Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

As Bertram surmised, the envelope contained the man’s “chits,” or testimonials. The first stated that Ali Sloper, the bearer, had been on safari with the writer, and had proved to be a good plain cook, a reliable and courageous gun-carrier, a good shot, and an honest, willing worker. The second was written by a woman whose house-boy Ali Suleiman had been for two years in Mombasa, and who stated that she had had worse ones. The third and last was written at the Nairobi Club by a globe-trotting Englishman named Stayne-Brooker, who had employed the man as personal “boy” and headman of porters, on a protracted lion-shooting trip across the Athi and Kapiti Plains and found him intelligent, keen, cheery, and staunch. (Where had he heard the name Stayne-Brooker before—or had he dreamed it as a child?) Certainly this fellow was well-recommended, and appeared to be just the man to take as one’s personal servant on active service. But did one take a servant on active service? One could not stir, or exist, without one in India, and officers took syces and servants with them on frontier campaigns—but Africa is not India. . . . However, he could soon settle that point by asking.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, returning the chits. “I shall be coming ashore again to-morrow. . . . How much pay do you want?”

“Oh, sah! Master not mentioning it!” was the reply of this remarkable person. “Oh, nothing, nothing, sah! Bwana offering me forty rupees a mensem, I say ‘No, sah! Too much.’ . . . Master not mention it.”

“It might not be half a bad idea to mention it, y’know,” said Bertram, smiling and turning to move on.

“Oh, God, sah, thank you, please,” replied Ali Sloper, alias Ali Suleiman. “I do not wanting forty. I am accepting thirty rupees, sah, and am now your mos’ obedient servant by damn from the beginning for ever. And when Bwana, loving me still more, can pay more, ole chap. God bless my thank-you soul”—and “fell in” behind Bertram as though prepared to follow him thence to the end of the world or beyond.

Bertram gazed around, and found that he was in a vast yard, two sides of which were occupied by the largest corrugated-iron sheds he had ever seen in his life. One of these appeared to be the Customs shed, and into another a railway wandered. Between two of them, great gates let a white sandy road escape into the Unknown. On the stone quay the heat, shut in and radiated by towering iron sheds, was the greatest he had ever experienced, and he gasped for breath and trickled with perspiration. He devoutly hoped that this was not a fair sample of Africa’s normal temperature. Doubtless it would be cooler away from the quay, which, with the iron sheds, seemed to form a Titanic oven for the quick and thorough baking of human beings. It being Sunday afternoon, there were but few such, and those few appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the roasting process, if one might judge from their grinning faces and happy laughter. They were all Africans, and, for the most part, clad in long, clean night-dresses and fez caps. Evidently Ali Sloper or Suleiman was dressed in the height of local fashion. On a bench, by the door of the Customs shed, lounged some big negroes in dark blue tunics and shorts, with blue puttees between bare knees and bare feet. Their tall tarbooshes made them look even taller than they were, and the big brass plates on their belt-buckles shone like gold. Bertram wondered whether the Germans had just such brawny giants in their Imperial African Rifles, and tried to imagine himself defeating one of them in single combat. The effort was a failure.

At the gates was a very different type of person, smarter, quicker, more active and intelligent-looking, a Sikh Sepoy of the local military police. The man sprang to attention and saluted with a soldierly promptness and smartness that were a pleasure to behold.

Outside the dock, the heat was not quite so intense, but the white sandy road, running between high grass and palms, also ran uphill, and, as the perspiration ran down his face, Bertram wished he might discover the vilest, most ramshackle and moth-eaten tikka-ghari that ever disgraced the streets of Bombay. That the hope was vain he knew, and that in all the island of Mombasa there is no single beast of burden, thanks to the tsetse fly, whose sting is death to them. . . . And the Mombasa Club, the Fort, and European quarter were at the opposite side of the island, four miles away, according to report. Where were these trolley-trams of which he had heard? If he had to walk much farther up this hill, his uniform would look as though he had swum ashore in it.

“Master buck up like hell, ole chap, thank you,” boomed a voice behind. “Trolley as nearer as be damned please. Niggers make push by Jove to Club, thank God,” and turning, Bertram beheld the smiling Ali beaming down upon him as he strolled immediately behind him.

“Go away, you ass,” replied the hot and irritated Bertram, only to receive an even broader smile and the assurance that his faithful old servant would never desert him—not after having been his devoted slave since so long a time ago before and for ever more after also. And a minute or two later the weary warfarer came in sight of a very narrow, single tram-line, beside the road. Where this abruptly ended stood a couple of strange vehicles, like small, low railway-trolleys, with wheels the size of dinner-plates. On each trolley was a seat of sufficient length to accommodate two people, and above the bench was a canvas roof or shade, supported by iron rods. From a neighbouring bench sprang four men, also clad in night-dresses and fez caps, who, with strange howls and gesticulations, bore down upon the approaching European.