However nonchalant in demeanour, it was an eager and excited crowd of officers that stood around the foot of the boat-deck ladder awaiting the result of the conference held in the Captain’s cabin, to which meeting-place its proprietor had taken Commander Finnis before requesting the presence of Colonel Haldon, the First Officer, and the Ship’s Adjutant, to learn the decision and orders of the powers-that-be concerning all and sundry, from the ship’s Captain to the Sepoys’ cook.
Who would Colonel Haldon send forthwith to M’paga, where the scrap was even then in progress (according to Lieutenant Greene, quoting Commander Finnis)? What orders did the papers in the fateful little dispatch-case, borne by the latter gentleman, contain for the various officers not already instructed to join their respective corps? Who would be sent to healthy, cheery Nairobi? Who to the vile desert at Voi? Who to interesting, far-distant Uganda? Who to the ghastly mangrove-swamps down the coast by the border of German East? Who to places where there was real active service, fighting, wounds, distinction and honourable death? Who to dreary holes where they would “sit down” and sit tight, rotting with fever and dysentery, eating out their hearts, without seeing a single German till the end of the war. . . .
Bertram thought of a certain “lucky-dip bran-tub,” that loomed large in memories of childhood, whence, at a Christmas party, he had seen three or four predecessors draw most attractive and delectable toys and he had drawn a mysterious and much-tied parcel which had proved to contain a selection of first-class coke. What was he about to draw from Fate’s bran-tub to-day?
When the Ship’s Adjutant, bearing sheets of foolscap, eventually emerged from the Captain’s cabin, ran sidling down the boat-deck ladder and proceeded to the notice-board in the saloon-companion, followed by the nonchalantly eager and excited crowd, as is the frog-capturing duck by all the other ducks of the farm-yard, Bertram, with beating heart, read down the list until he came to his own name—only to discover that Fate had hedged.
The die was not yet cast, and Second-Lieutenant B. Greene would disembark with detachments, Indian troops, and, at Mombasa, await further orders.
Captain Brandone and Lieutenant Stanner would proceed immediately to M’paga, and with wild cries of “Yoicks! Tally Ho!” and “Gone away!” those two officers fled to their respective cabins to collect their kit.
Dinner that night was a noisy meal, and talk turned largely upon the merits or demerits of the places from Mombasa to Uganda to which the speakers had been respectively posted.
“Where are you going, Brannigan?” asked Bertram of that cheery Hibernian, as he seated himself beside him.
“Where am Oi goin’, is ut, me bhoy?” was the reply. “Faith, where the loin-eating man—Oi mane the man-eating loins reside, bedad. Ye’ve heard o’ the man-eaters of Tsavo? That’s where Oi’m goin’, me bucko—to the man-eaters of Tsavo.”
Terence had evidently poured a libation of usquebagh before dining, for he appeared wound up to talk.