“He’ll make himself perfectly miserable,” was the reply, “but nothing to what he’ll make you. I’m the Adjutant, you see, and there’ll be a bit of a muddle until my successor has picked up all the threads, and a bit of extra bother for the Colonel. . . . Young Macteith’ll have to take it on, I expect. . . . He’ll bite your other ear for that. . .” and Murray executed a few simple steps of the can-can, in the joy of his heart that the chance of his life had come. No one but himself knew the agonies of mind that he had suffered, as he lay awake at night realising that the war might he a short one, time was rushing on, and hundreds of thousands of men had gone to fight—while he still sat in an office and played C.O.’s lightning conductor. A usually undemonstrative Scot, he was slightly excited and uplifted by this splendid turn of Fortune’s wheel. Falling into a chair, he read the telegram:
To Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, A.A.A.
You have been appointed to Indian Army Reserve of Officers with rank of Second-Lieutenant, and are ordered to report forthwith to O.C. One Hundred and Ninety-Ninth Regiment, Madrutta. A.A.A. Military Secretary.
“Any relation to Major Walsingham Greene?” enquired Murray.
“Son,” replied Bertram, “and nephew of General Walsingham.”
“Not your fault, of course,” observed Murray. “Best to make a clean breast of these things, though. . . . Had any sort of military training?” he added.
“Absolutely none whatever. Soon after war broke out I felt I was a disgrace to my family—they are all soldiers—and I thought of going home and enlisting. . . . Then I thought it was a pity if nearly twenty years of expensive education had fitted me for nothing more useful than what any labourer or stable-boy can do—and I realised that I’m hardly strong enough to be of much good in the trenches during a Belgian winter—I’ve been there—so I wrote to my father and my uncle and told them I’d like to get into the Indian Army Reserve of Officers. I thought I might soon learn enough to be able to set free a better man, and, in time, I might possibly be of some good—and perhaps go to the Frontier or something. . . .”
“Goo’ boy,” said the merry Murray. “I could strain you to my bosom.”
“Then I received some papers from the Military Secretary, filled them up, and returned them with a medical certificate. I bought some kit and ordered a uniform, and studied the drill-book night and day. . . . I got that wire yesterday—and here I am.”
“I love you, Bertram,” repeated the Adjutant.
“I feel a dreadful fraud, though,” continued the boy, “and I am afraid my uncle, General Walsingham, thinks I am ‘one of the Greenes’ in every way, whereas I’m a most degenerate and unworthy member of the clan. Commonly called ‘Cupid’ and ‘Blameless Bertram,’ laughed at . . . . Really he is my father’s cousin—but I’ve always called him ‘Uncle,’” he added ingenuously.
“Well—sit you there awhile and I’ll be free in a bit. Then I’ll take you round the Lines and put you up to a few things. . . .”
“I should be most grateful,” replied Bertram.
Macteith entered and sat him down at the other desk, and for half an hour there was a va et vient of orderlies, clerks, Sepoys and messengers, with much ringing of the telephone bell.
When he had finished his work, Murray kept his promise, gave Bertram good advice and useful information, and, before tiffin, introduced him to the other officers—who treated him with cordial friendliness. The Colonel did not appear at lunch, but Bertram’s satisfaction at the postponement of his interview was somewhat marred by a feeling that Lieutenant Macteith eyed him malevolently and regarded his advent with disapproval.
Chapter II.
And is Ordered to East Africa
That afternoon the Adjutant very good-naturedly devoted to assisting Bertram to remedy his utter nakedness and ashamedness in the matter of necessary campaigning kit. Taking him in his dog-cart to the great Madrutta Emporium, he showed him what to buy, and, still better, what not to buy, that he might be fully equipped, armed and well prepared, as a self-supporting and self-dependent unit, provided with all he needed and nothing he did not need, that he might go with equal mind wheresoever Fate—or the Military Secretary—might suddenly send him.
After all, it was not very much—a very collapsible camp-bed of green canvas, hardwood and steel; a collapsible canvas washstand to match; a collapsible canvas bath (which was destined to endanger the blamelessness of Blameless Bertram’s language by providing more collapses than baths); a canteen of cooking utensils; a green canvas valise which contained bedding, and professed to be in itself a warm and happy home from home, even upon the cold hard ground; and a sack of similar material, provided with a padlock, and suitable as a receptacle for such odds and ends of clothing and kit as you might choose to throw in it.
“Got to remember that, if you go on active service, your stuff may have to be carried by coolies,” said the Adjutant. “About forty pounds to a man. No good trying to make one big package of your kit. Say, one sack of spare clothing and things; one bundle of your bed, bath, and washing kit; and the strapped-up valise and bedding. If you had to abandon one of the three, you’d let the camp-bed, bath and wash-stand go, and hang on to the sleeping-valise and sack of underclothes, socks, boots, spare uniform and sundries,” and much other good advice.
To festoon about Cupid’s person, in addition to his sword, revolver, water-bottle and haversack, he selected a suitable compass, map-case, field-glasses, ammunition-pouch, whistle and lanyards, since his earnest and anxious protégé desired to be fitted out fully and properly for manœuvres, and as though for actual active service.
Assurance being received that his purchases would be forthwith dispatched to the Adjutant’s bungalow, Bertram drove back to the Mess with that kindly officer, and gratefully accepted his invitation to dine with him, that night, at the famous Madrutta Club.
“What about kit, though?” enquired Bertram. “I’ve only got what I stand up in. I left all my—”
“That’s all right,” was the reply. “Everybody’s in khaki, now we’re mobilised—except the miserable civilians,” he added with a grin, whereat Bertram, the belted man of blood, blushed and smiled.
At dinner Bertram sat respectfully silent, collecting the pearls of wisdom that fell from the lips of his seniors, fellow-guests of the Adjutant. And his demeanour was of a gravity weighty and serious even beyond his wont, for was he not now a soldier among soldiers, a uniformed, commissioned, employed officer of His Majesty the King Emperor, and attached to a famous fighting regiment? Yes—a King’s Officer, and one who might conceivably be called upon to fight, and perhaps to die, for his country and for those simple Principles for which his country stood.
He was a little sorry when some of his bemedalled fellow-guests joked on solemn and sacred subjects, and spoke a little slightingly of persons and principles venerable to him; but he comforted and consoled himself with the recollection and reflection that this type of man so loathed any display, or even mention, of sentiment and feeling, that it went to the opposite extreme, and spoke lightly of things weighty, talked ribaldly of dignitaries, and gave a quite wrong impression as to its burning earnestness and enthusiasm.
