Cupid in Africa — Major Hugh Walsingham Greene

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Title: Cupid in Africa Author: Percival Christopher Wren Release date: September 26, 2011 [eBook #37544] Language: English Other information and formats: www.

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org/ebooks/37544 Credits: This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CUPID IN AFRICA ***

“_Ex Africa semper aliquid novi_” * * * * * “And the son shall take his father’s spear And he shall avenge his father” .

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—_Askari Song_ * * * * * HEATH CRANTON LIMITED

6 FLEET LANE LONDON E.

C.

4 _First published 1920_ CONTENTS

PART I THE MAKING OF BERTRAM

CHAPTER PAGE I _Major Hugh Walsingham Green_ 7 II _Mr.

Charles Stayne-Brooker (or Herr Karl 10 Stein-Brücker)_ III _Mrs.

Stayne-Brooker—and Her Ex-Stepson_ 13 PART II THE BAKING OF BERTRAM BY WAR

I _Bertram Becomes a Man of War_ 16 II _And is Ordered to East Africa_ 28 III _Preparations_ 40 IV _Terra Marique Jactatus_ 45 V _Mrs.

Stayne-Brooker_ 59 VI _Mombasa_ 61 VII _The Mombasa Club_ 70 VIII _Military and Naval Manœuvres_ 78 IX _Bertram Invades Africa_ 97 X _M’paga_ 105 XI _Food and Feeders_ 112 XII _Reflections_ 123 XIII _Baking_ 137 XIV _The Convoy_ 146 XV _Butindi_ 154 XVI _The Bristol Bar_ 161 XVII _More Baking_ 171 XVIII _Trial_ 180 XIX _Of a Pudding_ 187 XX _Stein-Brücker Meets Bertram Greene—and 195 Death_ PART III THE BAKING OF BERTRAM BY LOVE

I _Mrs.

Stayne-Brooker Again_ 204 II _Love_ 208 III _Love and War_ 217 IV _Baked_ 226 V _Finis_ 236 PART I THE MAKING OF BERTRAM

CHAPTER I

_Major Hugh Walsingham Greene_ There never lived a more honourable, upright, scrupulous gentleman than Major Hugh Walsingham Greene, and there seldom lived a duller, narrower, more pompous or more irascible one.

Nor, when the Great War broke out, and gave him something fresh to do and to think about, were there many sadder and unhappier men.

His had been a luckless and unfortunate life, what with his two wives and his one son;

his excellent intentions and deplorable achievements; his kindly heart and harsh exterior; his narrow escapes of decoration, recognition and promotion.

At cards he was _not_ lucky—and in love he .

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well—his first wife, whom he adored, died after a year of him; and his second ran away after three months of his society.

She ran away with Mr. Charles Stayne-Brooker (elsewhere the Herr Doktor Karl Stein-Brücker), the man of all men, whom he particularly and peculiarly loathed.

And his son, his only son and heir!

The boy was a bitter disappointment to him, turning out badly—a poet, an artist, a musician, a wretched student and “intellectual,” a fellow who won prizes and scholarships and suchlike by the hatful, and never carried off, or even tried for, a “pot,” in his life.

Took after his mother, poor boy, and was the first of the family, since God-knows-when, to grow up a dam’ civilian.

Father fought and bled in Egypt, South Africa, Burma, China, India; grandfather in the Crimea and Mutiny, great-grandfather in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, ancestors with Marlborough, the Stuarts, Drake—scores of them: and this chap, _his_ son, _their_ descendant, a wretched creature of whom you could no more make a soldier than you could make a service saddle of a sow’s ear!

It was a comfort to the Major that he only saw the nincompoop on the rare occasions of his visits to England, when he honestly did his best to hide from the boy (who worshipped him) that he would sooner have seen him win one cup for boxing, than a hundred prizes for his confounded literature, art, music, classics, and study generally.

To hide from the boy that the pæans of praise in his school reports were simply revolting—fit only for a feller who was going to be a wretched curate or wretcheder schoolmaster; to hide his distaste for the pale, slim beauty, which was that of a delicate girl rather than of the son of Major Hugh Walsingham Greene.

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Too like his poor mother by half—and without one quarter the pluck, nerve, and “go” of young Miranda Walsingham, his kinswoman and playmate.

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Too dam’ virtuous altogether.

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Gad!

If this same Miranda had only been a boy, his boy, there would have been another soldier to carry on the family traditions, if you like!

But this poor Bertram of his .

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His mother, a Girton girl, and daughter of a Cambridge Don, had prayed that her child might “take after” _her_ father, for whom she entertained a feeling of absolute veneration.

She had had her wish indeed—without living to rejoice in the fact.