Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

* * * * *

Next day the column found one of the enemy’s prepared positions in the dense bush, and it was not, as hitherto, a deserted one. The first intimation was, as usual in the blind, fumbling fighting of East Africa, a withering blast of Maxim fire, and terribly heavy casualties for a couple of minutes.

At one moment, nothing at all—just a weary, plodding line of hot, weary and dusty men, crossing a dambo, all hypnotised from thought of danger by fatigue, familiarity and normal immunity; at the next moment, slaughter, groans, brief confusion, burst upon burst of withering fire, a line of still or writhing forms.

It is an inevitable concomitant of such warfare, wherein one feels for one’s enemy rather than looks for him, and a hundred-mile march is a hundred-mile ambush.

This particular nest of machine-guns and large force of askaris was utterly invisible at a few yards’ range, and, at a few yards’ range, it blasted the head and flank of the column.

Instinctively the war-hardened Sepoys who survived dropped to earth and opened fire at the section of bush whence came the hail of death—a few scattered rifles against massed machine-guns and a battalion of highly trained askaris, masters of jungle-craft. As, still firing, they crawled backward to the cover of the scrub on the side of the glade opposite to the German position, the companies who had been marching behind them deployed and painfully skirmished toward the concealed enemy, halting to fire volleys into the dense bush in the probable direction, striving to keep touch with their flanking companies, to keep something like a line, to keep direction, to keep moving forward, and to keep a sharp look-out for the enemy who, having effected their surprise and caught the leading company in the open, had vanished silently, machine-guns and all, from the position which had served their purpose. . . .

A few feet in advance of his men as they skirmished forward, extended to one pace interval, Bertram, followed by the Subedar, crossed the line of dead and wounded caught by the first blast of fire. He saw two men he knew, lieutenants of the 130th Baluchis, who had evidently been made a special target by the concealed riflemen and machine-gunners. He saw another with his leg bent in the middle at right-angles—and realised with horror that it was bent forward. Also that the wounded man was Terence Brannigan. . . .

He feared he was going to be sick, and shame himself before his Gurkhas as his eye took in the face of a Baluchi whose lower jaw had been removed as though by a surgeon’s knife. He noted subconsciously how raven-blue the long oiled hair of these Pathans and Baluchis shone in the sun, their puggris having fallen off or been shot away. The machine-guns must have over-sighted and then lowered, instead of the reverse, as everybody seemed to be hit in the head, neck or chest except Brannigan, whose knee was so shattered that his leg bent forward until his boot touched his belt—with an effect as of that of a sprawled rag doll. Probably he had been hit by one of the great soft-nosed slugs with which the swine armed their askaris. The hot, heavy air reeked with blood. Some of the wounded lay groaning; some sat and smiled patiently as they held up shattered arms or pressed thumbs on bleeding legs; some rose and staggered and fell, rose and staggered and fell, blindly going nowhere. One big, grey-eyed Pathan lustily sang his almost national song, “Zakhmi Dil”—“The Wounded Heart,” but whether in bravado, delirium, sheer berserk joy of battle, or quiet content at getting a wound that would give him a rest, change and privileges, Bertram did not know.

“Stretcher-bearer log ainga bhai,” [221a] said Bertram, as he passed him sitting there singing in a pool of blood.

“Béshak Huzoor,” replied the man with a grin, “ham baitha hai,” [221b] and resumed his falsetto nasal dirge. Another, crouching on all fours with his face to the ground, suddenly raised that grey-green, dripping face, and crawled towards him. Bertram saw that he was trailing his entrails as he moved. To avoid halting and being sick at this shocking sight, he rushed forward to the edge of the scrub whence all this havoc had been wrought, his left hand pressed over his mouth, all his will-power concentrated upon conquering the revolt of his stomach.