XXIII. IN SUMMER QUARTERS. SCENE of the dialogue, a mess-room in a village on the Nile. Time, nearly lunch-time. A subaltern is discovered smoking a cigarette under the verandah. Enter I. Subaltern. Hallo, Steevens! when did you come up? Get down and have a drink. Hi, you syce! Take this hawaga's hoosan and take the sarg and bridle off and dini a drink of moyyah. What'll you drink? . . . Oh no: this isn't so bad-better than Ras Hudi, anyhow. You're looking at our pictures-out of the Graphic,' you know-coloured them ourselves-helps you through the day, you know: that's a well-developed lady, isn't it? Have a cigarette, will you? We're all getting pretty well fed up with this place by now. Enter a Captain. Hallo, Steevens! when did you come up? Have you got anything to drink? I suppose you've been at home all this time. No, I haven't been farther north than Berber. Had a very jolly ten days up the Atbara, though. Two parties went-one with the General, one afterwards. Seven guns got a hundred and sixty-five sand-grouse in one day. Went up right beyond our battlefield. High? Never smelt anything like it in my life. The bush gets very thick above. No; no lions. Subaltern. We got a croco down here, though, and a bally great fish with a head on him three feet six long, the head alone. No, I haven't been down either. I went down with a boat party to Geneineteh, though— ripping. There was a grass bank just six inches above the water, and you could bathe all day. The men loved it, if they were pretty fit to begin with; if they weren't, you see, what with bully beef and dirty water Captain. But we're all getting fed up, as the Tommies say, with this place by now. Enter a Senior Captain. Hallo, Steevens! I heard you'd come up. In this country it isn't "Have a drink," but "What'll you drink?" Well, here we are still in this filthy country. Yes, I got ten days in Cairo, but I was at the dentist's all the time. Gad, what a country! When I think of all the lives that have been lost for this miserable heap of sand they call the Soudan-ugh!-it's-it's Subaltern. Ripping sport: everybody was wondering how the Pari Mutuel was done so well. The truth was, it was run by the same men of the Army Pay Department that do it at the races in Cairo. Devilish good race, too, the Atbara Derby. We thought we THE UNIVERSAL QUESTION. 189 hadn't got a chance against all these Egyptian army fellows, and Fair won it by a head, Sparkes second, a bad third. Enter a Major. Well, Steevens, how are you? Been up long? Have a- I see you've got one. Good to see all you fellows coming out again; means busi ness. River's very full to-day, isn't it? Captain. Risen three feet and an inch since yesterday. The Atbara flood, I suppose. Atbara; did you see it? You were at I. Rather. It came down roaring, hit the Nile, and piled up on end. Brought down trees, beams, dug outs Major. Well, now, shall we go in to lunch? You didn't see the First British Brigade field-firing to-day, did you? Nothing will come within 800 yards of that alive. Do you think we shall have a fight? Enter a Colonel. Good morning, Mr Steevens: have you been up long? Are you being attended to? Yes, now; shall we have a fight? What will he do now? I can't bear to think we aren't going to have a fight. Senior Captain. Fight? wh Major. If he'd only come out into the open- Subaltern. Wall: then we shall have Major. Two days' bombardment; but then, you know Colonel. Well, I wish we'd another brigade in reserve to stay at Senior Captain. Another brigade, sir? Why, it makes me sick to see all this preparation against such an enemy. We had 1500 men at Abu Klea, and now we've got 20,000. Fanatics? Look at those men we fought at the Atbara, those miserable scallywags. Do you call these fanatics? Sell their lives? give 'em away. Despise the enemy; yes, I do despise them; I despise them utterly. Rifles are too good for them. Sticks, sir, we ought to take to them-sticks with bladders on the end. Why, the moment we came to their zariba they got up and ran-got up like a white cloud and ran. And then all these preparations and all this force? They're a contemptible enemy a wretched, despicable enemy. Why won't the Sirdar let the gunboats above Shabluka? Because Beatty would take Khartum. Colonel. Come, come now. But what'll you have to eat now? General Conversation. Going to the Gymkhana this afternoon. Squat on his hunkers inside his wall . . won't sell you a drop of milk, the surly devils, when we're saving their country... . . the houses at Omdurman are outside the wall, you know . . not a bad notion of jumping, that bay pony street-to-street fighting, we should lose a devil of a lot of men. . . did you hear the Guards cabled to ask what arrangements had been made for ice on the campaign? . . . but then he can't defend his wall; it hasn't got a banquette, and it's twelve feet high . . ... THE RECRUIT AND THE MIRAGE. 191 gave the recruit their water-bottles to fill at the lake. Here, Jock," they said, "take mine too." So the wretched man started off with the water-bottles of the whole half-company to fill them at the mirage. have another drink . . . rather; fed up with it; railway fatigues, too, and field-days twice a-week. it was their Colonel kept them from coming up, they say: damned fine regiment all the same . . . weakest Government of this century, sir . . . stowasser gaiters go under canvas a couple of days before we start . . . ripping sport . . . fed up drink . . . Colonel (rising). Well, now, will you have a cigarette? Second voice. Cancher see? stickin' 'oods on these 'ere cacolets. Voice of Tommy. Whatcher doin' that for? Second voice. Doncher know? To kerry the bleed'n' Grenadier Gawds to Khartum. |