“Thanks, Murray,” replied Bertram, “but—”
“Here—take those belts off at once,” interrupted the Adjutant. “Take the lot off and lie down again—and smoke this cigarette. . . . At once, d’ye hear?” and the tone was such that Bertram complied without comment. He sank on to the camp-bed, swung up his long legs, with their heavy boots, shorts, and puttees and puffed luxuriously. He had intended to be a non-smoker as well as a teetotaller, now that he was “mobilised,” but it would be as well to obey Murray now and begin his abstinence from tobacco when he got on board. He lay and smoked obediently, and soon felt, if not better, at least calmer, cooler and quieter.
“Blooming old tub won’t start till to-night—you see’f she does,” said Murray. “Sort of thing we always do in the Army. . . . Always. . . . Harry and hurry everybody on parade at seven, to catch a boat that doesn’t profess to sail till two, and probably won’t actually do it till midnight.”
“I should die of shame if I were late for my first parade,” said Bertram anxiously.
“You’d die of the Colonel, if you didn’t of shame,” was the reply. . . . “I’ll see you’re not late. You take things a bit easier, my son. Your King and Country want you in East Africa, not in a lunatic asylum—”
“Pappa! What part did you take in the Great War?” squeaked a falsetto voice from the door, and looking up, Bertram beheld Lieutenant Bludyer, always merry and bright, arrayed in crimson, scarlet-frogged pyjama coat, and pink pyjama trousers. On his feet were vermilion velvet slippers.
“I’ll take a leading part in your dirty death,” said the Adjutant, turning to the speaker, or squeaker.
“Thought this might be useful, Greene,” continued Bludyer in his natural voice, as he handed Bertram a slab of thin khaki linen and a conical cap of a kind of gilded corduroy. “Make yourself a regimental puggri in the day of battle. Put the cap on your nut and wind the turban over it. . . . Bloke with a helmet and a white face hasn’t an earthly, advancing with a line of Sepoys in puggris. The enemy give him their united attention until he is outed. . . .”
“Oh, thanks, awfully, Bludyer,” began Bertram.
“So go dirty till your face is like Murray’s, grow a hoary, hairy beard, an’ wear a turban on your fat head,” continued Bludyer. “Your orderly could do it on for you, so that it wouldn’t all come down when you waggled. . . .”