Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

“Same reason that they issue inedible bully-beef and unbreakable biscuits, I s’pose—contractors must live, mustn’t they? . . . Be reasonable. . . .”

And again it seemed to the foolish civilian mind of this young man that, since tons of this black cake tobacco (which no British officer ever has smoked or could smoke) cost money, however little—there would be more sense in spending the money on a small quantity of Turkish and Virginian cigarettes that could be smoked, by men accustomed to such things, and suffering cruelly for lack of them. Throughout the campaign he saw a great deal of this strong, black cake issued (to men accustomed to good cigarettes, cigars or pipe-mixture), but he never saw any of it smoked. He presented his portion to Ali, who traded it to people of palate and stomach less delicate than those the British Government expects the British officer to possess. . . .

“You look seedy, Greene,” observed the Major that same evening, as Bertram dragged himself across the black mud from his banda to the Bristol Bar—wondering if he would ever get there.

“Touch of fever, sir. I’m all right,” replied he, wishing that everyone and everything were not so nebulous and rotatory.

He did not mention that he had been up all night with dysentery, and had been unable to swallow solid food for three days. (Nor that his temperature was one hundred and four—because he was unaware of the fact.) But he knew that the moment was not far off when all his will-power and uttermost effort would be unable to get him off his camp-bed. He had done his best—but the worst climate in the world, a diet of indigestible and non-nutritious food, taken in hopelessly inadequate quantities; bad water; constant fever; dysentery; long patrol marches; night alarms; high nerve-tension (when a sudden bang followed by a fusillade might mean a desultory attention, a containing action while a more important place was being seriously attacked, or that final and annihilating assault of a big force which was daily expected); and the monotonous, dirty, dreary life in that evil spot, had completely undermined his strength. He was “living on his nerves,” and they were nearly gone. “You look like an old hen whose neck has been half-wrung for to-morrow’s dinner before she was found to be the wrong one, and reprieved,” said Augustus. “You let me make you a real, rousing cock-eye, and then we’ll have an n’goma [198]—all the lot of us. . . .”

But finding Bertram quite unequal to dealing with a cock-eye or sustaining his part in a tribal dance that should “astonish the natives,” he helped Bertram over to his banda, took off his boots and got him a hot drink of condensed milk and water laced with ration rum.

In the morning Bertram took his place at Stand-to and professed himself equal to performing his duty, which was that of making a reconnoitring-patrol as far as Paso, where there was another outpost. . . .

Here he arrived in time for tea, and had some with real fresh cow’s milk in it; and had a cheery buck with Major Bidwell, Captains Tucker and Bremner, and Lieutenants Innes (another Filbert), Richardson, Stirling, Carroll, and Jones—stout fellows all, and very kind to him. He was very sorry indeed when it was time for him to march back again with his patrol.

He started on the homeward journey, feeling fairly well, for him; but he could never remember how he completed it. . . .

The darkness gathered so rapidly that he had a suspicion that the darkness was within him. Then he found that he was continually running into trees or being brought up short by impenetrable bush that somehow sprang up before him. . . . Also he was talking aloud, and rather surprised at his eloquence. . . . Then he was lying on the ground—being put on his feet again—falling again . . . trying to fight a bothering swarm of askaris with a quill pen, while he addressed the House of Commons on the iniquity of allowing Bupendranath Chatterji to be in medical charge of four hundred men with insufficient material to deal with a street accident. . . . Marching again, falling again, being put on his feet again. . . .