Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

“You Greene, by any chance?” he called, as he ran sideway down the narrow ladder from the upper deck.

“Yes, sir,” replied Bertram, saluting as he perceived that the officer was a captain. “Just arrived with a draft of a hundred men from the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth,” he added proudly.

“Good dog,” was the reply, “keep the perishers out of it for a bit till I’m ready. . . . Better come with me now though, and I’ll show you, one, where they’re to put their rifles; two, where they’re to put themselves; three, where they will do their beastly cooking; and four, where you will doss down yourself. . . . Don’t let there be any mistakes, because there are simply millions more coming,” and he led the way to a companion hatch in the after well-deck, and clattered down a ladder into the bowels of the ship, Bertram following him in his twists and turns with a growing sense of bewilderment.

He was very glad to hear that he and his merry men were not to have the ship to themselves, for there were a thousand and one points that he would be very glad to be able to refer to the decision of Authority, or the advice of Experience.

The Embarkation Officer, dripping and soaked and sodden with perspiration, as was Bertram himself, wound his devious way, along narrow passages, ladders and tunnels, to a kind of cage-like cloak-room fitted with racks.

“Your men’ll come here in single file, by the way we have come,” said he, “enter this armoury one by one, leave their rifles on these racks, and go up that ladder to the deck above, and round to the ladder leading out on the forward well-deck. You’ll have to explain it carefully, and shepherd ’m along too, or there’ll be a jam and loss of life and—worse—loss of time. . . . In the early days we managed badly on one occasion and got a crowd of Sikhs pushing against a crowd of Pathans. . . .” He then led the disintegrating Bertram by devious paths to a dark oven-like and smelly place (which Bertram mentally labelled “the horizontal section of the fo’c’sle, three storeys down”) in which the Hundred were to live, or to die—poor devils! There would hardly be standing room—and thence to the scene of their culinary labours. Lastly, when the bewildered youth was again feeling very ill, the Embarkation Officer retraced his steps, showed him certain water-taps for the use of his men, and led the way up and out to the blessed light of day, fresh air, and the comparative coolness of the deck. “Your cabin’s along here,” said he, entering a long corridor that debouched on to the well-deck. “Let’s see, Number 43, I think. Yes. A two-berth cabin to yourself—and last trip we had three generals in a one-berth cabin, four colonels in a bath at once, and five common officers on top of one another in each chair at table. . . . Fact—I assure you. . . . Go in and chuck away all that upholstery—you can run about in your shirt-sleeves now, or naked if you like, so long as you wear a helmet to show you are in uniform. . . . Bye-bye—be a good boy,” and he bustled away.

Bertram thankfully took the Embarkation Officer’s advice, and cast off all impedimenta until he was clad only in khaki shirt, shorts, puttees and boots. He thought he could enter into the feelings of a butterfly as it emerges from the constricting folds of its cocoon.

He sat down for a minute on the white bed prepared for his occupation. The other was cumbered with his valise, sack, and strapped bundle, which had come down on the first of the bullock-carts and been brought on board at once. He looked round the well-appointed, spotless cabin, with its white paint and mahogany fittings, electric fans and lights. That one just beside his pillow would be jolly for reading in bed. Anyhow, he’d have a comfortable and restful voyage. What a blessing that he had a cabin to himself, and what a pity that the voyage took only about ten days. . . . Would life on a troop-ship be a thing of disciplined strenuousness, or would it be just a perfectly slack time for everybody? . . . It should be easy for him to hide his ignorance while on board—there couldn’t be very much in the way of drill. . . . How his head throbbed, and how seedy and tired he felt! . . . He lay back on his bed and then sprang up in alarm and horror at what he had done. A pretty way to commence his Active Service!—and, putting on his heavy and uncomfortable helmet, he hurried to the wharf.

Going down the gangway, he again encountered the Embarkation Officer.

“Better let your men file on board with their rifles first, and then off again for their kits and bedding, and then back again to the quarters I showed you. Having pegged out their claims there, and each man hung his traps on the peg above his sleeping-mat, they can go up on the after well-deck and absolutely nowhere else. See? And no man to leave the ship again, on any pretence whatever. Got it?”