Bones of the River Read Online Free PDF Page B

practice – an official so labelled may be easily identified by the most obtuse of clerks. He may occupy a separate drawer in a filing cabinet, and to him, by reason of his labelling, may be attached responsibilities which fall within the designation they have found for him. Sanders received a wire from headquarters – the wire had been working without interruption for a month owing to the elephants, who have a playful habit of uprooting the poles moving inland for the breeding season, and the message ran:
     
    “No. 79174. Administration H. Re your wire No. 531 T. Lt A Tibbetts, King’s Houssas, is appointed temporary Health Officer and Sanitary Inspector your territories, with additional pay three shillings per diem as from 4th instant until further notice. He will indent and report under letters HO and S1. Acknowledge.”
     
    Sanders duly acknowledged and communicated the momentous news to his subordinate. Bones received the intelligence very gravely.
    “Of course, dear old excellency, I shall do my best,” he said seriously. “The responsibility is simply fearful.”
    Thereafter, to use Hamilton’s own expressive language, life became simply Hell.
    At breakfast, Bones invariably came late, smelling strongly of disinfectant, his manner subdued, his tone severely professional.
    “Good morning, excellency…Ham – Ham!”
    “What the devil’s the matter with you?” demanded the startled Ham.
    “Have you washed your hands, dear old officer?”
    “That’s sunburn, you jackass!”
    Bones shook his head. “Use a weak solution of carbolic acid, dear old infectious one,” he murmured. “Can’t be too careful in these days.”
    He invariably carried a sheet of white paper, which he laid on the chair before he sat down, and he insisted upon a cup of boiling-hot water being placed on the table so that he might sterilise his fork and knife.
    When, one morning, Sanders came into breakfast and found the dining-room reeking with carbolic, he struck.
    “Bones, I appreciate your conscientious efforts on behalf of hygiene, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather die of disease than endure this stink.”
    “Microbes, dear old excellency,” murmured Bones. “This is stuff that makes naughty old Mike go red in the face.”
    “I prefer that he remains pale,” said Sanders, and called his orderly to open the windows.
    More annoying was the practice which Bones initiated of inspecting his superiors’ sleeping quarters. Hamilton found him in his bedroom with a tape measure and a look of profound distress.
    “Ham, old fugg-wallah, this won’t do at all!” said Bones, shaking his head reprovingly. “Bless my jolly old life and soul, you’d be dead if I hadn’t come in! How many cubic feet do you think you’ve got?”
    “I’ve got two feet,” answered the exasperated Hamilton, “and if you’re not out of this room in three twinks, I’m going to use one of them!”
    “And what’s all this?” Bones stirred a heap of clothing with the end of his stick. “Trousers, dear old thing, coats an’ hats – don’t get peevish, Ham. Us medical lads–”
    “‘Us’,” sneered Hamilton. “You illiterate hound! Get out!”
    It is very trying to be brought into daily and hourly contact with a man who smelt alternately of lysol and naphthaline. It was maddening to find dinner delayed because Bones had strolled into the kitchen and had condemned the cooking arrangements; but the culmination of his infamy came when he invented a new filter that turned the drinking water a deep, rich pink that made it taste of iron filings.
    “Can’t you telegraph to headquarters and have him reduced to the ranks, sir?” asked Hamilton savagely, after he had found crystals of pure carbolic acid in his shaving mug. “I’m being sanitised to death!”
    Happily a tax-collecting tour was due, and Sanders was not sorry. Bones, of course, ordered the thorough fumigation of the Zaire , and for three days after the little steamer started on