/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18501431]

The sergeant had a word to say about them. 'I know the stars,' he said. 'Steer by that star yonder and you make Tunis.'

'Are you from Tunis?'

'No. My cousin, she is.'

A long silence. But the sergeant could not keep anything back.

'I'm going to Tunis one of these days.'

Not, I said to myself, by making a bee-line for that star and tramping across the desert; that is, not unless in the course of some raid a dried-up well should turn the sergeant over to the poetry of delirium. If that happened, star, cousin, and Tunis would melt into one, and the sergeant would certainly be off on that inspired tramp which the ignorant would think of as torture.

He went on. 'I asked the captain for leave to go to Tunis, seeing my cousin is there and all. He said . . .'

'What did the captain say, sergeant?'

'Said: 'World's full of cousins.' Said: 'Dakar's nearer' and sent me there.'

'Pretty girl, your cousin?'

'In Tunis? You bet! Blonde, she is.'

'No, I mean at Dakar.'

Sergeant, we could have hugged you for the wistful disappointed voice in which you answered, 'She was a nigger.'
What did he mean by this