“They’re both helpful and cheering,” added Forbes.
“Let me make you a cock-eye,” put in Gussie Augustus Gus. “Thing of my own. Much better than a mere cocktail. Thought of it in bed last night while I was sayin’ my prayers. This is one,” and he raised his condensed milk tin. “Cross between milk-punch, cocktail, high-ball, gin-sling, rum-shrub, and a bitters. . . . Go down to posterity as a ‘Gussie’—along with the John Collins and Elsie May. . . . Great thought. . . . Let us pause before it. . . .”
“What’s in it?” asked Captain Macke.
“Condensed milk,” replied Augustus, “ration lime-juice, ration rum, ration whisky, medical-comfort brandy, vermuth, coco-nut milk, angostura, absinthe, glycerine. . . .”
“And a damn great flying caterpillar,” added the Major as a hideous insect, with a fat, soft body, splashed into the pleasing compound.
“Dirty dog!” grumbled Augustus, fishing for the creature. “Here, don’t play submarines in the mud, Eustace—be a sport and swim. . . . I can drink down to him, anyhow,” he added, failing to secure the enterprising little animal with a finger and thumb that groped short of the bottom stratum of his concoction. “Got his head stuck in the toffee-milk at the bottom.” Bertram declined a “Gussie,” feeling unworthy, also unable.
“Have you tried rum and coco-nut milk?” asked Wavell. “It’s a kind of local industry since we’ve been here. The Intelligence Department keeps a Friendly Tribe at work bringing in fresh coco-nuts, and our numerous different detachments provide fatigue-parties in rotation to open them. . . . Many a worse drink than half a tumbler of ration rum poured into the coco-nut. . . .”
“Point of fact—I’m a teetotaller just at present,” replied Bertram, sadly but firmly. “May I substitute lime-juice for rum? . . .”
Vereker screwed in his monocle and regarded him. Not with astonishment or interest, of course, for nothing astonished or interested him any more. He was too young and wise for those emotions. But he regarded him.
“What a dreadful habit to contract at your age, Greene,” observed Augustus, slightly shocked. “Y’ought to pull yourself together, y’know. . . . Give it up. . . . Bad. . . . Bad. . .” and he shook his head.