"Admit you are beaten!" said Mahomed.
"I am beaten!" said the Bantu.
Afterwards I married. The change of life from the single to the blessed state affects not only the European dweller in Africa, but also his servant. Where a wipe here and a flick there with a duster, in the old days, constituted tidying up the house, everything now must be cleaned and polished with scrupulous care. There are also ever so many things that were never done in the old times more than twice a year—and that a record year—that now call for attention every day. A bachelor's servants rarely remain long with him after he marries. But Mahomed was one of the exceptions. When the first baby came he was as delighted as I, and when others followed he seemed to share the heavy cares of family life equally with me. I can pay him the greatest compliment a white man can pay the native. Wherever the children might be I felt that if Mahomed were there, and alive, they were safe. His own marriage to an older woman was unhappy, and one day, yielding to her importunities, he allowed her to go. She left him a young son. His mother had been rendered destitute as the outcome of a wild raid by the Mad Mullah, and Mahomed brought her, and a young brother, to Jubaland, where we lived. I had then an opportunity of learning that he was a good son.
When war broke out in August, 1914, Mahomed and I, for the first few days, took little heed. We were too far removed from the European world to realise what was coming. But, soon afterwards, I left Mahomed to help bring up the children, whilst I went off to join the King's African Rifles.
Later it was so arranged, by collusion with someone who ought not to have been so unselfish, that he might again taste the joys and discomforts of the old wild free life on the veldt. So Mahomed came to be my servant in the M.I. Wherever I went he followed, though he was cautioned again and again that his duty was with the horses, or in the column, and not in following me round like a dog, even to the firing line. M.I. work in the early days of the G.E.A. campaign was more than exciting, and the men could not understand why Mahomed never failed to accompany them if he had the chance, instead of staying behind with the crowd. But we had a secret, he and I. It was something about a letter that had to be delivered by him under certain contingencies; contingencies that occurred in the careers of many good men, alas, only too often in those days.
Then, one day in March, 1915, at Mwaika Hill in German East Africa, the M.I. ran right into it. For five minutes it was touch and go. I was commanding Somals, and it was the first doubtful corner we had been in together. I was not sure of them for the moment. Let me hasten to say that I am now, sure of, and proud to have commanded them. But on that occasion we were a bit mixed, just a little in the air, and it was vital that we should hold a bad position whilst the column behind deployed for action. There were swarms of bullets about, and I had a suspicion that, mixed up as we were with the Hun askaris, some of those same bullets were coming from our own side. I had joined in a short rush, and was lying ready to order another, when someone came with a run and threw himself beside me. It was Mahomed, and a fine old storm of bullets he brought with him.
"What are you doing here, Mahomed? You ought to be back at the horses."
"Sahib, I promised the Mem-Sahib to look after you, and I've come to warn you that you are not taking cover properly. These people are shooting straight and shooting to kill the officers. It is foolish for you to keep moving about. Please take cover properly."
"Well, now you are here at the Mem-Sahib's orders, do you think you can do anything? Can you catch one of these bullets in your hand? It is you who are foolish."