Part 32

Roger very nearly—for that reason and for the mosquito-preserves of Durban then called "hotels"—turned tail and re-embarked for German East Africa; but fortunately there came along a Colonel who had not served under Wellington or even seen the Crimea, but was no older than Roger—42—and had known him in London.

"You're just the type of man we want, with your knowledge of the bush and of niggers...."

"No, don't call them that; it—it—riles me after the years I have worked with them...."

"Well, Negroes, the bonny Bantu, the blameless Ethiopians, if you will.... And you ought to be a master-hand at bush-fighting. We're going to get up a sort of mounted infantry, don't you know. You're just the man to be given a small command. You need not tell me you can't ride, can't get every ounce out of your mount, 'cos I know better; or that you can't manage horses so that those entrusted to your men don't die in three weeks. Didn't you once tell me you bred Basuto ponies in G.E.A.? Well, I'm here, there, and elsewhere, buying Basuto ponies. Just stay here and get your uniform and equipment—here, give this card to our Supply department—and then report to General Buller. I'm writing him fully about you.... Oh yes.... And as to your nigs. I mean your two high-bred Fuzzie-wuzzies. Of course, we don't employ Negro soldiers ... 'gainst the rules. But we engage thousands as batmen, transport-riders, grooms, and everything else. I'll fix it up somehow that you take your two darkies with you. They seem to know what I'm sayin'. What jolly teeth. They look hefty men and a dam' sight handsomer than some of the Johnnies you'll see on the Rand, when we've got Oom Paul on the run..."

So in course of time, Roger, first brevet-Major for gallantry in action, then a full Major—if there is such a simple rank no longer qualified with adjectives (but I know after his campaigns in the Transvaal he was always styled "Major" Brentham, till he was made a Colonel)—found his way (always attended by Yusuf Ali and Anshuro, his Somali batmen) into the eastern Transvaal at the period when President Kruger and the other members of his Government were leaving Pretoria for the Portuguese frontier.

In the month of August he took part in a concentration of British forces against two Boer commandos in the north-east Transvaal. This resulted in a technical victory for the British, but whilst the tide of battle rolled away northwards to seize Pietersburg, the Boers were left in possession of the site of the first skirmish. And in a sudden hush after great clamour Roger realized that he was lying in the shade of some bushes near a little spruit of water, shot through the thigh and quite incapable of sitting up. The bullet or bullets had gone clean through the fleshy part of the right thigh and grazed the knee of the left leg. Happily they had not broken the thigh bone or cut the great artery. The Somalis, who had a magical faculty of turning up when most wanted, had come in handy as renderers of first aid, had stopped the haemorrhage. They now squatted on the ground beside their fainting master, fanned his sweating face, gave him water to drink and occasionally sprinkled his chest and forehead with water to ward off the deadly faintness....

A Boer Colonel came riding by, scanning closely the scene of the struggle. He claimed the unconscious Roger as his prisoner—out of pity—and whistled up carriers and a stretcher to bear him to the nearest dressing-station.

Here he was attended to by one of the numerous German doctors who had volunteered for service with the Boer armies.

From Major Roger Brentham, D.S.O., to Lady Silchester.

British Hospital, Unguja, Novr. 27, 1900.

DEAREST SIBYL,—

A steamer coming from the south to-day brought me your letter of last March! I had got several of your postcards showing yourself and Lady Landolphia in nurses' uniform and with dreadful smiles of glittering teeth, and knew of course—heard, I mean—what you were doing for our men out in South Africa. The letter was sent on by my Agents; I expect it got hung up in the military censorship, and I must say I don't blame them! Your unconscious criticisms of our generalship were pretty pungent. I wonder I got it at all. But better late than never! After I have read it a third time I shall burn it because there is one classical tag I never forget: Littera scripta manet.

I see by the London papers of September you are not only back in England—or rather Scotland—but entertaining as of yore at Glen Sporran. And playing with the same old toys! How indefatigable you are in your pursuit of power! How unwearied by the social routine, which would drive me into exile or into murder. I should end by killing the poor old fantoches—Vicky Long-i'-the-Tooth, Stacy Bream, and the others—I forget their names—the Right Honble. gentleman who spat like a cobra—only it was very kindly saliva, not at all venomous—and that moral enthusiast over the Empire—Albert Something. I see by the same paper he is now Lord Bewdly and has been uttering some beautiful sentiments over the results expected from the Boer War.... You were Stellenbosched, and with reason, because your hospitals and convalescent homes were there (I see, by the bye, that Willowby Patterne, who came an awful cropper at Driefontein and generally misconducted himself, was also Stellenbosched by K. of K. I hope you did not foregather with him?) ... Well, as I was saying, you were Stellenbosched and saw little of the horrors of War. But I did, and I used often to wish that Albert person could have been with me and seen the burning of the homesteads, the cutting down of the fruit-trees, the fugitive women and little children, the Boer boys of eleven and twelve dressed up for war like their fathers and elder brothers and fighting for their homes. I saw one of these boys—tousled yellow hair, nice grey eyes—in a buckskin suit much too big for him, laid out to die by the road-side, just after we had burnt his father's home. I don't suppose one of our chaps really set out to kill him. But there it was; he had been shot through the lungs and was gasping out his life, blood pouring out of his mouth at each gasp. And yet he tried to smile and said something in Dutch about his father being away.... Upon my word I should have liked to get the Kaiser, old Kruger, — and —[#] all strung up together on the site of that farm. For they are the four men who together made this most unnecessary war. I know what lots of our Tommies said when they heard Kimberley was relieved!

[#] I shrink from perpetuating all Roger's indiscretions and impulsive statements.—H.H.J.

As for me, I was laid out soon after with two bullets through my thigh. But for Yusuf Ali and Anshuro, my two Somalis; and equally but for a humane Boer (Colonel van Rensselaer), I should certainly have died. As it was, the haemorrhage was stopped and a German doctor at the field hospital nursed me through a bad attack of blood-poisoning. I shall never, of course, be quite the same man again; but I still feel as though there were a lot of push in me. Soon after my admission to the hospital at Lydenburg, the Boers evacuated the place and in course of time I was transported to Durban and invalided out of the army with the rank of Major. I had already got a D.S.O., so I can't complain. I would fight any day for England against England's enemies, but—however, no more grousing. Let's hope a new order of things is going to set in. I certainly should like to cut my D.S.O. into three and give two equal bits to Ali and Anshuro. You've no idea what those Somali boys were in the matter of devotion, cheerfulness, astuteness! And yet they only served me for the ordinary coast wages; though of course I'm going to give them both a handsome donation when their time is up.

Well: here I am at a hospital once more. I must rest here and get my leg quite sound before I start for up-country. I have been here for a month, in telegraphic communication with Lucy and Maud, imploring them not to come down to the coast to meet me. Lucy, I fear, is far from strong; and Maud is simply indispensable to the carrying on of the work up there. She has shown herself as good as a man. The two Australians I put there have done their best, but they don't get on at all well with the Germans. Their education has been very poor—I mean in book-learning—they are rattling good in settlers' lore—and, of course, they utterly refuse to understand German and openly gibe at it. Their chief recommendation is that they are absolutely honest....

I lie here chafing and intensely anxious for my worst wound to heal. I am told I ought to be thankful to have made such a wonderful recovery. But I feel a month of Lucy's care for me and the bracing air of Iraku would set me up altogether; and my mere presence at Magara put an end to all these misunderstandings and bitternesses.

The Schraeders were rather aghast at my bolt for South Africa last year; but stood it on the whole very well. Of course, I insisted on being reduced to a third of my pay whilst I was absent. I retained just enough salary to keep Lucy and Maud going, and maintain the household....

The whole German attitude over this war has been a curious one, and so have been its refractions on their attitude towards me. I hear that after my departure for the war a strong move was got up to oust me from the Managership. Now that I have returned wounded and a Major and a D.S.O. (that was given me the other day, for capturing Colonel Boshaert and three hundred men and a thousand cattle near Lydenburg—tell you all about it one day) they can't say enough in my favour. I am almost threatened with a triumphal procession home.... Engine from Tanga wreathed with palm fronds, etc. Fortunately the train will take me half the way back, and for the rest I can be carried in a Machila.

But there is little doubt that the mass of the Germans out here thought we were going to be gravelled by the Boers and that Germania would step into the shoes of Britannia. Undoubtedly the Kaiser for the past six years has been fishing in troubled waters, trying to connect up German South-West Africa with Boer territory, and planning to make Germany the dominant power in South Africa; or, at any rate, the honest broker between Boer and Briton....

Why the Dutch and the British should be as oil and water in South Africa and elsewhere, I can't think. But they are. The Dutchman in Africa and Europe is just a rather finer built, better-looking Englishman or Scotchman; but in language, mentality and above all in a curiously hard attitude towards the Negro, he is Teutonic. The whole set of South Africa is towards Germany.... That is why Rhodes lost his head....

Your affectionate ROGER.

P.S. See you next year or year after, as soon as ever I have got everything going here as it was before the war, and it is safe to come away. I must go on with this until I can retire with a competency.

CHAPTER XXI

THE MORALS OF THE HAPPY VALLEY

"I am so glad, so truly glad you are almost your old self again," said Mrs. Stott, one brilliant morning in the spring of 1901, to Major Brentham, who had been four months back at his home in Iraku. He did indeed look as if he had in a measure recovered his good looks and energy, though the right leg was still stiff and much riding or walking brought on pain.

"It emboldens me to embark on a very disagreeable subject which I have been saving up to discuss with you. We cannot evade it much longer; so—if you have the patience—?"

"I am always patient with you, Mrs. Stott. There are few people I respect more...."

"Thank you. Then I shall take up an hour or more of your time, if you are not very busy. But how is Lucy?"

"Lucy is not well; anaemic, Dr. Wiese says. I should send her home, only she refuses to go without me and I can't leave till next year. Dr. Wiese does not insist on her going before then. He is trying a new tonic which seems to be blood-making; it ought to be, because—though I do not tell Lucy—it is made of blood—one of these new German inventions. Wiese says if we would only do like the Masai and the Iraku: tap the veins of our cattle and drink the hot blood—"

"Ugh! don't let's talk about it; it makes me sick. I'm almost a vegetarian, you know. Couldn't we go into your study? It is delicious here on the verandah, but I don't want to be overheard."

"Certainly: come this way."

"What wonderful petunias, yours are! I never saw such glowing colours. Your whole garden is a joy to the eye and a credit to the Concession...."

"You're right. But the credit lies with Riemer, the plantation manager; he gives it an eye. The Germans are wonderful horticulturists. I don't think we sufficiently appreciate that fact at home. They are as good as the Dutch. Now then, here we are in my sanctum—rather untidy, I fear.... Take this chair..."

"No, it is too reclining. I do like an upright straight-backed chair when I want to speak out. My daughters say I'm like a character in one of Dickens's books, who could never loll. They're wonderful readers and remember everything they've read...."

"Well now, what's the trouble?"

"It's—it's—this—horrid—sexual question I've come about. You know what Ann Anderson is—I prefer to call her Ann Jamblin—I don't like the two 'An's' together. Ann has a wonderful power for good, an energy in righteousness, and is as nearly sinless as any woman can be. But she's also got such an insight into other people's sinfulness that she spends much of her time denouncing their wrong-doing—too much, I think. I tell her she's out here to convert the blacks, and for the time being had better leave the whites alone. But she pays no heed to me—says her mission is to all men. She simply won't let the Germans alone. We had terrible rows sometimes when you were away, though your sister did what she could to smooth things over. I admit some of them are utterly wicked. There is that monster Stolzenberg—whom the Masai call 'The Terror'—Olduria—. After he came to the Lake with his Ruga-ruga last October and shot all the flamingoes...."

"WHAT?" roared Roger, leaping to his feet, and then wincing... "I never heard this before...!"

"No? Well: sit down. You ought to rest your leg. Lucy didn't want you to know. She thought it would upset you so—And indeed, it was a shocking pity.... But you'd soon have noticed how few there are left—even from here on a clear day.... I understand Stolzenberg sent a huge consignment of their plumage to a firm he trades with in Marseilles. And he has been going about to other lakes doing the same. But I must stick to the point.... Where was I? Oh, yes! ... Ann, who lives in our old station at Mwada, was awfully upset because she had become so fond of these birds, besides being infuriated at Stolzenberg's Ruga-ruga occasionally carrying off women. So she wrote him a letter saying that if he showed himself in the Concession again she would take a gun to him herself. She solemnly cursed him and called down Divine punishment on his head. Unfortunately—for I think the whole thing was most unwise—she paid a Masai who came along to trade to deliver the letter at Stolz's boma. The watchman at the gate made him come in and give the letter himself, and Stolz having read it had the man's left hand chopped off, tied it to his right, and said that was the answer to the English Missionaries and that was how he'd treat any other messengers sent to him.... The poor wretch arrived at Mwada a week afterwards nearly dead with loss of blood.... Of course, the Masai have again sworn vengeance against this monster: but what can they do? But that is not our worst trouble. Before you went, and whilst you were away, Ann took up the sex question. You know how set she was on the elevation of the native women? You used to laugh about her corps of Amazons, her 'Big-geru.' She hadn't been long with us before she began to interest herself in the young women of Iraku.... Those of the Wambugwe are, I must confess, hopeless at present; I mean as regards chastity. Poor things! They are corrupted and degraded from childhood. But there is something superior—something of another race in the Iraku and Fiome. You said once they were partly descended from some Gala immigration of long ago?...

"Well, Ann, who is untirable, started a class of these Iraku young women before she had been six months in the Happy Valley. The chiefs—I dare say you remember speaking to some of them? ... quite approved and sent their young daughters. She taught them cooking and laundry work, plain sewing, reading and writing. And now she finds, after they have been a year or two at our schools, they go off and live with white men....!"

Roger: "I dare say they do, and have a much better time with them than with their own men. But what white men? German, I suppose?..."

Mrs. Stott: "Ah, there you touch my greatest sorrow. Yes. Every German I know on this concession keeps a native woman, mostly from our classes. But I fear—I fear—my nephew Phil and the clerk Stallibrass as well—my two Australian boys—are not much more moral. Their relations with the native women won't bear investigation. That is not all ... and I have no right to be here as an accuser when I can't answer for my own son, Edgar.... You remember you offered in 1897 to take him home with you, and have him sent to an English school or college for a year or two? I wish ... I wish ... we had consented. It was so good of you. But we thought at the time that if children can grow up into God-fearing men and women in Australia without leaving the back-blocks or the bush, why not here, where the climate is good? Then there was the question of the cost...."

Roger: "I suppose he has got all his education from you and his father?"

Mrs. Stott: "Yes, indeed. The main thing, besides religion, was to teach our children to read and write and do simple accounts. All they wanted besides was to read the books we ordered out.... I'm sure you can't say we have been indifferent to literature?"

Roger: "No—not of a certain kind ... but all of it, from what I have seen, is rather old-fashioned and goody-goody...."

Mrs. Stott: "I don't agree. However, I won't stop to argue about it. It matters little, since Edgar from the age of twelve or thirteen has cared very little for reading. His passion is sport. And to think how I ran down big-game shooting, when it was not vitally necessary for our supplies! Of course, James is a good shot and a clever hunter, and Edgar, after he was twelve, used to go out with him. He killed an elephant to his own gun when he was only fifteen, and the tusks fetched as much as L60! He was proud. Now his one idea is to be away shooting ... and trifling with these Iraku women. Oh!" (crying a little). "Can't you see how it silences me? Ann talks about cutting off a member that offends and says I should expel my own son from the Mission for loose living.... I can't do that, and besides there's nothing proved.... But I can't very well join her in her crusade against ... she will use such plain words ... against fornication and unclean living. I suppose we shall have to send Edgar away ... back to Australia ... And then I fear much for his future. Thank goodness! He's a total abstainer, so far.... Ought we to invite some young woman to come out here for the mission, in the hope that he might marry her and settle down?"