“You’d die of the Colonel, if you didn’t of shame,” was the reply. . . . “I’ll see you’re not late. You take things a bit easier, my son. Your King and Country want you in East Africa, not in a lunatic asylum—”
“Pappa! What part did you take in the Great War?” squeaked a falsetto voice from the door, and looking up, Bertram beheld Lieutenant Bludyer, always merry and bright, arrayed in crimson, scarlet-frogged pyjama coat, and pink pyjama trousers. On his feet were vermilion velvet slippers.
“I’ll take a leading part in your dirty death,” said the Adjutant, turning to the speaker, or squeaker.
“Thought this might be useful, Greene,” continued Bludyer in his natural voice, as he handed Bertram a slab of thin khaki linen and a conical cap of a kind of gilded corduroy. “Make yourself a regimental puggri in the day of battle. Put the cap on your nut and wind the turban over it. . . . Bloke with a helmet and a white face hasn’t an earthly, advancing with a line of Sepoys in puggris. The enemy give him their united attention until he is outed. . . .”
“Oh, thanks, awfully, Bludyer,” began Bertram.
“So go dirty till your face is like Murray’s, grow a hoary, hairy beard, an’ wear a turban on your fat head,” continued Bludyer. “Your orderly could do it on for you, so that it wouldn’t all come down when you waggled. . . .”
“Thanks, most awfully. It’s exceedingly kind of you, Bludyer,” acknowledged Bertram, and proceeded to stuff the things into his haversack.
“Wow! Wow!” ejaculated Bludyer. “Nice-mannered lad and well brought up, ain’t he, Randolph Murray?” and seating himself on that officer’s bed, he proceeded to use the tea-cosy as a foot-warmer, the morning being chilly.
The Adjutant arose and proceeded to dress.
“Devil admire me!” he suddenly shouted, pointing at Bertram. “Look at that infernal lazy swine! Did you ever see anything like it, Bludyer? Lying hogging there, lolling and loafing in bed, as if he had all day to finish nothing in! . . . Here, get up, you idle hound, and earn your living. Dress for parade, if you can do nothing else.”
And Bertram gathered that he might now get on with his preparations.
“Yes,” added Bludyer, “you really ought to get on with the war, Greene. Isn’t he a devil-may-care fellow, Murray? He don’t give a damn if it snows,” and adding that it was his flute-night at the Mission, and he now must go, the young gentleman remained seated where he was.
“You aren’t hurrying a bit, Greene,” he remarked, after eyeing Bertram critically for a few minutes. “He won’t prosper and grow rich like that, will he, Randolph Murray? That is not how the Virtuous Apprentice got on so nicely, and married his master’s aunt. . . . No. . . . And Samuel Smiles was never late for parade—of that I’m quite certain. No. ‘Self-help’ was his motto, and the devil take the other fellow. . . . Let me fasten that for you. This strap goes under not over. . . .” And, with his experienced assistance, Bertram was soon ready, and feeling like a trussed fowl and a Christmas-tree combined, by the time he had festooned about him his sword, revolver, full ammunition-pouches, field-glasses, water-bottle, belt-haversack, large haversack, map-case, compass-pouch, whistle-lanyard, revolver-lanyard, rolled cape, and the various belts, straps and braces connected with these articles.
By the time the last buckle was fastened, he longed to take the whole lot off again for a few minutes, and have a really comfortable breathe. (But he did wish Miranda Walsingham could see him.)
* * *
In a corner of the parade-ground stood the Hundred, the selected draft which was to proceed to Africa to fill the gaps that war had torn in the ranks of the Hundred and Ninety-Eighth. On their flank the regimental band was drawn up in readiness to play them to the docks. The men wore khaki turbans, tunics, shorts, puttees and hob-nailed boots, and carried only haversacks, water-bottles, bandoliers, rifles and bayonets. The rest of their kit, each man’s done up in a neat bundle inside his waterproof ground-sheet and striped cotton sleeping-dhurrie, had gone on in bullock-carts to await them at the wharf.
Around the Hundred stood or squatted the remainder of the battalion, in every kind and degree of dress and undress. Occasionally one of these would arise and go unto his pal in the ranks, fall upon his neck, embrace him once again, shake both his hands alternately, and then return to the eligible site whence, squatting on his heels, he could feast his eyes upon his bhai, his brother, his friend, so soon to be torn from him. . . . As the officers approached, these spectators fell back. Bertram’s heart beat so violently that he feared the others would hear it. Was he going to have “palpitations” and faint, or throw a fit or something? He was very white, and felt very ill. Was his ignorance and incompetence to be exposed and manifested now? . . .
“Look fierce and take over charge, my son,” said the Adjutant, as the small party of officers came in front of the draft.
“Company!” shouted Bertram, “Shun!”
That was all right. He had hit the note nicely, and his voice had fairly boomed. He had heard that men judge a new officer by his voice, more than anything.
The Hundred sprang to attention, and Bertram, accompanied by the Adjutant and Macteith, walked slowly down the front rank and up the rear, doing his best to look as though he were critically and carefully noting certain points, and assuring himself that certain essentials were in order. He was glad that he had not suddenly to answer such a question as “What exactly are you peering at and looking for?” He wished he had sufficient Hindustani to ask a stern but not unkindly question here and there, or to make an occasional comment in the manner of one from whom no military thing is hid. He suddenly remembered that he knew the Hindustani for “How old are you?” so he asked this question of a man whose orange-coloured beard would obviously have been white but for henna dye. Not in the least understanding the man’s reply, he remarked “H’m!” in excellent imitation of the Colonel, and passed on.
“Not the absolute pick of the regiment, I should think, are they?” he remarked to Murray, as they returned to the front of the company.
“They are not,” he said.
“Pretty old, some of them,” added Bertram, who was privately hoping that he did not look such a fraudulent Ass as he felt.
Major Fordinghame strolled up and returned the salutes of the group of officers.
“This experienced officer thinks the draft is not the pure cream of the regiment, Major,” said Murray, indicating Bertram.
“Fancy that, now,” replied Major Fordinghame, and Bertram blushed hotly.
“I thought some of them seemed rather old, sir,” he said, “but—er—perhaps old soldiers are better than young ones?”
“It’s a matter of taste—as the monkey said when he chewed his father’s ear,” murmured Bludyer.
Silence fell upon the little group.
“And both have their draw-backs—as the monkey said when she pulled her twins’ tails,” he added pensively.
Bertram wondered what he had better do next.
The Native Officer of the draft came hurrying up, and saluted. Another Hindustani sentence floated into Bertram’s mind. “You are late, Jemadar Sahib,” said he, severely.
Jemadar Hassan Ali poured forth a torrent of excuse or explanation which Bertram could not follow.
“What do you do if a Havildar or Naik or Sepoy is late for parade?” he asked, or attempted to ask, in slow and barbarous Hindustani.
Another torrent of verbiage, scarcely a word of which was intelligible to him.
He put on a hard, cold and haughty