Percival Christopher Wren

“ Bertram wondered whether it would ever be his fate to be carried on one of those blood-stained stretchers by a couple of those negroes, laid on the mud at the bottom of that pit, and operated on by that young native of India. He shuddered. Fancy one’s life-blood ebbing away into that mud. Fancy dying, mangled, in that hole with no one but a Bupendranath Chatterji to soothe one’s last agonies. ”

“ But, as it was, who was he, Bertram Greene, the soft-handed sedentary, the denizen of libraries and lecture-rooms, the pale student, to dare to offer to command, control and guide trained and hardy men of war? What had he (brought up by a maiden “aunt”!) to do with arms and blood, with stratagems and ambuscades, with gory struggles in unknown holes and corners of the Dark Continent? Why, he had never shouted an order in his life; never done a long march; never administered a harsh reprimand; never fired a revolver nor made a pass with a sword. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who would be sent to healthy, cheery Nairobi? Who to the vile desert at Voi? Who to interesting, far-distant Uganda? Who to the ghastly mangrove-swamps down the coast by the border of German East? Who to places where there was real active service, fighting, wounds, distinction and honourable death? Who to dreary holes where they would “sit down” and sit tight, rotting with fever and dysentery, eating out their hearts, without seeing a single German till the end of the war. ”

“ And then it was that Bertram, for the first time in his life, furiously swore—long and loud and heartily. Let those who say in defence of War that it rouses man’s nobler instincts and brings out all that is best in him, note this deplorable fact.
Could he keep them on, or must he remove those clinging, squelching boots and partially undress again?
Striped blue and green pyjamas, showing for six inches between his shorts and his puttees, would add a distinctly novel touch to the uniform of a British officer. . . . No. It could not be done. ”

“ Suddenly the narrow, walled-in path debouched into a most beautiful open glade of trees like live oaks. These were not massed together; there was no undergrowth of bush; the grass was short and fine; the ground sloping slightly upward was gravelly and dry—the whole spot one of Africa’s freakish contrasts.
Bertram determined to halt the whole safari here, get it “closed up” into something like fours, and see every man, including the rear-guard, into the place before starting off again. ”

“ In one large patch of shade the Bandmaster—an ancient Pathan, whose huge iron-rimmed spectacles accorded but incongruously with his fierce hawk face, ferocious curling white moustache and beard, and bemedalled uniform—was conducting the band’s tentative rendering of “My Bonnie is over the Ocean,” to Bertram’s wide-eyed surprise and interest. Through the Lines the two officers made a kind of Triumphal Progress, men on all sides stiffening to “attention” and saluting as they passed, to where, behind a cook-house, lay nine large smoke-blackened cooking-pots under a strong guard. ”

“ The Gurkhas were invisible. The Sherepur Sikhs sat in a tight-packed group around their piled arms and listened to the words of their Subedar, the men of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth squatted in a double row along the front of the adobe building, and the Very Mixed Contingent was just a mob near the ration-dump, beside which Ali Suleiman stood on guard over his master’s kit. . . . Suppose there were a sudden attack? But there couldn’t be? An enemy could only approach down that narrow path in single file. The impenetrable jungle was his friend until he moved. ”

“ How was Stanner feeling, Bertram wondered. He was evidently feeling extremely nervous, and made no secret of it when Bertram approached and addressed him. He was anything but afraid, but he was highly excited. His teeth chattered as he spoke, and his hand shook when he lit a cigarette.
“Gad! I should hate to get one of their beastly expanding bullets in my stomach,” said he. “They fire a brute of a big-bore slug with a flat nose. Bad as an explosive bullet, the swine,” and he shuddered violently. “Stomach’s the only part I worry about, and I don’t give a damn for bayonets. ”

“ Evidently Ali Sloper or Suleiman was dressed in the height of local fashion. On a bench, by the door of the Customs shed, lounged some big negroes in dark blue tunics and shorts, with blue puttees between bare knees and bare feet. Their tall tarbooshes made them look even taller than they were, and the big brass plates on their belt-buckles shone like gold. Bertram wondered whether the Germans had just such brawny giants in their Imperial African Rifles, and tried to imagine himself defeating one of them in single combat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And what sort of a fight could the force put up if attacked by Africans when all the Indians and Europeans were ill with fever and dysentery? Heaven bless the Wise Man who had kept the African Army of British East Africa so small and had disbanded battalions of the King’s African Rifles just before the war. What chance would Indians and white men, who had lived for months in the most pestilential swamp in Africa, have against salted Africans led by Germans especially brought down from the upland health-resorts where they lived? ”

“ Should he try to explain to the Sergeant that he had made a mistake, and that the Guard was presenting arms to the humblest of God’s creatures that wore officer’s uniform? Should he “put on dog” heavily and “inspect” the Guard? Should he pretend to find fault? No! For one thing he had not enough Hindustani to make himself intelligible. (But it was a sign that a change was already coming over Bertram, when he could even conceive such a notion, and only dismiss it for such a reason.) ”

“ Brilliant parrots flashed through the tree-tops, incredible horn-bills carried their beaks about, the hypocritical widower-bird flaunted his new mourning, the blue starling, the sun-bird, and the crow-pheasant, with a score of other species, failed to give the gloomy, menacing jungle an air of brightness and life, seemed rather to emphasise its note of gloom, its insistence upon itself as the home of death p. 148where Nature, red in tooth and claw, pursued her cycle of destruction with fierce avidity and wanton masterfulness. ”

“ Had an elephant emerged from the dripping jungle, wagged its tail and sat up and begged, he would have experienced no great shock of surprise. He, a town-bred, town-dwelling, pillar of the Respectable, the Normal and the Established, was marching through virgin forest at the head of a thousand African porters and two hundred Indian soldiers and their camp-followers, surrounded by enemies—varying from an ex-Prussian Guard armed with a machine-gun to a Wadego savage armed with a poisoned arrow—to the relief of hungry men in a stockaded outpost! ”

“ To Bertram, the picture of the little Gurkha Subedar, the tall Sikh Subedar, and the burly Jemadar of the Mixed Pickles, was a very interesting one, as the three stood together on the wharf, eyeing each other like three strange dogs of totally different breeds—say, a fighting terrier, a wolf-hound and a mastiff.
With a snap and a slick, and a smart “One two,” a company of British Infantry arrived and embarked. Beside the Mixed Pickles they were as a Navy motor-launch beside a native bunderboat. ”

“ You live for weeks. . . .”
Bertram felt distinctly glad to discover that a trained regular officer, like Stanner, could entertain these sensations of nervous excitement, and that he himself had no monopoly of them. He even thought, with a thrill of hope and confidence, that when his turn came he would be less nervous than Stanner. He knew that Stanner was not frightened, and that he did not wish he was snug in bed as his brother-officers were, but he also knew that Bertram Greene would not be frightened, and hoped and believed he would not be so palpably excited and nervous. ”

“ In other words, a Colonel must smile at a General’s joke, a Major must grin broadly, a Captain laugh appreciatively, a Subaltern giggle right heartily, a Warrant Officer or N.C.O. explode into roars of laughter, and a private soldier roll helpless upon the ground in spasms and convulsions of helpless mirth. ”

“ Before long the little force was on its way, the Gurkhas coming last—as the trusty rear-guard, Bertram explained—and, after half an hour’s uneventful march through the stinking swamp, reached the Base Camp of the M’paga Field Force—surely one of the ugliest, dreariest and most depressing spots in which ever a British force sat down and acquired assorted diseases. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the light of a big fire and several lanterns, Bertram saw that the men were in rough lines, and that each line appeared to be in charge of a headman, distinguished by some badge of rank, such as a bowler hat, a tobacco tin worn as an ear-ring, a pair of pink socks, or a frock coat. These men walked up and down their respective lines and occasionally smote one of their squatting followers, hitting the chosen one without fear or favour, without rhyme or reason, and apparently without doing much damage. ”

“ Bertram attempted the impossible in endeavouring to look still more inflexibly and inexorably martial, as he eyed them hardily. Would they look at him and smile amusedly? If so, what should he do? He might be a fool himself, but—however farcically—he bore the King’s Commission, and it had got to be respected and saluted by all soldiers. The men simultaneously placed their swagger-sticks beneath their left arms, and, at three paces’ distance, saluting smartly and as one man, maintained the salute until they were three paces beyond him. ”

“ He might be as ignorant of all things military as a babe unborn: he might be a simple, nervous, inexperienced sort of youth with more culture and refinement than strength of character and decision of mind: he might be a bit of an ass, whom other fellows were always ragging and calling “Cupid”—but, when the end came, none should be able to say that he had failed for want of doing his utmost, and for lack of striving, with might and main, to learn how to do his duty, and then to do it to the limit of his ability. ”

“ Better come with me now though, and I’ll show you, one, where they’re to put their rifles; two, where they’re to put themselves; three, where they will do their beastly cooking; and four, where you will doss down yourself. . . . Don’t let there be any mistakes, because there are simply millions more coming,” and he led the way to a companion hatch in the after well-deck, and clattered down a ladder into the bowels of the ship, Bertram following him in his twists and turns with a growing sense of bewilderment. ”