that he was
in a house, and then, a long while afterwards, that he was making a
journey by sea.
Another vacuum of nothingness and he dreamed again, this time very
vividly. Now his dream was that he had come to Egypt and was stretched
on a bed in a room, through the windows of which he could see the
Pyramids quite close at hand. More, he seemed to become acquainted with
all their history. He saw them in the building; multitudes of brown men
dragging huge blocks of stone up a slope of sand. He saw them finished
one by one, and all the ceremonies of the worship with which they were
connected. Dead Pharaohs were laid to rest there beneath his eyes,
living Pharaohs prayed within their chapels and made oblation to the
spirits of those who had gone before them, while ever the white-robed,
shaven priests chanted in his ears.
Then all passed, and he saw them mighty as ever, but deserted, standing
there in the desert, the monuments of a forgotten greatness, till at
length a new people came and stripped off their marble coverings.
These things he remembered afterwards, but there were many more that he
forgot.
Again Godfrey dreamed, a strange and beautiful dream which went on from
day to day. It was that he was very ill and that Isobel had come to
nurse him. She came quite suddenly and at first seemed a little
frightened and disturbed, but afterwards very happy indeed. This went
on for a while, till suddenly there struck him a sense of something
terrible that had happened, of an upheaval of conditions, of a
wrenching asunder of ties, of change utter and profound.
Then while he mourned because she was not there, Isobel came again, but
different. The difference was indefinable, but it was undoubted. Her
appearance seemed to have changed somewhat, and in the intervals
between her comings he could never remember how she had been clothed,
except for two things which she always seemed to wear, the little ring
with the turquoise hearts, though oddly enough, not her wedding ring,
and the string of small pearls which he had given her when they were
married, and knew again by the clasp, that was fashioned in a lover’s
knot of gold. Her voice, too, seemed changed, or rather he did not hear
her voice, since it appeared to speak within him, in his consciousness,
not without to his ears. She told him all sorts of strange things,
about a wonderful land in which they would live together, and the home
that she was making ready for him, and the trees and flowers growing
around it, that were unlike any of which Godfrey had ever heard. Also
she said that there were many other matters whereof she would wish to
speak to him, only she might not.
Finally there came a vivid dream in which she told him that soon he
would wake up to the world again for a little while (she seemed to lay
emphasis on this “little while”) and, if he could not find her in
it, that he must not grieve at all, since although their case seemed
sad, it was much better than he could conceive. In his dream she made
him promise that he would not grieve, and he did so, wondering. At this
she smiled, looking more beautiful than ever he could have conceived
her to be. Then she spoke these words, always, as it appeared, within
him, printing them, as it were, upon his mind:
“Now you are about to wake up and I must leave you for a while. But
this I promise you, my most dear, my beloved, my own, that before you
fall asleep again for the last time, you shall see me once more, for
that is allowed to me. Indeed it shall be I who will soothe you to
sleep and I who will receive you when you awake again. Also in the
space between, although you do not see me, you will always feel me
near, and I shall be with you. So swear to me once more that you will
not grieve.”
Then in his vision Godfrey swore, and she appeared to lean over him and
whisper words into his ear that, although they impressed themselves
upon his brain as the others had done, had no meaning for him, since
they were in some language which he did not understand.
Only he knew that they conveyed a blessing to him, and not that of
Isobel alone!