“Surgeon-Commander Blauew’s got the galloping gout again, Major Eszterhazy, and as you are, it seems, also a Doctor of Medicine, we need you for Medical Officer right now, and you can build us a fortress next month; haw haw!” was the adjutant’s greeting.
“Very well, Adjutant. Very well. My that’s a nasty-looking spot on your neck, there, well, well, I’ll have a look at it after I’ve taken care of everything else”; and Temporary-Acting-Medical Officer Eszterhazy, E., moved on away, leaving the adjutant prey to dismal thoughts; and perhaps it would teach him not to play the oaf with his betters. The T.A.M.O. examined a number of candidates for the Militia Reserve, passed some, rejected some; made inspections which resulted in the Sanitary Facilities being very hastily and yet very thoroughly doused down with caustic soda and hot water; and delivered a brief and dispassionate lecture on social diseases to officers and men alike: to the great disease of an elderly paymaster who said he doubted it was right to expose the younger men to such scientific language: perhaps not exactly what he meant. Sounds of drill command rang through the large hall with a surprising minimum of echo, in great measure because Eszterhazy (who had not read Vitruvius’s Ten Books for nothing) was instrumental in obtaining a theater-architect as consultant during the hall’s construction.
Eventually it was time for commissioned officers to withdraw for wine and rusks, a snack traditionally taken standing up even where there might be facilities for sitting down. “Seen you in the Bosnian Campaign,” someone said; and, the Temporary-Acting-Medical Officer turning his head, recognized a face once more familiar than lately. The face was not only now older, it was much, much redder. “Just dropped in to pay my respects,” said the old soldier. “I am just here on my biennial leave. I am just a retired major in my own country, but I am a full colonel in the service of H.H. the Khedive of Egypt. Can I recruit you? Guarantee you higher rank, higher pay, higher respect, several servants, and heaps and heaps of fascinating adventure.”
The younger man confessed himself already fascinated. He looked the Khedivial colonel in the man’s slightly bulging, slightly blood-shot, entirely blue eyes, and said, “Tell me about it.”
He listened without a single interruption until Col. Brennshnekkl got onto the subject of hunting in the Southern Provinces of H.H.—the southernmost boundaries of which evidently did not, as yet, exist. “—at least not on any official map; we intend to push ’em as far south as we can push ’em; now where was I? Ah yes! Hippo! Ah, you need a champion heavy ball for hippo! Say, a quarter of a pound. Same as elephant. Same as rhino.” Perhaps indecisive which of the three to talk about first, Brennshnekkl paused.
Dr. Eszterhazy heard himself asking, “What about tiger?”
“Tiger, eh. Well, you would naturally want a lighter rifle for soft-skinned game. Say, a .500 . . . or better yet a .577 Express—a Lang or a Lancaster or any of the good ones.”
Eszterhazy stroked his beard, trimmed closer than in the mode of fashion. “But are there tigers in Africa?”
The colonel appeared to be trying to say Yes and No simultaneously. To aid him he sipped his wine. Then: “Well, strictly to speak, no: there are no tigers in Africa. However, lots of chaps call them tigers. Am I making sense? I mean, leopards.”
Something somewhere jingled. Or perhaps there was a ringing in the doctor’s ears. He repeated, dully, “Leopards?”
Colonel Brennshnekkl explained that in some way leopards were more than tigers. Tigers, like lions, went along the level ground; leopards sometimes hid up trees. And pounced. Carefully setting down his wine, he bared his teeth, turned his hands into paws and his fingers into claws, and gave something in the way of a lunge which was nevertheless certainly intended to imitate a pounce. It seemed to his younger comrade that people for some reason had lately begun to imitate leopards for him. Was it a trend?
“What else do they do up trees? Besides prepare to pounce? Do they have their, no, one would not say ‘nests,’ do they have lairs—?”
No. No, leopards did not have lairs in trees. Well. Not precisely. In the manner of colonels the world over since the beginning of time, this one began to tell a story. “—recollect one day my native gun-bearer, chap named Pumbo—Pumbo? Yes. Pumbo. Faithful chap. Pumbo. Came running over to me and handed me my .577 Express. Said, ‘Master, tiger,’ which is to say, of course, leopard, said ‘tiger up tree, look-see, shoot-quick!’ ” He raised an imaginary leopard-gun at an angle. “And as I was sighting, sighting, damn me! What did I see? A bloody young zebra or was it an antelope, bloody leopard had killed it by breaking its neck, as they do, and dragged it up into the upper crutch of the tree where I suppose it could hang, you know, all that galloping the wild game there does, making it muscular and tough—’nother thing,” temporarily lowering his nonexistent rifle, the colonel got his wine back, looked at Eszterhazy over the rim of the mug; said, “ ’nother thing. Hyenas can’t get to it. Once it’s up a tree. You know. Well—”
But that was the last which Eszterhazy was to hear of the matter, for at that moment a whistle sounded to signal a return to the duties of the twenty-five hours and twenty-five minutes; a whistle? It was the sort of nautical whistle called a boatswain’s pipe and it was traditional to sound it at this point. No one at all knew why. That was what made it traditional.
In what had been the oldest and smallest schloss in Bella, long since escheated to The Realm, was the chamber of a gentleman whom rumor connected with the Secret Police. He was called by a number of names. Eszterhazy called him Max.
“Engelbert Kristoffr.”
“Max.”
Segars and decanters. “How is the great plan for the education going?”
“Engelbert Kristoffr” said that it was coming along well enough. He supposed Max knew that he already had the M.D. and Phil.D. Yes? And the D.Sc. and D.Mus. were likely next. Of course degrees were not everything. Right now he was not taking a schedule of courses for any degree, but he considered that his education continued daily nonetheless. Max hummed a bit in this throat. “You shall certainly become the best-educated man in the Empire. I hope you begin to think of some great reforms. Everyone thinks that old Professor Doctor Kugelius is our best-educated man. Why? Because each year he gives the same lecture on The Reconciliation of Aristotle and Plato and it is actually fifty lectures and he delivers it in Latin and what is his conclusion? That, after all, Aristotle and Plato cannot be reconciled; you did not come to hear me talk about Aristotle and Plato.” Said Max.