CHAPTER I

_Mrs. Stayne-Brooker Again_

Luckily for himself, Second-Lieutenant Bertram Greene was quite unconscious when he was lifted from his camp-bed into a stretcher by the myrmidons of Mr. Chatterji and dispatched, carriage paid, to M’paga. What might happen to him there was no concern of Mr. Chatterji’s—which was the important point so far as that gentleman was concerned.

Unconscious he remained as the four Kavirondo porters, the stretcher on their heads, jogged along the jungle path in the wake of Ali and the three other porters who bore his baggage. Behind the stretcher-bearers trotted four more of their brethren who would relieve them of their burden at regular intervals.

Ali was in command, and was also in a hurry, for various reasons, including prowling enemy patrols and his master’s dire need of help. He accordingly set a good pace and kept the “low niggers” of his party to it by fabulous promises, hideous threats, and even more by the charm of song—part song in fact. Lifting up his powerful voice he delivered in deep diapason a mighty

“_Ah-Nah-Nee-Nee_! _Ah-Nah-Nee-Nee_!”

to which all the congregation responded

“_Umba Jo-eel_! _Umba Jo-eel_”

as is meet and right to do.

And when, after a few hundred thousand repetitions of this, in strophe and antistrophe, there seemed a possibility that restless and volatile minds desiring change might seek some new thing, Ali sang

“_Hay-Ah-Mon-Nee_! _Hay-Ah-Mon-Nee_!”

which is quite different, and the jogging, sweating congregation, with deep earnestness and conviction, took up the response:

“_Tunk-Tunk-Tunk-Tunk_!”

and all fear of the boredom of monotony was gone—especially as, after a couple of hours of this, you could go back to the former soulful and heartsome Threnody, and begin again. But if they got no forrader with the concert they steadily got forrader with the journey, as their loping jog-trot ate up the miles.

And, in time to their regular foot-fall and chanting, the insensible head of the white man rolled from side to side unceasingly. . . .

Unconscious he still was when the little party entered the Base Camp, and Private Henry Hall remarked to Private John Jones:

“That there bloke’s gone West all right but ’e ain’t gone long. . . . You can see ’e’s dead becos ’is ’ead’s a waggling and you can see ’e ain’t bin dead _long_ becos ’is ’ead’s a waggling. . . .”

And Private John Jones, addressing the speaker as Mister Bloomin’-Well Sherlock ’Olmes, desired that he would cease to chew the fat.

Steering his little convoy to the tent over which the Red Cross flew, Ali handed over his master and the cleft stick holding Major Mallery’s letter, to Captain Merstyn, R.A.M.C., and then stood by for orders.

It appeared that the _Barjordan_ was off M’paga, that a consignment of sick and wounded was just going on board, and that Second-Lieutenant Greene could go with them. . . .

That night Bertram was conveyed out to sea in a dhow (towed by a petrol-launch from the _Barjordan_), taken on board that ship, and put comfortably to bed. The next night he was in hospital at Mombasa and had met Mrs. Stayne-Brooker.

* * * * *

As, thanks to excellent nursing, he very slowly returned to health and strength, Bertram began to take an increasing interest in the very charming and very beautiful woman whom he had once seen and admired at the Club, who daily took his temperature, brought his meals, administered his medicine, kept his official chart, shook up his pillows, put cooling hands upon his forehead, found him books to read, talked to him at times, attended the doctor on his daily visits, and superintended the brief labours of the Swahili youth who was ward-boy and house-maid on that floor of the hospital.

Before long, the events of the day were this lady’s visits, and, on waking, he would calculate the number of hours until she would enter his room and brighten it with her presence. He had never seen so sweet, kind, and gentle a face. It was beautiful too, even apart from its sweetness, kindness and gentleness. He was very thankful when he found himself no longer too weak to turn his head and follow her with his eyes, as she moved about the room. It was indescribably delightful to have a woman, and such a woman, about one’s sick bed—after negro servants, Indian orderlies, _shenzi_ stretcher-bearers, and Bengali doctors. How his heart swelled with gratitude as she laid her cool hand on his forehead, or raised his head and gave him a cooling drink. . . . But how sad she looked! . . . He hated to see her putting up the mosquito-curtains that covered the big frame-work, like the skeleton of a room, in which his bed stood, and which, at night, formed a mosquito-proof room-within-a-room, and provided space for his bedside chair, table and electric-lamp, as well as for the doctor and nurse, if necessary.

One morning he sat up and said:

“_Please_ let me do that, Sister—I hate to see you working for me—though I love to see _you_ . . .” and then had been gently pushed back on to his pillow as, with a laugh, Mrs. Stayne-Brooker said:

“That’s what I’m here for—to work I mean,” and patted his wasted hand. (He _was_ such a dear boy, and so appreciative of what one could do for him. It made one’s heart ache to see him such a wasted skeleton.)

The time came when he could sit in a long chair with leg-rest arms, and read a book; but he found that most of his time was spent in thinking of the Sister and in the joys of retrospection and anticipation. He had to put aside, quite resolutely, all thought of the day when he would be declared fit for duty and be “returned to store.” Think of a _banda_ at Butindi and of this white room with its beautiful outlook across the strait to the palm-feathered shore; think of Ali as one’s cup-bearer and of this sweet angelic Englishwoman. . . . Better not think of it at all. . . .

It was quite a little shock to him, one day, to notice that she wore a wedding-ring. . . . He had never thought of that. . . . He felt something quite like a little twinge of jealousy. . . . He was sure the man must be a splendid fellow though, or she would never have married him. . . . How old would she be? It was no business of his, and it was not quite gentlemanly to speculate on such a subject—but somehow he had not thought of her as “an old married woman.” Not that married women are necessarily older than unmarried women. . . . A silly expression—“old” married women. He had imagined her to be about his own generation so to speak. Possibly a _little_ older than himself—in years—but years don’t make age really. . . . Fancy her being married! Well, well, well! . . . But what did that matter—she was just as much the charming and beautiful woman for whom he would have laid down his life in sheer gratitude. . . .

* * * * *

A man gets like this after fever. He is off his balance, weak, neurasthenic, and devoid of the sense of proportion. He waxes sentimental, and is to be forgiven.

* * * * *

But there is not even this excuse for Mrs. Stayne-Brooker.

* * * * *

She began by rather boring her daughter, Eva, about her new patient—his extreme gratitude, his charming ways and thoughts, his true gentleness of nature, his delightful views, the _niceness_ of his mind, the likeableness of him. . . . She wondered aloud as to whether he had a mother—she must be a very nice woman. She wondered in silence as to whether he had a wife—she must be a very happy woman. . . . How old was he? . . . It was so hard to tell with these poor fellows, brought in so wasted with fever and dysentery; and rank wasn’t much guide to age nowadays. He _might_ be. . . . Well—he’d be up and gone before long, and she’d never see him again, so what was the good of wondering. . . . And she continued to wonder. . . . And then, from rather boring Miss Stayne-Brooker with talk about Lieutenant Greene she went to the extreme, and never mentioned him at all.

For, one day, with an actual gasp of horrified amazement, she found that she had suddenly realised that possibly the poets and novelists were not so wrong as she had believed, and that there _might_ be such a thing as the Love—they hymned and described—and that Peace and Happiness might be its inseparable companions. . . . She would read her Browning, Herrick, Swinburne, Rosetti again, her Dante, her Mistral, and some of those plays and poems of Love that the world called wonderful, beautiful, true, for she had an idea that she might see glimmerings of wonder, beauty and truth in them—_now_. . . .

But then—how absurd!—at _her_ age. Of course she would not read them again! At _her_ age! . . .

And proceeded to do so at _her_ Dangerous Age. . . .

Strange that _his_ name should be Green or Greene—he was the fifth person of that name whom she had met since she left Major Walsingham Greene, eighteen years ago. . . .