Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

“Gad! I should hate to get one of their beastly expanding bullets in my stomach,” said he. “They fire a brute of a big-bore slug with a flat nose. Bad as an explosive bullet, the swine,” and he shuddered violently. “Stomach’s the only part I worry about, and I don’t give a damn for bayonets. . . . But a bullet through your stomach! You live for weeks. . . .”

Bertram felt distinctly glad to discover that a trained regular officer, like Stanner, could entertain these sensations of nervous excitement, and that he himself had no monopoly of them. He even thought, with a thrill of hope and confidence, that when his turn came he would be less nervous than Stanner. He knew that Stanner was not frightened, and that he did not wish he was snug in bed as his brother-officers were, but he also knew that Bertram Greene would not be frightened, and hoped and believed he would not be so palpably excited and nervous. . . .

Behind the detachment of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth came a machine-gun team of askaris of the King’s African Rifles, in charge of a gigantic Sergeant. The dismounted gun and the ammunition-boxes were on the heads of Swahili porters.

Bertram liked the look of the Sergeant. He was a picture of quiet competence, reliability and determination. Although a full-blooded Swahili, his face was not unhandsome in a fierce, bold, and vigorously purposeful way, and though he had the flattened, wide-nostrilled nose of the negro, his mouth was Arab, thin-lipped and clear cut as Bertram’s own. There was nothing bovine, childish nor wandering in his regard, but a look of frowning thoughtfulness, intentness and concentration.

And Sergeant Simba was what he looked, every inch a soldier, and a fine honourable fighting-man, brave as the lion he was named after; a subordinate who would obey and follow his white officer to certain death, without question or wavering; a leader who would carry his men with him by force of his personality, courage and leadership, while he could move and they could follow. . . . Beside Sergeant Simba, the average German soldier is a cur, a barbarian, and a filthy brute, for never in all the twenty years of his “savage” warfare has Sergeant Simba butchered a child, tortured a woman, murdered wounded enemies, abused (nor used) the white flag, fired on the Red Cross, turned captured dwelling-places into pig-styes and latrines in demonstration of his kultur—nor, when caught and cornered, has he waggled dirty hands about cunning, cowardly head with squeal of Kamerad! Kamerad! . . . Could William the Kultured but have officered his armies with a hundred thousand of Sergeant Simba, instead of with his high-well-born Junkers, the Great War might have been a gentleman’s war, a clean war, and the word German might not have become an epithet for all time, nor the “noble and knightly” sons of ancient houses have received commissions as Second Nozzle-Holder in the Poison-Gas Grenadiers, Sub Tap-Turner in a Fire-Squirting Squadron, or Ober Left-behind to Poison Wells in the Prussic (Acid) Guard. . . .

As Bertram watched this sturdy-looking Maxim-gun section, with their imperturbable, inscrutable faces, an officer of the King’s African Rifles emerged from the circumambient gloom and spoke with Sergeant Simba in Swahili. As he departed, after giving his orders and a few words of advice to Sergeant Simba, he raised his lantern to the face of the man in charge of the porters who carried the gun and ammunition. The man’s face was instantly wreathed in smiles, and he giggled like a little girl. The officer dug him affectionately in the ribs, as one smacks a horse on dismounting after a long run and a clean kill, and the giggle became a cackle of elfin laughter most incongruous. Evidently the man was the officer’s pet butt and prize fool.

“Cartouchie n’gapi?” asked the officer.

“Hundrem millium, Bwana,” replied the man, and as the officer turned away with a laugh, Bertram correctly surmised that on being asked how many cartridges he had got, the man had replied that he possessed a hundred million.

Probably he spoke in round numbers, and used the only English words he knew. . . . The African does not deal in larger quantities than ten-at-a-time, and his estimates are vague, and still more vague is his expression of them. He will tell you that a place is “several nights distant,” or perhaps that it is “a few rivers away.” It is only just, however, to state that he will cheerfully accept an equal vagueness in return, and will go to your tent with the alacrity of clear understanding and definite purpose, if you say to him: “Run quickly to my tent and bring me the thing I want. You will easily distinguish it, as it is of about the colour of a flower, the size of a piece of wood, the shape of elephant’s breath, and the weight of water. You know—it’s as long as some string and exactly the height of some stones. You’ll find it about as heavy as a dead bird or a load on the conscience. That thing that looks like a smell and feels like a sound. . . .” He may bring your gun, your tobacco-pouch, your pyjamas, your toothbrush, or one slipper, but he will bring something, and that without hesitation or delay, for he immediately and clearly grasped that that particular thing, and none other, was what you wanted. He recognised it from your clear and careful description. It was not as though you had idly and carelessly said: “Bring me my hat” (or my knife or the matches or some other article that he handled daily), and left him to make up his mind, unaided, as to whether you did not really mean trousers, a book, washhand-stand, or the pens, ink, and paper of the gardener’s aunt. . . .

Behind the Swahili was a half-company of Gurkhas of the Kashmir Imperial Service Troops. As they stood at ease and chatted to each other, they reminded Bertram of a class of schoolboys waiting to be taken upon some highly pleasurable outing. There was an air of cheerful excitement and joyous expectancy.