Day after day the Brigade marched on, and whether it marched between impenetrable walls of living green that formed a tunnel in which the red dust floated always, thick, blinding and choking, or whether it marched across great deserts of dried black peat over which the black dust hung always, thicker, more blinding and more choking—it was the same to Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, as he marched beside the sturdy little warriors of his regiment. His spirit marched through the realms of Love’s wonderland rather than through deserts and jungles, and the things of the spirit are more real, and greater than those of the flesh.
For preference he marched alone, alone with his men that is, and not with a brother officer, that he might be spared the necessity of conversation and the annoyance of distraction of his thoughts. For miles he would trudge beside the Subedar in companionly silence. He grew very fond of the staunch little man to whom duty was a god. . . .
When the Brigade reached Soko Nassai it joined the Division which (co-operating with Van Deventer’s South African Division, then threatening Tabora and the Central Railway from Kondoa Irangi) in three months conquered German East Africa—an almost adequate force having been dispatched at last. It consisted of the 2nd Kashmir Rifles, 28th Punjabis, 130th Baluchis, the 2nd Rhodesians, a squadron of the 17th Cavalry, the 5th and 6th Batteries of the S.A. Field Artillery, a section of the 27th Mountain Battery, and a company of the 61st Pioneers, forming the First East African Brigade. There were also the 25th Royal Fusiliers, the M.I. and machine-guns of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, the East African Mounted Rifles, a Howitzer Battery of Cornwall Territorials, “Z” Signalling Company, a “wireless” section, and a fleet of armoured cars. In reserve were the 5th and 6th South Africans.
Few divisions have ever done more than this one did—under the greatest hardships in one of the worst districts in the world.
Its immediate task was to clear the Germans from their strong positions in the Pare and Usambara Mountains, and to seize the railway to Tanga on the coast, a task of all but superhuman difficulty, as it could only be accomplished by the help of a strong force making a flanking march through unexplored roadless virgin jungle, down the Pangani valley, the very home of fever, where everything would depend upon efficient transport—and any transport appeared impossible. How could motor transport go through densest trackless bush, or horse and bullock transport where horse-sickness and tsetse fly forbade?
The First Brigade made the Pangani march and turning movement, performing the impossible, and with it went Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, head in air and soul among the stars, his heart full of a mortal tenderness and caught up in a great divine uplifting,
CHAPTER III
Love and War
As he marched on, day after day, his thoughts moving to the dogged tramp of feet, the groan of laden bullock-carts, the creak of mule packs, the faint rhythmic tap of tin cup on a bayonet hilt, the clank of a swinging chain end, through mimosa thorn and dwarf scrub, dense forest, mephitic swamp or smitten desert, ever following the river whose waters gave life and sudden death, the river to leave which was to die of thirst, and to stay by which was to die of fever, this march which would have been a nightmare of suffering, was merely a dream—a dream from which he would awake to arise and go to Mombasa. . . .
“I always thought you had guts, Greene,” said Augustus coarsely, one night, as they laid their weary bones beneath a tarpaulin stretched between two carts. “I always thought you had ’em beneath your gentle-seeming surface, so to speak—but dammy, you’re all guts. . . . You’re a blooming whale, to march. . . . Why the devil don’t you growl and grumble like a Christian gentleman, eh? . . . I hate you ‘strong silent men.’ . . . Dammitall—you march along with a smug smile on your silly face! . . . You’re a perfect tiger, you know. . . . Don’t like it. . . . Colonel will be saying your ‘conduct under trying circumstances is an example and inspiration to all ranks.’ . . . Will when you’re dead anyhow. . . . Horrid habit. . . . You go setting an example to me, and I’ll bite you in the stomach, my lad. . . .”
Bertram laughed and looked out at the great stars—blue diamonds sprinkled on black velvet—and was very happy.