Against the wall stood the long lean-to shelters, consisting of a roof of plaited palm-leaf, supported by poles, in which they lived. By the entrance was a guard-house, which suggested a rabbit-hutch; and a sentry, who, seeing the approach of an armed party, turned out the guard. The Sergeant of the Guard was an enormous man with a skin like fine black satin, a skin than which no satin could be blacker nor more shiny. He was an obvious negro, Nubian or Soudanese, but the men of the guard were small and fair, and wore blue turbans, of which the ornamental end hung tail-wise down their backs. Beneath their blue tunics were unpleated kilts or skirts, of a kind of blue tartan, reaching to their knees. They had blue puttees and bare feet.
Saluting the guard, Bertram entered the boma and found himself in the High Street of a close-packed village of huts and tents, which were the dwelling-places of the officers, the hospital and sick-lines, the commissariat store, the Officers’ Mess, the cook-house, orderly-room, and offices.
In the middle of the High Street stood four poles which supported a roof. A “table” of posts and packing-case boards, surrounded by native bedsteads of wood and string—by way of seats—constituted this, the Officers’ Mess, Club, Common Room and Bar. A bunch of despondent-looking bananas hanging from the ridge-pole suggested food, and a bath containing a foot of water and an inch of mud suggested drink and cholera.
About the table sat several British officers in ragged shirts and shorts, drinking tea and eating native chupatties. They looked ill and weary. The mosaic of scraps of stencilled packing-case wood, the tin plates, the biscuit-box “sugar-basin,” the condensed milk tin “milk-jug,” the battered metal teapot and the pile of sodden-looking chupatties made as uninviting an afternoon tea ménage as could be imagined, particularly in that setting of muddy clay floor, rough and dirty angarebs, and roof-and-wall thatch of withered leaves and grass. A typical scene of modern glorious war with its dirt, discomfort and privation, its disease, misery and weary boredom. . . .
Bertram approached the rickety grass hut and saluted.
A very tall man, with the face and moustache of a Viking, rose and extended his hand.
“How do, Greene?” said he. “Glad to see you. . . . Hope you brought the rum ration safe. . . . Take your bonnet off and undo your furs. . . . Hope that pistol’s not loaded. . . . Nor that sword sharp. . . . Oughtn’t to go about with nasty, dangerous things like that. . . . Hope the rum ration’s safe. . . . Have some tea and a bloater. . . . Berners, go and do Quartermaster, like a good lad. . . . Have some rum and a bloater, Greene. . . .”
“Thank you, sir,” said Bertram, noting that the big man had a crown on one shoulder of his shirt and a safety-pin spanning a huge hole on the other. His great arms and chest were bare, and a pair of corduroy riding-breeches, quite unfastened at the knee and calf, left an expanse of bare leg between their termination and the beginning of grey, sagging socks. Hob-nailed boots, fastened with string, completed his attire. He looked like a tramp, a scarecrow, and a strong leader of men.
“’Fraid you’ll have to drink out of a condensed milk tin, until your kit turns up. . .” said a pale and very handsome youth. “You get a flavour of milk, though,” he added with an air of impartiality, “as well as of tin and solder. . . . They burn your fingers so damnably, though, when you go to pick ’em up. . . . Or why not drink out of the teapot, if everyone has finished? . . . Yes—I’ll drop in a spot of condensed milk.”
“No—damn it all, Vereker,” put in the Major, “let’s do him well and create an impression. Nothing like beginning as you don’t mean to go on—or can’t possibly go on. . . . He can have The Glass this evening. And some fresh tea. And his own tin of condensed. . . . And a bloater. Hasn’t he brought us rum and hope? . . .”