bridge, billiards or the bar, he sat on, listening with all his ears to the conversation of the Adjutant and an officer, who seemed exceedingly well informed on the subject of the battle of Tanga, in German East Africa, concerning which the general public knew nothing at all.
Murray noticed his intelligent and attentive silence, and counted it for righteousness unto the boy, that he could “keep his head shut,” at any rate. . . .
And next day The Blow fell!
For poor Captain and Adjutant Murray, of the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth Infantry, it dawned like any ordinary day, and devoid of baleful omens.
There was nothing ominous about the coming of the tea, toast, and oranges that “Abdul the Damned,” his bearer, brought into the big, bare and comfortless room (furnished with two camp-beds, one long chair, one almirah 6 and a litter on the floor) in which he and Bertram slept.
Early morning parade passed off without unusual or untoward event.
Breakfast was quite without portent, omen, or foreshadow of disaster. The Colonel’s silence was no more eloquent than usual, the Major’s remarks were no ruder, the Junior Subaltern’s no sillier, and those of the other fellows were no more uninteresting than upon other days; and all unconscious of his fate the hapless victim strayed into his office, followed by his faithful and devoted admirer, Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene, who desired nothing better than to sit at his feet and learn. . . .
And then it came!
It came in the shape of a telegram from the Military Secretary, and, on the third reading of the fair-writ type, Murray had to realise that the words undoubtedly and unmistakably were:
To O.C. 199th Infantry, A.A.A.
Second-Lieutenant Greene, I.A.R., to proceed to Mombasa forthwith in charge of your draft of one hundred P.M.’s and one Native Officer, by s.s. Elymas to-morrow and report to O.C., One Hundred and Ninety-Eighth immediately. A.A.A. Military Secretary, Delhi.
He read it through once again and then laid it on his table, leant his head on his hand and felt physically faint and sick for a moment. He had not felt quite as he did then more than three or four times in the whole of his life. It was like the feeling he had when he received the news of his mother’s death; when his proposal of marriage to the one-and-only girl had been rejected; when he had been bowled first ball in the Presidency Match, and when he had taken a toss from his horse at the Birthday Parade, as the beast, scared at the feu-de-joie, had suddenly bucked and bounced like an india-rubber ball. . . . He handed the telegram to Bertram without comment.
That young gentleman read it through, and again. He swallowed hard and read it once more. His hand shook. He looked at the Adjutant, who noticed that he had turned quite pale.
“Got it?” enquired Murray. “Here, sit down.” He thought the boy was going to faint.
“Ye-e-s. I—er—think so,” was the reply. “I am to take the draft from the Hundred and Ninety-Ninth to the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth in East Africa! . . . Oh, Murray, I am sorry—for you. . . . And I am so utterly inadequate and incompetent. . . . It is cruel hard luck for you. . . .”
The Adjutant, a really keen, good soldier, said nothing. There was nothing to say. He felt that his life lay about him in ruins. At the end of the war—which might come anywhen now that Russia had “got going”—he would be one of the few professional soldiers without active service experience, without a medal or decoration of any sort whatever. . . . Children who had gone straight from Sandhurst to the Front would join this very battalion, after the war, with their honours thick upon them—and when he, the Adjutant, tried to teach them things, they’d smile and say: “We—ah!—didn’t do it like that at the Marne and Ypres. . . .” He could go straight away and shoot himself then and there. . . . And this pink civilian baby! This “Cupid”! No, there was nothing to say—apart from the fact that he could not trust himself to speak.
For minutes there was complete silence in the little office. Bertram was as one in a dream—a dream which was partly sweet and partly a nightmare. He to go to the Front to-morrow? To go on Active Service? He whom fellows always ragged, laughed at, and called Cupid and Blameless Bertram and Innocent Ernest? To go off from here in sole charge of a hundred of these magnificent fighting-men, and then to be an officer in a regiment that had been fighting for weeks and had already lost a third of its men and a half of its officers, in battle? He, who had never fired a gun in his life; never killed so much as a pheasant, a partridge, a grouse or a rabbit; never suffered so much as a tooth-extraction—to shoot at his fellow-men, to risk being horribly mangled and torn! . . . Yes—but what was that last compared with the infinitely greater horror, the unspeakable ghastliness of being inadequate, of being too incapable and inexperienced to do his duty to the splendid fellows who would look to him, the White Man, their Officer, for proper leadership and handling?
To fail them in their hour of need. . . . He tried to moisten dry lips with a dry tongue.
Oh, if only he had the knowledge and experience of the Adjutant—he would then change places with no man in the world. Why had the England that had educated him so expensively, allowed him to grow up so hopelessly ignorant of the real elemental essentials of life in the World-As-It-Is? He had been brought up as though the World were one vast Examination Hall, and nothing else. Yes—he had been prepared for examinations all his life, not prepared for the World at all. Oh, had he but Murray’s knowledge and experience, or one-tenth part of it—he would find the ability, courage, enthusiasm and willingness all right.
But, as it was, who was he, Bertram Greene, the soft-handed sedentary, the denizen of libraries and lecture-rooms, the pale student, to dare to offer to command, control and guide trained and hardy men of war? What had he (brought up by a maiden “aunt”!) to do with arms and blood, with stratagems and ambuscades, with gory struggles in unknown holes and corners of the Dark Continent? Why, he had never shouted an order in his life; never done a long march; never administered a harsh reprimand; never fired a revolver nor made a pass with a sword. (If only he had had more to do with such “passes” and less with his confounded examination passes—he might feel less of an utter fraud now.) At school and at Oxford he had been too delicate for games, and in India, too busy, and too interested in more intellectual matters, for shikar, sport and hunting. He had just been “good old Blameless Bertram” and “our valued and respected Innocent Ernest,” and “our pretty pink Cupid”—more at home with antiquarians, ethnologists, Orientalists and scientists than with sportsmen and soldiers. . . .
The fact was that Civilisation led to far too much specialisation and division of labour. Why shouldn’t fellows be definitely trained and taught, physically as well as mentally? Why shouldn’t every man be a bit of an artisan, an agriculturalist, a doctor, and a soldier, as well as a mere wretched book-student? Life is not a thing of books. . . .
Anyhow, in the light of this telegram, it was pretty clear that his uncle, General Sir Hugh Walsingham, K.C.S.I., had described him more optimistically than accurately when forwarding his application for admission to the Indian Army Reserve of Officers, to the Military Secretary. . . . Another awful thought—suppose he let Uncle Hugh down badly. . . . And what of his father? . . .
Well—there was one thing, he would do his absolute utmost, his really ultimate best; and no one could do more. But, oh, the fathomless profundity of his ignorance and inexperience! Quite apart from any question of leading men in battle, how could he hope to avoid incurring their contempt on the parade-ground? They’d see he was an Ass, and a very ignorant one to boot, before he had been in front of them for five minutes. . . . One thing—he’d
