“I may as well take on the job for good! I’ve become a family man. I’ve got used to fixing baby’s bottle now and lugging her around. Oh, pot!”
All round them, struggling in the dimness over ant-hill and ant-bear hole, were other baggage-laden forms, faithfully padding the hoof. The “wounded bunch,” as became warriors were making light of their woes. From their ranks came an occasional laugh and snatches of a ribald song set to the opening bars of the “Soldier’s March” in Faust, accompanied by bang and boom of a tin pannikin and some hollow article (perhaps a bread box?)
Drunk (bang!) last night,
Drunk the night before (boom!)
Drunk (bang!) last night,
Never get drunk any more! (Boom!)
Bettington felt that he was different to these men. Nobler in some sort. Between them and him lay a great gulf fixed. He had deeper depths and could rise to higher heights. Thank God he was not as these!
Eventually they reached the hotel and Amber Eyes having engaged a room disappeared with the baby and Bettington was his own man once more. He in turn engaged himself a room, and went to bed, to dream that he had a baby of his own and was going to take in washing to earn his living.
As no steamer awaited them at Beira, the passengers from Rhodesia had to amuse themselves as best they might until a steamer turned up. No difficult feat this. Beira also was a corrugated-iron Hades, but at least the verandah of the Royal Hotel was deep and cool and palm-shaded; and there were supplies of fresh fish and fruit; and ice to clink in the glass; and though the sea was chocolate-coloured and “jiggers” hid in the sands, it was the sea, and it smelled of home, and brought memories of far-away joys that were getting nearer! Anyway, it was good to be leaving Rhodesia and trouble behind, with faces set to a new horizon where trouble had not yet materialised! So thought most of the travellers. And perhaps it was the philosophy of Amber Eyes too, and perhaps that was why she so visibly brightened and bloomed. All was well with Aimée as Bettington had opined, in spite of Pungwe River germs, and all was well with the world.
Only Bettington was troubled in his mind. He too had a philosophy that, so far, had helped him to waggle his way pretty well through a weary world, but for the moment it seemed to be suffering from a weak spine. His philosophy had always been to desire things and he would get them, especially if he gave Fate a leg up every now and again, and reached out far enough. True the leg up sometimes hit him a clout in the eye, and the reached-out hand sometimes got its fingers burned; but that was all in the day’s shooting and part of the game. The main point was that always in the long run he had got what he greatly desired.
And now it did not look as if things were going to work out that way! He found himself desiring something that was already in the possession of someone else—for “better or worse, for richer or poorer!” He who had made up his mind never to have a wife and baby of his own, was now hankering to take possession of the wife and baby of someone else! The thing was ridiculous of course. It was so silly that he could even laugh at it himself.
“What a fool I should look carting Stannard’s baby round the world. Blow that Aimée! After all, if I’m going to be a nurse-maid, surely I can get a baby of my own to mind!”
Yes, he could laugh and gibe at it himself, but even in the act of doing so something gripped him round the heart and made him feel physically sick. It was the thought of the day when he would see the Amber Eyes no more! Wherefore he gazed into them all that day as much as decency permitted, and a trifle over. He was overjoyed to see that she could no longer return his gaze with her frank, disarming glance of girlish innocence. A bird sang in his breast every time the colour sprang into her cheek under his hardy eye.