“Excuse me,” he said, “d’you think I could see the Colonel? I have been ordered to report to this regiment.”
“You could see the Colonel,” replied this officer, “but I shouldn’t, if I were you. I’d see the Adjutant. Much pleasanter sight. I’m the Adjutant. Come along to my office,” and he led the way down the verandah, across a big whitewashed room, simply furnished with a table, a chair, and a punkah, to a smaller room, furnished with two of each of the above-mentioned articles.
Dropping the pen and papers upon the table, the Adjutant wheeled round upon Bertram, and, transfixing him with a cold grey eye, said, in hollow voice and tragic tones:
“Do not trifle with me, Unhappy Boy! Say those blessed words again—or at once declare them false. . . . Did I hear you state that you have been ordered to join this corps—or did I not?”
“You did, sir,” smiled Bertram.
“Shake,” replied the Adjutant. “God bless you, gentle child. For two damns, I’d fall on your neck. I love you. Tell me your honoured name and I’ll send for my will. . . .”
“I’m glad I’m welcome,” said the puzzled and astonished Bertram; “but I’m afraid I shan’t be very useful. I am absolutely ignorant—you see, I’ve not been a soldier for twenty-four hours yet. . . . Here’s the telegram I got yesterday,” and he produced that document.
“Good youth,” replied Captain Murray. “I don’t give a tinker’s curse if you’re deaf, dumb, blind and silly. You are my deliverer. I love you more and more. I’ve been awaiting you with beating heart—lying awake for you, listening for your footprints. Now you come—I go.”
“What—to the Front?” said Bertram.
“You’ve guessed it in once, fair youth. East Africa for little Jock Murray. We are sending a draft of a hundred men to our link battalion there—awfully knocked about they’ve been—and I have it, straight from the stable, that I’m the lad that takes them. . . . They go in a day or two. . . . I was getting a bit anxious, I can tell you—but my pal in the Brigade Office said they were certain to send a Reserve man here and relieve me. . . . Colonel will be pleased—he never says anything but ‘H’m!’ but he’ll bite your ear if you don’t dodge.”