The first was Ali Suleiman, who stood waiting in the rain, until he could go in and pack his master’s kit.
“Here—you—pack my kit sharp, and don’t stand there gaping like a fish in a frying-pan. Stir yourself before I stir you,” he shouted.
The faithful Ali dived into the banda like a rabbit into its hole. Excellent! This was the sort of bwana he could reverence. Almost had he been persuaded that this new master was not a real gentleman—he was so gentle. . . .
Bertram turned back again, but not to apologise for his harsh words, as his better nature prompted him to do.
“Where’s my breakfast, you lazy rascal?” he shouted.
“On the table in Mess banda, please God, thank you, sah,” replied Ali Suleiman humbly, as one who prays that his grievous trespasses may be forgotten.
“Then why couldn’t you say so, you—you—you—” and here memories of the Naval Officer stole across his subconsciousness, “you blundering burden, you posthumous porridge-punter, you myopic megalomaniac, you pernicious, piebald pacifist. . . .”
Ali Suleiman rolled his eyes and nodded his head with every epithet.
“Oh, my God, sah,” said he, as Bertram paused for breath, “I am a dam man mos’ blasted sinful”—and, so ridiculous a thing is temper, that Bertram neither laughed nor saw cause for laughter.
Splashing across to the Mess banda, he discovered a battered metal teapot, an enamelled tumbler, an almost empty tin of condensed milk, and a tin plate of very sad-looking porridge. By the light of a lamp that appealed more to the olfactory and auditory senses than to the optic, he removed from the stodgy mess the well-developed leg of some insect unknown, and then tasted it—(the porridge, not the leg).