Cupid in Africa

by Percival Christopher Wren

Apparently this twig, to the experienced eye, was precisely equivalent to a notice-board bearing the legend, No Thoroughfare. Bertram signalled a halt and turned to the Havildar at the head of the advance-guard.

“Take ten men and patrol down that path for a thousand yards,” said he. “Then march back, wait for the rear-guard, and report to the Jemadar Sahib.”

The man saluted, and Bertram saw him and his patrol move off, before he gave the order for the column to advance again. . . . That should secure the safari from attack down that path, anyhow. Ten determined men could hold up any number for any length of time, if they did the right thing. . . . These beastly bush fighting conditions cut both ways. . . . Yes—then suppose a small patrol of enemy askaris were on this track in front of him, and decided to hold the convoy up, what could he do?

To advance upon them, practically in single file, would be like approaching a long stick of sealing-wax to the door of a furnace—the point would melt and melt until the whole stick had disappeared without reaching the fire. . . . Of course, if there was a possibility of getting into the jungle, he would send out parties to take them in flank as he charged down the path. But that was just the point—you couldn’t get more than a few yards into the jungle in the likeliest places, and, when you’d done that, you’d be utterly out of touch with your right and left-hand man in no time—not to mention the fact that you’d have no sense of direction or distance. . . .

No. . . . He’d just head a charge straight for them, and if it were a really determined one and the distance not too great, enough of the advance-guard might survive to reach them with the bayonet. . . . Evidently, if there were any rules at all in this jungle warfare, one would be that the smaller of the two forces should dispose itself to bring every rifle to bear with magazine fire, and the larger should make the swiftest charge it possibly could. If it didn’t—a dozen men would be as good as a thousand—while their ammunition held out. . . . What an advantage over the Indian Sepoy, with his open order maidan [150] training, the askari, bred and born and trained to this bush-fighting, would have! The German ought to win this campaign with his very big army of indigenous soldiers and his “salted” Colonials. What chance had the Sepoy or the British Regular in these utterly strange and unthought-of conditions? . . . As well train aviators and then put them in submarines as train the Indian Army for the frontier and the plains and then put them in these swamps and jungles where your enemy is invisible and your sole “formation” is single file. What about the sacred and Medean Law: Never fire until you can see something to fire at? They’d never fire at all, at that rate, with an enemy who habitually used machine-guns from tree-tops and fired from dense cover—and small blame to him. . . .

A sound of rushing water, and a few minutes later the path became the edge of a river-bank beneath which the torrent swirled. It looked as though its swift erosion would soon bring the crumbling and beetling bank down, and the path would lead straight into the river. He must mention the fact at Butindi.

He stared at the jungle of the opposite bank, apparently lifeless and deserted, though menacing, secretive and uncanny. An ugly place. . . . Suppose the Germans bridged the river just here. . . . He found that he had come to a halt and was yearning to sit down. . . . He must not do that. He must keep moving. But he did not like that gap in the path where, for some yards, it ran along the edge of the bank. It was a gap in the wall, an open door in the house, a rent in the veil of protection. The jungle seemed a friend instead of a blinding and crippling hindrance, impediment, and obstacle, now that the path lay open and exposed along that flank. Suppose there were an ambush in the jungle on the other side of the narrow rushing river, and a heavy fire was opened upon his men as they passed? He could not get at an enemy so placed, nor return their fire for long, from an open place, while they were in densest cover. They could simply prohibit the passing of the safari. . . . Anyhow, he’d leave a force there to blaze like fury into the jungle across the river if a shot were fired from there.

“Naik,” said he, to a corporal, “halt here with twenty men and line the edge of the bank. If you are fired at from across the river, pour in magazine fire as hard as you can go—and make the porters run like the devil across this gap.” He then translated, as well as he could, and marched on. He had done his best, anyhow.

For another hour he doggedly tramped on. The rain ceased, and the heat grew suffocating, stifling, terrible to bear. He felt that he was breathing pure steam, and that he must climb a tree in search of air—do something to relieve his panting lungs. . . . He tore his tunic open at the throat. . . . Help! he was going to faint and fall. . . . With a great effort he swung about and raised his hand for the “halt” and lowered it with palm horizontal downward for the “lie down.” . . . If the men were down themselves they would not realise that he had fallen. . . . It would not do to fall while marching at their head, to fall and lie there for the next man to stumble over him, to set an example of weakness. . . . The officer should be the last man to succumb to anything—but wounds—in front. . . .

He sank to the ground, and feeling that he was going to faint away, put his head well down between his knees, and, after a while, felt better.